Tonearm musings

In the same place. I bought an OL Illustrious 3 to put on my Teres 340 as.a Temporary arm. That was 12 yrs ago. Like you, I believe I should upgrade. But every time I listen to it, I'm impressed.  Ive been looking for a used arm. But upper end arms are rare to come to the used market.. 

I had that Graham, it was my first arm. It was upgraded with the heavier weight pivot cap and I was using it with some Synergistic Research phono leads custom made for me by Ted Denney. Had this arm about a dozen years and it is a real nice arm but I came to realize all those connections can’t be good for as subtle a low level signal as a cartridge puts out. Still, Ted had made me a real nice set of wire and it took me a long time to risk upgrading to a better arm.

When I did, Origin Live Conqueror, it was night and day better. Not even close. One of the biggest upgrades I ever did, and I have had some good ones. This was I think a MkIII Conqueror, not even close to the current MkIV. I would think that now with the MkIV generation improvements you would not even need to go to Conqueror level to hear massive improvement. And I do mean massive.

Every single thing you can think of will be better. Imaging, dynamics, timbre, detail, width, depth, you name it. This was my experience and it explains why I now recommend anyone looking for an arm the most important thing to look for is hard wired integral phono leads. Do not even consider any arm that requires you buy an interconnect. Using interconnects both guarantees you spend more money, and adds noise and costs detail. Get any Origin Live arm you will hear what I mean.

And oh by the way I also have the same Herron phono stage. A very fine component. You will definitely hear every dollar’s worth of improvement from your new OL arm!

Personally if you like the current sound why not get a Graham Phantom Supreme - definitely an upgrade.
Alternately the best value for money arm on the market in my view is the Kuzma 4Point9 - reasonable price and superb performance.

With the oracle suspension in my experience you have to stay clear of any arms that are heavy, like Dynavector 507/Kuzma 4Point11 for example - it becomes difficult to balance the suspended chassis.