“Tonearm unipivot design ? ? ! ! it's the worst tonearm bearing design to mount any cartridge due to its severe unstability. Unipivot is out of question on analog when you are looking for at least decent quality level performances.”
Certainly a pain to set up but not as black as you paint them. I get pretty decent results from a Schröder Reference and the Naim Aro wasn’t bad either. Both ride warps without a wobble. I’d take either of those over an SME of any sort but they do need some patience and there’s quite a learning curve. For the budget or even near it, it may be safer to stick with gimballed with the possible exception of a Well Tempered Simplex, a deck that is capable of very fine results when set up right but would probably give Mr Ruegas paroxysms. I’m not sure you can swap out the arm.
Certainly a pain to set up but not as black as you paint them. I get pretty decent results from a Schröder Reference and the Naim Aro wasn’t bad either. Both ride warps without a wobble. I’d take either of those over an SME of any sort but they do need some patience and there’s quite a learning curve. For the budget or even near it, it may be safer to stick with gimballed with the possible exception of a Well Tempered Simplex, a deck that is capable of very fine results when set up right but would probably give Mr Ruegas paroxysms. I’m not sure you can swap out the arm.