SAEC Making Tonearms Again!

I paid $1100 for my WE-407/23 about 5 years ago.......and it is an exquisite piece of eye-candy as were all SAEC tonearms (detail).
I also had the WE-308N which certainly had a puzzling geometry (detail).
I now have the WE-8000/ST which is probably the best of them.

As beautifully designed, detailed and machined as these arms were....they are not the 'last word' in tonearm technology being shaded by contemporaries like the FR-64s and even the Micro Seiki MA-505S.

To be asked to pay $8K-9K for a 35 year old design which doesn't have VTA 'on-the-fly' adjustment is an insult IMHO......

The real downside of the SAEC tonearms is the ceramic headshell which must be the absolute worst choice of headshell material ever imagined....
Though they still command outrageous prices (if you can find one).....this work of the 'devil' will make every cartridge sound like fingernails being dragged down a classroom blackboard.
If you have a wood-bodied cartridge like the Clearaudio Virtuoso.....you can just about listen without feeling discomfort.

It's easy to eliminate this problem by simply selling the ceramic shell and using a good after-market headshell like the Yamamoto HS-4 Carbon Fiber.
It's easy to twist the cartridge in the headshell to re-set for any geometry one chooses.

Those beliefs are reasonable Lewm...