Graham, Naim Aro, or Linn arms?

I haven't heard direct comparisons, but, I've heard the LP12 with the Itok and with a Aro. I was surprised how lively and dramatic the sound of an LP12/Ara/Transfiguration Phoenix combination that I heard. A bunch of friends briefly (about 2 hours) listened to this combination in a system with Hovland HP200 preamp, Hovland Radia amp and Sonus Faber Anniversarios. This combination was MUCH more lively than the system owner's regular rig (Basis 2500/Graham Phantom/Transfiguration Orpheus). Overall, the system is on the darker side, so, to me, the extra life of the Linn/Aro combination sounded good. With only two hours of listening, I have no way of knowing if the extra liveliness would eventually become taxing in the long run, but, from what I heard, this combination seems to be quite a lot of fun.

I don't know about the Dorian, but, my Titan replaced a Helikon. The Titan delivers more detail and more "air" on top (higher pitched instruments seem more open) and the sense of a real acoustic space and notes decaying naturally is superior with the Titan. But, the slightly better performance comes at a much higher price.

The Titan is not very load sensitive compared to other cartridges, but it MAY be touchy about VTA. It may just be the case that it is so detailed on top that small changes in VTA become evident, but it seems more sensitive than other cartridges I have tried.

Another thing that MAY make the Titan more demanding is that its all Titanium body is designed to transmit the vibrations set up in the body of the cartridge away from the cartridge into the arm (as oppose to dampening the energy in the cartridge itself). This puts a pretty high demand on the arm beign able to also transmit the energy away and then dampen the vibation (instead of reflecting the energy back to the cartridge). In short, a very rigid arm and rigid bearings are a must. A unipivot arm is often actually quite rigid (all the mass concentrated on a tiny bearing point) so many unipivots would qualify.

I would bet that the Dorian delivers pretty good performance for the money. I use to have a Lydian and that was a very good cartridge.