Argonne AR32 (Gray Research clone) tonearm
 

It's rare; but, sometimes, good deals turn up on ebay. Friday, I was looking at newly listed "buy it now" items under "record players." The first listing was a bunch of parts from a junked Lafayette turntable; but, what really caught my eye was the tonearm. Once I read the description and didn't see anything about the tonearm not being included, I jumped all over the $35 BIN price like a buzzard attacking roadkill.

The parts arrived today and the tonearm is branded "Argonne" model AR-32 (I think these were sold under many brands) and was made in Japan. This is the 12" version and it will be mounted to one of my broadcast turntables that needs a tonearm.

The Gray Research tonearms, and their clones, usually go for stupid amounts of money on ebay; so, I was happy to get this one at a price I could afford. Heck, it's getting so that the low end Shure M232 tonearms that you couldn't hardly give away a few years ago are now going for more money than they should.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...psa04qw5wk.jpg

The Argonne was a Lafayette brand name.
Some of the Lafayette products were surprisingly good. They were one of the first firms to import products from Japan.

That is an absolute beauty, and a great deal to boot. I would love to try that style of arm on my TD-124

Also, there is a very strong likelihood that this Gray Clone is in reality a Grace Laboratories Viscous Damped tonearm, which the Japanese think very highly of and the Europeans. Koetsu designed their MC cartridges with this tonearm in mind.