OK, here is my 2 cents on this issue. I have a TW Raven Acustic AC Turntable on order. I made a trip to Jeff Catalano's Hi-Water Sound in NYC to hear my purchase and to listen to 3 arm/cartridge combinations. You can never seperate what you are hearing of course so trying to say that one arm is better than another is impossible. The arm/cartridge combos I heard were:
1. Phaentom/Myabi
2. Tri-Planar/Zyx 4D
3. Dynavector Arm/ Dynavector Mono Cart.
I can't tell you which individual cartridge or arm I liked best. But, in terms of overall sound I liked the Dynavector/Dynavector Mono the best. Until you have heard mono records reproduced properly with a mono cartridge you simply don't know what you are missing. After that, it was a toss up between the other two arm/cartidge pairings. The Myabi/Phaentom had beautiful transparency and focus but tended to shrink the soundstage left to right. The Triplanar/Zyx was more robust with somewhat better soundstaging but less transparent. In terms of user friendly issues, the Dynavector was probably the easiest of the 3 to set up and maintain while the Triplanar came in second, and the Phaentom third. I'm glad I'm getting a turntable that can accomodate more than one arm after hearing this demonstration.
1. Phaentom/Myabi
2. Tri-Planar/Zyx 4D
3. Dynavector Arm/ Dynavector Mono Cart.
I can't tell you which individual cartridge or arm I liked best. But, in terms of overall sound I liked the Dynavector/Dynavector Mono the best. Until you have heard mono records reproduced properly with a mono cartridge you simply don't know what you are missing. After that, it was a toss up between the other two arm/cartidge pairings. The Myabi/Phaentom had beautiful transparency and focus but tended to shrink the soundstage left to right. The Triplanar/Zyx was more robust with somewhat better soundstaging but less transparent. In terms of user friendly issues, the Dynavector was probably the easiest of the 3 to set up and maintain while the Triplanar came in second, and the Phaentom third. I'm glad I'm getting a turntable that can accomodate more than one arm after hearing this demonstration.