Phantom Supreme to 4Point-14?

I think lewm meant the sonic differences between the 9 or 10 Inch and the 12 Tri Planar would be impossible to predict. He is right about the LT. I am amazed by the design and think it is brilliant lateral thinking. The understand it the best thig to do is pull the patent which is online. 

I do not like VTA towers. It is totally unnecessary to be changing it all the time and I have never had trouble adjusting it in the standard way. It makes the back of the mounting point of the arm more complicated and less rigid. Set it to 93 degrees on a 150 gram record and forget it. I use a modified Wallyscope to do this but I think younger eyes should have no problem with a hand held magnifier. You get a blank file card and draw a sharp black 93 degree angle on it and place it behind the stylus on the record. You have to accommodate to the type of stylus and sometimes it is very hard to see the contact line which is why I use the microscope. Your ears can only ballpark it. 

The 4 point 14 is simply too heavy for it. The Japanese measure compliance at 100 Hz. We measure it at 10 Hz. Add 10 to the Japanese number and you will be close to the real compliance which for the MSLs is 20. Now do your math. Math is a poor way to calculate the real resonance point. Always measure it with a test record. I always push it down to 8 Hz and if it winds up at 7 Hz fine as long as your turntable tolerates it. This improves the bass. To prevent low frequency feedback you would have to add damping. Long arms have much more inertia which you have to add into the equation. It is harder for the cartridge to move it and stop it's movement. Tracking warps and eccentric records becomes much more of a problem. This is why I only use 9" arms. They track much better and put much less stress on the cartridge. The MSLs do perfectly in an arm like the Schroder CB, Reed 2G, SME V and 9" TRi Planar. If you want to spend a pile of money get the SAT arm. Frank Kuzma is not God and can not change the laws of nature. He probably does not use subwoofers. All he is doing is trying to justify the mass of the Safir, not an arm for me.  My next arm will be a Schroder LT. I'll have to get a turntable that can handle it first. Dohmann has yet to put a vacuum  platter on the Helix as he promised. 

@larryi The degree of SRA change with the platter running varies with stylus shape and compliance. The MSL drops 2 degrees running while the MC Diamond does not quite make it to 1 degree. I have not looked at the Lyra yet but it is probably close to the MSL. 93 degrees is an average. 

Kuzma’s rationale for the very high effective mass of the Safir essentially boils down to the notion that any high end modern TT will be sufficiently isolated from very low frequency disturbances, like footfalls, by its isolation mechanisms. Therefore the low resonant frequency that results from such a high effective mass is not a problem. IOW, violate the 8 to 12 Hz rule for resonance at your leisure. I’m not averse to his thesis. But I am averse to the cost of the Safir, based on my research into the cost of sapphire tubes like the one used in the Safir. You can buy one for less than $50.

@mijostyn , thanks, great stuff and much food for thought.

I hear you and lewm about VTA and I really want it to be so. Life would be so much easier setting and forgetting. But every time I try that method it only sounds good on the record weight I set it VTA at. My grand experiment not to change VTA yesterday lasted 10 minutes. I set the Graham at level on an apprx 160g LP, put on a 120g, and sat back with the committed intention of not changing VTA. I thought the sound was unacceptable, and in the ways I expected. I’d blame the Graham but I have 2 and a couple of Jelco Ortofons and an SME, all active on 3 turntables, and the same thing happens with all of them. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I have set up issues elsewhere that reveal themselves only when VTA is imprecisely set. Maybe I’m just a Pavlovian dupe of the VTA tower industry.

I have thought about returning to the Triplanar, which I owned for many years and ultimately found to be colored toward warmth. Perhaps the newish option for silver wire would eliminate this quibble.

@lewm , that’s interesting about the sapphire tube cost, and I agree about the arm’s price. Footfall resonance is not a concern. My SP10R weighs 135 lbs and sits on a Minus-K, and my floor is a concrete slab under glued-down wood flooring.

@wrm57 , Excellent. The MinusK is the best platform. 

It is impossible to know exactly what is going on with your turntable. I was never crazy about unipivot arms. What are you using to align the cartridge? 

I have good alignment tools, accumulated over the years: a Wally dedicated to Grahams, an older Wally Universal that I use for my 9-in Ortofon, a UNI-Pro that I like best for my 12-in Ortofon, a MintLP for my 12-in SME, and a smattering of others I don’t use. The Wally’s have always been my favorites. And I recently picked up a WallyVTA, which surprised me with how much better it made things.