Graham Phantom Supreme 12" - heavier counterweight needed ?!


Hello to the community,
as a newbie I would kindly ask you for help in this matter (I'm a long time reader of your advices and helpful recommendations but never launched an own topic!)

Athough the supplied standard counterweight is said to be good for cartridge weights between 5-19g it seems that with a 9g Koetsu cartridge the standard weight is not heavy enough to receive a proper balance or VTF.
I have seen a posting by Bob Graham in a German forum (just a screenshot) where he says he supplies 2 weights with his 12" arms, 35 plus 70gs, but this was never true for Austria, where I come from!

My 3 questions to you are:
1) can you imagine what could be the reason for that the standard counterweight cannot balance a 9g cartridge? (a potential set-up failure?)
2) it seems that I have a wrong mail adress of Bob Graham - can you supply a current one?
3) where from/ how can I get the heavier counterweight for the 12" Supreme arm?

Thanks very much in advance for your help and assistance in this matter!

Kind regards,
Carlo

collectorat

Showing 2 responses by mijostyn

Carlo, I do not work for Graham. Get in touch with them and ask about it.
But, after thinking about it a 9 gm Cartridge is not that heavy. It must be a wood body Koetsu. It should balance out so something is wrong with the set up or the way the tonearm was put together. It is a 12" arm which would require a heavier weight than a 9 or 10" arm. Maybe they gave you the wrong weight with the arm accidentally. Also the Koetsu is a very stiff cartridge and that is a lighter tone arm. You will probably have to add some weight to the head shell to get the resonance frequency down or get a stone body Koetsu which is much heavier. 
It would look pretty ugly but you could wrap some lead or wheel balance weights around the counter weight for the time being.
You should have gotten the second weight with the arm.

Graham Engineering
25M Olympia Ave
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801

Phone 781-932-8777