Graham Phamtom III Reference tonearm

Late to this thread. I have both a Phantom Supreme (that began as a Phantom II) and a Phantom III on a Artisan Fidelity SP10R. The Supreme is a 9-in; the III is a 12-in, although I used it as a 9 on a Brinkmann Oasis for 4 or 5 years. And before these Phantoms, I ran a 2.2 on a Michell Orbe SE for 5 years. And oh yeah, I also briefly owned an Elite but returned it because it was defective. So I’m pretty familiar with Grahams and obviously like them.

@mulveling has done a fine job of describing the Supreme, and the III is virtually identical. Because mine came as a 12-inch, the counterweight is slightly different, but not enough to signify a sonic difference. To my ears, as 9-inchers, they sound the same, which is to say, excellent--fast, open, tonally accurate, harmonically correct. They track extremely well. I’d say these stabilized uni-pivots might not handle the lowest frequencies with quite the control of an excellent gimbal arm, but the bass on the Grahams is still very, very good. 

One quirk I’ll  point out. The counterweight rides on a long, threaded rod that extends from the bearing housing. The weight rides the rod on a kind of frame.You twist the knurled knob at the end and the whole carriage structure moves toward or away from the pivot. This system makes it very easy to obtain ultra-precise VTF. Like everything about the arm, it’s an ergonomic pleasure.

But what I’ve found though long experience is that the tension on the carriage structure has a significant impact on the sound. In other words, if you are rotating the knob so that the weight is moving away from the pivot, and you achieve, e.g., VTF of precisely 1.73 grams (as is the case with my Lyra Etna) it will sound different than achieving 1.73 gr by rotating the knob in the other direction and moving the weigh toward the pivot. And this sonic difference is predictable and consistent, and equally true of both my Phantoms. Toward the pivot tilts the sound up, emphasizing treble, while away from the pivot dulls the sound down, de-emphasizing treble.It’s not terribly dramatic, but it is audible if you have a well set up cartridge and a resolving system, which most people have if they buy an arm like this.

Why is this so? Who really knows, but I’ve concluded it’s because the back-end of the arm is not fully decoupled from the armwand and cartridge. Turning the knob rotates the threaded rod and puts tension on the carriage structure, changing the resonance character of the whole. Forward puts one kind of tension on it; backward another. Or so it seems to me.

The good news is that you are able tweak the sound to suit yourself. The bad news is that you have to.

Is this quirk a deal killer for the arm? Not in the least. But it does mean that you have to attend to one more parameter to get optimal sound. And to me it’s well worth the effort. I have another turntable and several other arms--SME M2 12R, Technics EPA-100 (fully refurbished by JP Jones), a couple of Jelco-built Ortofons (which are quite good), but the Grahams get my best cartridges because they are my best arms. I hope this helps.

@wrm57 

Toward the pivot tilts the sound up, emphasizing treble, while away from the pivot dulls the sound down, de-emphasizing treble.

Why is this so? 

Moving the counterweight closer to the pivot reduces the inertia as seen from the cantilever - resulting in a quicker more lively presentation - the canterlever is less loaded. Generally increasing  the mass of the counterweight and getting it closer to the pivot point results in significant improvements in speed and transparency.

Hi @dover , yes, no doubt this its true. I have experienced it with tonearms like the Tri-planar VII u2 that have counterweights of different sizes, allowing one to locate the weight near the pivot or farther from it to achieve the same VTF. But what I’ve observed with my Grahams is different.

In the two scenarios--emphasized treble, de-emphasized treble--the position of the counterweight relative to the pivot is identical and the VTF is exactly the same, down to the 1/100th of a gram. The difference is whether the counterweight arrives at that position by screwing or unscrewing the furled knob at the end of the rod. Screwing=emphasized; unscrewing=de-emphasized treble.Weird but true, at least with both my Phantoms. And I want to underscore that the effect is subtle. The arm sounds good in either case, but different, at least to my ears. In fact, once the desired VTF is obtained, I can slightly "lean" on the furled knob--just barely pressure it--to slightly shift the tonal balance without actually changing the VTF, again, down to the 100th of a gram. This is what makes me conclude that the cause is the tension, in one direction or the other, of the threaded rod within the carriage structure, and how it affects the resonance of the bearing housing and overall tonearm.

Once again, subtle stuff. But isn’t analog set-up all about subtle stuff and wrangling resonances? I offer it as a way to get the best out of these excellent arms.

Thanks for all your comments!

Hi, just received the 12" Graham Phantom III tonearm, but seting it up, it does nos stays still. It's like the anti-skating is too high, even removing that round weight of the anti-skating ( anti-skating totaly disabled), the arm keeps moving outwards, with the correct cartridge tracking force! Any suggestion?