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Tonearms: Ripoff?

If you search for tonearm recommendations you'll find an overwhelming amount of praise for $1k and less products. Audiomods and Jelco are the two most mentioned.

The Audiomods is just some guy making Rega-based tonearms in a workshop. Just some guy is putting out tonearms that compete with tonearms that cost many times the price -- from the likes of SME, Clearaudio, VPI, Graham, etc.

So the question is -- are tonearms just a scam? How is it that everyone loves Audiomods and Jelco to death and never talks about / dismisses high end tonearms? Is it because there's no real difference between one of these low-cost tonearms and the high end ones? Is an Audiomods Series V ** really ** the equivalent of a SME V? Some guy in a workshop equals the famed precision of SME? Is that once you have the math and materials worked out all tonearms are essentially the same? Or is it that most owners of record players online are dumpster-diving for vintage gear and simply can't afford to listen to better?

So, what's going on?
madavid0

Showing 6 responses by elizabeth

elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Take it off... Take it all off. Type naked. Listen naked. Eat naked. Sleep naked. Drive your car Nak... oops. "Sorry Officer,... I forgot something this Morning you say???"
I still remember the guy driving a Chrysler convertible with top down, cuts in front of where I am about to cross the street,(back when I was young, I was good looking, unlike the Medusa I am now) his pants down around his ankles, his flag perky.. I busted out laughing really loud.
Is this TOO MUCH INFORMATION??
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Sadly tonearms mean almost nothing to me. Being a bottom of the turntable hierarchy nearly forever means I buy only arms that come ON THE TABLE. Sad really. Beyond those arms is a whole Universe of fancy engineering I ... could care less about.
Cart arm matching is another mystery that I have luckily also never bothered about. I stick MY cart on the arm with some eyeballing and a wild guess.
So far I am happy. (Should I be?) LOL
PS I currently have a Rega P5 with a Benz Glider on it. and a Kuzma Stabi Stogi S with a Dynavector 17D3 on it.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
People have been spending billions on ’dying children in some part of the world’. for well over 75 years... It hasn’t even made a tiny dent. What happens is the life they save yesterday, needs saving today, and tomorrow, and the day after and the day after, then the babies those folks you had been saving for twenty years decide to make more babies to be saved... IT does not end. You just keep endless people on the edge of starving, you feed them today, you feed them forever.
I have no problem if YOU want to do that. But do not ask me to join you in your folly. I am betting in your mind you CAN save the World. I am certain I cannot even begin. Two people die EVERY SECOND.. most ugly horrible deaths. Face it. While I typed ONE HUNDRED people died. How many did you save? Do you think you made a dent in DEATH?
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
""and has nothing to do with the love of music""
Neither does whining about others not being ’charitable enough’..How do you calculate all these folks you have no knowledge of 'charity'. And who put YOU in charge if it? Worry about YOURSELF instead of whining about people you do not even know.                   
It is particularly annoying to read your drivel on an audio site. You should save it for sites which address the topic, instead of here.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Hyperbole... Making overblown statements.                      
"$12,000 one record to play on $100 equipment" I would guess chakster is perhaps physically older, but has a mental age of 15 years old?  He says he has "6 first class tonearms and about 20 cartridges' Does that translate into the reality he has two useful turntable arms and maybe 3 working cartridges?               
For the 'record', I wrote earlier I own and use a Rega P5 with a Benz Glider cart, and a Kuzma Stabi/Stogi S with a Dynavector 17D3 cartridge in the main system. The bedroom system has a Dual Golden One with a Dynavector Ruby 23 cartridge.                
Maybe if the chak would list his half dozen turntable arms.. plus the twenty cartridges, we can compare notes? Instead of whining about all the 'Haves' who just ruin everything for the lesser mere mortals like us.
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
We all want someplace to spew. For good or bad this sort of thread allows everyone to spew whatever is bothering them, at leat in some fashion. SO this thread is a GOOD THING! Just think... Without this sort of thread to vent, you probably would go kick your dog.. or your wife.. SO much better to get it all out. Feel free to spew all you want!
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