ZYX Airy2-X-SB on Graham 2.2

I echo sirspeedy's comments on damping and the Graham. For me at least, it is a slow, time consuming process which is measured in weeks, not days. It takes time for the fluid to settle before the final result can be evaluated. Frustrating for sure, but worth the effort. Who ever first wrote about the critical nature of the damping fluid here on the 'Gon, I owe a debt of gratitude. It changed my perception of the Graham completely. It’s too bad it has taken all these years for this choice bit to get out and become public knowledge.

I ‘m now doing the fiddling part of this process with a Airy 3-X-SB (on a Graham 2.2) which now has enough hours on it to where the top end opened up about a week ago. On that happy event, I changed the loading from 500 ohms to 100 which seems about right. Right now it sounds pretty good and I have been able to tweak out the stridency that showed up when the top end opened up. However, I doubt I’m done with the fiddling.

As it is, the Airy just slaps my Ruby 2 silly. It has the natural instrumental timbre that I crave along with utter transparency across the entire frequency range – or at least as much as you get from Quads. Wow! It captures the sound of both the body and the string of violins, violas and cellos – a feat that fat bottomed girl named Ruby could never manage. The other thing that amazes is how quite the Airy rides in the groove – I can hear so much farther into the music in the soft passages that I ever could with the Ruby.

If you can’t tell, I am thoroughly enjoying the Airy and it has been keeping me up late – a good sign. If the top end continues to open and cause problems, I’ll report back. In the mean time, I’ll keep the platter spinning.

Scott

Scott,

That's very interesting and very good news about the Airy3 on your Graham. We did all the damping fluid, VTF and VTA tweaking possible in two days on Cello's Graham, but still couldn't tame the edginess. It was either too edgy or instantly overdamped. There was no middle ground, even with damping fluid changes of just a pinhead's worth.

I suspect the amazingly sludgy viscosity of that damping fluid just didn't allow it to settle in the time we had, as SirSpeedy suggested, even though we were as careful possible. It's too bad Graham doesn't provide more expicit instructions for the damping, or at least better emphasize how sensitive and important it is for best performance.

Please keep reporting on your progress. Your overall impressions of your Airy vs. your Benz is consistent with every comparison I've heard, excepting only Raul's somewhat colorful bad-mouthing of course.

Hi Doug: I never say that the ZYX are not good cartridges ( they are )y only say, till today ( I don't heard the UNIverse ), that there are not excellent ones yet. That's all.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Some would disagree. For instance, I know two Miyabi 47 owners who prefer the Airy 3. I haven't heard a Miyabi so no opinion of my own to offer. We need a cartridge swap meet!

Of course if the UNIverse is "excellent" then the Airys are only "good". They are certainly in different performance classes, whatever labels we put on them.

I wonder if the Airy 3 you heard was optimally set up? What arm(s) was it on? From my own experience, Cello's, and Jeff_ss's, it's clear that the Airy 3 is extremely demanding of setup. In some ways it's less forgiving than the UNIverse, even though the UNIverse is much more revealing.

I’ve been thinking about this damping issue. I using the high viscosity blue fluid. I forgot to mention that this stuff is also sensitive to changes in temperature. Maybe that’s not a big deal to some of you guys, but here in the Midwest living in an old house with no insulation in the walls, it is.

I was wondering if any of you guys have tried going back to the lighter weight clear fluid that came with pre 2.2 versions of the arm. I’m conjecturing here, but seems that while it would require more of that fluid to obtain optimum damping , it would also be less sensitive to changes in level. Any thoughts?