How To Rewire A Vintage SME 3009/3012 Tonearm

In this video, you can find a step-by-step tutorial about how to rewire a vintage SME tonearm; it applies to all SME 3009 and 3012 Series II improved and not.
You can find the rewiring kit shown in this video and other conversion kits for your SME tonearm here: www.thevinylsource.co.uk

[@lucybartley5063]

Great video, you have given me the confidence to attempt a rewire to my SME 3009, thank you.

[@TheAudioSanityChannel-ym7ij]

Have fun, vintage SME tonearms are very serviceable, and with a bit of dexterity you shouldn't have problem rewiring.

[@bristolfashion4421]

very useful video & explanation… I have series 3 and although many elements are different, key parts are similar - plastic pin plug and balsa damping - so I have learnt important lessons! many thanks 😊

[@michaelburke5750]

Why don't you use the old wires to draw the new drag line in?

[@TheAudioSanityChannel-ym7ij]

Thanks for your comment. The old wires are extremely thin, and after 50+ years, the copper is brittle because of oxidation. Sometimes, the copper is so compromised that it melts under the soldering iron A new solid draw wire is a safer option. Cheers

[@Mr.SharkTooth-zc8rm]

😎👍

[@modbod75]

Great video and 2 questions if I may please . The first is , I have the SME 3009 with detachable head-shell and how do you know which pin to put the correct colour wire to ? The second is , as this is now an old tonearm with such a small signal going through it would the wire deteriorate and would it benefit from having new /better quality cabling ? Many thanks Steve

[@TheAudioSanityChannel-ym7ij]

The SME wiring of the headshell connector is a standard for most of tonearms with detachable headshell, you can find some info here www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=59309 The quality of original wires of vintage SME tonearms is not great, and with time non-OFC copper oxide and the conductors begin to brittle, rewiring with modern OFC copper wires greatly improve the sound quality. Hope it helps Mark

[@modbod75]

Thank you for the prompt reply Mark, I think this will be my first step in upgrading my system. Although the soldering pest is what’s worrying me plus how to remove the detachable head shell socket from the tone arm .

[@TheAudioSanityChannel-ym7ij]

If you aren't confident with soldering you can use the service from The Vinyl Source (www.thevinylsource.co.uk)

[@derekclark7545]

That arm will now track worse in the vertical plain as the cable is too thick at the knife bearing. You can get right-angle RCA connector blocks for the cable connectors at the bottom of the can, these allow you to solder your wires to the back of the RCA connectors so that you can use RCA cables, use silver solder. the wire to use from the RCA connectors is Litz wire that you feed through to the head-shell, because the Litz wires are so thin they do not give any restriction to the arm's vertical movement improving vertical tracking and the detail retrieved from the vinyl. when carrying out this work use PTFE lubrication to lube the knife edge bearing as this also improves vertical tracking by making the initial movement nice and free due to less stiction, you only need a very small amount and I found the spray type to be the better version as its very thin lube. Get a test record use it and then do the mod, you will find vertical tracking is better when playing the test record after. the Litz wire is difficult to work with as it's so thin but this will also give you an improvement, it's a win win win.

[@TheAudioSanityChannel-ym7ij]

What can I say? If you go on eBay for The Vinyl Source you will find at the moment of writing 46 sold rewire services with this wires, and more than 100 kits and this is just a fraction of what we sold because circa 70% of the rewiring jobs come from our website and are not recorded on eBay. I think that our record says that we are right.