SME V : what to expect ?

Hi Don C55 - the Shure is a decent cartridge with the Jico stylus. I play around with it for reasons of nostalgia. The point I was making is that the Shure's light tracking force and high cantilever compliance are difficult for some modern arms to handle. The SME arms handle not only the Shure, but also modern moving coils with high(er) tracking forces and low cantilever compliance. As for its ancient design, SME has made improvements in the arms over the years - for example, bearings - (if you're buying used it's worth emailing the serial number to SME to find out what changes have been made since date of manufacture). I don't really think you should dismiss an arm designed at the zenith of vinyl just because of its age. There are many highly sought after arms from that era because they are simply excellent, well executed designs.

Has anyone else tried the SME V-12 arm?

Actually, I had an SME V on a Sota which wasn't good. The arm is way too heavy which stretched the springs...and the lead shot couldn't easily balance the suspension. After working very hard I got it to work,however it wasn't nearly right. I think lifeless would be a good description of the sound as told by Donc55

This is going to devolve into another one of these discussions with defenders and detractors. Lots of differing opinions. I've only owned the SME V and V-12 on SME tables and the sound is anything but lifeless with the cartridges I have selected. In fact I hear things (resolution, harmonics, bass definition, neutrality, lack of distortion) from some of my LPs on my system that I have never heard from these same LPs on friends' systems which include two Triplanars, a Graham Phantom, and a Kuzma Air Tangent on various tables.

I'm not saying that the SME arms are the best or even that they are better than the arms I just mentioned. I'm just saying that I don't hear the negatives from my system that some on these forums attribute to the SME V. Lifeless, dull, bass heavy - my SME table/arms have never sounded like that to me.

Agree with Peterayer. I've had SME V on Sota Star ( vacuum ) and sounded great.
Cartridges used were Koetsu Rosewood, Black, Madrigal Carnegie and van den hul grasshopper. Other arms compared with at the time were ET2, Syrinx PU3, Alphason, Sumiko The Arm & FT3 and a few others. Never had balancing problems with SOTA's.
Van den hul was best match in terms of balance with the SME V.