Of the numerous SME products that I have owned or reviewed over the past forty years, just one was defective, and the apologies of both importer and manufacturer were exceeded only by the speed with which the item was replaced. Yet regardless of cost, design, or complexity, every model can lay serious claim to being class leading in performance and build at its price and market point because every model receives the same commitment to the highest possible parts, precision, and workmanship down to the smallest details.Īnd because SME also manufactures in house every part in every product, the company is able to exert a peerless control over quality, execution, and reliability that is the envy of the industry.
VINTAGE SME TONEARM INSTALLATION SERIES
The result was another reference-caliber product that, like the Series and V arms, has entered the audio pantheon of great designs. In other words, he wanted the filtering action of tuning but without the possibility of the entire subchassis being set into motion. So, inSME debuted the Model 30 turntable, another masterpiece and genuinely groundbreaking in at least one critical area.
It readily established itself as a reference record-playing component, especially for moving-coil pickups with their high mass and medium-to-low compliance stylus assemblies, arguably the reference at the time and for a fair while afterward, at least when it came to pivoted arms with fixed-bearings as opposed to unipivots or other kinds.
VINTAGE SME TONEARM INSTALLATION FREE
Turns out this was because for over four years AR-A was working on a wholly new arm that became the Series V, introduced in It was a significant departure from the Die cast in magnesium as a medium-mass, one-piece tapered tube from headshell to counterweight rail, the V was almost universally acclaimed a masterpiece of engineering that set new standards for rigidity, resonance suppression and dissipation, and captive, seemingly friction-free gimbal bearings that are also completely free from any sort of play or slop. Including all its variants and versions-Series II, Series II Improved in both 9- and inch lengths AKA -SME is said to have sold between half a million to a million units sources differ worldwide between andthe year it was retired.Īccording to SME, the II Improved was still selling well when it was retired, but long before then, high-end enthusiasm had gone overwhelmingly in favor of moving-coil pickups, starting, I think it fair to say, with the advocacy of Harry Pearson and The Absolute Sound in the mid- to late-seventies. Indeed, the reason the II Improved, the last iteration of thewas made available with the option of a fixed headshell is that eliminating the connector reduced effective mass from an already very low 6. This was in This first arm officially became a product in This is because, with knife-edged bearings and low mass, the was ideally suited for the low-mass, high-compliance moving-magnet pickups, capable of tracking at forces below 1.
An opera lover, AR-A, as he was affectionately known throughout the company and eventually the world of high-end audioquickly embraced the long-playing record.īut finding himself dissatisfied with existing tonearms, he decided to design one for himself. SME stands for the Scale Model Equipment company, a British firm founded in by Alastair Robertson-Aikman to manufacture precision models for the exhibition and model-engineering trade. As over a half century of innovative design and standard-setting precision in engineering and manufacturing lie behind this new product, it is worth tracing its lineage.
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