Victor UA-7082 Arm OR Micro Seiki MA505L ...? (both fit my existing alternate 270mm hole)

What am I looking for?  I see the entirety of the old thread.

Elliot, That is a very kind offer, but please don't go to the trouble. I have a big bag of faucet washers, many of which have a promising profile, and I can find one that works by trial and error and thanks to the dimensions that you posted. I've got an excellent metric caliper that will help too.  Keeps my mind off you know who(m).

The DV505 VTA adjuster is not so great compared to that offered by many modern tonearms, but it is light years ahead of the family of tonearms that place an actual grub screw at the base of the pillar with no gearing to keep the arm stable while you move it (by hand) up and down.  The DV505 at least has a gear built in to move the pivot up and down in small increments, and it's relatively easy to secure the adjustment once you are satisfied.

I'm looking for the part number of the washer in your diagram.  I don't see it.  Do you have the number?  If so, and if you would share the info, that would be great.

Yes, no one disputes that the Victor tonearm counterweights tend to sag over time.  Happens to the best of us. Chakster used to describe this problem as an indication the tonearm was ruined thereby.  You and several others were able to fix the problem. Good on you. I've got a bag of faucet washers, some of which are tapered when viewed in cross-section.  Perhaps I will give it a shot, though at present I have no use for my Victor UA7045. Maybe there's no Home Depot in Russia.

I owned a nice 505 too, but because I had no TT that could easily mount it, I eventually sold it without ever having used it. Beautiful craftsmanship for sure. My fallible recollection is that the CW stub extended straight out from the rear of the pivot at the same height as the arm wand but I certainly could be wrong. Anyway, Elliot owns one, so he can set me straight.

I have never understood the fetish about "on the fly".  I have several modern tonearms capable of adjusting VTA on the fly based on their method for adjustment, but I would never think of adjusting VTA while playing an LP, assuming that the phrase "on the fly" means just that. It's no big deal to lift the tonearm, make an adjustment, and then lower the tonearm to resume play.  With no risk to cartridge or LP. On the other hand, I would not own any tonearm that still relies upon a grub screw at the base of the pillar to change arm height/VTA such that you have to secure the tonearm with one hand, loosen the screw, change the height, and then tighten the screw, all in order to change VTA.

I know this is a bit pedantic, but why stop now? The arm needs to work well with the cartridge, so I would make the best estimate of which of the two tonearms will work best with whatever cartridge you plan on using. I have no independent confirmation, but the Victor tonearm is probably medium mass and maybe so also is the MS tonearm. In this case, both will have slightly higher effective mass than their 9-inch counterparts. Have you seen any published (by Victor or MS) effective mass data for either? I have not. And of course the headshell (weight and composition) plays an important part in the match.

Tomic, the Triplanar CW is already decoupled from the pivot (not by a rubber bushing) and placed in the plane of the LP surface, so what does Thom do?

Pryso, are you sure you are not thinking of the Victor tonearm, not the MS? The drooping counterweight on the former tonearms (7045 and 7082) has been much debated here. I would argue, and did argue that the droop is actually a potential upgrade to the original, albeit unintended, if the weight is hanging at only a shallow angle, because a perfect shallow droop would place the center of mass of the CW closer to the plane of the LP surface, which is a deliberate and desireable feature of many more modern designs. I don’t argue that the droop is part of the original design, just that it may be accidentally serendipitous. I own a 7045 that droops and did also own an MS505. I don’t recall that it too used a rubber grommet between the pivot and the CW but maybe so.