For sale is an excellent example of the coveted 3012 SME improved tonearm for your existing or future custom turntable. This is a serious upgrade should you wish to utilise low compliance cartridges of up to 14g in mass. For example its perfect for SPUs. The sonic experience aside the 12 inch arm is visually spectacular with the shine of the chrome mirror finishing on her arm tube. I have included a generic silver headshell as well as her original cable set, please check cables they wear heavilyyou should possibly look here to start updating. Sadly not included is the tiny antiskste counterweight on the monofilament or the can shroud or base cover. I could sadly not locate either. Please note that there is a no return policy on tonearms . Please use the attached photographs to see in detail the item being offered. They form part of the description as is precisely the item you will receive. Series II edit The Series II[10] arm was SME's first arm. It came in two variants the 3009 and 3012 (9" and 12" respectively) tone arms which were widely adopted for audiophile and broadcast use during the 1960s and 1970s, at the higher end of the market. These arms featured a polished, bright-anodised aluminium [7] main tube with a lightweight headshell, knife edge horizontal bearings, and an anti skating bias provided by a weight that hung by a nylon filament. Versions were produced with both fixed and interchangeable headshells; the SME headshell mount (based on an Ortofon design) became the de facto industry standard, and is still widely used today on consumer and especially DJ decks. Audiophile arms today tend to not use the SME mount, but this is not due to other standards replacing the SME but because audiophile arms now tend to not have interchangeable headshells at all in an effort to reduce mass and improve rigidity, though at slight expense of user flexibility. Some cartridges were produced that mounted directly into the SME headshell mount of the arm (rather than into a headshell), notably from Ortofon. Please know that we pack with our custom double box and bubble wrap system and we pack for the safety of the item not for economy.