Scheu/Eurolab TT - which tonearm, mat

Hi,
I've no experience with any of the arms you're considering so I'll leave that to others, except to say that it can be a serious error to choose an arm before choosing a cartridge (or vice versa for that matter). The cartridge/arm synergy is about the most important in the whole chain.

Choosing an arm without knowing what cartridge(s) you're going to use could easily restrict you to a type of cartridge you don't prefer, or result in sub-optimal performance with the cartridges you do prefer.

Of course to choose a cartridge, you have to know what phono stage you're going to use, to make sure gain and loading will be compatible. On and on and on... ;-)

I'd be surprised if a Scheu sounded best with any mat. My Teres sounds profoundly better with a clamp and no mat. Since Teres began as a, "let's DIY a Scheu" project, I imagine the same philosophy would apply. Mats seem to suit suspended TT's better than suspensionless ones, and of course they help TT's with noisy motors and/or bearings. None of those considerations apply to a Scheu.

Enjoy the tunes whatever you choose!

Well, in fact, I already do have the cartridge : an Ortofon Venice, which is, from what I heard from others (and from Ortofon), an excellent match with Scheu-arms, as well as with SME-arms - and with the phono stage of McIntosh C-200 preamp. So I am not asking out of the blue...

Hassel,

You may not have been, "asking out of the blue", but we were certainly being kept in the dark!

Thanks for filling in that detail. Hopefully some who've used both brands of arms will chime in.

Regards,
Doug

The specs of your cart -
Mass 9.6g
Compliance 16cu

It would be recommended to stick to arms with an effective mass below 14g to get a resonant freq of above 8hz.

The Mystic Mat does have a positive effect on the Scheu premier table.

http://www.soundscapehifi.com/lv.htm