Any feedback on the Graham Phantom

Hi John,
Lots of Thai, Vietnamese and excellent Chinese restaurants in my neighborhood(and no Starbucks nearby...)! Drop me a mail again when that next trip is in sight. I´ll be glad to further extend your appreciation of my hometown :-)

Cheerio,

Frank

Frank,you forgot to take ROUND TRIP into consideration.Let alone the cost to me,or anyone else taking time off.In my case,from my business.Take that all into account and you'd be giving your arm away if you were so nice as to discount expenses.The offer,I'm sure, was meant in a good spirit,and appreciated,but the "little woman" at home would make me pay DEARLY.I guess I'll have to live with what I currently own,for a while longer.

Anyway,as you pointed out,and what any well heeled audiobuff already knows,something like a tonearm "SHOULD" be judged in one's own set-up,unless you are intimately familiar with the NEW system at hand.My complaint about the loss of good dealers,revisited.

I do want to thank you and Bob Graham for your fascinating(to me)responses.I'm impressed,and kind of surprised that in a HOBBY-RELATED site,the dialog could be such that they could garnish responses from proven designers like you two.Sort of humbles me,a bit,about keeping my mouth shut(although I have been at this 37 yrs)and am still free to express opinions "Learned" from owning said products.

At the very least,I'm really getting paranoid about my propensity for excessive word count!!Anyway,it is now SPRINGTIME here in New Jersey,and I'll be out practicing my first love,TENNIS,so I doubt if I'll be boring anyone in the near future,unless I decide to analyse new tennis racket technology should my backhand go astray!!Anyone know of any good tennis websites?Good luck to all!!

Did you know the bumble-bee CAN'T fly, according to one school of theory? This is the thought that first came into my mind when I read the posts of 3-19-05 from Frank Schroder. (And I REALLY won't have time to keep this thing going, but sometimes a question just must be answered, before the wrong impression is left untouched for too long..!)
The point is that I think that, while heated debate among the hobbyists and consumers themselves is fine, it is not in good taste for us manufacturers to try and "suggest" something may be amiss in someone else's design, thereby planting the seed of doubt in the readers and potential customers.
In this case, the comment such as "your new design is well founded but not exactly revolutionary" is something that I, no matter what I may know or think of another design, would never utter. It's just not appropriate. I have high regard to many other tonearm designs, including Frank's, but if any of us where to try an take the time to suggest a "weakness" of some kind, we'd only be opening the door to the shortcomings in our own efforts, which are always present.
I am not aware of the article that Frank refers to, but I am VERY sure there was nothing like the horizontal stablizer that's now in Patent Pending status; we checked carefully into the history of tonearm designs and found nothing remotely like this.

OK, with the Philosphy and Ethics Class 101 dismissed, just a few points before I have to get back to work, REALLY, and off this thread, if I'm to get the necessary things done on time:
My reference to the jewel bearings in Rolex was only an off-the-cuff remark that superior bearing quality is not that much more costly to make the inferior materials. I'm aware of the properties of sapphire/ruby, as well as tungsten carbide and steel. Simply put, I went for the more exotic tungsten carbide as a high-quality, long-life bearing component, since the cost differential over the less-desirable steel wasn't so great. And I don't like to take the cheap way out, anyway, especially in something as central to performance as the main bearing.
The other technical detail that needs a little polishing is Frank's correct assertion that tracking force will be affected by interia as the arm moves up and down. Of course that's correct; however, I see no reason to let that fact be compounded in fact by having a balancing system which will CERTAINLY add it's own additional forces to the arm as it's negotiating warps. And this applies to ANY arm of any pivoting design that places the pivot point above the Center of Gravity.
And one last little jab that needs commenting on is the "question" that the magneglide has higher horizontal friction than vertical. Again, I'm sorry to keep reminding Frank of this, but it's painfully obvious that, like a good attorney, the answer is known BEFORE the question is asked; all the better to influence the jury. The answer is, of course, that yes, there is slightly more horizontal mass to deal with - but only slightly - and due to the combined quality of the bearings involved (tungsten carbide main pivot, and an ABEC-7 ceramic ball-bearing assembly for the Magneglide tracker) the additional friction is mostly theoritical, not practical. If it were otherwise, then I've really been barking up the wrong tree with this entire excercise! In measurements, I cannot find any appreciable (read: none that I could see at all!) difference between the horizontal drag of the 2.2 and the Phantom.
As I said before, I have high regard for all other designers that make good products, and this list would certainly include Frank Schroder, as well as Alistair Robertson-Aikman (SME), Harry Weisfeld, and others. We each have our strengths - and our weaknesses! - and it's up to the listener - not us - to decide which sounds best. And without vested interest input from competiting designers, even on a friendly basis. I just feel strongly that we, as designers, should place our designs and theories out there for the public (and reviewers) to analyize, and then step back and let the music be the guide, not our competitors.
Bumble-bees really DO fly, and to try and sugget they can't is plain wrong: just sit back and watch them go if you want to be convinced....

