Graham Nightingale, anyone?

Joe, I heard one of these setups BRIEFLY about two weeks ago in an SME 30. Associated equipment was equally high-end and my listening session was ever so brief, but it sounded GREAT!

As I understand it, the cartridge is a joint venture of sorts between Transfiguration and Graham. Apparently, the cartridge is pre-aligned at Graham and permanently bonded to Graham's ceramic arm wand. The leads are soldered directly to the cartridge (no connectors). I further believe, though I am not sure and could be mistaken, that someone who has a Graham arm can buy the wand and cartridge package and use it interchangeably with other Graham wand/cartridge combos. (?) I would have interest in hearing the impressions of those that have given the Nightingale a more substantial audition.

I have owned a Graham Nightingale for about three years. I use it with the Graham 2.2 arm on a Basis Debut V Vacuum table and I have never heard a cartridge/arm combination that sounds so good. It started out great and just seems to get better as the thing continues to break in (or wear out) whichever is the case. I also own Benz Ruby, Ruby 2 and an old (but great) Koetsu pro 4 cartridge, and the Nightingale sounds "better". ie: wider soundstage, better image specificity, slightly better tonality, more "musical" than any of those cartridges. I listen "mostly" to vinyl and use the Nightingale as my cartridge of choice.

Add the fact that the nightingale requires absolutely no set up - just pop on the arm wand and it is already set up correctly - and you have a "world beater" combination.

Jprice:

Do I understnad you to say that you bought the Nightingale cartridge/wand and then just "plugged" it into the 2.2 your already owned?

4yanx,

I just took this off the Musical Surroundings site:

"... the Nightingale integral armwand/cartridge system brings to those fortunate owners of the Graham tonearm an unprecedented level of natural musicality and refinement."

Sounds like bad news for your bank account!

$3800 + the cost of the arm. Yikes! Sounds very intriguing, though.
Not anytime soon for me... :-(

Cheers, Spencer

I hear that, Spencer. I will struggle by with my Shelter and Benz for awhile unless JPrice wants to swap with me sometime. Ha! :-)