

- HOW TO REWIRE AN SME TONEARM MANUAL
- HOW TO REWIRE AN SME TONEARM FULL
- HOW TO REWIRE AN SME TONEARM SERIES
To call the Series V a good-looking tonearm is something of an understatement. However, SME is now backwith a vengeance! I believe that, once again, it is fair to say that SME makes "the best tonearm in the world." Delays due, among other things, to problems in finding subcontractors who could carry out work to the desired degree of qualitySME's Alastair Robertson-Aikman will not release a product until he feels that it is rightmeant that it took almost two years for that arm to hit the market. It wasn't being played, there was no way to tell how it sounded, but it certainly looked the business. I had just about written SME off as a serious high-end company when, at the 1984 Summer CES, I saw the first prototype of the Series V.
HOW TO REWIRE AN SME TONEARM FULL
Regardless, having personally witnessed many horrors in dealers back rooms, IME, it really all comes down to whose 'sanity has Man, I am sorry if this brings back a bad memory, however, I have absolutely no doubt that your dealer tech killed your Ittok, and that the dealer knew full well, even as they offered you a refurbished example, that they, or someone else, had killed previously.Once upon a time, SME made " the best tonearm in the world." That claim may have been justifiable through the 1960s and early '70s, but then something happenedSME failed to keep pace with their competition in coping with the increasing popularity of low- to medium-compliance, highish-mass, moving-coil cartridges.

Even a seasonal temperature change could be the tipping point. A given tonearm might operate perfectly smoothly for years until the lower ball race eventually deforms enough to cause stiction. Getting back to Ittok, with hindsight, it is easy to imagine even such a stout tonearm pillar, still a metal cylinder containing ball races, gradually deforming over time when overtightened.

With a 4mm hex key/grub screw this is still very tight, but even an Akito should survive to pass a swing test on another day. Specifically, the user was instructed to bring the fastener to finger tightness while holding the short end of the hex key, and then, holding the long end of the key, turn through a further 1/8 of a turn.
HOW TO REWIRE AN SME TONEARM MANUAL
Ironically, it wasn't until the release of the Linn Basik Turntable that Linn finally described in detail their specific tightening procedure for tonearm height adjust set screws, and in the user manual too! This shouldn't have come as any surprise to those dealers who found the Akito Mk1 tonearm to have a pillar seemingly made from Hasbro Play-Doh (TM). It is all very well to suggest that 'sanity must prevail', however, 1/4 turn beyond 'seems very tight' is a slow death knell for bottom bearing races within a metal cylinder. A good rule of thumb is simply to bring the nut or screw up to where it seems very tight and then turn it about 1/4 turn more (in the case of armboard screws, which are put into wood, 1/8 turn will do)." There is no advantage to tightening them past the point where the associated material will deform, since you are then simply stretching or crushing the materials involved and destroying the structure. However SANITY MUST PREVAIL in tightening these fasteners. Whenever the instructions call for you to tighten a fastener, we do mean TIGHT, probably tighter than you ever would have imagined. Since we are dealing with a transducer that has to recover information considerably smaller than a millionth of an inch from phonograph record, it is important that all the fasteners (nuts and screws) in the turntable be very tight.
