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Tonearms: Ripoff?

If you search for tonearm recommendations you'll find an overwhelming amount of praise for $1k and less products. Audiomods and Jelco are the two most mentioned.

The Audiomods is just some guy making Rega-based tonearms in a workshop. Just some guy is putting out tonearms that compete with tonearms that cost many times the price -- from the likes of SME, Clearaudio, VPI, Graham, etc.

So the question is -- are tonearms just a scam? How is it that everyone loves Audiomods and Jelco to death and never talks about / dismisses high end tonearms? Is it because there's no real difference between one of these low-cost tonearms and the high end ones? Is an Audiomods Series V ** really ** the equivalent of a SME V? Some guy in a workshop equals the famed precision of SME? Is that once you have the math and materials worked out all tonearms are essentially the same? Or is it that most owners of record players online are dumpster-diving for vintage gear and simply can't afford to listen to better?

So, what's going on?
madavid0

Showing 1 response by headphonedreams

headphonedreams
529 posts
 
I think this kind of rip-off ideas are very strange. If it was easy to create a cheap copy of any equipment there would be lots of cheap versions. Manufacturers also has to cover costs for Wales, marketing, support and R&D.

Not all small firms make cheap things. SAT is probably a small firm but makes very expensive tonearms. According to this article many of their customers are still happy.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/listen-sats-original-pickup-arm-and-compare-it-new-lm-09-and-cf...
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