I was very surprised to learn during my conversation (April 2009) with owner/designer Alvin Lloyd that arm boards are "only" available for tone arms he accepts on his TT : Tri-planar, Graham and Morch.
The Grand Prix Monaco whitepaper on their website says (in part):
Another key element of our listening tests was the tone arm evaluations. We evaluated a number of the more popular high end tone arms; Tri-Planar, DynaVector, Graham Phantom, Morch (both length tubes), SME 4.5i, and Wilson Benesch. In order to do a proper installation and then an evaluation of performance, we had to acquire one of each. After careful inspection and confirmation of the physical dimensions and mounting details for each tone arm, we designed and produced the required arm boards. We then set up and listened to each individual arm with at least two different cartridges (DynaVector XV-1s and Transfiguration Orpheus). What we learned was that the Monaco Turntable is fundamentally free of coloration and has proved to be an ideal platform for comparing and evaluating tone arms. We can design and produce arm boards for other tone arms as required by our clients.
It looks like--in the time since that white paper was written--they've decided that the Wheaton, Graham, and Morch arms are a better match.
This is especially interesting since the (very favorable) Positive Feedback review was of a Monaco with the Dynavector arm.
