Graham Phantom vs the Graham 2.2

You guys ALL make very good points.I'd love to have the kind of animated and passionate listening sessions with some of you,as I do with my current pals.However the points made here apply to virtually any Hi-FI component.Amps,Preamps,cabling,especially tubes(I have done my fair share of tube rolling).Who is to know all of the variables?Sometimes a really good product stands out on it's own(look at the Quad)and that was my point regarding the Air Tangent,so I don't think it has to be all that technical.Actually the only reason I keep harping,ad nauseum,on the AIR TANGENT(even though I probably never will own one) is that I've heard it like"a million times"on some of the finest and earliest pressings of some of the most sought after discs (some of which I never knew existed,and I've got a ton of them),and through considerable component,including arm, changes.I suspect the KUZMA is at least as good,and from the word on the street,as they say,maybe even better.The other 2 air bearings that are also considered in the top tier,though not sold individually,I believe,are the Rockport(that was criticized,in comparison to the KUZMA when Roy Gregory reviewed the KUZMA)and the defunct but supposedly very good FORSELL arm.I heard the forsell for a very short time so can't comment.The table looked flakey to me,but is supposed to be GREAT if you get to know it's idiosyncratic nature.I believe these are the best of the lot in linear trackers,and anyone willing to purchase one would be silly not to want to deal with the drawbacks of proper set up,even if it's Royal Pain.Time will tell and if we stay on the vinyl highway(I do have digital for the new stuff)than getting so obsessed with getting that last degree of analog performance won't seem so "nuts".I can think of worse things out there that people get carried away with.At least this is all harmless fun,and when you discover a really GREAT new piece of music on a totally new album,that also happens to be well recorded,you ALL know what I mean!

Just a small comment. I have heard a few people mention in private that certain tonearms and components are put out prior to the desine being fully complete. Raul is not alone in his commentary (I am not referring to any specific tonearm manufacturer). I myself have experienced this with CD Players as well where they supply updates, chips changes etc for the Cd player to work. Also in computers sometime you need to do a ROM update for it to function as promised. This is just a fact of life in so many designs. If we are willing to accept it, it is a personal decision. Sometimes we are forced to accept it without even knowing (a new item we assume works, but really needs to be updated in the factory to achieve full functionality).

As for sounds of different tonearms, I myself am very curious about many of the designs from an engineering aspect. The limitation lies in the cartridge tonearm commpatability, and the superiority of a pivoted tonearm in some areas over a linear tracking, a 12 inch tonearm over a 9 inch tonearm, and a 9 inch tonearm over 10.5 inch and any variation of the above. Sound is personal taste and consensus, and synergy and truth.

I hope someone can post some commentary from their comparisons between tonearms specifying cartridges. We should be smart enough to know that this is based on an individuals system and how well it is set up. I am very exceited behind the engineering of the Phantom. I have heard some people say that they had some problems with the design once they received the tonearm in terms of calibrations of tracking force etc. But I am also understand the Phantom has an entirely new perspective on the tracking force at the record plane. We are lucky to have so many choices in equipment.

Lets all enjoy this hobby

Dgad,

Nice summary, and nice sentiment too.

Doug, everything in this world is a trade-off. One of the heavy advantages of this tonearm is that you can change different effective mass arm wands, I can't imagine ( I would like ) how to do this with out breaks in the wire.

Isn't that pretty easy? Look at the Basis Vector. It already has a detachable armwand. It already has an unbroken run of wire. Just imagine a choice of different armwands and voila!, mission accomplished. VPI could easily do the same with the JMW's. Moerch could bring their wire out of the wand near the attachment disc, loop it down to a stabilized point on the base (like TriPlanar) and then out as a shielded cable - all with no breaks. This is not a difficult problem to solve. It just needs an arm designer willing to do it. (In Moerch's case an exposed loop of wire might have been considered visually objectionable. Another personal choice.)

I'm not saying that I'm against " changes ", no I'm not. I dislike the unfinished products because I feel that this unfinished design it can't give me the 100% of performance till it will be up-dated again. That's all

Totally agree. Budget considerations aside, I'm sure none of us would knowingly buy an incomplete or inferior design.

You mentioned the TriPlanar as one example of an "unfinished" design. Which aspects of it do (did) you regard as such? Like any arm it has its quirks, but these are all easy for the user to handle. From a practical standpoint, anyone considering a Mk VII really doesn't care about any possible weaknesses of the Mk II or Mk IV. All that matters is what arm s/he's going to get today.

Cheers,
Doug

Hi Sirspeedy: ***** "even though I probably never will own one. " ******

If you don't buy the Phantom, maybe you can get the Airtangent. Good luck on it.

BTW, I agree with you about **** " don't think it has to be all that technical .." *****. With tonearms happen things that are very controversial and very dificult to understand, I explain this with an example in my own system:

somebody ask in this forum about the Lustre GST-801 tonearm and I think that Twl give an answer about telling that this is a good ( not exellent ) tonearm ( I can't remember exactly what Twl told ) and I post that this tonearm is a top performer.
I own two of this 801 tonearm but for months or maybe years they were in their boxes ( I only can mount 10 tonearms at the same time ). This Lustre tonearm is the cheapest, by a wide margin, of all tonearms that I have.
That question about the Lustre remember me that I have it and two weeks ago I take one of them and mount in my system, I have everything for do the right job on mounting but I can't find anywhere its effective mass for trying to mate with the right cartridge. So, I mate with my Dynavector XV-1 ( I already try this cartridge with five differents tonearms, including a Dynavector one, and always had a very good performance. The best match was with one of my SAEC tonearms. ) and big surprise the XV-1 never sound so great that with the Lustre GST-801. Why?, it is very dificult to say because the others 5 tonearms are all of them not only more expensive but exellent tonearms and mates very well about their resonance frecuency. Right now I'm mounting my second Lustre and I will try with my Allaerts MC2 Finish cartridge.

The Lustre GST-801 is unique in some design parameters, example: it is a dinamically balanced type but the VTF is apply through a magnetic mecanism ( no moving parts ), it is a J shaped type and the antiskating is a magnetic mecanism too. The build material is steel ( with internal non-oil dampening ) and Doug will be in love with its VTA mecanism and it is silver wired internally.

This tonearm has more than 25 years of design ( never changed and Doug : Koshin Electric, the company that build this tonearm, stay in the market for more than 10 years. ) and in its best time the price was only 500.00 dls and I buy it for 400.00 dls and outperforms today tonearms that have 10 times higher prices ( and I don't change, yet, the " very old " silver internal wiring. ).

Many things in the analog sound reproduction don't have technical explanation, at least for me that I'm not a technical expert.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Doug: **** " From a practical standpoint, anyone considering a Mk VII really doesn't care about any possible weaknesses of the Mk II or Mk IV. All that matters is what arm s/he's going to get today. " ****

I totally agree with you.

Regards and enjoy the music.

Raul.