Graham Phantom vs Triplaner

Downunder, speak to Juki for the Ortofon arm, he sells them. I almost got mine there but ended up going with Jeffrey from Highwater Sound in NYC, (because I was buying my Raven from him). I did get the LH-8000 headshell for it from Juki though, (if you get one don't forget to get a headshell because they don't come with one).

A friend of mine has both a Phantom and a Vector arm on a table drilled for two arms. He has both a Titan i and a Transfiguration Orpheus cartridge. Both cartridges sound terrific on either arm. I would characterize the Phantom and the Vector as very well dampened arms -- the arms control and dampen vibrations imparted by the cartridge. This is quite evident by the fact that with either arm one hears very little "groove chatter" coming from the arm/cartridge combination. In this respect, the Vector is slightly quieter than the Phantom. Is this good? In theory, yes, but in practice it depends on one's taste and system interaction. In a slightly dead (or "polite") system, it may be an advantage for the arm/cartridge combination to resonate and "sing" a little. This can make the music sound more dynamic and alive. I've clearly heard this in this same system when a Linn/Naim Aro and Transfiguration Phoenix cartridge was auditioned.

As far as objective performance, with the Orpheus, both the Vector and Phantom tracked a Shure Obstacle course record with equal ability. But, in terms of tracking, both were clearly outperformed by an SME 309 using the same Orpheus cartridge. Still, in terms of real life performance, all of these arms performed well.

I have seen many topnotch vinyl systems built around a variety of arms/tables so I can't say any one combination is obviously superior. I've heard great systems with Vector arms (my own choice), Grahams, Triplanars, Shroeder, Naim, Clearaudio and Moerch.

Downunder, did you come into our room at T.H.E. Show? If so, what day (one day 2 and 3 we had the beryllium-dome field-coil drivers running)?

The turntable was an RPM 2.

Atmosphere

It was towards the end of the last day, almost when you were packing up. Tri gave me a copy of the Tri-planer manual to look thru, however stupid me somehow lost it before I could read the thing.

Downunder, We were back to the aluminum-dome compression drivers in the midrange on the last day- we were only able to use the beryllium-dome drivers for the 2nd and 3rd day. The aluminum-dome has audible breakups (making the sound a little 'peakier'); the beryllium dome has no break-ups at all (in effect warmer, smoother, more detailed).

I am referring to the midrange driver that ran the midrange horn of the speakers. It was powered by a field coil rather than the usual Alnico magnet structure. Just that change was significant!

At RMAF I'm told we will have all the drivers in the speaker s field-coil powered. It should be quite interesting. At this point it appears that field-coil drivers are one of the rising stars in the loudspeaker world, allowing a cone-type speaker to have the same speed and transparency that planar magnetics and ESLs have.