Dear Mr. Graham,
First of all, my apologies if my post created the impression I was trying to raise doubts or question the quality or superiority of the Phantom over your previous designs. The question about the Magnaglide tracker was a "real" question, a question about a design choice and the wheighing of its merits versus potential drawbacks. I am totally satisfied with your answer.
I addressed the issue of neutral balance not to belittle the value of the magneglide feature, but wanted to point out that neutral balance in unipivots had been discussed on a theoretical and practical level many years ago. Anyone who reads the articles I was refering to, will find that they make a strong point in favor of the Phantom.
Rest assured that I never publically comment on the sound of other tonearms, I totally agree with your point about the consumer doing the judging. But when it comes to design philosophies, choice of materials and sometimes even aesthetics, I enjoy the exchange, partially because it is the exchange with likeminded people that is part of the fun in this hobby/profession. My word isn´t gospel and I have taken a strong beating before, but I´d still rather write and sign my own posts instead of, say, telling somweone else to do it for me.
To put this to a hopefully happy end, I promise not to comment on a specific design feature in the future (except when asked about my own arms) and suggest to the moderator to remove my earlier post(03-19.05;"Dear Mr. Graham...") within the next few days.

No hard feelings, and I owe you a drink(Munich, Denver?)

Frank Schröder

Dear Frank,
I appreciate your response and hope that my own response wasn't taken as too much of a slam. We all have different approaches to design, and hope that our respective efforts do the job admirably; it's up to us to do our homework, and up to the consumer to see if they agree! If you do take your note off, then ask them to remove my reply, as well - fair's fair, after all!

I thought long and hard about the best way to accomplish the desired goal of Neutral Balance in a way that would provide the tracking advantages it offers, and at the same time, not create additional problems of it's own. The components of the Magneglide system are all of low-mass design: small parts, lightweight materials, and a short distance to the pivot. Together, this combination does provide the required stability and allow the arm to pivot freely in both horizontal and vertical (with Neutral Balance) planes. We're very pleased with the results.

(For the hobbyists who may not be aware of the cumulative effects of this, in calculating Effective Mass, we are concerned about the static weight of an object -counterweight, headshell, cartridge, etc, - times the distance from the pivot SQUARED! That's why a larger counterweight, placed closer to the pivot, will have a lower effective mass than a small one - remember, looks are deceiving! - placed further away).

Anway, I paid close attention to this important consideration during the design, and rest assured that all's well in that area! Neutral Balance is a desirable condition in tonearms that goes back years, I agree. I remember Edgar Villchur discussing this in the 1960's, when the AR turntable came out. He was right then (as he was in so many things this genuius/audio pioneer created), and it's still true today.

And yes, I'd very much like to have a beer and pretzel with you sometime. Have never been to Munich, but hope to in the not too distant future...
So, all you audio adventurers out there, enjoy the dialogue and theories to consider, but most of all, sit back - forget those theories - and enjoy the music!
Now, I really MUST get off this thread and back to work! Happy Spring to all - Bob