Naim's ARO tonearm hit the hi-fi world like a bolt from the blue. David Price reminds us all why analogue rules, okay?

It is 1988 and the best tonearm in the world is the Linn Ekos, if you believe one half of Britainís hi-fi press, that is. If you don't, it's the SME Series V. Either way, both arms are ostensibly very eighties - the SME is a technological tour de force with a super-analytical sound, while the Linn has the big, bouncy, powerful character of its Ittok precursor, only more so.
 
Either way, back in the days of Maggie Thatcher there seemed little room in the world for a pickup arm with the far more nineteen seventies qualities of gentle, beguiling musicality and woolly frequency extremes.

With this in mind, it is to Naim Audio's eternal credit that they launched the ARO when they did. Even more so if you remember how at the time every major UK manufacturer was falling over itself to launch its first silver disc spinner.

STYLISH
Everything about the ARO was so damned stylish. From its deliciously defiant name (Analogue Rules Okay!), which raised two fingers to the format everyone feared would soon kill vinyl, to its stark engineering minimalism. 

Here was a pickup designed to work with only a handful of cartridges. Even better was the three point fixing, drilled expressly for Linn's Troika MC, from the very company who made the ARO's closest rival!
 
Best of all was the fact that Naim's new baby was a unipivot. At the time, this arrangement was about as fashionable as an orange Austin Allegro with furry dice. The term conjured up memories of old blokes tinkering with ancient Thorens 150s, trying to get their V15s to track Perry Como records. In the thrusting world of Bros and Curiosity Killed the Cat, this was hardly street cred! 
 
Indeed Naim had previously argued that unipivots 'could never work', but on launching the ARO said they'd finally 'found a way to make one properly'. It certainly raised some eyebrows.
 
Making unipivots 'properly' meant very high construction quality, with a beautifully finished arm tube and light alloy headshell, top class jewelled unipivot bearing and high precision counterweight. To the delight of manual cuers there wasn't an oil damped lift/lower device to be seen, with bias applied by an old style thread and weight. 

TRACKING ALIGNMENT
Then of course there was the absence of lateral tracking alignment slots in the headshell - with just three Troika shaped holes taking their place - and zilch in the way of calibrated tracking force adjustment. 

All this doubtless caused SME Series V fans to argue how crude the ARO was, but anyone who's ever experimented with tonearms will know how dramatically cueing devices, wobbly headshell mountings and bias and tracking force springs can degrade the sound!
 
Whereas the SME has cosmic frequency extremes and the Linn Ekos fantastic bravado, the ARO shines in its wonderfully fluid rhythmic abilities. Put simply, it's supremely good at conveying 'micro dynamics' - the tiny nuances of inflection and rhythmic accents of a musical performance. 

This makes for an almost hypnotically engaging listen that just draws you into the music on an extremely emotional level. Funnily enough, this talent seems to work equally well on whatever music you care to play - from The Cranberries to Kraftwerk, it's always a compelling listen.
 
Although designed expressly for the Sondek, the ARO actually works in a number of modern decks, including Michells for which mounting plates can be made to order. It also aligns with a number of modern cartridges (including, for example, various Ortofons and Regas) - check with your cartridge supplier for mounting geometry data.

Properly set up in a decent deck the ARO is still something special, and second only to very few in the foot tapping department. Thanks to its excellent build it's a durable piece of kit and a fine second-hand buy for around £500 - if you can find one. Unsurprisingly, most Naim ARO owners simply never feel the need to upgrade!