Advice needed on MC cartridges

Dear @skyscraper  : " But I am certainly no expert... ""

Certainly you are not but neither those gentlemans that posted is ok with unipivots, no matters what .

I posted why unipivots are wrong tonearm design and @mijostyn  that understand perfectly the why's posted too about. This is not if what we listen through we like it or not that's not the main issue the main issue is deeper than that and has to do with the task that any cartridge must does at microscopic and macro levels and that unipivots are unable to hold the cartridge to fulfill its needs at those levls. Yes, unipivot can works but in wrong way and this is the issue. 

The matters is know-how and common sense not if we like it. Btw, the Graham was a copy-cat of Audiocraft unipivot AC3000: @tobes do you know Audiocraft changed it by the 3300?

R.

Raul, I went back and found your post on this thread where you explained how unipivots create too much unstabillity for the cartridge/stylus in the record groove. I missed that entry somehow. Appreciate your explanation there and just above. Thanks.

Sokogear, I’ll have to make do with the unipivot for the foreseeable future, since I’m now wanting a pricey cartridge that will stretch the budget a bit, plus not being wealthy. I’ll also be going with the phonostage built into my Luxman 507uX Mk2 integrated amp.

Mike

" But I am certainly no expert... ""

Certainly you are not but neither those gentlemans that posted is ok with unipivots, no matters what .

I never claimed to be an expert, just an end user, I left the expertise to  Bob Graham (an actual engineer) ;-)

The matters is know-how and common sense not if we like it. Btw, the Graham was a copy-cat of Audiocraft unipivot AC3000: @tobes do you know Audiocraft changed it by the 3300?

There are certainly similarities, but also important design differences. So what?

The point of my statement above was simply that not all unipivot designs feel unstable - they certainly don't "jump all over the place" - nor are they all difficult to use (even with no experience). Setup and use of the Graham arms was a 'piece of cake'. 

Analog playback is imperfect by nature, different designs make their choices in dealing with the imperfections. In practice there is 'more than one way to skin a cat' ;-)

Peace and back to the subject under discussion. 

The Graham Phantom is really more like a hybrid - greatly damped and stabilized by the lateral magnetic "bearing". I agree - in setup and use the Graham is as easy and comfortable as it gets in high-end analog! 

The original VPI unipivot is an example of the wobble-fest that a lot of people hate. Even the unipivot bearing itself is not comparable to the Graham's, which is made of much higher quality materials and damped with a silicon bath. 

The VPI dual pivot does help (at the slight expensive of another friction surface) and I've found the 3D arm equipped with it to be quite usable and nice sounding. 

expecting universal agreement isn’t gonna happen…given you don’t want to change arm and TT, you got good advice to seek out magico owners running your phono preamp…..