It was found on a Neumann disk mastering lathe, a common application for the 3012, its length allowing it to reproduce disks from the massive 16' vacuum platter.

This array of parts is an SME 3012, the bigger version of the 3009, from the period of Shure's involvement with SME. They are of course also capable of offering an intensely enjoyable, accurate listening experience, coupled with an accurate cartridge. These systems are excellent for Quality Control in vinyl record manufacturing, to ensure that any defects are caught early.

We have used our restored SME tonearms on a large number of reference reproduction systems, for our own use and for our customers, such as the Thorens TD160 project which was presented here last February. This outstanding tonearm was first introduced in 1959, setting a standard for high performance tonearm design which is still hard to beat, 60 years later. For now, I’m thrilled that my PL-910 is singing like I’ve never heard it before.Over the past few years, we have restored a number of SME 30 tonearms, covering most of their variants made over the impressively long production life span of this model range. That will have to be a post-winning-the-lottery purchase. I highly recommend Alfred if you’re in the market for any work or upgrade to a new or old SME tonearm.Īnd if I had the money to buy the gold 3009 tonearm on their website, I’d snatch it up tomorrow. If you’re like me and don’t want to attempt this kind of precise rewiring job yourself, Alfred does an amazing job and improves the arm in other ways as well. It’s like a whole new arm for my table, and what sounds like a world class arm, and has definitely taken things to the next level. They polished it, replaced a number of parts, and now the arm lift, arm lock, and VTA work much better than before. The wiring definitely made a substantial improvement, and the arm now looks brand new. I proceeded to listen to all of my favorite albums that I know well, and smiled ear to ear for hours while listening to each one. The rewiring resulted in a better tonal balance, richer sound, a beautiful and never harsh top end, and flawless tracking. From the first listen I could hear more improvement than I could have ever hoped for. I got the arm back this weekend and hooked it up and got everything dialed in. He was great to deal with and very knowledgeable and gave me detailed instructions on sending him the arm, promising that I would be very happy with the results and how he thought it was an upgrade worth making for my Kyocera PL-910 turntable. I researched various options and decided on Alfred Kayser at in Canada. A couple of months ago I bit the bullet and sent my vintage SME-3009 tonearm in for a complete refurbishing and rewiring.

Sme tonearm repair