please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages the topic of this article may not meet wikipedia s notability guidelines for products and services . please help to establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond its mere trivial mention . if notability can not be established the article is likely to be merged redirected or deleted . find sources sme limited news newspapers books scholar jstor free images april 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . october 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message sme type limited company industry high end audio founded 1946 founder alastair robertson aikman headquarters steyning west sussex england products turntable tonearms and related equipment website http www.sme.ltd.uk sme is a brand name of an english company that produces high end tonearms and turntables whose name has become synonymous with the industry standard detachable headshell mount . contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 series ii 2.2 series iii 2.3 series v 3 gallery 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit sme was formed in 1946 under the title the scale model equipment company limited to manufacture scale models and detail parts for the model engineering trade . during the 1950s the company moved away from model making to precision engineering principally parts for aircraft instruments and business machines . in 1959 alastair robertson aikman the company s founder required a pick up arm for his own use and an experimental model was built . it received such an enthusiastic reception from friends in the sound industry that it was decided to produce it commercially and the first sme precision pick up arm appeared in september 1959 . production was 25 units per week composed entirely of individually machined components . at this time a new factory situated in mill road steyning was opened and the company s name was changed to sme limited a less committal title to suit its new activities . 1 products edit series ii edit the company is notable for its 3009 and 3012 9 and 12 respectively tone arms which were widely adopted for audiophile and broadcast use during the 1960s and 1970s at the higher end of the market . these arms featured a polished stainless steel main tube with a lightweight headshell knife edge horizontal bearings and an anti skating bias provided by a weight that hung by a nylon string . versions were produced with both fixed and interchangeable headshells ; the sme headshell mount became the de facto industry standard and is still widely used today on consumer and especially dj decks . audiophile arms today tend to not use the sme mount but this is not due to other standards replacing the sme but because audiophile arms now tend to not have interchangeable headshells at all in an effort to reduce mass and improve rigidity though at slight expense of user flexibility . some cartridges were produced that mounted directly into the sme headshell mount of the arm rather than into a headshell notably from ortofon . series iii edit the series iii was introduced in the late 1970s incorporating changes from the series ii models which continued in production covering both styling and its exceptionally thin and lightweight main tube the entire arm being interchangeable rather than just the headshell . although technically advanced the series iii never achieved the market dominance of the series ii . series v edit the series v arm was developed as a medium mass arm more suited to emerging moving coil cartridges with lower compliance than previously available moving magnet cartridges . the removable headshell was eliminated and the horizontal knife bearing was replaced with ball bearings both in order to provide a more rigid structure for the cartridge . in recent decades as with many of their competitors the company s products have tended to move further and further upmarket . recent products include the sme v tonearm and extremely expensive and consequently relatively rare decks . the company bucked their upmarket move with the m2 tonearm which sits at the bottom of their current range . gallery edit sme 3009 series ii tonearm on technics sl110 turntable sme v tonearm on a vpi tnt iii turntable see also edit list of phonograph manufacturers references edit company history external links edit sme homepage analog tube audio bronze upgrades for sme 3009 3012 tonearms retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title sme limited & oldid 699548929 categories audio equipment manufacturersphonograph manufacturerscompanies established in 1946hidden categories articles with topics of unclear notability from april 2010all articles with topics of unclear notabilityarticles needing additional references from october 2013all articles needing additional references navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages edit links this page was last modified on 13 january 2016 at 00 37 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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