Graham Phantom vs Triplaner

From Kdtran's post it sounds like the Triplanar retrieves all of the information in the grooves while the Graham ignores some of it to make a more "musical" presentation?

The Triplanar VII is a excellent unit with its good cable and when using Cartridges below 10gr.
With heavier carts it simply looses information in the high frequency area, it is a bit lifeless and the "airy speed" is not there anymore

Take that damn dampening trough off of your Triplanar and then come back and tell me the highs are missing. :-) The Triplanar works very, very well with my 13 gram XV-1s.

I do agree that some people like what they call a more "musical" sound. To me that just means some component is hand-waving over notes it doesn't want to play.

I use a Vector on my Galibier from time to time. Is it better than my Triplanar? Might be with some cartridges. But the Triplanar is much, much more user friendly. I like both arms quite a lot.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the report. Glad you're still with us. :-) I have heard from a few guys I share common audio goals with that the P2 is really good. Hopefully, the opportunity to hear one myself will crop up before too long.

I'll have to look up that post about drifting VTF to get the context. Can't say that I understand what you mean at this point.

And the verbal floggings will continue until tonearm morale improves around here. :-)

Perhaps when one of you early adapters gets tired of your P2, or the economy bubbles again (ha-ha-ha!), more of us will get a chance at owning one. I would, however, be more interested if there was an option to not have the stem on the bottom and cut down on the number of connections. As good as it may well be, I can't help but feel continuous runs would sound even better. I'm more drawn to the Da Vinci arms at this point, but I haven't heard one of those either.

Jfrech, it is not just TP owners. I also own a Basis Vector. I do appreciate that part of the reason for all of those connectors is to provide flexibility. However, what if (for people like me) the owner is going to be using the same cartridge on the same table for many years? That person is not going to be going through iterations with cartridges and other things. Why not offer a more permanent, more simplified solution?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that eliminating connectors would sound even better.

This is not a dig a Bob Graham. Bob is truly gifted and a really nice fellow who did me solid in the past so I have no interest in trying to put down him or his work. At the same time, I have absolutely no interest here in selling anything to anyone for personal or financial gain.

Dropping the tonearm cable connection down through the plinth or armboard also causes me trouble, but that is probably to the point of being a legacy issue now.

As to tweaking the TP. I think Doug Deacon has pretty much covered most everything in that great thread and others. There is definitely improvement over the stock form to be had by way of some resonance elimination. Remove the damping trough altogether, some remove the entire AS mechanism, etc.

!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!
I did not buy my TP at retail, it was a refurbished arm that I got a great deal on. You probably don't want to go down the path I have taken. Removing the arm rest has questionable benefit. I do not encourage doing this, and you had better find a way to provide this feature if you do remove it. It is probably much wiser to wedge something under the stock arm rest, or have someone hold it while you listen to determine if you can or cannot detect any improvement.

Can I answer with another question? Why do Graham arms have damping around the bearing?

But what about the gold trim, Syntax? :-)

Should we also pull the Vector into the discussion about fluid damping?

As far as I know, the TP is the only one of these arms that can actually play very well with no damping fluid. But I wouldn't extend that as an offer as to why one design may be perceived as better than another. In the end, each is a sum of its parts.

Grasshopper! You have plucked the pebble from my palm! :-):-)

I agree. It's complicated and I'd rather just listen. I just picked up Jorma's River of Time but haven't had the chance to light up my system for more than a week. I'm shaking like a big dose of Starbucks.

Seriously, and just on a layman's observation, the application of damping is different in that the unipivot-based design dampens in close proximity of the pivot bearing and the TP damping is farther down the arm toward the cart. Obviously different applications of damping for different stimulus-sesses. (stimulii? :-) )

My personal view is the the damping on the TP was to satisfy those who would prefer a more "musical sound", as I called it back in the day. Everybody's right! Especially me.

Yes, Koukonen. Folks who own the CD seem to be very happy with this release and I expect good vinyl from Jorma. I missed Hot Tuna last year when they came around. Thanks for the tip on Buddy and Jr.!