Graham Phantom Supreme 12" - heavier counterweight needed ?!

You should have gotten the second weight with the arm.

Graham Engineering
25M Olympia Ave
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801

Phone 781-932-8777

Dear mijostyn,
I'm sorry, there was no second weight supplied.....this was also confirmed by my dealer and the official distributor for Austria, Audiotuning.
The Phantom Packing List did also not mention the suppied weight ....

if you say there should have been a second weight - could you please supply this heavier weight to me? 

Thanks very much and best regards,
carlo

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.

Ok, mijostyn, thanks a lot for your comments regarding the set up!

Could you please help me our with a valid mail adress of Graham Engineering?

Thanks again and best regards,
Carlo

[email protected]
I would call if possible.  It can be difficult getting in touch with him via email.  It can take weeks for a response or it will get lost.

Good luck getting a response from Graham.  Historically, they have a poor reputation with respect to customer support.  I trully hope that is still not the case today. 

When I bought a new Phantom Supreme 10" in March 2013, I had the same problem with a Koetsu Onyx Platinum that - for some reason - is 2 or 3 grams heavier than every other stone Koetsu I’ve encountered (very thick walls). No extra weight or 2nd counterweight was included. In fact, despite ordering brand new "A" stock via an authorized dealer, my package was even missing the manual. Perhaps the 12" wand could pose the same balancing problem for the lighter wood body Koetsus.

The solution proposed to me at the time was a supplemental disc weight that can clamp down onto (piggy-back style) the knurled adjustment thumb screw for the main counterweight. I was offered it for $100 from Graham, but Musical Surroundings (their distributor at the time) happily sent theirs out to me fast and for free. It works great with my heavy Koetsu, but can’t balance (in the other direction) the lighter ones.

It’s a shame Musical Surroundings is no longer the distributor, because they could often step in promptly when other measures failed.

Anyways, I recommend you pick up a clean used Fidelity Research FR64fx or 64S tonearm to run your Koetsu. It costs less than a Graham, sounds much better with Koetsu, and good headshells (e.g. the Ikdea shells) are far cheaper than Graham wands.

@vortrex  and @testpilot  Thanks a lot for sharing your experience with emailing Bob Graham - I will try it both ways and thanks for the current mail adress - I got a different one that did not work at all.
@mulveling - unfortunately the distributor in Austria is also the owner of Project and EAT turntables and has shifted his focus more towards his own products over the past 5-10 years - it seems so at least to me ...he is said to be Ortofon's largest worldwide customer, so they do not have much experience with customers with Koetsu cartridges and Graham arms......and for a consumer it's extremely difficult to get in touch with them directly (similar situation).
Anyway thanks very much for your proposals and recommendations in this matter!

Just curious, what table is the arm on?

The arm with SME base is mounted on an Airforce 3!