Sme 3012 R

I know this old arm is good but I don’t know why David,Rockitman,Tang,Ron,Mike
Use or will use having top tonearm like Sat,EliteAxiom,Black Beauty,Durand

Why 3012 is so special?
I never had and I don’t understand
Only to know for my curiosity
Regards
Gian

 

...some are happy with the 9” they have; others, they can be demented and feel marginalized, this group is always thinking of more and tend to overshoot with their hopes...hope, it always dies last

Cheers
ALF

 

Early this morning I listened to Opus on SME for half an hour I thought strange it wasn’t like last Thursday when it was first mounted on the arm. David closely walked me through from first step with this Opus/3012R set up. Last Thursday, I told David this didn’t sound like the Opus. The tone was sharper with less body and the stage was moved back. A day earlier, David listened to Opus on SAT and he ranked it last after the AtlasSL on Axiom and GFS on 3012R. This morning, I had to go to a meeting so I had my driver pick up David from the hotel to my office. David was listening in my office while waiting for me. After finished meeting I joined David. He told me Tang listen to this. The sharpness, the sibilances are gone. The stage is moved more upfront. I asked him if he changed the cart setting. He said no. It is not only the characters of Opus I am familiar with are back, but this is the best sound I ever heard from an Opus! I am not hyping this up. I know Opus pretty well. This is in fact my second one. The first one I listened until I wore it out. Opus in my system has always had great presence with natural they are in the room type sound in jazz and chamber. The setup with SME and diligence in fine tuning this arm/cart make the sound go warp 10. I can’t put this sound into words. David and I just look at each other, broke a smile and freakin laugh. It was just music. I guess it was the tone arm and phono cable that started to have more time to it. These were nos. I played Of Rivers and Religion by John Fahey. I never heard a better reproduced acoustic guitars. (David probably gonna say go listen to his system.) Anyway now I have two warp 10 sound from Opus and AtlasSL. They both are on SME. This tells me something about the arm. But to be fair to my other arm/cart combos. I never really put this much time in fine tuning the setup. To be on equal ground I will call my tonearm guy and spend as much time and efforts to optimize setup with my modern arms. Mr. Karmeli can bring the best out of SME. I am still skeptical. I’d like to beat what he says about the 3012R frankly because I spent so much money on my modern arms.

Btw, not only me that is curious of this SME vs modern arms. A gentleman who owns both Vox Olympian and newest WAMM was also curious. He has a 3012R but didn’t want to put the SME on his tt because it seems vintage not technologically advance enough. He visited me last Saturday and listened to the AtlasSL on SME. It is highly likely that when a nos one comes up on eBay, people will be bidding against him now.

Kind regards,
Tang

 

Don’t forget to give your new TT some credit to, it’s not just the arm !

 

Don’t forget to give your new TT some credit to, it’s not just the arm !

You are absolutely right. The AS is so out of the way, I can hear everything quite easily when a variable is changed.

 

This is all very interesting, Tang!

David, if you did not change the cartridge settings, then what did you change to get rid of the sibilance and sharpness?

 

Don’t forget to give your new TT some credit to, it’s not just the arm !

I feel your comment is spot on. The SME 3012R needs a proper turntable - on many turntables it can sound unbalanced. It is not an universal tonearm. I tried it in several turntables, mostly with acrylic or composite platters, with several cartridges, and it sounded lacking deep bass. The balance changed enormously with the EMT 927 - bass has now slam, extension and energy, treble is still vivacious but without any tendency towards the excessive prominence of transients.

 

I was told by a friend on the forum that SME seem to be dumbfounded as to why people like this arm; they seem to claim newer designs are better in all sorts of ways, including tracking, noise and distortion. Who's right and who's wrong?

 

I was told by a friend on the forum that SME seem to be dumbfounded as to why people like this arm; they seem to claim newer designs are better in all sorts of ways, including tracking, noise and distortion. Who's right and who's wrong?

 

I was told by a friend on the forum that SME seem to be dumbfounded as to why people like this arm; they seem to claim newer designs are better in all sorts of ways, including tracking, noise and distortion. Who's right and who's wrong?

SME is wrong. The people who work for SME now were not even employed with SME during the 3012R hey day...let alone born....lol

 

I was told by a friend on the forum that SME seem to be dumbfounded as to why people like this arm; they seem to claim newer designs are better in all sorts of ways, including tracking, noise and distortion. Who's right and who's wrong?

As usual in this hobby, both are right and wrong. All depends on system and user preference. Used, for example, in an SME30 turntable, the SME V can transmit a solidity and feeling of easiness that few other systems can transmit. Adjusting an SME V is much easier and reliable than a SME 3012r.

