gofar99 Messages: 1940 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi Everyone, I did go for the Origin Live Alliance arm. Quite nice and a simple swap. Really a major improvement. The arm is designed for low resonance and high compliance. I unfortunately dinged my Dynavector 10X5 so I can't tell how really great the arm is until Soundsmith sends it back. In the mean time I'm using a Grado Reference Platinum. For all you vinyl lovers out there who have heard Grados you probably are aware they seem to sound warm and bottom heavy. Not so in this arm. Clean and well balanced is what I'm getting now. I have never heard a Grado sound like this and I have used them for many years. The OL folks are doing something that others seem to miss out on. The arm is about $375 incl shipping and somewhat resembles a Rega. I am sure given the proximity of OL to the Rega plant that many of the parts are made by Rega. The build is entirely different though. The OL arm uses (according to them) a sort of knife edge design, but has bearings ( ). It is designed to be "loose" and not tight like many other arms. They say in big bold print not to try to tighten it up. What ever they do it works extremely well.