Yesterday I have the privilege to have Dietrich Brakemeier , the owner & designer of Axiom tonearm to demo his arm at my place .
For analog lover 1 of the biggest headaches is to set up catridge properly . I used to buy mintlp whenever I change tonearm & so far have a few mintlp . V accurate . However a pain to use with a handheld magnifying glass held by unsteady hand trying to see the null points. parallax error & the tiny tip at the end of the stylus. Smart tractor to me is heaven sent . Effective length is easily set with something similar to feirkert protractor which I have as well. There are a couple of curves to us & there is 1 Din curve which is unique to this protractor & according to Dietrich the most accurate. With the magnifying scope set on the protractor itself , seeing the tiny weeny stylus tip is a breeze . In my book a must have tool for every analogy lover. Retailing for Euro 495
Axiom arm is pretty welled engineered . Most arm if I m not mistaken do not stay still at any static position , there are 2 weights at the back of the arm in which u can tune such that the arm stays still . The VTF can be set statically by moving counter weight or by dialling in the dynamic setting . From the 3rd photo above it is the protrusion at the left of the arm tower . 6.5 turns with Allen key is equivalent to 1mm. This give owner options to play with the VTF setting & determine which is the best sounding . It seems certain SME & Breuer arm has this feature as well
Another unique feature I noticed is the levelling of the arm base by playing with the 3 screws at the arm base. Bubble provided . He seems to think of everything. Even the manual is so well written & the tonearm travel bag superb looking
The headshell is another unique feature of the arm where we can easily set the VTA/SRA by loosing a tiny screw with spring at the tip of the tiny screw. So well thought off.
Sound ? Of course much better than my Raven 10.5 ( for sales ) at 4 times it's price ie euro 15800 retail. Much grander scale , dynamic and the bass seems to go down 1 octave lower . My 2cts worth of opinion & observation.
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