Kuzma SAFIR 9

[gleeds]

Wow! Way of my chart money vise. But so cool, some people don’t appreciate the Kuzma functionalism “Star Wars Imperial style” design but I love it.
It would look nice as a second arm on my Stabi R.

Technically competent and lacking in BS, designers like Franc Kuzma epitomize what makes our hobby special. I expect Franc was looking at some highly touted, uber-expensive tonearm designs going for considerably more money and thought I can do better for less! Thinking outside the box and advancing the state-of-the-art for vinyl replay, while in this case expensive indeed makes sense to me. After all, many of us are spending considerably more on our digital set-ups. Never met the man but hope to preview the arm and pay my respects in Munich.

 

[Marcus]

On Kuzma website you can now read interesting “technical explanation about higher tonearm mass”…

https://www.kuzma.si/media/uploads/files/SAFIR%209%20Technical%20aspects%20220409(1).pdf

 

[bazelio]

On Kuzma website you can now read interesting “technical explanation about higher tonearm mass”…

https://www.kuzma.si/media/uploads/files/SAFIR%209%20Technical%20aspects%20220409(1).pdf

What I thought. In a nutshell: forget what you thought you knew about rules of thumb; anything above 3 Hz is fine with modern or well-designed tables. This is why I've never cared one bit about resonance in the 6-8 Hz range on my Stabi M, which is well isolated. So perhaps this is a rather reasonable stance given that a $20k tonearm isn't going to be plopped onto just *any* table out there. But, you are getting into territory where one could conceivably run into some challenges with e.g. motor rumble if not properly isolated. Interesting that Franc says warp is below 2Hz. I had always expected it to be in the 4-6 Hz range - which I think I might have read from Michael Fremer. Additionally, the tidbit in the paper around damping being more effective at the higher end adds up for me.

 

[PeterA]

Thinking outside the box and advancing the state-of-the-art for vinyl replay, while in this case expensive indeed makes sense to me.

gleeds, I have not heard this new arm so I am curious to know how you define “state of the art” and what attributes about this arm suggest to you that it is advancing the “state of the art“? What exactly is being advanced, and what other arms do you think represent the “state of the art”?

I do not think many people have heard this arm yet, so is your claim based on your own opinion or is it based on some kind of consensus?

 

[Solypsa]

This approach is interesting and I certainly hope to hear it one day.

On a side note I have used carts of medium compliance and mass ( say 12g / 12cu for average ) on the 30+ gram FR64S and never felt it was an issue from a resonance or tracking perspective.

Korf audio found similar data on their investigation into this topic....

 

[bazelio]

It's interesting for sure, and I'd love to hear the demo mentioned in the early thread posts where it was played side by side the 4 Point. One thing interesting to me is that the 14" 4 Point - I think - was considered the top of the line pivoted arm in the Kuzma line. But now, the thinking has obviously shifted as Franc is focusing on rigidity to achieve "zero reference", and therefore the 9" arm length was chosen for this now top of the line pivoted Kuzma arm.

 

[tima]

There is the feasibility question of the effective mass of an 11" or 14" sapphire arm tube coupled with today's cartridges.

Between the reputed lower tracing distortion of the 14" arm versus getting closer to zero reference (relative still-ness between stylus-cartridge motor/body) via increased rigidity of the Safir-9 the tradeoff apparently turns out in the latter's favor - Marcus reports the Safir-9 is 'in a different league'. More elegant brilliance from Franc Kuzma.

I'm not satisfied with my wording on 'zero-refernce'. My understanding is something like this: in. for example, the case of a moving coil we want the coil to move relative to the magnets while we want the magnets (cartridge body) to remain fixed (still). We don't want both magnets and coil moving. Pls correct me if you see otherwise or a better way to describe.

It is interesting that FK observes the modern impact of lower rumble from improved turntable isolation and reduced bearing and motor noise on the 'vintage wisdom' that tonearm resonance best be in 8-12Hz range - now aiming for above 3Hz, with 12Hz remaining the top end(?).

