Greetings to all,
I recently got a Grado Platinum3 to use on my Graham 1.5c tonearm.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the cartridge and arm would appear to “shimmy” on certain recordings. After doing some research, I found out about the “dreaded Grado dance.” I guess this is what is going on.
Before the Grado, I had a Benz Micro Gold on the arm. It never had a problem. The Benz Gold weighs 5.7 grams, and the Grado weighs 9 grams. I never thought of the Graham arm as particularly finicky, but maybe it is.
When I first installed the 9 gram Grado, balancing it and dialing in tracking force was not easy. Dialing in the tracking force just about maxed out the distance I could unwind and push the counterweight to the rear. (I ended up adding extra mass to the counterweight.)
I am starting to wonder if all of this is going to be the case with any 9 gram cartridge? Is the “shimmy” or “dance” particular to Grado cartridges?
Am I limited to cartridges that weigh less than 6 grams?
Thanks for any responses.
