In the hospital last week and bored out of my mind (another story) and checking my email. I have several Ebay saved searches, and get daily email blasts from each. Up pops this classic Kenwood KD-500 synthetic granite table with an SME 309 arm (!) and a Shure V15xmr (!) cartridge. My first thought was "Doesn't go with, what a waste"!
Anyway, looked at the ad again, had one of these arms and the cartridge years ago, sold them both too cheap by today's values. The arm itself is still current and sells for $2200. by itself!! Some quick math and I determined his buy it now price was good for just the arm and cartridge. Reading his description, it appears as if this were a project that got set aside years ago and later finished. I could scavenge what I wanted from this and put the table on Dreggslist.
So buy it now I did, and it was on its way from North Carolina. Excellent communication from a nice guy named Paul with 100% positive feedback.Said he had only played 6-8 records on this.To look at it I believe him, the arm and cartridge are almost perfect!
He also mentioned he would be including whatever accessories he had laying around, I didn't give that too much extra thought.
A couple of delays because he wasn't happy with the way he packed it, but it showed up about a week later.Got a little freaked when I saw the stylus guard was up, but no casualties.
I opened the separately shipped box of accessories first:
Needless to say I was blown away! Every once in a while you meet somebody like this, and he was obviously getting out of analog (or maybe hifi in general). In the box was a:
Mint complete discwasher disckit, with the discwasher, SC-2 stylus cleaner, Zerostat static pistol complete with fluids and the solid walnut storage tray /dustcover.
An Audio Technica AT6002 "dust bug", opened, but never used,
A curious Maxell automated anti static device of which I had never seen, new, never used. At first I thought it must be vintage, but it is still available on Ebay and Amazon. Don't think I will be using it.
An Audio Technica three cartridge storage case
An Audio Technica record stabilizer (weight clamp).
A Decca record brush
StyLast stylus cleaner
A fancy machined LP Gear record level in its case with a nice cloth bag.
Another (partial) large bottle of Discwasher fluid
Manuals, boxes, all tools and accessories, and literature for the table, arm and cartridge.
I just kind of stared in awe at all this stuff, talk about surprised!
Anyway, proceeded to mount the arm and cartridge on my Sota Cosmos (this was actually the arm that came on it when I first bought it years ago).
HUGE difference over the Sumiko MMT that I had on there! I used the MMTs on both my Sotas for universality (if that is a word) to be able to pop all my cartridges in and out quickly. I still have one on my rosewood Star.
Every once in a while it goes your way. With the exception of the dustcover springs being worn out on the table (it doesn't stay open}, all is wonderful. I will put the table (a classic) on Dreggslist as soon as I clean it up. Trying to decide on whether to put an arm on it, I think enough people have SME type arms around that it will sell quicker cheaper, without an arm.
The Cosmos is now back to its full glory of when I first got it. Never should have sold this arm to begin with!
