Rewiring an SME 3009 Series II with silver from bayonet to RCA's.

Posted by tubesforever (M) on July 14, 2009 at 23:17:28

I got an email from a good friend and fellow AA inmate about rewiring his SME arm. I enjoy these vintage arms and I could not wait to do the first from bayonet to the RCA ends still using the basically stock but reworked arm base.

Here are just a few basic pictures about what the project will require. First you need to fix the IC to be immobile at the SME base. However the arm moves up and down to provide VTA. The wiring must not bind. In this case the wires are teflon on teflon air tubes. There is no bind at this point.

To do the job right I built a custom base plate to mount the IC portion of the wiring.

The wire I use is A-M Systems solid core silver 99.99 pure, double ground for perfect roundness, annealed, teflon coated.

This wire is manufactured specifically for the medical electronics industry. Mostly you find this used for electrodes. Its manufacturing quality makes most audio tonearm wires look cheap in comparison.

The tough part about the teflon coating is that this stuff has to be heated to a precise temperature to burn off the teflon without melting the 36 awg silver conductor.

The custom base plate is epoxy resin project board. It is slightly flexible with is good for this application. The teflon tubing is constricted with vinyl tie straps and secured with epoxy. The same on the opposite side of the board.

Notice the black thick wire dropping from the SME bearing? That's the stock SME tonearm wire. The silver is going to work without any binding in the arm tube to tonearm base without any worry or concern.

The thin wall teflon tubes go all the way from the plate to the RCA ends. I adhere a nylon piece to the teflon and then secure the RCA to that assembly.

The RCA ends are Vampire direct gold plated oxygen free copper RCA's. These cost 27.95 a pair from Michael Percy Audio. They are my current favorite for high quality sonics and world class fitment and grip.

I cannot listen to these personally for about a week. At that time I plan to drink some wine and enjoy some shaded dogs with one of the nicest AA inmates you might ever have the chance to know.

Enjoy the photos!

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Topic - Rewiring an SME 3009 Series II with silver from bayonet to RCA's. - tubesforever 23:17:28 07/14/09 (8)

Another question - livemusic 02:54:10 07/30/09 (0)

A question ... - The Bored 21:41:15 07/22/09 (0)

I posted this so people can see how to rewire an SME from Bayonet to RCA inputs.... - tubesforever 23:55:19 07/29/09 (0)

Looks great! - manfred88 09:21:59 07/15/09 (0)

RE: Rewiring an SME 3009 Series II with silver from bayonet to RCA's. - JimK 07:08:02 07/15/09 (1)

Its on a long slow simmer.... - tubesforever 11:00:25 07/15/09 (0)

As usual, a lot of thought gone into this project with what looks like great results - Olly 04:45:38 07/15/09 (1)

Thanks Olly! - tubesforever 19:34:15 07/15/09 (0)

Nice DIY rewiring... - DanWKW 01:32:57 07/15/09 (2)

Its more system dependent than people might know.... - tubesforever 11:05:14 07/15/09 (1)

The silver wire is cool... - DanWKW 11:31:30 07/15/09 (0)

Rewiring an SME 3009 Series II with silver from bayonet to RCA's.

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