How many you wax spinners know ET arms?


Trying to decide on my second and hopefully last table.Have a HO Grado Sonata ready to put on a 'table and really like the folks at VPI so I am trying to decide between a 19 VI and the aries.The I have thought if the Aries maybe the 12 vs the 10 Memorial.I guess the .5's rock but big$$$.Anyway I see a number of Eminent Technology ET2's mounted on 19'sfor about $1K.I have goode performance issues from folks but it looks a bit rube goldberg to me.Noise?Upkeep?I don't want to become the Linn folks constantly tweaking.I know the tables are a big differnece in price but what will give me biggest bang for buck?
chazzbo
ETs are hard to setup properly but are consistently praised as very very very good....

celevarts
ET arms require a pump as the arm rides along a bearing of air. In addition it requires a tank and has about a 100 ft, hose which allows you to put the pump far enough away from the listening area as to not be disturbed by the sound of the pump. had enough yet? It also happens to be a great sounding arm when properly set up
The ET-2 is a very good tonearm, and a great combination with any of the VPI turntables. I've used an ET-2 on my VPI-19 MkIII for years with great success, and am currently riding a Grado Reference in it. I've found this tonearm to be extremely reliable and very low maintenance. (Being able to adjust VTA while a record is playing is something I will never do without after being able to do so with the ET-2.) As people point out, it needs to be set-up correctly first. Doing so is not quite as difficult as is often alleged, but it can be daunting due to all the possible adjustments. Once properly set-up, the arm has not been the least problematic in my experience, and it stays solidly in adjustment. And the sound is terrific.

All that said, the JMW 12.5 is very likely to be a better sounding tonearm from all I've heard, and so is the 10.5. A friend who had the same VPI/ET-2 set-up as mine recently switched to the JMW 10.5, and he claims the JMW made a tremendous improvement in his system over the ET-2. YMMV.