Basis Vector Tonearm


I am thinking for another Arm for my Basis Debut Table. Honestly I was on the way for a Kuzma Air Line but there is an Arm around, I never had a chance to listen to.
The Vector Arm. I know, there are owners of it here in the forum and beside all joy of owning one, I would like to get some info, in what areas it is superior to the one before ( brand ? ). Mr. Conti is not as agressive pushing his products like other manufacturers, so I hope to get some real useful information from those with a first rate Turntable / Music System.
thomasheisig

Showing 1 response by larryi

I have a Vector arm on a Basis Debut (vacuum) table. Because I bought this as a system, I cannot comment on whether any component (table or arm) is superior to alternatives. The combination works extremely well. With my Lyra Titan cartridge, this combination sounds very dynamic and musical, but without the kind of fake dynamics that I hear in lightly-sprung, table/arm combinations. I have heard some people say that tables like the Debut are over-damped and so they suck the life out of music, but I disagree. Those tables that seem to have more life, sound more clangorous and artificial once one gets familiar with the sound of less lively tables.

Personally, I like tables and arms that are well damped and capable of killing spurious vibration before they feed back into the cartridge. This results in a quieter background (even noise in the groove sounds quieter because the spike dies out very quickly). With this combination doing a good job of mechanically dampening vibration generated by the stylus in the groove, I find that I can back down on the electrical loading of the cartridge and achieve a more open and lifelike sound without annoying sibilance and high frequency hash.

There are several operational/ergonomic issues with the arm. First, the alignment tool that comes with the arm does not give me much confidence in the ability to set both cantilever/stylus tangency to the groove and proper offset. A Wally Tools, type of alignment protractor would probably do a much more accurate job. Alignment is not nearly as easy to do as with the Graham. The counterweight is also difficult to move on the arm to set tracking force, particularly when trying to assure that one is not unduly stressing the pivot point when making the adjustment. Again, with the Graham, it is much easier to make fine adjustments. Finally, you MUST get the arm with the VTA adjustment micrometer. Changing VTA is a big pain without it (I know, that is why I am about to send the arm back for a retrofit).