Updates: Finally got around to installing the TRA9. It was as simple as a installing an SME V tonearm. It was a straight bolt onto the turntable SME mount. The instructions seem simplified enough, in both English and German. After installing the arm and leveling it according to the included tonearm guide, the rest was fairly simple. Move arm holder according to the supplied guide, about 201mm, Install cartridge and do rest of your normal cartridge setup. I used the Wally tools protractor and used the 231 new records point.
The cartridge is the Air Tight Opus 1, which is still breaking in. I have not had time to use it much at all when it was installed on the other SME V arm. One thing about the head shell leads, they are like 1 mile / 1.6 KM long! You need to pay attention to dress the lead cables so that they are not sitting below the cartridge tracking area. Ask me how I know
. Another potential area to swap and tune is definitely the leads.
The supplied phono cable is the latest Van Den Hul 501 silver hybrid with XLR connectors. I think I might order Analysis Plus straight DIN in the future, but for now, these work great.
I immediately could tell that there was more detail retrieval and slightly more humanizing of the vocals. Excellent!! The arm traverses the records with ease and just looks like a work of art. I am inclined to believe that perhaps this arm has a little more vibe compared to the SME And is more Gemutlich, auf Deutsche. But, I caveat that with having a new cartridge….and oh, just swapped out some NOS tubes in the phono for some new Linlai 6SN7s. Either way, I truly believe this is a fair contender to anything in the SME V class and higher. This arm already has had review s in the press with one person saying if you have an SME V, no need to rush and get this arm. I disagree, I felt that the TRA9 offers something different and better than the SME V. The SME V is a well designed and engineered arm and I think anyone willing to test the limits of what an SME V would sound like with what Transrotor has done with the TRA9, you should listen for yourself. After all, the SME V was the template that was used to make this arm and Transrotor kicked it out the park.
The tonearm lowering mechanism releases very very slowly. Cold syrup slow. I am not sure what I can do to tweak the lowering speed. When I measured VTF, there was a slight delay before the actual VTF reading showed on the Clearaudio tracking force gauge. Transrotor supplies an electronic VTF gauge as well. I did not use it as it serves the same purpose.
The tonearm rest has a dialed locking mechanism to secure the arm. It took too much time to dial it down to lock the arm in place, so I found a middle ground. Turn down the arm security knob just enough to grab the arm and cause a forceful grab with the tonearm lock dial partially dialed down. Works great. The arm is snug and secure when not in use and I can slide it out from the partially locked position when I play music without a full lock.
The dials (anti skate / tracking force) seem to turn with ease. I think comparable to the SME V. Adjusting the cartridge is easier than with the SME because you can adjust azimuth in the fixed head shell and in the SME V, you cannot. I was dialed in the Wally’s setup protractor and cartridge aligned in about 15 minutes. My initial setup was spot on when I started measuring using the Wally tools. The cartridge was also straight. This is easy to see because the TRA9 headshell has slats where you can see down from on top plus you always can use the supplied tools or others. I used the supplied one. Of course, I will go back with a slower mind set and double check things. This was my initial impressions with the setup instructions that Transrotor provided.
I have included a few pics.
audiofeelings.at
