As the designer of the Phantom, I was interested in Kepdent's posted concern (a possible tracking problem), and glad to find out that other users can confirm the Phantom was not the problem. That would ruin my day..!!
One of the most important doctrines in mechanical engineering, and especially for me, in my work is, like the doctor's creed: "First, do no harm!" No tonearm should mistrack, or cause any other ills, due to an inherent design flaw. I went to a lot of effort to ensure that the Phantom, like it's earlier brothers, would perform as well as I could make them at the time.
That being said, there are certain important setup issues to keep in mind: first, and well covered in this thread, is the importance of cartridge alignment. If that's wrong, then there will be problems.
Also, make sure the pivot of the Phantom is cented in the mating cup; this is generally automatic, but to be sure, swing the moving tracking magnet out of the way, then gently lift, slightly, the pivot assembly and allow it to center into the pivot bearing cup. Then carefully allow the swinging Magneglide magnet to return to it's tracking position.
Be sure, too, that the pivot point is not allowed to bang around, as when carrying the turntable somewhere. The pivot point is made of tungsten, a very hard material, like a diamond. But, like a diamond, it can be fractured if struck, so the motto is "don't strike it!" If the pivot were damaged like that, the pivoting would be compromised. This alamost never happens, and in normal use the pivot is virtually indestructable. Just be careful in use and it will perform exactly as designed.
I've spent the last 15 or 20 years on this, after leaving MIT (the university, not the cable company), and worked very hard to get the mechanics and physics correct. I am truly grateful for the following and support the tonearms have received. The Phantom (now the Phantom II) is the latest in this, being the culminiation of everything I've learned thus far. This includes not only my own ideas, but feedback from reviewers and customers alike. I've corresponded with some of you directly already, and it's always a pleasure.
And speaking of tracking, this might be a good time to touch on why, up to this point, we have not offered a 12" version of the arm. There is a lot of interest in the "front-page" aspect of 12" arms, mostly due to the longer length reducing tracing angle by a small amount. But that's not the whole story, not by a long-shot. The "back-page", not generally addressed, is that there is a serious down-side to the longer arms. (And the 12-inch arms initally came into being when 16-inch transcription records were used in radio stations, and a long arm was necessary. Those were the days of 7-gram tracking, no regard for inner-groove distortion, and so on.)
Briefly, the problems can be defined as having to do with an increased moment of inerita and a more strict requirement for spot-on cartridge alignment accuracy. No matter how light the armtube is, for example, the cartridge weight doesn't change, and at a length about 3-inches further out than on a 9-inch arm, the laws of moment of inertia will come home to roost with a vengence. The penalty for problems with this will open up the possiblity for increased wow over warps, a lowered resonant frequency, possibly to the point of mistracking, among other ills. (See Michal Fremer's discussion of this in the May 2009 issue of Stereophile) At best, there is a very, very slight improvement in tracing accuracy; at worst, you end up with far more problems that you've solved. We do offer a slightly longer armwand, called the "XL-10", but this is soley to accommodate turntables with record rings or other over-sized platters. If we ever did make a 12-inch wand to accommodate special requests, it would be with the proviso that it's not our first choice in design...
To close, rest assured that a properly setup Phantom will track ANY reasonable recoding with any reasonable cartridge, providing normal care is applied in setup and use. And, as new features are introduced, we always try to make it upgradable - preferably to make it easy for the user to do themselves. We want to keep you happy for the long term...!
- Bob Graham
