SME turntables

SME are up there with the very best available. The "15" appears to be something of a giant killer. Superbly manufactured and childishly easy to set up.

The best models are quite expensive though and for that kind of money I'd be looking at an Acutus.

Mordante said :
I'm always a bit underwhelmed by SME arms. Never heard their turntables. But IMHO SME arms seem to suck out the live of the music. Over-dampened or something.

Mordante,
That's quite a common perception.
Indeed the SME arm is well damped, something that SME have been renowned for. In fact public opinion tends to be split between those who prefer maximum damping and those who feel SMEs are “over-damped”. One can only please some of the people some of the time. ;^)
The SME V is an outstanding product both sonically and in terms of manufacturing accuracy and ease of setup. It is a true “Super-Arm” but at only half the price of the competition which makes it a “steal”. Best I’ve heard the SME V perform is in the Avid Acutus despite, somewhat perversely, my being an "undamped" enthusiast.
There seems to be a great synergy between these 2 and although, like you, I wouldn’t normally prefer the SME V, I would cheerfully partner it with this table.

One of the great things about SME is that they are a traditional engineering company who make the parts themselves using in-house machine shops. Many others shared this mindset (B&O, Linn etc) and they’d routinely machine parts to an accuracy of half a “thou” (0.0005”). This is a tight tolerance generally reserved for main bearings etc. The Electronics company I worked for had many in-house machine shops around the country who routinely manufactured even the most basic parts to that level of accuracy (that is until someone protested that half the stuff we fabricated didn’t have to be this good and would settle for +/-2 thou!!!)

Dear Inna,
That's an easier one than you might think : Ears + personal preference :) ;^)

Cheers,

Dear Inna,
Apologies my friend. I said the answer to the question was a simple one but I didn't say its implementation would be ;^)

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that we will never be truly happy unless our choices are pleasing to us.

You missed another most important condition : dealers tend to be franchised and limit the number of different alternatives they offer so they'll be plugging whatever big name turntable comes into your head and possibly one or 2 other big names (if we're lucky) so it becomes physically impossible to evaluate all the permutations you describe. In a way this is probably a blessing ;^)
Having said this a good dealer (assuming folk have access to one) will take some of the guesswork out of it.

One thing which becomes clear from visiting many different dealers is that it is possible you may not like ANY of the items on offer, reinforcing the importance getting something that you DO like.
All is not lost though. Even though the T/T may not be 100% favourable, another aspect of turntable management is the "tuning process". You can have a barrowload of fun with this : turntable mats, clamps, weights, periphery rings, earthing main bearings, variable tonearm damping (some arms have a well for damping fluid), removing energy "drains" from your turntable and tonearm, removing extraneous mechanical resonators from your turntable, changing the type of support, re-building your house etc etc.
The sky's the limit...
In reality I wouldn't recommend doing half of this stuff but rather explore choices that make the more drastic ones unnecessary?

I make it sound like it is the most hateful thing on Earth but in fact I wouldn't consider existence meaningful without a turntable. It allows access to the music in a way that nothing else can. It's all worth it in the end :)

All the very best,