Help tame my Ekos

I had the Akito and van den Hul MC-One Special, and now have the Ekos and Archiv, and on none of these set-ups did I hear anything bright or overly dynamic. Did a dealer mount your Ekos and Adikt? The tonearm has to be removed from the table to do any cartridge mounting or else the bearings can be damaged. Maybe things are still just breaking in. What phono pre are you using?

I think you might want to raise the VTA some. By raising, I mean raising the arm pivot end up a little. Raising it will reduce bass boominess, and that sounds like what might be your problem.

Check:
1) Out of phase cartridge connection
2) Check torque on all screws and bolt. About finger-tight for cartridge, hand tight for VTA locking bolt and arm base bolt (8.5-9.5 lb/in torque)

Ideally, the Ekos works well with mid to low compliance MC and may not sound right with high complaince MM.

I am slightly baffled by your description. The one thing that the Ekos cannot be accused of is brightness (anyway nothing compared to the Basik tonearm). Being an Ekos user myself I can however tell you that it is an exacting toneam and will clearly let you hear precisely what the cartridge sounds like. I personally used to have the 1st generation Arkiv, I now use the Ortofon MC Jubilee and it is a brilliant combination. Someone suggested that you raise the VTA to lessen the boominess, I have to disagree in using it that way, although he is right - if the arm is pointing downward from backo front the sound will be livelier/brighter, if the arm is pointing downward from front to back the bass will generally be more. The arm has to be perfectly level to the record surface.

In all fairness it has to be pointed out that the Ekos will show up the Adikt more for what it is than the Basik could ever dream to do, but seen in the context of your system (and specifically your equipment) I think a better quality Moving Coil would be a good investment. It is also not entirely true that the Ekos only works with medium/low compliancy cartridges, many a van den Hul MC user would tell you that.