Kuzma was founded by Franc Kuzma in 1982 in what is now Slovenia. Like many of his contemporaries in high-end audio, it was his interest in music combined with a mechanical engineering education which, together with experience working on acoustic transducers, culminated in an interest in producing high quality playback from records.

The Audio Salon features several of his unique tonearm designs, including the new Safir 9, and two sizes of the 4POINT arm.

The heart of the Safir 9 tonearm is a very rigid and stiff, sapphire conical tube which allows the cartridge to perform to its maximum potential. The bearings are our own unique design of 4 spikes set in sapphire cups similar to those used in 4Point tonearms. All four points have minimal starting and moving friction and zero play in all directions thus ensuring that the headshell with the cartridge moves precisely and with minimal vibration across the record.

The sapphire tube is fitted into massive block of solid aluminium and brass, giving inert support and further disspating vibrations which occur during playback and bearing motions.The counterweight with lock mechanism balances the tonearm. Azimuth and VTA can be adjusted in small repeatable increments with zero play, by means of an Allen key.

The 4POINT tonearm has an effective length of 280mm (11-inch), a very precise VTA adjustment facility and fits our standard mount with a 212mm pivot-to-spindle distance. The heart of this new design is the unique 4-point bearing. Two points (which are similar to a uni-pivot bearing) allow and control vertical movements of the tonearm. The other set of two pointed bearings allow and control horizontal (lateral) movements of the tonearm. All four points of the bearing have minimal friction and zero-play in all planes of movement, thus ensuring that the cartridge platform and the cartridge itself follow the grooves of an LP with extremely low friction and minimal vibrations.

Using a small Allen key, one can completely remove the headshell from the arm tube while the arm wiring including cartridge pins remains uninterrupted in its single run. Our headshell is fixed with a hexagonal locking system which provides the same degree of rigidity as if the headhsell was permanently bonded to the arm tube.

The 4POINT tonearm with 14 inch ( 353 mm) effective length is designed to be fitted on a 12 inch ( 291mm) distance position on the turntable. All 4Point tonearms feature sapphire/ruby bearing cups instead of polished steel cups. This lowers friction and noise level in bearings thus improving performance.

“The standard 4POINT is a very, very good arm; in fact, it is the most consistent, musically convincing, and engaging arm I’ve ever used at home – until now…Is more necessarily better? I don’t think that’s a given, but once you hear the 4POINT 14, it’s awfully hard to go back.”

Roy Gregory, Hi-Fi+, Issue 134