The goal was and is always, with any review, to make the product under review sound as good as it possibly can within the context of the review system. Of course VTA was carefully adjusted. And while I'm at it, I understand there are some IDIOTIC rumors floating around (based on a reader's email) that the Graham Phantom did not contain damping fluid. Of course it did. Who could have made such a ludicrous assertion? The Graham, which I own, was taken from the Continuum's second armboard and installed on the Monaco. The VTA obviously had to be readjusted to take into account the difference in platter height (etc.). Also, according to this reader, some yentas are asserting that my relationship with the folks at Continuum affected the review. So let's see: I attended Harry Weisfeld's son's Bar Mitzvah, I attended the funeral of his other son (the one for whom the JMW Memorial arm was named) and consider Harry Weisfeld a closer friend than I do the guys from Continuum, but somehow, after reviewing the Simon Yorke S7, I sold my TNT and bought the Yorke, though I had never met Simon Yorke at that point in time. You know what? There are some real idiots in this hobby. So let me reiterate. I LISTENED TO THE MONACO AND WROTE WHAT I HEARD. That's what I do every time, all the time. I separate the products from the people. It's essential to do that. Unfortunately, there are too many reviewers who can't do that, so they end up writing frothy, chummy reviews of every product they get in. Never a bad word. Why bother reading such reviews when you can read professional advertising copy or a publicist's hand out?