IMHO tracking, noise and distortion are similar in both tonearms if used with the proper cartridges.

I have owned an SME30/SME V for many years. It was a fundamentally excellent product, if it was not for the audiophile will of trying new things it would still be in my system. But it is in a friend system , it can return someday ...

 

SME is wrong. The people who work for SME now were not even employed with SME during the 3012R hey day...let alone born....lol

So SME cannot design as good arms as back then; hmmmmmm. And is the same true for their turntables? Should they go back to re-making the 3012R et al? And why are they not doing that. For the same of always having something new??? Something is not adding up here

 

I feel your comment is spot on. The SME 3012R needs a proper turntable - on many turntables it can sound unbalanced. It is not an universal tonearm. I tried it in several turntables, mostly with acrylic or composite platters, with several cartridges, and it sounded lacking deep bass. The balance changed enormously with the EMT 927 - bass has now slam, extension and energy, treble is still vivacious but without any tendency towards the excessive prominence of transients.

I was told by a friend on the forum that SME seem to be dumbfounded as to why people like this arm; they seem to claim newer designs are better in all sorts of ways, including tracking, noise and distortion. Who's right and who's wrong?

I'm not a fan of SME turntables. I don't think they have the best engineers out there these days. But these comments still lead me to believe the 3012R probably is a special flavor. It's unlikely that it's "accurate" but it has a sound pretty much everyone likes. They should should shut up and just make them again, and try to charge low amounts of money so they'll sell them all day long to everyone.

 

So SME cannot design as good arms as back then; hmmmmmm. And is the same true for their turntables? Should they go back to re-making the 3012R et al? And why are they not doing that. For the same of always having something new??? Something is not adding up here

we are talking tone arms and yes, the 3012R was and still is the pinnacle for SME. You should try one out.

 

As far as I know, no. The main pillar bearing (left) is always metal. The saddle (right) can be nylon or steel (manufacturer options). We can get aftermarket saddles in other metals, but as far as I know they are not loved by WBF people ...

I've just put the bronze ones, I know the opinions, but I wanted to hear it all myself. The setup was re-calibrated after the change, including the azimuth. Too early for any verdicts, the changes I've so far observed are: 1) the top end is more refined and less homogeneous; sometimes quite exposed 2) some parts of the music material are pushed more into the background, e.g. the orchestra in operatic music. I still have to understand if this is because of a widened and more refined dynamical scale or is it some artifact. I had similar effect when changing loading resistors from RN60 Dales to Charcroft Z-foils. And voices are just great! Keep listening...

Cheers,

 

I'm not a fan of SME turntables. I don't think they have the best engineers out there these days. But these comments still lead me to believe the 3012R probably is a special flavor. It's unlikely that it's "accurate" but it has a sound pretty much everyone likes. They should should shut up and just make them again, and try to charge low amounts of money so they'll sell them all day long to everyone.

Each of us has its preferences, but I can not see how anyone can have doubts on the quality of the SME engineering. The audio side is just a small part of their activity - as far as I remember reading and seeing in a visit to the factory they work mainly in precise engineering for much more demanding applications.

Thousands of people everywhere enjoy and appreciate SME current products - why should they shut-up just to please a few members of a village of audiophiles that resist digital occupation with the help of a few druids? (Bob, are you reading? ).

BTW, why should we be so worried about tonearm prices and not about the turntables?

 

This is all very interesting, Tang!David, if you did not change the cartridge settings, then what did you change to get rid of the sibilance and sharpness?

Dear Ron,This is what I do. Setup is as important as the equipment itself there were a few things to change in Tang’s system to get his sound where it needed to be, its a process and every system is different. With the SME once setup correctly there’s nothing to change and we did that on the first day.

david

 

we are talking tone arms and yes, the 3012R was and still is the pinnacle for SME.

What makes you state this as an authoritative opinion?

 

Gentlemen, learn proper setup and try one ! Right now you’re only pissing in the wind.

david

 

What makes you state this as an authoritative opinion?

His years of experience, do you have any?

david

 

Each of us has its preferences, but I can not see how anyone can have doubts on the quality of the SME engineering. The audio side is just a small part of their activity - as far as I remember reading and seeing in a visit to the factory they work mainly in precise engineering for much more demanding applications.

Thousands of people everywhere enjoy and appreciate SME current products - why should they shut-up just to please a few members of a village of audiophiles that resist digital occupation with the help of a few druids? (Bob, are you reading? ).

BTW, why should we be so worried about tonearm prices and not about the turntables?

I really think with the appreciation the 3012R has on the internet, they'd sell like hot-cakes if they were new and reflected the relative low manufacturing costs they were originally built on. People read these topics, A LOT of people read them. I think they'd be selling to a lot more people than have their TT's.