Seeking arm suggestions for a Grace F9R


I recently bought an F9 body and a SoundSmith Ruby OCL stylus. I currently have it mounted on an Acos Lustre GST-801 with a 7gr headshell but still a bit heavy with the resonance is in the 7 hz range. I'm liking it's sound and contemplating changing arms. Any F9 owners willing to make suggestions of great matching arms for it. (no 12" please)
Thanks,
Robbie
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Showing 3 responses by robbiesd

Thanks for all the responses everyone.  To answer all your questions: I'll look into the Magnepan Untrac rodman, thanks for the suggestion.  Yogiboy, I am using as light a headshell as I have at just under 7 gr., the stock Lustre is 11gr. I bought an 8 gr. ADC like no-brand magnesium one and 220 sanded just over a gr. off of it's top. I thankfully don't have any warped records so that hasn't been an issue.  I've also set the arms VTF dial at zero and used just the counterweight to apply the VTF hoping to reduce a little more arm mass. Dgareetson is correct, the Soundsmith ruby stylus I have is their production product, not a re-tip or re-build of an original Grace. I have the VTF set at 1.3 gr as called for on it's box, not 1.8 gr. as you suggested.  Should I try increasing it a half gram?  Do you think the F9 would mate well with an EPA-100?  I'll give the Micro Seiki's another look also.  Lewn, I determined the resonance figure by watching 2 test record sweeps, so it's hard to be more specific than "in the 7's", but I'd say more low to mid 7's.  It's stand is on a poured slab floor so I don't have footfalls in this range to worry about. So you think in changing arms trying to get to the desired 10 hz resonance I could be chasing specs rather than really achieving better sound?  I don't think I have 'golden ears' but to me it's sounding quite nice with only about 25-30 hours so far. 
Sorry for mis-spelling your name LewM, it was a typing error.
Soundsmith did not provide a compliance figure. When I said 10, I was just picking the middle of the 8-12 desired range, not necessarily hoping to find a combo to get to it specifically.  Since I'm not hearing anything displeasing I think I'll leave it be for now and just enjoy it some more.
Thanks for helping me reach this conclusion.  And a superior arm to a significant degree is not in my budget at the moment.
I did speak to Peter at SS.  He said his OCL/Ruby F9 stylus has a compliance of 25 x 10-6cm/Dyne measured @ 10 Hz.  As Lewm suggested, I've forgotten about it and am just enjoying my LP's.
Thanks for all the comments everyone.