PCTI tonearm by rauliruegas


Was this tonearm ever produced?
soundcheck6
@dover  I have heard Raul,s tonearm at his house probably about 2 years ago.  At that time he had that one and 2 other similar ones that he mentioned me where prototypes.  All i can say is that it was top notch sounding, that time he was using one of his vintage ADC 26-27 cartridges and sounding very good. I eventually bought from him one of ADC samples because how good it was sounding.  Through the years i have visited Raul several times at his house and heard many top combinations of tonearms and cartridges in his system included SME, Ikeda, Satin, mission mechanic, FR, Breuer and others as well as top cartridges as Dyna Xv1, Allaerts M2, VDH colibri and several top MM carts.  All I can say is that Raul,s tonearm does do exists and i just think he has not yet make it a commercial offering.  But what i heard was on par with any other top ones which i,ve heard at his place, so hopefully he makes it available some time soon.
Is there a website for the PCTI tonearm? I own one of Raul's and Jose's 3160 phonolinepreamplifiers.  As a person biased in favor of tube phono stages, I can only say you should not the capabilities of Raul's group. (I am assuming that Raul does not work alone when conceiving of audio products or designing them.)  The 3160 is by far the best SS phono stage I have heard and certainly holds its own with high end tube phono stages with which I am familiar.  Ergo, don't sell the tonearm short, if it ever comes to market.
@cardani 

Thats great to hear. I appreciate that Raul has had a vast array of experience with arms & cartridges, but I am a little sceptical of some of his observations conclusions for two reasons
1. He claims that his digital front end ( an old Denon ) is superior to any of his analogue systems. I have auditioned, in systems I know well, digital gear from Solution, Zanden, EMM Labs, PS Audiodirect Stream, MSB, and many others. They aren't even close in resolution my analogue front end.

The turntables he uses as a reference are midfi in my view. ( The Micro Seikis and Direct Drives ).

It suggests that his analogue, whilst it may sound great, is not reference quality.

2. He has made many technical claims of cartridges that I myself own that are simply not correct. As a high end dealer in the 80's at the peak of analogue I have installed many of the cartridges he discusses.

I note that it has taken Raul years and thousands of posts to finally discover that he prefers moving coil cartridges - why so long ?

Overall he has made a great contribution for promoting debate and MM knowledge, but for the above reasons I take his comments on sound quality with a grain of salt. His technical arguments, I take at face value, in the context of my own experience, and others.