Grado Signature Tonearm

It depends on many variables. Including but not limited to the turntable used. The VPI turntables are all HIFI products. The only turntable that seems musical and natural sounding from VPI without hype is the New Classic. I concur with Harry Pearson. The TNTs are all extravagant, complex and not natural at all.

It boils down to this: if you know how the true musical instruments sound then you can all have your moving coils and the hype arms overpriced of today. No I am not saying the Grado Signature arm is the best by any means. I do like very much the Syrinx and ET arms for other reasons, but the Grado arm used with the best Signature or new Statement cartridges are superb combination true to the natural sound of the musical instruments. The midrange is correct with no hype. Avoid the silver conductors which present a high frequency boost to most recordings.

I am a pianist and classical music lover and I have a keen ear for natural sound. Very few systems satisfy my needs.

I have 3 Grado Arms in my system with different turntables. Have used them on Clearaudio Master reference tables (sold it some time ago) to Oracles to Linns. The Grado arm likes the Linn LP-12 very much and is a better sounding set up than any LP-12 Ittok combination any day, unless of course you like the moving coil sound,

FOR BEST PERFORMANCE USE GRADO SIGNATURE ARM ON INERT TURNTABLES WITH LOW COLORATION. THE BIG MICROS WERE EXCELLENT TOO. I AM USING TWO GRADO SIGNATURE ARMS WITH A SPECIALLY MODIFIED TANGENTIAL TONEARM ON MY SOUND ENGINEERING SE-1 TURNTABLE (ALL COCABOLO WOOD) AND THE RESULTS ARE STUNNINGLY REAL.

If the arm were made available today it would cost considerably more. It is versatile and quite neutral in its presentation. Syrinx is a bitch to set up and maintain and also you cannot exchange cartridges easily. ET2 tonearm suffers from excessive horizontal mass although very fine sounding arm and excellent buy for the money.

Nothing still beats a properly functioning tantential arm however. Look at the old Rabco SL-8E, modify it and use a balsa or cork arm on it and you will how great this arm still sounds!

I had the same combination for many years. In fact, I went through two Grado arms, but their performance was bested by both a Technics EPA-100 and my current Morch DP-6. The Mark II iteration of the TT has been upgraded to a SAMA and all TNT parts to make it a Mark IV with everything. I sold both Grado arms in the Frogman's quoted price range. $900 is out of the question, as some of the Origin arms outperform the Grados in that higher price range. The Morch is much better, and they can be had used for $600 to $900.

I owned that very combination a few years back. IMO the Grado arm is a good arm, but not up to the standard set by several other arms, current and otherwise. The Grado replaced a Sumiko MMT, to obvious improvement. The Grado was replaced by an Syrinx PU3, and the improvement was not subtle; larger and more stable soundstaging, and better tonality, particularly in the upper frequencies. The Syrinx was subsequently replaced with an Eminent Technology II, with great results. The ET, which I still use on the now upgraded VPI MkIV, is in a totally different league, IMO. VPI HW19 with ET is a classic combination.

As far as what kind of reaction to expect, I have seen the arm up for sale for as much as $900. Seems highly unrealistic to me, but what do I know?. There does seem to be interest in this arm, perhaps not quite a cult following, but perhaps collector's appeal. Nonetheless, a good arm that I personally would pay $300-$350 for, if I was in the market.

Hope this helps and good luck.