Kuzma Safir 9. A Leap in Tonearm Design. Confirmed.

What is the cost of perfection? Apparently there is one and it isn't cheap. But if you have the funds for a Safir 9, then all the reviews and your ears will reward you. -- True Audiophile product comment.

The Absolute Sound raves 

Conclusion

"Had I not spent the previous eight or so years owning and using as a reference the remarkable and costly SAT CF1-09, I’d declare the Kuzma Safir 9 the most accomplished and best-performing tonearm I’ve yet heard. I have no way to compare the two due to armboard logistics, but I can write with complete confidence that at less than half the price of the SAT the Safir 9 offers more than credible competition, though it might fall slightly short on bass “wallop” (the genuine, not resonance-produced kind). It shares with the SAT an elegant design simplicity, ease of setup and use, build-quality, and of course an ability to sort out, organize, and present with relaxed, confident authority whatever the cartridge pulls from the record grooves."

Read full Review here 

HiFi+ Review 

Taking it slow

That last might explain the need to go slow at first. Listening to tracks you have heard time and again (even ones you heard and stored in the collection) is often easy if the changes are small, but when they are as profound as the changes brought about by the SAFIR 9, the learning curve

is as steep as it is well-worth climbing. In truth, I’m at a bit of a loss to describe these changes, as they are profound and wholesale; it’s a bit like record playing just got a whole lot closer to the studio, but without the clichés that implies.

Everything is just more ‘right’ than it has been before. I played mostly jazz and rock because most of my LPs are in those genres, but listening deeper to any kind of music, the same powerful new truth applied. This is resetting what is possible in high-performance vinyl and that’s a heady wine!

I’m not sure where to go after hearing the Kuzma SAFIR 9. It sort of destroys all you think you know about turntables and turntable hierachy. Granted, the high-mass turntable and an immovable object of an equipment stand are mandatory requirements for this tonearm, and those conditions alone will prove a turn-off for many high-enders. But if those conditions are in your vinyl purview, there is nothing that comes close.

And given the current view of the turntable world (14” arm beats 9” arm, air bearing beats gimballed tonearm), the SAFIR 9 is disruptive technology of the highest order. But all of that pales into insignificance when you sit down and just listen. That’s when you realize this really is the best arm ever. 

After five-years of concerted research and development, an effort that has refined our existing designs and practices as well as introducing entirely new and unique materials, the revolutionary SAFIR 9 tonearm is finally ready for launch. A significant step forward in performance, tour new flagship tonearm will be shown for the first time at the Munich High-End Show in May 2022. The Safir 9’s most obvious feature and the heart of the design is its conical sapphire arm tube. This provides the cartridge with unprecedented stability, delivering optimum electro mechanical performance from the generator. Extremely rigid, this tube is stiffer and offers a higher resonant frequency than any arm tube ever previously used. It's first break-up mode occurs at over 5KHz, providing the cartridge motor with a true mechanical ground. Due to the use of a sapphire tube, this is a high effective mass tonearm! The bearings are a further development of our own, proprietary 4Point design, the four contact spikes being located in sapphire/ruby receptacles. These ensure rigid, friction-free coupling of the tonearm to its mount, allowing the headshell to move, freely and precisely on the optimum path across the record. The sapphire tube and bearings are fitted into massive solid aluminium and brass blocks, whose inert support helps dissipate the mechanical vibration generated during playback. The double brass counterweight (with locking mechanism) allows extremely precise application of VTF, while azimuth can also be precision adjusted in small, repeatable increments with zero play. The use of the sapphire armtube makes this an high effective mass tonearm, suitable for low compliance cartridges only. The tonearm is mounted to the turntable's arm board using the Kuzma arm base. Arm height is adjusted with a fine VTA screw which controls the height of the tonearm's pillar in the arm base, allowing allows precise and repeatable adjustments whenever required. The internal wiring uses special silver alloy wires that run, unbroken from the cartridge pins via a 1.5 m long tonearm cable to the silver RCA connectors. SAFIR 9 reveals the ultimate potential of your cartridge, revealing musical detail, nuance and expression previously hidden in your record's grooves. Move up to the SAFIR 9 and you suddenly discover not just a whole new record collection, but that the music and musicians you've always loved are even better than you realized!

 [[[specification_start]]]

Technical data:

Effective length: 229 mm (9 inch)

Mounting distance: 212 mm

Offset angle: 23 deg

Effective mass: 60 g! (Suitable for cartridges with CU below 25)

VTA adjustment: yes

Azimuth adjustment: yes

Bias adjustment: yes

Cables: silver (Kondo) Arm mount: Kuzma arm base 212 mm

Mass: 1250 g

[[[specification_end]]]