 

[bazelio]

Let's assume that in going from 9" to 11" effective mass increases roughly proportionally or by about 20%. This is not entirely accurate, but it's ballpark-reasonable. Then at 11", to keep resonance where Franc now recommends it, the compliance guidelines would simply become ~21 or lower instead of 25 or lower. Would this eliminate a wide swath of cartridge options? Not to my knowledge. But, the shorter the arm, the more inherent rigidity in the arm regardless of materials. I suspect the Safir is Kuzma's response to the SAT, also 9" and also of high effective mass. The SAT designer's stated goals were high rigidity and damping. He never published effective mass, if I recall. But the Safir has seemingly followed suit. I think we should actually be impressed by Safir's MSRP, at least in a relative sense. As for "zero reference" Franc described it clearly and I don't think we need to redefine it here. And the high end of the acceptable resonance range is not important when you're dealing with >60g effective mass.

 

[Marcus]

A few photos from Munich High-End 2022.

 

[SOS]

Quick questions. Is the headshell removable like the 4Point? Is there a dimple at the top of the arm marking the pivot center point so as to allow the use of my P2S measurement tool? Don't see one in these pics. Might not make any difference if used in one of Kuzma's own tables but if used on another table it would be most helpful.

 

[shakti]

some more pics from Munich

 

[bazelio]

Is it playing records or just on display? And what's the show price?

 

[shakti]

playing,
but I could not manage to be their at the correct time, the other player is GP Monaco with 14“ 4point.

Munich is not a bazar type of show, so no show prices to end customers

 

[Chop]

Call me old fashioned and I'm sure its wonderful, but you wouldn't call it aesthetically pleasing would you? For the cost you'd think a little attention to a buyer's pride of ownership would come in somewhere... wouldn't you? <shrug> perhaps it's just me.

 

[bazelio]

I have no interest in the GP Monaco but if you do happen to hear the Safir, do report back here.

 

[bazelio]

Call me old fashioned and I'm sure its wonderful, but you wouldn't call it aesthetically pleasing would you? For the cost you'd think a little attention to a buyer's pride of ownership would come in somewhere... wouldn't you? <shrug> perhaps it's just me.

Ha. Kuzma has always been form-follows-function to me. I've never looked at any of Kuzma's wares and thought "that's beautiful!"

 

[Marcus]

Think this one fits in here perfectly…

 

[shakti]

Today I had the chance to listen to
GP Monaco/ Kuzma 4point 14“
and
Kuzma Stabi R / Kuzma Safir
as diffenrenz Kuzma carts (blue on 4point and red on Safir) were fitted, it was not a real A to B comparison.
Red is double price of blue.
On the other hand, in EU the GP Monaco is nealy 10 times a Stabi R….

The Monaco/4point set up was slow and muddy sounding in conparison the Stabi R/ Safir

I do own Stabi R and know very good the capabilities in comparison to other turntables, so I was surprised about the performance from Safir on Stabi R. This was much better than expected.
Specially as Monaco is known as beeing „fast“ and dynamic.

thanx to Living Voice, that they made this comparison possible!

 

[ACHiPo]

Call me old fashioned and I'm sure its wonderful, but you wouldn't call it aesthetically pleasing would you? For the cost you'd think a little attention to a buyer's pride of ownership would come in somewhere... wouldn't you? <shrug> perhaps it's just me.

I kinda dig it in a retro 70s soon-to-be-dated way. (more the turntable than tonearm, although I like the tonearm too).

 

[Brian Beck]

Somehow the discussion drifted to how this tonearm looks. But I think the very high effective mass is far more interesting and I look forward to some comparison reviews.

I mostly use a trusty Triplanar Mk.VII U2 with medium effective mass. The Saffir’s extremely high effective mass has me considering an experiment: ordering an additional stainless steel counterweight and attaching a vibration-free mass of some kind onto the head shell. By adding and adjusting masses onto both ends, one should be able to maintain the VTF balancing and adjustment range, while significantly increasing effective mass. I do not worry about footfalls exciting the resultant lower arm-cartridge resonance because I use a massive suspension-less Micro Seiki mounted on top of granite slabs, on a heavy steel rack, on top of ceramic tile, on top of a concrete slab floor.

Has anyone else experimented with adding mass to both ends of a tonearm?