Sirspeedy,
I think the blame for ignorance about the critical nature of the damping fluid is clearly on Bob Graham himself. He designed the thing and should know; He wrote the instruction sheet that has been used by everyone setting up the arm including reviewers. Even though I don’t care for the self anointed analogue guru over at StereoPhool, I can’t blame him for not figuring this out because I didn’t either until I read it here.
The audio rags have changed drastically since the early days. They are no longer the hobbyist experimenting and reporting what they find. That function is being done by all of us and the net these days. The rags are now run by business people as a business and that is a completely different kind of animal. I personally know one reviewer and you couldn’t give me his job. Stuff coming and going before you hardly get a chance to know it. It takes me a long time personally to get a system to really sing and even then I continue to learn how extract more out of what I have. Nope, that’s not for me. I would much rather chase records than equipment.
I do agree the it is good to hear others systems. It’s too bad that we all live so far apart! The biggest problem in most of the systems I’ve heard is the room. There always seems to be some compromise in terms of speaker placement to keep peace with the Ms. I not immune from room problems as I have too much speaker for my room. Finely tuned systems are hard to come by in these parts.
Regards,
Scott
