Phono cable for Graham Phantom

Jfrech,

Thanks very much for your analysis. I agree with you that once you reach the Purist and Stealth levels, there's not a lot of black and white between comparable cables even when the materials & designs are quite different.

I have liked the AA much better than the Venustas in my system. The Venustas were base shy, the top end seemed rolled off the midrange seemed a bit smeared. AA has better clarity and resolution top to bottom with good soundstage and imaging. Dominus Ferox is slower than AA and even a bit slower than VD Revelation 2. Dominus has more liquid midrange and sweeter highs than the VD Rev 2, but base is not as tight as VD Rev 2. Stealth Indra RCA did not do well on my Aesthentix IO phonostage, but the IO seems not to like RCA. Indra RCA is superb on my Ayre C-5xeMP, even though its not supposed to sound as good on RCA. Indra is fastest cable I have tried and has biggest soundstage and separation of instruments.

I just bought a used PP XLR so I can try it out against Dominus Ferox VD Rev 2. I'm hoping that it has at least as much resolution as both Dominus and Rev 2 with base, and soundstage more like Rev 2 and mid-range and highs more like Dominus. Hopefully, it will help me decide about phono cable too.

Will let you know how it compares in my system after I have compared them for a couple of weeks.

Thanks again,

Ed

I have tried the following with the Phantom 2 arm: Hovland MG2, Tricon, hyperphono and analysis crystal oval. There is inherent difference in sound between all these cables. By changing the input imped on the phono stage, I can make this cables sound closer to each other. I suspect if your phono stage has capacitance adjustments in addition to imped., you can minimize the cable differece even more.

In the end, I went with AP for a very balance and warm sound. It did not suffer any loss in resolution comparing with the rest.

I suggest you try the Crystal Cable Dreamline - your quest will come to an end