Continuation of my Thread on VPI, Basis, Origin...

I can not offer you any educated or experienced advice concerning the above choices, but the thing about your question that leaps out at me is, you don't even say exactly what it is about your current set-up you are not happy with. It does seem unlikely to me though, that between a modern arm such as the 10.5, and two such different and popular modern MC cart's as the Lyra and the B-M, that they would all be poor matches. Considering that the Aries is a well-regarded but unsuspended design, what is it supported by? Has everything been professionally set up, or set up knowledgably by yourself using the aid of precision guages? What are your phonostage and phono cable situations? I haven't seen your other thread, but it seems to me this one lacks sufficient information to draw conclusions based upon.

Twl's learned response is instructive as usual, but fails (perhaps out of necessity, given the context) to address two of the fundamentals I was attempting to point out above: A) Rwd apparently is not happy with *either* a low-compliance Lyra *or* a medium-compliance Benz in this arm, and B) we still do not know what it is *sonically speaking* that makes him unhappy, other than his set-up's observable performance on a test-record's anti-skating track, something which Harry Weisfeld would probably tell you to expect with his arm. So we know that changing arms could improve performance on that test track, but what of the sound? We have no way as yet to intelligently proceed in the only area that really matters (and still don't know about the phonostage and cables). I will continue to stick around this thread to learn what I can from those who possess more experience than I, but find it frustrating when help is requested without providing needed specificity and detail, and am uncomfortable with the idea of change for change's sake, or seeing someone, with the best of intentions, basically blowing with the breeze depending on what others say, based as it must be so far upon imcomplete information provided.

Thanks Rwd and Twl for your clarifications. Let me just state for the you-know-what, that I personally find Harry Weisfeld's (VPI) advocacy of the supposed non-necessity for a proper anti-skate control to be, shall we say, non-convincing (as a point of theory, that is, never having used the VPI 'arm). To my mind, he should either: A) Declare that in his philosophy of record playback, anti-skating is a spurious concern, which he will not be addressing in his designs, period; or B) Acknowledge that skating is a real force which needs to dealt with in a predictable manner, and provide a calibrated control to allow this adjustment to be performed in the normal fashion. But simply opining that skating is a spurious concern - and therefore superfluous to correct for (or that the cure is worse than the disease) - but then turning around and saying that if you wish, you can accomplish the adjustment equally as well by futzing with the twist and the angle of the tonearm leadout wires, strikes this groove-surfer as a decidedly disingenuous and unsatisfactory solution. And it seems obvious one that doesn't work very well. So whatever other virtures his design may possess, or however good it may sound, if I were in the market for an 'arm in this range (and here is where I have to admit my de facto disqualification from being taken too seriously in this debate!), I would be looking elsewhere. But that's just me. :-)