I am happily using a SPU Silver Meister cart at the mo', I liked the characteristics of the 12" arm I made and still liked some of the characteristics of the 9" PL-71 arm (an Acos customer arm that punches well above it weight IMHO). Anyway RD of NVA fame asked me to build a 12" wand onto a PL-71 arm base. I did this one as a prototype on my arm base to check out the fitting etc. I have found it combines the emotion and immediacy of the PL-71 9" but the smoother, detailed bass and cymbals of the 12" - interesting trick that! On other 12 arms I found some loose some emotion = too calm and have played around to find the current best effort. Others I've listened to include the seemingly mighty SMEv12 (nice but light for a SPU Royal N). Here's a couple of pics of the arm in action. Uses the original counter weight and one that 1.5 times heavier to balance - Next step is to make a one piece CW in Tungsten copper - denser than brass or SS... Pics of 'long PL-71' [URL=http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2363382180071997495wRtXXU][IMG]http://inlinethumb35.webshots.com/44386/2363382180071997495S600x600Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2475791150071997495aGeMNQ][IMG]http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/46271/2475791150071997495S600x600Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2863098990071997495XSVFCn][IMG]http://inlinethumb35.webshots.com/13986/2863098990071997495S600x600Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] This one is going to be a keeper until I find a FR-64s or move on to other carts:)