Тонармы — Scheu Analog SCHEU TACCO MKII 9"

The Tacco MKII 9-inch is a tonearm from Scheu Analog, a Solingen firm started in 1985 by Thomas Scheu, who trained as a toolmaker and played music, and managed by his wife Ulla after he died in December 2004. Unlike the folded aluminium Classic arm, the Tacco uses a wooden wand, and the MKII is currently offered only in the 9-inch length. Its European price is EUR 3,350.

Key specs that matter

Effective length is 238 mm and the pivot sits 222 mm from the spindle, for 16 mm of overhang. Effective mass ranges from 14 to 16 g, and the exact figure depends on which wood the wand is made from. The standard woods are thuja cedar and amboina pine, and Scheu will build the wand from other timbers on request. The bearing is a unipivot, and the counterweight and bearing housing form a single tungsten part. An older 12-inch Tacco, since dropped from the range, used a 293 mm mounting distance, 11 mm of overhang and 16 g of effective mass.

Engineering and use context

According to Scheu, the development kept the geometric parameters of its existing arms and concentrated on materials. The wand is conical and built as a compound of wood, aluminium and carbon fibre, a combination meant to shed stored energy quickly. Tungsten was picked for the bearing and counterweight unit because its high density lets all the moving mass sit in a compact space and damps resonance inside the bearing block. The pivot point is a ruby sphere mounted on the end of a hard metal rod, and it rests in a cup of white sapphire set into the bearing block. Scheu says this pairing keeps internal friction very low, while the well-defined contact area stops the pivot point from wandering during play.

Pairing

Scheu offers the Tacco 9-inch as a factory option on its Premier MKII turntable, whose arm base is made for either a 9-inch or a 12-inch arm. That deck uses an inverted platter bearing of 100Cr6 ball bearing steel hardened to 62 HRC, an electronically regulated DC motor in a separate housing, a nylon line belt and a 7.5 kg precision-turned acrylic platter. Scheu's own catalogue also lists the Cello, Diamond, Das Laufwerk 1 and Das Laufwerk 2 turntables and the Silver and Ruby 3 cartridges, so a full analogue front end can come from the same maker.

Alternatives

For a lower-cost Scheu unipivot, the Classic MKII 10-inch uses a folded aluminium U-section arm with 11 g of effective mass and a 245 mm effective length.