Brian, (Essentialaudio) the foundation will be the STABI XL TURNTABLE for the Kuzma Airline arm. Plan right now is test with Koetsu Jade Platinum Signature that is supposed to arrive Wednesday (this week).
I don't think the table and arm are shipped yet, so we will have time to run the Jade in the Walker and get some break in.
Cello, perhaps my comparison of bass performance between the Phantom and the Air Tangent led you to the conclusion that I had tried the Phantom against the Graham. I have not.
Sirspeedy, no offence taken and I hope you don't think I am attacking your friends system either. My comments are an honest appraisal of my experience with the AirTanget 10B, obtained by a high end manufacturer, directly from the factory in Sweden.
I spent at least two months with it, working every trick I knew. Understand too, I came from owning a Versa Dynamics and several other linear track arms, so the Air Tangent was not unfamiliar to me in concept, design or complexity of set up.
The fact it did not work for me and did for your friend could be for a dozen reasons. Different arm wands were used during different periods of manufacture of the Air Tangent and there were at least three air control boxes (mine had the push-pull knob and dial), and of course the cartridge must be a good match for the arm.
For all these reasons your friend could have had a completely different model with different air control box and pump and had a cartridge that matched that rig perfectly. However for me to ignore (and not discuss) my experiences with this arm is just as wrong as your not defending your friends good experience with it.
People can read both reports and approach the possibility of ownership with a good solid audition and see if their experience is like either of us report or something completely different.
Forums are just a place to share experience, does not remove the need to test.