Graham Phantom vs. Phantom II

R F Sayles

Avid make a specific armboard for the Naim ARO unipivot tonearm, so your comments about Mass not liking unipivots makes no sense.

He clearly does not like the Ghraham on his table. There could be two trains of thought about this.

- first is that Avid are UK company, so a lot easier and cheaper to use the excellent sounding UK made Naim ARO or SME V, whereas the Graham as it is imported would be quite a bit more money and supply not known.

- 2nd - The Avid is supposed to be a lively(bright in some language) sounding turntable and the Graham arms are not known for their warmth - so having the combo might indeed produce a lean not very enjoybale sound.
The Naim ARO and SME V are not so unforgiving.

As has been mentioned, there is no best of anything.

thoughts?

Sheesh,things haven't changed much since I've been out-:)

Nice Day

Let's go back to normal

Downunder, please read March 5th, 2007- by Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound review or maybe you have. I too questioned Conrad Mas about this very thing and like I said previously, he acknowledged that the Magneglide system seemed to play well on the table. The table is bought without an arm, so I would guess it has little bearing on what Mr. Mas prefers. Like you say, if it's not British there is the import issue. I do find the Avid to be lively, far from bright though and it also smokes my old loaded Lp12 (less a Keel) dynamically and the bottom end is better detailed through my OTL MA-1 Silvers. Presently I have a new SME V with a silver litz wire made and fitted ti the arm by Kondo-san. The SME is nice but a shade dark and I feel it doesn't fully reveal the Scan-Tech cartridge I'm currently running. The SME has a reputation that hasn't thoroughly left me impressed at this point. Having much history (7 years?) with a 2.2 and Lyra Helikon combo on a home engineered, rigid/mass loaded, belt drive table, I feel the Phantom II would be the next step for me. Funny thing, the Naim Aro on a full blown Lp12, for me left the impression that the Aro was more Like the 2.2 or even a 1.5 than a SME, Just my opinion. In the end, you may well be spot on yet, I think the promise of it working and interchangeable wands and all, is so tempting ...and if not, I will find a table to compliment the new arm.

Happy Listening!

Well,I owned(loved and miss dearly)a 2.0 and 2.2.

I also had the Phantom I and II,but for too short a time.

In any event these are all superb arms,and imo the Phantom is better than the "final" 2.2,but not as much as you'd think.

Just one man's opinion-:)