SAEC WE 506/30 incoming. Anybody here with any experience with this arm?

Dear @tkr : The 506-30 was one of the oldest SAEC designs and was designed expressily for radio stations and not for home audio systems and that's why comes with out arm lift. Over the years and due that the market ask for SAEC designed a truly " lovely " stand alone arm lift. When I bougth my tonearm sample I bougth too that arm lift. Time to time appears in ebay and Yahoo Japan.

All the spec numbers in SAEC tonearms but the 8000 ( that I owned too. ) say that the cartridge/tonearm alignment is near Stevenson alignment as many other Japanese tonearms.

The worst of any of the standard alignments but you don't have to follow using it you can align it for Löfgren A or B with the protractor you own. I used with Löfgreen A. It performs good with no problems.

I can't remember the effective mass that I have somewhere.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Dear @rauliruegas :
Thank you very much for your input. The 506/30 sounds quite good right now with a Kondo Audio Note Io ii and Stevenson alignment. It`s eleven PM here in Norway right now. I will try the Löfgren alignment tomorrow.

Regards tkr

tkr,

Good to hear you have and are enjoying the WE506, it certainly is quite a statement on any TT, both visually and of course sonically. It is worth some experimentation of the set up, you may actually prefer the Stevenson alignment after all, my view on tonearm geometry has been 'radicalised' by using a straight arm recently, so no offset, no sideways forces on the stylus tip, and of course no counteracting force (anti skate). Actually, in the arm I am using now there is also no bearing, so by all accounts, it should sound a mess! BUT, no, it is phenomenal, all across the LP side, absolutely no discernible difference in any passage from start to finish, no tracing distortion can be heard.. The arm is the ViV Labs FR9, with Aidas Mammoth Gold Mkii cartridge. So my thoughts would be to not get too hung up on reducing tracing error to the minimum, but to reduce the sideways forces on the cantilever as much as possible, this may bring the best result, and one which I will aim to do with my 506 over the coming month..

Rgds,
Paul

Dear @ps68  : You are talking of different issues with your Vivid, different trade-offs and it's up to each one of us to choose the best trade offs for each one of us.

In the " paper " I can't see that Vivid is or could be a better trade-off . Different yes but.....

R.

R,

Perhaps you misunderstood my post, I encourage tkr to experiment for best results, using whatever geometry sounds best to his ears.

To my ears with 40yrs analogue experience, the straight, zero offset ViV Labs RF9 tonearm sounds better than any other arm I have owned including the wonderful SAEC, not different, but BETTER..

Rgds,
Paul