Graham Phantom vs Triplaner

I have seen but not personally tested these arm and their picadillos. I have a VPI arm wired with Valhalla, and I too was prepared for increased brightness, and detail. It took a long while to break in, however, it is now very natural overall. I suggest you listen to it before ruling it out. The VPI seems like the perfect arm for you with its very easy repeatable VTA, and seperate arms for all your cartridges making almost an instant swap.

The Triplanar VII is a excellent unit with its good cable and when using Cartridges below 10gr.
With heavier carts it simply looses information in the high frequency area, it is a bit lifeless and the "airy speed" is not there anymore (compared to other Arms, for example the Phantom, DaVinci or very heavy Arms).
I know, some use this Arm with Koetsus and are happy, but to be honest, what's not there, you can't hear....
The Phantom is much better in this, based on its very heavy block, it can handle lots of different cartridges (I used a few from 4-14gr) at a superior level.
To the sound
I like the Triplanar, it is good to listen to.
The Graham Arm is very precise and the results can vary based on the connected Phono cable. The differences can be huge (I tried XLO Sign., Siltech, Purist, IC-70 Graham Phono, Kondo Phono cables and some others with it).
The Phantom has a excellent frequency range, linked with an absolutely amazing Speed in the lower range.
With the XV-1s a amazing trip into dynamic reproduction.

The Triplanar VII is a excellent unit with its good cable and when using Cartridges below 10gr.
With heavier carts it simply looses information in the high frequency area, it is a bit lifeless and the "airy speed" is not there anymore

Take that damn dampening trough off of your Triplanar and then come back and tell me the highs are missing. :-) The Triplanar works very, very well with my 13 gram XV-1s.

I do agree that some people like what they call a more "musical" sound. To me that just means some component is hand-waving over notes it doesn't want to play.

FWIW, I've never heard the Phantom, but I can assure you that a fully tweaked Tri-P with a Universe cart does not induce listener fatigue and I would never characterize it as bright, harsh, or analytical, when used with a world class phono stage. Dynamic, great attack and decay. Can handle the range of musical styles from classical (instrumental and vocal) to jazz, to folk, singer/songwriter, bluegrass and alt-country. And this was through B&Ws, which many would agree are never described as laid back. Everything from Bach chorals to Mozart to Louis Armstrong to Parton/Harris/Ronstadt. Since vinyl is not my primary medium, I did not get one when I upgraded my arm, but if it was....

I've been running the Tri-Planar for a few years now. The VTA tower (that allows for on-the-fly VTA adjustment) is much more precise than earlier models.

I've had the ZYX and Transfiguration Orpheus; something that becomes apparent with these combinations is that a lot of 'noise' that is often attributed to other things like the phono preamp and also a worn record are neither- just the manifestation of mistracking. Its a hard setup to fault- certainly one of the best tonearms made.