Graham Phantom Anti-Skate. Is it effective at all?
I've had my Phantom Supreme over a year now, and for the most part it's been a pleasure. Beautiful build & sound; awesome VTA and azimuth adjustments. My main hangup had been the headshell; getting a Koetsu to sit flat on the 10" wand seemed impossible because the correct overhang pushed it all the way to the back, behind the main headshell points of contact. Finally I just used 2 plastic washers as shims to get a nice flat mount.
Now my main concern is the anti-skate. I'm not sure if all Phantoms are this way or if it's an issue with my unit. I can't seem to get an effective amount of anti-skate. My preferred method for adjusting anti-skate is to drop the needle in some dead-wax before the label (NOT into a lead-out groove) and adjust so that the stylus creeps *slowly* inwards. With my Graham, I cannot achieve that...it always moves quickly inwards no matter how far out I set the weight. Even physically pushing down on the weight doesn't seem to have much effect in swinging the arm. To me, this seems like the mechanism is not effective, as if I'm running without any compensation. This is very unlike my experiences with a Fidelity Research FR64fx (weight and fishing line) and Clearaudio Magnify (magnetic) -- both have a very noticeably effective anti-skate mechanism, which I can easily dial-in as described above. In fact I just setup a Magnify...it was great!
On my Graham, the pulley & rope system seems to be correctly in place. But without a 2nd until to examine, I can't determine whether this is normal. Could other owners/users of Graham please comment on their experiences with its anti-skate? The situation is OK for now -- I burn hours on my good cartridges very slowly and sparingly -- but I'd rather not have my nice cartridge seeing asymmetric wear over the long-run.
Graham did not change the Arch Angle of these tubes. Whaaaat??? They offer longer armwands to reduce tracking angle error but neglect to reduce the headshell offset angle? If so, that's brainless.
What Syntax is saying is simply not true. Maybe it was on old Graham arms. I have both the 10" & 12" supreme arms. The headshell angle is not the same for the 10&12 arm wands (angle reduced on the 12") and the alignment jigs are also different for obvious reasons. It time for Syntax to stop spreading around misinformation with regard to Graham arms.
... Graham did not change the Arch Angle of these tubes.
Whaaaat??? They offer longer armwands to reduce tracking angle error but neglect to reduce the headshell offset angle? If so, that's brainless.
All the more reason to follow Philb777's advice: get a Feickert or Mint protractor. I have a Mint. The improvement it made to my alignment and sonics was not subtle. It's a professional's tool. The jigs and protractors supplied by Graham, TriPlanar and the like are toys by comparison.
P.S. Agree with Stringreen and Psag. Anti-skating isn't that important, and in my system it clearly degrades sonics. The longer the armtube the less important it becomes... assuming of course that the cartrdige is actually aligned at the correct zenith angle (which apparently will not be parallel to the headshell... oy!)
Mulvling....good choice. I don't/have used a/s for years and never have found a reason to use it....however in your case, something is wrong, and I wouldn't subject a high priced cartridge to a wrong setup. When you get your arm working correctly, listen with and without a/s and make your own determination.
The Graham 10" and 12" are simply longer tubes than the 9" Standard with the identical drills for the Graham alignment System BUT (and this is important), Graham did not change the Arch Angle of these tubes. The Result is: When you fix your cartridge with the Alignment flip, the adjustment is wrong. Wrong with 10" and ultra wrong with 12". In all the pics/demos you see the screws are parallel (for 10" and 12"), that was done with the flip, when you do a correct adjustment the screws have total different positions. In the 12" version one is more or less at the top of the slot and the other one far away back. Look pretty awful when you look at it. Based on that fault, nothing is right when the cartridge is guided across the record. It was very disappointing for me to see such nonsense (the longer Triplanar has the same cost/brain controlled option).... I sold them all.
