SME V : what to expect ?

I owned a SME IV for many years, that has the same arm tube, with slightly lesser bearings, on an Oracle Delphi MKIII.

After switching to a VPI TNT with JMW-10 arm, the VPI with the same MC cartridges sounded much, much better.

I would never buy another SME arm. They sound lifeless.

My experience with SME 345, same tube and bearings, is that they are competent performers, easy to set up and work with just about any cartridge. Is it the very best? Depends on your definition of best. I dont think it adds anything to the music, which I guess is what its supposed to do.

I am not sure that making a determination about an arm's sound by comparing it to a different arm on a dramatically different style turntable table is fair. The SME V is a fine arm. It may be not be the best, but it has little of the false added brightness (sometimes confused for liveliness) that many audio components do; definition and staging is very good. My issue with the arm is that it can have an overblown low bass that on the the wrong table (one without enough energy in the mid/upper bass) can make the bass range sound disjointed from the rest of frequency spectrum; almost like a poorly calibrated subwoofer. On the right table, in a system that needs the energy in the lower bass it can sound great. I went from an SME V to an ET2 and while I never really looked back, there were times when I used my Stax F-81's, which need all the help they can get in the low bass department, that I missed that low bass energy.

Having owned both the SME V and ET2, as well as the Gyrodec and Oracle, I can concur with Frogman 100%.
The SME V is a great arm on a deck that suits it, eg Sota/SME V. It was a complete disaster for example on the Linn Sondek when it was 1st released.

I've owned two SME V's and an SME IV.Vi. Frogman and Dover provided good info. My V's were both mounted on Star Sapphires and mated well with various cartridges including Benz Ruby 2, Koetsu Urushi, Onyx Platinum and a few others. I always enjoyed what I heard.

The IV.Vi was mounted on a Nottingham Mentor along with a VDH Black Beauty. I preferred that setup to the Sota/SME V combos.

My first complaint about the SME's is no azimuth adjustment. If you're gonna spring for a pricey cartridge, I think it's a must. My other complaint, and this applies to almost all pivoted arms, I always heard tracing error, and after a while, it got old.

I almost went with a linear tracker but after recommendations from Ralph at Atma-Sphere and Thom from Galier, I decided to give the Tri-Planar a try. That was a few years ago and I'm still enjoying the T-P. For whatever reason, I don't notice any tracing error and it's got all the adjustments you need; and they're all repeatable.

If you could find an ET-2 in good shape, I'd take it over the SME. I have one friend with a Sota Millenia, ET-2, Benz LP and another with a Sota Nova, ET-2, ZYX Universe. I could happily live with either setup, especially the one with the Universe