Korf TA-SF9R

Description

We first became aware of Austrian engineer Alexey Kornienkov a few years ago and were fascinated by his work. When you travel to hi-fi shows around the world every year, you tend to see a plethora of new tonearms & turntables. The great majority are what we call ‘me too products’, meaning that they are simply another version or interpretation of established designs that we are familiar with. A few new designs are innovative and exhibit new approaches or new technologies, however they are often very expensive and unproven. What caught our attention about Alexey was that he chose a very well-established design that has had much success in the past, but is now considered to be on the ‘vintage’ side of things and then re-imagined it using modern engineering principles and ‘thinking outside the box’ innovation. We met him at the Munich High End Show in 2022 where he explained his technical solutions and we knew we were in the presence of someone who will surely be one of the significant analog system designers of this generation.

The Korf TA-SF9R is based on the high-mass steel tube curved design favoured by the likes of Fidelity Research and Ikeda. The Korf design focused on three key design goals – strength, low resonances and quality of motion. The solutions implemented by Korf represent a complete re-thinking of this design. Rather than use a rolling bearing, the TA-SF9R uses a monolithic flexure pivot which eliminates bearing chatter completely and has absolutely no starting torque/stiction. It features a steel armtube with 0.5mm walls, widely spaced vertical hybrid ceramic bearings, clamping plinth mounts and magnetic antiskating among many new innovations. Quite frankly, the rigidity and quality of motion in this tonearm is unparalleled.

• Replaceable industry standard headshell
• Steel armtube
• Flexure pivot horizontal bearing
• Hybrid ceramic vertical bearings
• Drop-in replacement for a popular discontinued tonearm design

The result is a smooth, sophisticated yet dynamic sound that is immediately obvious for its transparency and quality. The Korf TA-SF9R tonearm is not only a modern incarnation of classic design – it’s a high performance bargain in modern terms. If you look at the measurement data in many of the critical performance areas, in order to obtain a tonearm that even approaches this level of performance, you need to make a significant financial investment in comparison to the Korf. This is a tonearm for those that appreciate elegant engineering design in the service of music. Release the flow and dynamics of your favourite record, a musical masterpiece.

Easy to Set Up and Use

Reviews

Schematics

Plinth cut-out for the Linn/JIS type mount. There’s a 28mm diameter hole and 3 mounting screws around it on a 38mm circle. The center of the main hole should be exactly 214mm from the spindle axis.

Plinth cut-out for the SME type mount allows for a lot more flexibility in placement. Most existing cut-outs can be used. If the longer axis of the oval cut-out points at the spindle, the SME type mount allows for +/-20mm adjustment in pivot to spindle distance.

Product Specifications