Savvy System Blog

[wiicrackpot]

Very nice Paul, i had a flat strobe 401 with SME IV with Lyra Argo/Benz Micro Lp till recently,
decided to sell the 401 to sort out my Thorens TD124, as yet not got it off the ground,
not got the incentive to play vinyl of late.

[savvypaul]

The SMEs, vintage and modern, look very well on the Garrards. Prices seem to have gone a bit daft, though.

[savvypaul]

Picked up a freebie set of heavyweight stands for the Cubes. The Torlyte ones I have are great but they are quite narrow for the Cube 1 and, now I have a four legged friend whose enthusiasm might be enough to knock them over. I filled the bottom third of each column with stones to weight them down even more. Didn't notice any great difference in SQ for doing so, but did get an obvious benefit in focus by adding RDC cones to the top plates (3 per plate)...

[zebbo]

The SMEs, vintage and modern, look very well on the Garrards. Prices seem to have gone a bit daft, though.

You're not kidding!
The SME V is a great arm but £5200 ??
Luckily picked mine up S/H before the hike.

[savvypaul]

The SMEs, vintage and modern, look very well on the Garrards. Prices seem to have gone a bit daft, though.

You're not kidding!
The SME V is a great arm but £5200 ??
Luckily picked mine up S/H before the hike.

Yeah, I think I've missed the boat on them. How did they explain such a big jump?

[_D_S_J_R_]

Take-over, distributor margins plus possibly greater dealer ones too and extra fingers in the pie all round. The Acos arm as pictured with the 401 isn't bad at all I remember but obviously it's not the same as a 60's SME in style.

[CN211276]

5K+ for an arm. More than my entire digital front end.

[savvypaul]

Take-over, distributor margins plus possibly greater dealer ones too and extra fingers in the pie all round. The Acos arm as pictured with the 401 isn't bad at all I remember but obviously it's not the same as a 60's SME in style.

Yeah, Ant reckons the Acos is decent.

The 401 came along much earlier than I expected. Ant is most of the way through building me a 2 arm plinth for my Lenco...the TA-210 will now go on the 401.

[29mile]

I have an early 401 in the loft for next project. I built one about 5 years ago with Audio Origami PU7 which worked well. Later tried an Alphason HR 100 which with gimbal bearings looks very similar to the Acos Elite albeit in titanium. I found it a bit cold and sterile and stiff ie not especially musical.
The best combo was with my Terminator air bearing linear tracker which was superb with my Decca C4E. I still have the arm and Decca ready for the project 401.
Building my first 401 I have found simply oiling the motor gave a significant improvement in sound quality.

[savvypaul]

Always wanted to hear a Decca...haven't been brave enough to buy one!