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SME 3009 Series III Haters

Not much has been written about this old classic lately but I just acquired one and put it on an Oracle Alexandria. I read all sorts of bad comments like its the Red Head of SME’s arms but there were a few that loved it and I’m here to say I’m in the love camp. I’ve been at this for 40 or so years and had my share of gear. I have a Grado Reference Series 2 that weighs 10 gms with a compliance of 20.
The arm only has a moving mass of 5 gms, that is low these days but this combination works fantastic.
Ya the arm has all sorts of adjustments but most of us enjoy messing around with that sort of thing anyway, and every setting makes perfect sense and makes you think why don’t more arms give you that flexibility. Anyway all the manuals can be downloaded so there is no reason if you come across one you couldn’t get it to sing on your system. There are other classic SME arms from the 80’s that sell in the thousands but these can be had in the $500 range. Worth ever penny and only going to go up in price.
Get your hands on one and see for your self what a quality arm feels like and sounds like.
This has the feel of an arm that just came out, can’t believe it’s 40 years ago. My 2 bits worth 😎





muddywaters61

Showing 2 responses by br3098

br3098
1,012 posts
 
The SME Series III is a very good tonearm IF it's mated to an appropriate (ie. high compliance) cartridge.  Yes, it looks a little funky and those sliding switch adjustments can be problematic if you are rough with it, but it sounds great when setup properly

br3098
1,012 posts
 
The only reason to assume that the III should be used with high compliance cartridges is its very low mass
@lewm7  au contraire - compliance matching is dictated by resonance.  Mass is just one factor of a resonance equation.  "Flexi" is another factor (actually several factors, but let's lump them together).  Think of it this way:  if you have a wooden pole 12 feet long that bends and flexes slightly (not necessarily the same in each axis), will adding more weight (not mass) at one or both ends make the pole flex less or more?

The correct answer is more.  Weight added at then fulcrum increases stability while weight added outside of the fulcrum decreases stability; increasingly so the further away from the fulcrum you add the weight.  If you add weight while adding stiffness, or increasing the mass (in this case, weight added proportionally to all the lever) then "flexi" or compliance will reduce.

Who says that science and audio don't have anything to do with each other?

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