Tonearms over £700
Nottingham Analogue Ace Space
The Ace Space tonearm is a beautifully hand crafted design. It features an ultra light weight carbon fibre arm tube and uses a damped unipivot bearing. This damping means this arm is as easy to handle as a fixed pivot tonearm, suffering none of the instability you otherwise tend to get when cueing. It produces a delightfully natural sound with exceptional speed and good dynamics.
It is available in two different lengths, a 9” model (shown in the top photo) and a 12” version (as pictured below). A 12” tonearm is always preferable where you have space for it as it lowers tracking distortion, offering a more consistent and effortless sound throughout an LP side.
Nottingham Analogue 9” Ace Space tonearm: £882.00
Nottingham Analogue 12” Ace Space tonearm: £1,030.00
SME Series 300
The Series 300 is similar in appearance to the IV and V, there are several different versions of this arm available, please refer to the pricing below for more information. All the Series have a detachable headshell allowing relatively quick cartridge changes and are ideal for those people that have separate mono and stereo cartridges they want to change between, it also allows the azimuth to be easily adjusted when required.
Like all SME tonearms the Series 300 are a joy to setup, with the thorough manual making it easy even for beginners.
SME Model 309 9” magnesium tonearm: £1,195
SME Model 309 GD as above but with gold printing and detailing: £1,375
SME Model 310 10” aluminium tonearm: £1,228
SME Model 312 12” aluminium tonearm: £1,390
SME Model 312S 12” magnesium tonearm includes MCS150 wiring: £1,940
MCS150 internal silver wire upgrade £150
SME M2-
The M2-
SME M2-
SME Series IV
The SME IV is one of our favourite tonearms, it features many of the refinements found in the SME V but at a more reasonable price and without some of the parts that we feel are of limited value on the V to most users, such as the vta adjuster (it’s almost as easy to adjust the IV’s vta) and the Silicone damping trough (which isn’t necessary or beneficial to our ears with most modern cartridges). It features very high quality bearings (ABEC 3) and can be supplied with different internal wiring, we recommend choosing the vdH MCS150 upgrade silver wiring which takes this arm performance well beyond its price point (see below for pricing). The arm is silver finished as standard but is available in black for a premium (please contact us for the price of this option).
The sound is flawless, just like the arms appearance. If you want an arm to add excitement by introducing resonance’s then look elsewhere, but if you want to hear what’s really on your records then few arms will come close to the IV with MCS150 wiring. It’s transparent, with a solid precision to the sound which gives it a master tape like realism.
SME Series IV: £1,648
SME Series IV-
MCS150 internal silver wiring upgrade £150
The Audio Origami PU7 is an evolution of the classic Syrinx PU3 tonearm and is hand made to order (with each arm taking in the region of 4 weeks to be produced). The specification is completely customisable, with a choice of arm tube lengths between 9 to 12 inches and arm mass can also be specified to ensure the perfect match with your cartridge. The standard finish is a high quality matt bead blasted silver, with Polished, custom colour anodising and gold or chrome plating all available as options. The standard model has Cardas copper wiring with Kondo wiring available as an upgrade.
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Here’s a small selection of some of the custom options available:
Polished finish: +£100
Longer 10”, 11” and 12” arm tubes: +£300
Kondo silver internal arm wiring: +£350
Nottingham Analogue Ace Anna
The Ace Anna is the reference tonearm from Nottingham Analogue. This features all the ‘Ace’ refinements and tweaks that have evolved the cheaper Ace Space into the giant killer that it is, so when applied to this, the ultimate Nottingham Analogue arm you can begin to imagine the results! It’s difficult to know where to start with this tonearm, I struggle to find any short comings with it and find it combines remarkable resolution, a wonderfully open and spacious top end along with prodigious bandwidth, musicality and neutrality. It’s a very difficult tonearm to surpass and works with a very wide variety of cartridges too.
Nottingham Analogue Ace Anna 10” tonearm: £2,130.00
Nottingham Analogue Ace Anna 12” tonearm: £2,320.00
SME Series V
The SME V is cosmetically almost identical to the IV shown above but is finished in black as standard (silver is available for an extra cost if required). As standard it comes wired with a silver litz cable, although we recommend going for the MCS150 upgrade (as mentioned in the SME IV section above) . The bearings are the main improvement over the IV, being the finer tolerance ABEC 7 bearings. It also features a dynamically balanced resonance controlled spring for applying the tracking force, silicone damping trough and a VTA screw thread for minute VTA adjustments.
SME Series V: £2,390
SME Series V-
SME Series V-
SME Series V-
MCS150 internal silver wire upgrade: £150
SME Series V-
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