Analog Gear News

Following 5 years of R&D Franc Kuzma today introduced his latest creation, the SAFIR 9 tonearm. The conical arm tube is fabricated from sapphire— "the first implementation of the precious stone" for this application.

According to the press release sapphire's overall rigidity and resistance to unwanted resonances are key natural properties of the material and according to Kuzma the arm "outperforms any arm tube used in any tonearm, remaining "resonant free" up to 5kHz, giving the cartridge, Kuzma avers, a true "ground".

Owing to the material's natural density the SAFIR 9 has "a considerably high effective mass." The bearing system is similar to the unique one used on the 4 Point arms: 4 sharp spikes resting against ruby cups, though Kuzma claims the ones here are a "further improvement" over the ones the 4 Point use.

The arm tube fits into a massive solid aluminum structure with brass blocks to provide an extremely inert and mechanically quiet support for the sapphire tube and the bearing spikes resulting in exceptional vibration dissipation.

Other features include a locking twin section brass counterweight and accurate azimuth adjustment in small accurate and easy to repeat increments with zero play. The tonearm fits easily into the "vast majority" of today's best turntables because it retains the "well-established" Kuzma arm base layout. VTA/SRA adjustment is via a very find treated screw within the arm base, producing accuracy and ease of repeated adjustment.

Internal wiring is a special Kondo silver alloy as a single, uninterrupted 1.5m long cable from headshell pins to high quality RCA plugs.

Kuzma will launch the SAFIR 9 at the High End 2022 exhibition in Munich May 19-22. There projected list price is 20,000 Euro. Here are the key specs:

Eff length:229mm (9")
P2S distance: 212mm
Offset angle: 23 degrees
Effective mass: 60 grams (compatible with phono cartridges of CU (compliance 25 or lower)
Overall mass (weight): 1250 grams

This is very exciting news!