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Graham Phantom Anti-Skate. Is it effective at all?

I've had my Phantom Supreme over a year now, and for the most part it's been a pleasure. Beautiful build & sound; awesome VTA and azimuth adjustments. My main hangup had been the headshell; getting a Koetsu to sit flat on the 10" wand seemed impossible because the correct overhang pushed it all the way to the back, behind the main headshell points of contact. Finally I just used 2 plastic washers as shims to get a nice flat mount.

Now my main concern is the anti-skate. I'm not sure if all Phantoms are this way or if it's an issue with my unit. I can't seem to get an effective amount of anti-skate. My preferred method for adjusting anti-skate is to drop the needle in some dead-wax before the label (NOT into a lead-out groove) and adjust so that the stylus creeps *slowly* inwards. With my Graham, I cannot achieve that...it always moves quickly inwards no matter how far out I set the weight. Even physically pushing down on the weight doesn't seem to have much effect in swinging the arm. To me, this seems like the mechanism is not effective, as if I'm running without any compensation. This is very unlike my experiences with a Fidelity Research FR64fx (weight and fishing line) and Clearaudio Magnify (magnetic) -- both have a very noticeably effective anti-skate mechanism, which I can easily dial-in as described above. In fact I just setup a Magnify...it was great!

On my Graham, the pulley & rope system seems to be correctly in place. But without a 2nd until to examine, I can't determine whether this is normal. Could other owners/users of Graham please comment on their experiences with its anti-skate? The situation is OK for now -- I burn hours on my good cartridges very slowly and sparingly -- but I'd rather not have my nice cartridge seeing asymmetric wear over the long-run.

-- Mike
128x128mulveling
syntax's avatar
syntax
2,193 posts
 
It. ist effective and works. Never had such a Problem and I had every Graham Arm Model ...
mulveling's avatar
mulveling OP
1,907 posts
 
Ok, well there is probably some user error here on my part. I gave it another go and was able to get "close" to the desired anti-skate compensation by having the counterweight dangling at the end of the stick (max amount). This is with a Koetsu tracking at 1.95 grams -- the manual states that the anti-skate range will support up to 3g (or more) of VTF. That's not what I'm seeing, but then the stock VTF counterweight should also be good for up to 13g cartridges, and that's also not what I've observed, unless my Koetsus are heavier than their reported 13g (and it's not close enough for mounting hardware to cause the discrepancy) -- I had to get the extra counterweight. As with that, perhaps I need a heavier anti-skate weight. Maybe the 10" wand is causing the discrepancies here? I know Graham recommends the 9", but I got the 10" due to reports of clearance issues with the 9" used in conjunction with a ring clamp. But now I want to try a 9" wand and see if that's a better compromise, overall.
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mulveling's avatar
mulveling OP
1,907 posts
 
Hi Benjie,
I've definitely set the correct pivot-to-spindle distance on my Clearaudio
(adjustable arm pod) for the 10" wand. This is made foolproof by the Graham,
with the spindle attachment and headshell cutout hole. I've also adjusted for
the correct overhang via the Graham headshell jig (each provided jig is
specific to a wand length, and I verified that mine has a "10" printed on it),
and that too is foolproof -- however I was surprised that this results in a
Koetsu sitting as far back in the shell as possible. These distances have been
re-checked multiple times. I'm just surprised to have to adjust a couple of
parameters to the limit, and figured this was a quirk of the 10" wand when
combined with a Koetsu. I assume that a Phantom with 12" wand would ship
with a bigger (or the extra) VTF counterweight, but not the 10" which my arm
was indeed shipped with -- this was not a used market mix-and-match job.

I know the anti-skate is a hot topic of debate, and that it's all an
approximation over the surface of a record. I prefer to err on the side of a
little too little. I just don't want the needle smashed up against the inner
groove wall (i.e. no compensation); I know whole-record perfection with a
pivoted arm is not attainable. The method I described was recommended in a
post by SoundSmith.
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