The SME 309 and ZYX R100 Fuji arrived today. I started to post it here, then changed my mind and was going to start a new thread, and then decided to put it here. I was almost a charter member of the Undecided Club, but I couldn't make up my mind.
Anyway. Getting the SME 309 installed and dialed in was not as easy a task as I thought it would be. I have changed out tonearms before but had no experience with the more modern SME arms like the 300 series. Compared to the 3009 Series II the 309 is massive. There is a lot of weight and heft to the base, and I ended up having to remove all of the lead shot from the shot cavity beneath the armboard to rebalance the platter. SOTA was kind enough to email the setup procedure to me.
When I first looked at the headshell I was bugged because at first glance it appeared to be made out of plastic. It bothered me so much that I had to stop working on it and clear my head. When I began working on it again it became evident that headshell is in fact magnesium. What made me think it was plastic was the very smooth finish on it relative to the powdercoat on the tonearm itself. I'll have more to say on the headshell in a minute.
I would call the installation instructions that SME supplied fair. I can't rate them better than that because there were a few important details that were not explained very well. The base locking lugs, for example, lock all adjustments except for VTF and headshell azimuth. There are no fine adjustments that can be made to HTA or VTA. They are quite crude and not easily dialed in. To help you SME supplies a mounting template and an alignment protractor. The protractor doubles as a ruler to help you set VTA. The adjustment procedure is somewhat agonizing though. You have to have base lugs unlocked. You don't want them too loose because then you end up shooting past the mark you are trying to hit. If the lugs are too tight then adjustment become difficult. And since with the lugs unlocked you can adjust HTA and VTA at the same time, you do have to be very careful when touching the arm. The manual says all of the adjustments are spring loaded to make fine adjustment possible until you can set VTF, HTA, and VTA...but this isn't nearly has helpful as you might think.
The best way to dial this arm in is to mount a throw away cartridge on the headshell and then get everything close. I happened to have a cartridge in need of retip that tracks close to what the ZYX R100 Fuji does and has almost the same mass. So everything was very close when I put the ZYX on. All I had to do was make some fine adjustment to VTF and VTA and it was all set to go. Changing between the ZYX and my Ortofons was simple enough.
I will say that the headshell stinks though. Since he headshell has a hex head screw when you tighten it you are torquing about the axis perpendicular to the azimuth adjustment, and this makes it extremely difficult to get the cartridge perfectly perpendicular to the record surface. On the two occasions I have changed out the cartridge I found myself re-doing this adjustment at least two or three times. This is a piece of cake with the 3009 Series II.
Right now I am listing to some jazz with the ZYX R100 Fuji. The cartridge tracks perfectly at 2 grams VTF. I won't comment on the sound because the cart really needs to break in, but I do like what I hear so far.
The verdict on the SME 309 tonearm is positive overall and there is no doubt in my mind that it is a better arm than the vintage SME 3009 Series II. However, setting up the latter is easier than the former, and I am not just saying that because I am much more familiar with the SME 3009 Series II. The 309, at times, was very frustrating to work with. But so far it seems to be worth it.
--Jerome
). I don't want to nickel and dime myself to a $4,000 expenditure. Once this is done then the only thing left to do is the parts upgrade from SOTA sometime nearly next year. Since my SOTA is operationally solid I think I will be able to patiently wait until then.
