Tonearm recommendations, thoughts, favorites?

SnowmaNick

SnowmaNick

Well-Known Member
We have a cart thread, why not one for tonearms?

Favorite brands? High, medium or low mass designs? Gimballed? Unipivot? Lengths? Captive wires or DIN connection?

Share your thoughts, experiences or any wild and cool designs

(And besides, I’m in the market and would love to hear from everyone)
 
SnowmaNick said:
We have a cart thread, why not one for tonearms?

Favorite brands? High, medium or low mass designs? Gimballed? Unipivot? Lengths? Captive wires or DIN connection?

Share your thoughts, experiences or any wild and cool designs

(And besides, I’m in the market and would love to hear from everyone)
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If I ever realise the dream of a restored Garard or SP10 Mk2 then from my reading I’d really like either a Thomas Schick 10.5” or Glanz 10”. Likely DIN for the flexibility and options.
 
Joe Mac said:
If I ever realise the dream of a restored Garard or SP10 Mk2 then from my reading I’d really like either a Thomas Schick 10.5” or Glanz 10”. Likely DIN for the flexibility and options.
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The Schick 12” is one I’m looking at myself. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but is very sleek. I heard the 9” with a Lyra Delos on a Feickert Blackbird at my dealer yesterday, lovely sounding.

IMG_2141.jpeg

The finish options look nice as well. (Image from Artisan Fidelity)
 
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SnowmaNick said:
The Schick 12” is one I’m looking at myself. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but is very sleek. I heard the 9” with a Lyra Delos on a Feickert Black it’s at my dealer yesterday, lovely sounding.
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I think on a tonearm I’m probably not looking for tonnes of bells and whistles. Sounds good, well made and engineered, sleek and a removable headshell is enough lol!
 
A very different idea is “The Wand” from Design Build Listen out of NZ. From my reading it’s a pain to install and setup cartridges, but sounds stunning. It looks cool as all get out, but a unipivot with no where to safely hold onto would spike my blood pressure too much.

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This is one I ordered yesterday. The Sorane SA-1.2. I’ll be using it as my daily driver with a Zu/Denon DL-103 as my second tonearm on a Feickert Blackbird. It’s supposed to mate very well with low compliance carts/SPU’s, but due to its nifty engineering and clever weights, mate well with medium compliance carts as well. It’s made by Excel in Japan, the same company that makes Hana cart’s.

IMG_2145.png
 
SnowmaNick said:
The Schick 12” is one I’m looking at myself. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but is very sleek. I heard the 9” with a Lyra Delos on a Feickert Black it’s at my dealer yesterday, lovely sounding.

View attachment 207619

The finish options look nice as well. (Image from Artisan Fidelity)
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Who’s your dealer? 😎
 
SnowmaNick said:
I’ve never had the pleasure to audition one. Their DP-8 looks, imposing.

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I decided to order an Audiomods Series VI tonearm in 10.5” length. Using the Audiomods arm as a medium weight/med compliance arm that should work with a wide variety of modern cartridges.

I’m now debating if I should change my order of a Sorane SA-1.2 arm to a Thomas Schick 12” as my heavy arm for med-to-low compliance carts. Mainly my Zu/Denon DL-103 MK II, and if I ever decide to try a SPU.

The Audiomods arm has a pivot-to-spindle length of 239 mm, which will just squeak in under the 240 mm max for the secondary arm on my Feickert Blackbird. Which would allow me to go with a 12” like the Schick in the primary tonearm location. The Sorane is a 9.4” arm with rather a lot of flexibility and adjustability.

So now I’m torn. With the Audiomods allowing a fair range of carts, should I go with the more flexible Sorane or the longer Schick? My dealer can get either and the cost is close (Sorane comes with a headshell, Schick doesn’t.)

Anyone have any advice?
 
I don’t have experience with turntables with multiple tonearms. If I were to get one, I’d try to make sure that between the two tonearms, the table could handle my five favorite cartridges and five I’d like to try most.
 
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