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Graham Phantom Supreme 12" - heavier counterweight needed ?!

Hello to the community,
as a newbie I would kindly ask you for help in this matter (I'm a long time reader of your advices and helpful recommendations but never launched an own topic!)

Athough the supplied standard counterweight is said to be good for cartridge weights between 5-19g it seems that with a 9g Koetsu cartridge the standard weight is not heavy enough to receive a proper balance or VTF.
I have seen a posting by Bob Graham in a German forum (just a screenshot) where he says he supplies 2 weights with his 12" arms, 35 plus 70gs, but this was never true for Austria, where I come from!

My 3 questions to you are:
1) can you imagine what could be the reason for that the standard counterweight cannot balance a 9g cartridge? (a potential set-up failure?)
2) it seems that I have a wrong mail adress of Bob Graham - can you supply a current one?
3) where from/ how can I get the heavier counterweight for the 12" Supreme arm?

Thanks very much in advance for your help and assistance in this matter!

Kind regards,
Carlo

collectorat

Showing 2 responses by mijostyn

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,152 posts
 
You should have gotten the second weight with the arm.

Graham Engineering
25M Olympia Ave
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801

Phone 781-932-8777
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,152 posts
 
Carlo, I do not work for Graham. Get in touch with them and ask about it.
But, after thinking about it a 9 gm Cartridge is not that heavy. It must be a wood body Koetsu. It should balance out so something is wrong with the set up or the way the tonearm was put together. It is a 12" arm which would require a heavier weight than a 9 or 10" arm. Maybe they gave you the wrong weight with the arm accidentally. Also the Koetsu is a very stiff cartridge and that is a lighter tone arm. You will probably have to add some weight to the head shell to get the resonance frequency down or get a stone body Koetsu which is much heavier. 
It would look pretty ugly but you could wrap some lead or wheel balance weights around the counter weight for the time being.
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