Graham Phantom Supreme?

Thanks for your feedback guys...

Dave, thanks in particular for the detailed analysis. My mkII is quite recent so the upgrade should be straightforward.
The comparative newness of the arm is a barrier to getting an immediate fix. I'm thinking of acquiring more familiarity with it before jumping onto the upgrade bandwagon again. If Bob comes up with the next generation of mods in 6-12 months I could get both the "Supreme" and the "Supreme+1" updates and be ahead of the game! :o)

Egrady....I agree, $600 is very reasonable and given the cost of the new model it's hard to see where Bob is making any kind of margin. The Phantom I update looks even better value...

... Having said this....any experiments you care to conduct will of course be viewed with great interest!

Anyone who appreciates the Phantom as much as you do is a friend of mine :)

Dear Dertonarm,
I recall the issue of "extra" connectors in the Phantom's cable loom was first brought to my attention in a review of an Origin Live tonearm which contrasted with it's continuous loom.

My old Ittok LVII consisted of the standard 3cm short links from cart to armtube (2 connectors), 1x DIN connector at the pillar base, and finally, RCAs - a total of 4 connection breaks?
The Phantom II that replaced it consists of 1x set of cartridge tags, armtube DIN, arm pillar DIN and RCAs - a total of 4 connection breaks i.e. the same.
Your assertion that the Phantom has "2 additional connectors" surely only refers to tonearms which use a continuous cable loom ( = a total of 2 connection breaks - hardly representing the majority of tonearms on the market.

The fact is that the short cartridge links are a good way for novice cartridge installers to "cut their teeth" on the process. I'm sure that you, like myself, will have "graunched" a stubborn cartridge wire on at least one occasion with long-nosed pliers, causing that link to be rendered useless and requiring either repair or replacement?
Having a spare set of these wire links handy means that the install is back on course within seconds. Continuous cable looms are possibly rightly viewed by some as being sent by the Devil. Once broken the repair is somewhat more involved....
(Naturally I am much more careful with the Graham because it does not use such links and would mean having a spare armwand in reserve :o)

Getting back to practical matters again : my Phantom loom consists of approx 0.35m internal wiring followed by 0.5m of regular coaxial. (Fortunately the phantom's DIN connector affords me the choice! :o)
I would be most surprised if someone else's "0.35m + 1m" or "+1.1m" of external loom would offer less resistance than this?

Kind regards...........M.

Dear Dertonarm,
You are referring to the number of connectors....I was referring to the number of contact points or possible "signal breaks". 2 connectors does not necessarily = 2 signal breaks, more likely one solitary break?

To help clarify this I will refer you to the words of the maestro himself :

"...While it's true that poor connectors are to be avoided, it's also true that a high quality connector will have a minimal effect on things, and will be much better, in fact, than a straight-through design that has inferior wire. Or, worse, an inferior tonearm design. These fellows seem to be basing their entire idea on connector counts, whereas they SHOULD be looking at the total design picture.

In having the removable armwand, we have one more connector break than on the average arm with removable cable facilities. And that connector has phosphor bronze contacts, gold plated, and it's VERY transparent. More than that, it also provides for ease and accuracy of cartridge setups and multiple arm options.

The proof is in the listening and I believe the Phantom II Supreme can be confidently compared to ANY tonearm at any price...
Best wishes,
- Bob Graham"

Call me old fashioned but whenever tightening headshell screws on "fixed head" designs, I would always remove the arm from the T/t first to preserve the bearings. Messing around with a single piece cable loom while doing this would drive me bananas. DIN connector convenience wins the day for me every time.

I had the opportunity to acquire a single-loom specimen of an equally priced competitors gimballed arm but rejected it. I'm not unhappy that I did and pleased with my choice.

Egrady, being honest, I seriously doubt that any cartridge generator is dead-on accurate in terms of forward or lateral mounting tolerance. I often hear people (usually reviewers) saying e.g. ""every sample of Cartridge X always requires a 91 degree front face SRA setting to extract the best from it.

I'd find it hard to believe people were comfortable with generalised assumptions like this.

If I were a cartridge designer I'd be aiming for 0/90 degree orientation of the cart as a setup requirement simply because that is the the easiest setting to achieve and maintain at different VTA settings.
(There are plenty of tools which will indicate an orthogonal arm position but few that are aimed at producing an angle of decline geared to a specific cart type and arm length :)

On the basis that some designers deliberately aim for non-orthogonal mounting angles I'm glad I'm not :) :)

I must have been lucky....
In contrast to your experience (Egrady) everything happened strictly "by the numbers" for me.
I found that once the arm was levelled for VTF, the ideal mid-range setting of force for the Lyra Delos was perfect.
Whenever I change the VTA to suit a given weight of disc, I optimise for the best sound then find that, coincidentally, the bubble ends up bang in the centre. Nice when that happens.
My previous cart was the Music Maker III whose instructions specified that the cart face should be strictly perpendicular to the disc surface for best VTA. The arm I was using at the time, a Linn Ittok LVII, was not helpful for precision tuning of VTA (if you unlocked the arm pillar to make a super-fine adjustment there was no guarantee that you'd actually achieved it!) so in common with a lot of folk I made up for it as best I could with VTF adjustment. The cartridge actually sounded fine and tracked well at both 1.53g and 1.58g. (Range 1.5-1.6)