Brinkman Balance Comparisons

Fremer's recent Stereophile review of the AC Raven just happens to include some comparisons to the three tables you mention.

Hi Steve, Andrew and gang!

Steve, what a thoughtful and complete description you gave. I always learn a bit more when we talk. I am also in the search for a new TT and tonearm (remember the Tri-Planer) and would love to ask you (Steve/Andrew) you thoughts about the Galibria line. I am interested in the Glavia and heard it at someone's home. However, you can never really tell how good the piece of equipment you are auditioning when the system you hear it on is totally new to you and your ears!!!
That said, Steve/Andrew....any comments about the Glavia? I believe it is quite good (Dan chime in) and with a good arm (Tri-Planer/Graham/Schroder) it will keep me happy for many years. The only problem is that the unit is produced in Colorado and the set-up would be done by someone associated with the table here in NYC. I am an "all thumbs" person and require assistance in with arm/table set up.
That said......I also was interested in the idle wheel TT but they are so difficult to find to listen to.

Anyway......any thoughts/comments?

P.S. Andrew I always love your topics !

RWD (Rick)

Hi Rick,

Thanks for your comments and it's too bad we never met at the Vaccum tube show last year. Anyway, I think the Triplanar is a good arm. I have been using it now for about 1 year and it is very easy to use and adjust parameters. Because of that, I have been able to appreciate the impact of fine tuning VTF, VTA and azimuth.

I don't have experience with other top arms, But peole in the know say the Triplanar is close to neutral.

The Graham Phantom is supposed to be very good and has the option to have multiple armwands for multiple cartridges.

If I were to buy a second or third arm it would be the Schroder DPS and the Ikeda IT-345. The latter having the ability to swap headshells. But ultimately, you need to make sure the cartridges and arms are compatible.

As far as the Galibier goes, I think it is one of the top TT's. Very well made and a good value which you would enjoy for a long time. I just don't have a lot of excperience with it. I'm planning to go to CES this year and I hope to listen to it and meet Thom in person.

Dan Ed has good experience with the Galibier. Also, I would not worry about having it set up by someone in the NYC area.

Andrew

Vetterone: would you include the Walker and the Continuum in your top five? DO you believe the Teres competes at that level?

I have compared the Brinkmann lagrange with the Sme and avid decks. The sme lacks pace - its very clean sounding but too polite and saps all the life out of rock music. The avid acutus has very good timing and pace but lacks vitality in the midband. I havent heard the raven but I have heard kuzma, yorke, amazon, pluto, origin live and may others and the BLG is way ahead. However the emt cartridge must be correctly loaded at 600 ohms and MUST have around 330 - 470 pf capacitive loading on top of the interconnects due to the emt design. Without this you have not heard what the BLG can do. +/- 50 ohms or +/- 30 pf is clearly audible - I have never ehard a cartridge so sensitive to loading.