What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

@lewm I have had my fair share of visitors to experience my system throughout the years. This is a great side to having a enthusiasm and sharing it with likeminded individuals.

I am not a EE, I do Structure, but have avoided the EE Side of the enthusiasm, even when offered a one to one training by EE's I revere, I have not chosen to do the learning. The individuals who are EE's and I have a very long relationship with are expert, they do the math, the design and the construction of the working Prototypes and Working Models.

As I do not do EE, I have travelled to meet individuals who do work within this field, either as a highly adept enthusiast, through to HiFi Company Directors who are active in the Mainstream Marketplace.

These individuals are met as part of a Group of enthusiasts getting together and certainly not a Commercial Venture.

As a result of Commercially Organised Events, Forum Organised Events or by being Member of a Local HiFi Group, that is an assembly of various levels of EE expertise, enthusiasm and trade.

All the above adds up to one thing, I am not insular in my Enthusiasm, I am not locked away and limiting my experiences, I am knowledgeable of the works undertaken by others, I have regularly been demonstrated a Speaker, Power Amp, Pre Amp, Phonostage, DAC, TT, Tonearm, Cart', CDT/CDP, Lots of HiFi Foo and more recently streaming devices.

I get the opportunities to receive auditions of devices on systems I have become familiar with costing between £40K - £180Kish.

The Devices Demo'd or Systems being used, do not matter, what matters is that likeminded individuals get together and have Social Interaction, Banter, Food and Enjoyment, along with the Sharing in each others music tastes.

I would never listen to Choristers, Sea Shanty's, Obscure Orchestral Renditions, I do now, and am much the happier for it, there has been a few how have I deprived myself moments.

It is all about the music, the enjoyment of music and nothing else, equipment is a tool and means to an end.     

A Blown Out Bass or a Ear Shredding High Frequency are occasionally to be experienced from a New Addition to be demo'd. It does not matter, it is what it is, that's how the Music (which is the highlight was presented) and the next demo' is put to the test to see how it handles presenting another musical encounter.

I really do not obsess over equipment, it is a tool, I keep my ear to the ground, and do like to have a hands on experience of what equipment can do, but if it was not happening around a Cup of Coffee between friends, then it has no appeal to me.

As said on numerous occasions, I do most of listening to music in the home with my wife, and her go to device is Alexia, and indirectly that is where the bulk of my musical encounters are found and thoroughly enjoyed.

Putting on the Purpose Produced HiFi System is only a different tool, produced around a selection of different disciplines, to get the replay from a medium with a recorded information embedded. 

I dance to both the Purpose Produced HiFi and Alexia with equal gusto.      

Remove the bridge, less restrained, lots of discussions on this 2009. 

@whart my experience using the Rockport arm is exactly the same as yours, a bit more complicated to setup, but no problem with lower compliance cartridge once setup ! I also have a set of Airline sitting in the box, which I will setup in the coming months. :)

Have a Happy New Year !

Thank you, @thekong. I had a client who had a Rockport table and we spent the evening listening to his system. I liked that table a lot. I can't remember the cartridge, it was quite a long time ago. Happy to you too!

@neonknight, don’t be too quick to deem your thread “useless”. Putting aside the responses that you feel have strayed too far from your original question, you have received at least half a dozen opinions on arms that others feel “surpass the SME5”. Others have opined that not only is the SME5 a fine arm (I agree), that it is not easily surpassed. So, not sure why you feel there is no value to you in the responses to your thread. Having said all that, and putting aside my own recommendation, a sure fire way to surpass your SME5 and not take a chance on taking a sonic step backwards, is to heed Raul’s recommendation to have your existing arm rewired with AudioNote silver wire (or similar) in a continuous run to your preamp. The elimination of all those solder joints and dissimilar wire in your phono interconnect will most likely be a revelation. It was for me. Good luck.