Graham Phantom II VS Vector 4 Tonearm

I have set up both on the same table a Basis Debut Vacuum. As I type, I'm staring at a Debut vacuum right now with a Vector arm on it sitting in my listening room. I also have a close friend with the same cartridge and phonostage I use that has a Phantom Arm on a Basis Debut table. The two arms, once mastered, are really good however different in approach and execution.

These are two of about 5 tonearms that I consider to be very well executed functional designs that I’ve observed in action that were setup correctly.

Given that you already own the Phantom II; my question would be the following. What are you not content with and what are you looking for that you may feel the Vector IV can offer?

Dre_i,

Started with a Phantom I , upgraded to the II. Very nice improvement. With my system NOT powered up, did a needle drop on a spun up record . You can hear the music and vocals coming from the tone arm over two feet away! A musical tonearm that sings. So... on goes the Vector IV to my new arm board . News at 11:00

Jebsmith73,

I can understand your comment. Besides hearing the cartridge acoustically sing, do you have any issue when listening to music? Is the music lacking in some way?

Just an FYI: Some cartridges sing in the groove by design no matter what tonearm they are in. I say this as evidence of groove singing may not be an indication of degraded performance in a particular tonearm.

The XV-1s is a very well behaved cartridge in terms of transferring energy to the Tonearm. I'm surprised you could hear music so far away in that arm. Did you have damping fluid in the Phantom?

I hope this adjustment is more to your liking. The Vector IV is a very quiet arm. It's not good for adding flavor. So, you will mostly get of the character of the cartridge with little added by the tonearm. Some people don’t like this because it takes away some tuneability/character adjustability. It may take you some time to master the arm in terms of getting the most out of it but you should be happy from the first moment you install it given proper setup.

Pay close attention to setup. One more note: the XV-1S should not be riding tail down in this arm.

Congratulations on adding another tonearm to the fine one you have already.

Dre

I listen to all kinds of music, I will find out more when the Vector 4 is up and running. Just heard the Vector 4 is a much better match for the Debut. Yes, we played with the different levels of damping fluid in the Graham. A little goes a long way , too much and it kills the magic of the tonearm. We played with the VTA on the fly while playing a few recordings. Yes, VTA ended up a bit high in the rear for the best overall sound. Are you using the made up IC that came with your Vector 4? or added your own Phono cable?

The Vector IV only comes with the single terminated run of cable from cartridge clip to phonostage plug. There is no opportunity to "tune" the phono cartridge-to-phonostage interface with other cables. You have to look elsewhere in the system to make adjustments if that is your desire.

Personally I prefer this approach if the cables used are of high quality. I can think of a couple really good arms (Davinci, Talea, Shroeder) that do the same and sound excellent as well.

Dre