SME V, Tri-Planar or Phantom B-44

I've got to agree with Raul!The arm/cartridge combination will absolutely be critical.

I've known some to think it blasphemy to feel the Ikeda could be bettered...with the right cartridge choice.However those cartridges were far heavier than the ZYX.The Ikeda will work best with a bit more mass,and fans of the arm give it what "it" wants.

The Titan-I I know very well.Alot heavier than the superb UNI,but I've only heard the Titan on an Air Tangent,and VPI 12.6 arm....A fabulous cartridge in either arm!

The Phantom(I installed one for a friend,and have listened extensively to the "series one" Phantom)is,as mentioned best voiced with alot of experiment with the damping fluid,but not nearly as sensitive to this as the Graham 2.2 was.Both great arms...with the 2.2 a bargain on the used market,as I've mentioned before.

I owned two SME's,but only used them with Koetsus.I remember liking both arms,but the Triplanar that replaced the SME was superior,even though I did not have it perfectly set-up.

All superb arms,and all will benefit greatly with the perfect cartridge match.

Funny thing,a well known dealer and importer of high end tables mentioned to me he felt the Davinci was inferior to many arms,due to "lousey bearings"!His words!!

Based on conversations with him,I don't believe "that" statement for one minute!!

Best

Halcro,

I am not discarding the results. BUt I did obtain different results w. the same/similar arms. (Schroder has different versions) and the same cartridge (both ZYX & Lyra). I do not seek to discount his results. But the Schroder is a very difficult arm to set up & requires more than patience. Every parameter changes everything all over. Once you set VTA, VTF changes, setting damping changes VTF etc, etc. Surely not an arm for everyone but IME it does something special that other arms don't do. This includes the SME & Phantom.

Now please explain how 2 people w. similar items get different results? Honestly that is all due to setup.

I will also tell another story that includes your name.
I heard at a dealer a Halcro/Maxx II/VTL preamp w. transparent cabling & EMM CDP. I honestly was not impressed and felt that I could expect much more.

I then heard at a friends house a EMM/Maxx II/Halcro amp/ but forget what preamp in a dedicated room. The sound was some of the best sound I ever heard. This simply goes to show setup is critical in knowing our evaluations, and taking my word or anyones elses word on these forums as the grounds for deciding a purchase can be a mistake. Reviewers have had strongly divergent opinions.

Back to phono questions, I have been able to get 2 different arms w. 2 different cartridges and 2 different phono stages to sound almost exactly the same. Switch the phono stage and instantly everything unravelled and the differences were starteling.

Sirspeedy,

Hope all is well. In short you are right about the protracted time needed in the world of analogue. In the digital world I assume it is easier but speakers will be even more difficult to setup in a matter of minutes for an a/b comparison.

Since you expressed interest in the comparison, let me just state my Phantom is the last generation in terms of bearing etc. It does not have the additional markings on the azimuth but has the latest azimuth control. No titanium armwand either (but I wonder if it is better, as the Ceramic was much more difficult to manufacture but should be better damped). I am waiting for a few people to do a comparison between the old & new Phantom. More than one would be ideal as it would give a broader perspective.

I also wonder if some of what I heard/hear between the arms is more a matter of length (9 inch vs. 10.5 for the Schroder) than tonearm design. I wanted to try my Phantom w. the optional 9.5 inch armwand, but made the mistake to order the 9 inch.

Dgad,of course I(being the yenta that I am)LOVE this kind of posting,from you!In no way do I doubt your findings,and hope my comments are taken as just hobbyspeak.

The truth is,from my own experience(in my set ups over the years)as well as friends' systems.....there is such a huge chasm of differing performance parameters that we all MUST overcome(individually)that it's hard to make blanket statements.

I don't accuse you,or anyone of this,but "BOY"....I've been to friends' homes whose systems literally did an about-face in specific performance areas,when someting as supposedly insignificant as a "fuse" was changed for a better one....A slight azimuth change,a tube change,a cable change,a speaker placement change,sub roll off change,on and on!I went into withdrawal when a friend sold his Air Tangent arm,and originally got far lower performance from the unipivot replacement.Months later,the UNI got a much better set-up(from another hobbyist/friend),and BOOM.... "fabulosity"!!...Yet...

The truth is,even the "cute and popular" little stylus force pressure guage many of us now use(I do),which has become so popular,and is advertised by Acoustic Sounds as "The Accutech"(over priced "there" btw)is NOT accurate,from the latest info I've come across.

The VTF guage is inaccurate to about .05 gms,and though many folks do/should voice this by ear,there are those who simply set to a "desired" vtf,if it falls into some kind of sefety zone,and "is good enough sounding"!...There are alot of folks where "good enough" is the FINAL STOP!

What can I say?Even I have no clue(as of now)if my series two arm is any better than the series one,and in truth I don't care...Why?Because we get far too "into" the techno crap,and forget that ALL the answers to our sonic questions lie on the LP's!We talk far too little about the great software,and how to approach great LP's differently,other than throwing new toys at them.Do we "really" know how the best discs sound...at their "best"?Only one way to approch this,from my perspective.

If we know what they "should" sound like,we are way ahead of the game.....There exists a useful alternative to hobbyspeak by "us",as well as industry folks/reviewers opinions!You've really got to take these discs over to some very good/reliable outside set-ups,to learn how well we "do" these individualy....

Sometimes it gets ugly!I've done this like a zillion times.Often not being so pleased with what I thought was "good enough" in my own set up.Spent serious moola too.

If we know what truly accurately reproduced music sounds like on many of our reference discs(which comes into focus quite well,once you start to drag these LP's over to other set-ups...to learn something interesting,and I hope this makes sense),the better LP's will tell us everything we need to know,and this business(though I admit to loving it)of the newest comparison componentry/gadget revealing the "N'th degree" of "some" kind of parameter will be rather insignificant.

Just my 2 cents

Hi Speedy and Dgad and also Raul. Good to see you all back!
I agree with you Dgad about the differing experiences and sound which can be derived from identical components......just listen to the horrors at HiFi shows with expensive exotic equipment. All I was pointing out was that, if we accept this fact, how do we reconcile the descriptions and conclusions of any components review?
If the reviewer claims a component to be good in his testing yet we ourselves have heard it to sound poorly, what are we to think?
And yet in this case (and always with Raul), when a component is preferred over another by a consensus, there are those who claim "mismatch, poor set-up etc".
It seems to me that if poor sound can always be blamed on poor set-up or compatibility, what you are really saying is that there are no 'lesser' nor 'better' components?