Hi arlequen

Ah, summer is coming and Italy is too beautiful to spend indoors listening to music. We understand

The Rega arms, in any of it's various forms, are just good arms

As for me, I added the Origin Live tonearm board to accommodate any Rega clone and lived with it and a variety of cartridges for 2+ months. I went from a Rega 250 with Incognito and Expressimo Heavyweight to a
Origin Live Illustrious Mk. III tonearm ($3K new here in US

). It sounded nice, with deep bass.....but there was always a
little stridency to the music, no matter the tonearm, set-up procedure or tonearm used.
I went back to my $100
JVC QL-F6 direct drive deck and
near perfect sounds again the past (approximately) 2 months. It's dang well near perfect with the Grado's due to it's internal oil-damping in both vertical and horizontal planes. Believe me, I wanted the Technics to best it as I spent nearly $2K for deck and arm. But, the $100.00 JVC (with elbow grease and maybe $200 in enhancements) beat it in my system.
At the risk of getting my l'il Greek butt flamed (it's mostly flame-retardant by now I think

), I have to say that the ultimate downfall of the Technics 1200 into 'top-tier' status deck is NOT the tonearm, as many surmise. It's the drive system, or construction/isolation...but it's
not the arm.
I never heard the standard OEM arm on it as it was busted from the get-go, but the OL Illustrious, in particular, is a top-notch arm and no reviewer has
ever mentioned any harshness in connection with it on a variety of good audiophool decks out there. It sounds swell on my VPI HW-19 Mk. III...but that deck has other issues (namely drowsy speed control)
So, the
Technics SL-1200 Mk. II is a fine $500 deck, and is worthy of the many KAB upgrades are worthwhile to improve aspects if it's performance but, there are
other decks both for more money and less (used) that will best it's performance, overall.
There ya' go - it's out now. May ye' take heed of my 'delicate' butt that deserves neither flaming
nor spanking for speaking my beliefs and observations

John