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Time for an RS-A1 tonearm thread?

Posted by Dave Pogue (A) on April 17, 2007 at 05:08:48

Haven't seen anything here about this weird beast in quite a while. I'm "boarding" one for a friend (well, actually, he left it with me by mistake last weekend), and with his permission I set the thing up on my Lenco. EVERYTHING about this tonearm is strange:

* It just sits on the armboard, unattached in any way, can be moved around at will.
* The counterweight hangs straight down from the rear of the arm, swinging in the breeze
* It has a straight arm, no offset, no anti-skating provision, no arm-lifter, and no overhang
* Appearance-wise, it looks sorta like a praying mantis, its flat "armtube" swooping down from a very tall pivot post (it's an undamped unipivot)
* Its "headshell" SWIVELS with a ~12 degree arc
* A cartridge can only be attached from underneath -- threaded carts can't be mounted (however, I managed to use a Pickering P-mount on it by reaming out the holes in the p-mount adapter)

So how does it sound? Just amazing. I have the same cart on a second SME arm (two arms are mounted on the same table) and can A/B them via a switcher. This is after a one-day trial, mind you, but so far the RS-A1 gets EVERYTHING right, even as it looks goofy as hell while doing so. Personally, I couldn't handle the hair-shirt aspects of this arm, but I think it's fabulous. Others may well disagree :-)

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Sonic Craft

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