Benjie, Thanks for the warning on the Graham fixture...I'd started to suspect as much, which is why I double-checked to ensure I didn't accidentally get the 9" version (it is the 10" version). I have the AVID universal alignment tool, but I'm not sure whether that's applicable for this darn 10" wand -- did a quick check on the AVID (carefully aimed it at the arm pivot), and it wants the cart even FURTHER back than it can possibly go (by a few mm), which can't be right. Starting to regret that 10" choice. I guess it's time to look at a Feickert or AccuTrack! And maybe a 9" wand -- I can be super careful with the ring clamp for the sake of better alignment. Ugh, and now I'm not gonna run the system until I get this figured out...bummer!
Hi Mulveling, Just to check my own sanity I had another look and it depends on where I take the reference point on the weight?
If the centre of the weight was ref it would be roughly 2/3. If the nearest face to the pivot was ref then it would be slightly less than 2/3 which, I guess, is "almost" accurate. This means that 3g might be feasible at the extremity (?) All the best....
Thanks Moonglum, That does correlate pretty well to what I'm observing, since I'm running a higher VTF. Thanks for the sanity check! It would be great to hear from 10" wand Koetsu users, but I imagine that's going to be very rare -- so it's great to get 9" wand experiences as well.
Dear Mulveling & Benjie, My experience with a MkII Phantom (9") echoes Mulvelings.
I found that slightly more bias force was required than I expected. So, for a 1.76g VTF I would have expected it to be <2/3 x MAX along the shaft but it was more like <3/4 x MAX. There was still plenty of headroom so I didn't obsess about it. Hope this helps :)
I just measured the distance from spindle-to-pivot as 230mm. Graham doesn't seem to publish this info (since well, the setup is so easy and does not require manual measurements), but at least this seems reasonably sane because this is exactly the published distance for my FR64fx, also a 10" arm.
Here is the anti-skate post by Peter Ledermann to which I refer: http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/96/960382.html
Benjie, your method sounds very good, but with a low compliance cart like the Koetsu (maybe ~ 10 when converted to the @ 10Hz standard used by your Benz) I think it will be harder than usual to spot deflections.
Hi Benjie, I've definitely set the correct pivot-to-spindle distance on my Clearaudio (adjustable arm pod) for the 10" wand. This is made foolproof by the Graham, with the spindle attachment and headshell cutout hole. I've also adjusted for the correct overhang via the Graham headshell jig (each provided jig is specific to a wand length, and I verified that mine has a "10" printed on it), and that too is foolproof -- however I was surprised that this results in a Koetsu sitting as far back in the shell as possible. These distances have been re-checked multiple times. I'm just surprised to have to adjust a couple of parameters to the limit, and figured this was a quirk of the 10" wand when combined with a Koetsu. I assume that a Phantom with 12" wand would ship with a bigger (or the extra) VTF counterweight, but not the 10" which my arm was indeed shipped with -- this was not a used market mix-and-match job.
I know the anti-skate is a hot topic of debate, and that it's all an approximation over the surface of a record. I prefer to err on the side of a little too little. I just don't want the needle smashed up against the inner groove wall (i.e. no compensation); I know whole-record perfection with a pivoted arm is not attainable. The method I described was recommended in a post by SoundSmith.
I agree that anti-skate is just not that important. DaVinci, who make great tonearms didn't even bother with it on the Grandezza model (I have one). VPI never put much into it either. I would use just enough to prevent the stylus from colliding with the first groove during setdown. Achieving that is no problem with the Graham (I have one)
Ok, well there is probably some user error here on my part. I gave it another go and was able to get "close" to the desired anti-skate compensation by having the counterweight dangling at the end of the stick (max amount). This is with a Koetsu tracking at 1.95 grams -- the manual states that the anti-skate range will support up to 3g (or more) of VTF. That's not what I'm seeing, but then the stock VTF counterweight should also be good for up to 13g cartridges, and that's also not what I've observed, unless my Koetsus are heavier than their reported 13g (and it's not close enough for mounting hardware to cause the discrepancy) -- I had to get the extra counterweight. As with that, perhaps I need a heavier anti-skate weight. Maybe the 10" wand is causing the discrepancies here? I know Graham recommends the 9", but I got the 10" due to reports of clearance issues with the 9" used in conjunction with a ring clamp. But now I want to try a 9" wand and see if that's a better compromise, overall.
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