Phantom Supreme to 4Point-14?

Apologies for the typos!

Floggin' it. Anybody?

@sksos , thanks for your insights. I don’t think the 11" would be a good fit on my SP10R plinth. Because of the Technic’s motor housing, my 9" Graham, at 217.4 mounting distance, just *barely* fits, and its almost too far forward for safety when the arm is at rest. The Kuzma’s 212 mounting distance is even tighter, and would require the arm to be shifted even farther toward the front, if it would fit at all. (I’d have to drop in a new armboard and measure it out, using a template of the base, to make sure.) But even if it does fit, the 11’s offset pivot and much longer Eff length would hang the cartridge off front of the plinth. Yikes! Hence the 14-incher, which is the Kuzma of choice for my turntable.

I’ve read good things about the 9", including Fremer’s opinion that it is the best-sounding Kuzma that is not the Safir. And, as I outlined above, its 212 mounting distance just might fit without risking the cartridge. And it’s a relatively great deal. But I’m one of those people who feels the ability to change VTA frequently and repeatably is crucial for proper sound. Having listened to Grahams for 20 years, I’m spoiled there. I know the 9 has precisely adjustable VTA, but it is nowhere near as easy and repeatable as the Graham, or even the 11 or 14 Kuzmas, from what I can discern. I don’t absolutely need it on the fly, but I do need it to be quickly and easily set to predetermined levels for varying LP weights (140g, 180g, etc).

If it would fit, and if it could satisfy my VTA needs, and if I can sell a kidney on eBay without missing it, I’d love the Safir. Not sure it’s possible to satisfy all three criteria. :)

No, still haven’t bought the MSL. I’m thinking about the best order of purchase, arm or cartridge. Obviously, they’ll need to compliment each other but I’ll need to space them out.

Lewm, I'm not sure which Reed you have but the 10.5's I've looked at have mounting distances of around 231mm or 251mm. Both would be fine for the R. The 11" 4Point mounts at 212mm, however, which scoots it up next to the motor housing, maybe too close, and forces the pivot it to be at 3:00 or so to the spindle, maybe lower. This would put the cartridge, at the end of that long arm, a little beyond the front of the plinth when in the armrest. The salient point here is that although the 4Point is 11 inches long, it mounts like a rather short 9-inch arm, which is a challenge for the SP motor housing.

For the 4P-11 and 4P-14, the P2S measurement is very different from the mounting distance because the pivot is located on an outrigger platform. Mounting distance is where you drill out the armboard and mount the arm base. This outriggered pivot is what enables an 11 inch arm to fit where a 9 would usually go, which is an ingenious boon to most turntables but not our our SPs because of that big square escutcheon. The 4P-9 and Safir, however, mount at the pivot like many arms.

Thanks @mijostyn , that's good feedback. As you were you posting, I drew a scaled template of the 4P mounting base and broke out my UNI P2S tool. It turns out the 11 (or 9 or Safir) will fit on the back armboard--just barely. And because the plinth has a lot more area to the right than in front, the 11 would not hang the cartridge out over the edge if its mounted back there. Very interesting.... I have an Ortofon AS309S back there now for SPUs and like it well enough. But any of the Kuzmas would be a serious upgrade, I'm sure, and I can run SPUs on another turntable with my SME M2-12R. Plus, I'd keep the Graham on the Technics in the front position for daily drivers, etc.

So you like the 9 more than the 11? You don't miss the easy VTA adjustment?

I'll look into the Schroeder. I owned a standard Triplanar for years but sold it in favor of another Graham. Is the 12 significantly better?

Much to think about, all of it good!

Thanks, Steve. Yeah, I'm afraid I'm one of those guys who adjusts for different LPs. Just can't help myself. And if I didn't, I'd just sit there thinking I was maybe hearing incorrect VTA. Audio nervosa takes many forms.

I spoke too soon. It looks like the 11 won't fit in the back position after all. My rough modelling shows that the headshell will not clear the tonearm installed in the front position. Bummer.

I don’t really understand being satisfied with incorrect VTA. We go to all the trouble of precisely aligning cartridges with uber-precise tools, getting cantilevers just right, and dialing in VTF to two decimal places. Some use devices to nail azimuth and eliminate crosstalk. Why? Because it makes an audible difference. Some even set SRA at precisely 92% with digital microscopes. Why? Because it makes an audible difference. If we concede that precisely 92% SRA is what the physics demand, and what our ears can and do hear, then how can we be satisfied when we change that 92% by plopping on an LP that changes the angle and the sound? I mean, when I go from a 120g to a 180g and forget to adjust VTA, I hear it and get up and change it. And I’m not saying I’m some sort of golden ears.

I know we all do this hobby in different ways, and I certainly I don't mean to disparage other approaches. But here I am in mine, for better or worse, and so far it has required easy VTA adjustment.

Of course I meant degrees, not percentage, but I appreciate the correction.

Whether 92 degrees is correct or not is actually beside my point, which is that some angle IS correct on any LP, in that it replicates the cutting angle. The physics that care nothing for our fetishes do care about that angle and whether the stylus is in position to extract the info as it was cut. And yes, FWIW, I believe you to be a good person, too. :)

Right, in the end it’s largely guess work, probabilities, and subjectivity. And our approaches are not so dissimilar. I know my VTA dial settings for 180 gram and 140g LPs; I split the difference for 160, subtract that split from 140 for 120g, add it to 180 for 200. It’s a momentary mental exercise. I can approximate the weight of the LP by its flexibility via a quick shake when I take it out of the sleeve. It takes all of three seconds to set VTA with most of my arms, and I do so before I play the LP. None of this is rigorous scientific practice, but its close enough. Then I sit and enjoy the music. Like you, I’ll tweak it if it sounds off, but I usually do not need to. If I want I can check my work on my 2 Grahams because they have bubble levels. Most of my carts like the arm level--or I’ve conditioned my ears to believe that. There’s actually very little fuss in my process, and it lets me relax into the sound. As I mentioned, though, if I forget to change, I usually notice.

@larryi , I think the 92 degrees in motion is why Fremer sets his to 93 static. Your approach to VTA, like lewm’s, is utterly reasonable. As an experiment, I’m going to set my tonearm to the average record, which in my scheme would be 160g, and see how long I can go without changing it. Might take me a few days to fully detox! If I can live with it, the door is open to the 4P-9 or even, gulp, Safir!

@sksos , that sounds like big fun. Let us know how it goes.

@mijostyn , did you try the MSL Platinum with the 4P-14 and find it to need a lot of damping? The cart's compliance of 10cu and the arm's effective mass of 19 put resonance at 9 Hz, right in the fat part of green on Vinyl Engine calculator. Or is there a different reason to use the damping?

Interestingly enough, the Safir has an astronomical effective mass of 60g, yet the Kuzma website says it is compatible with cartridges up to 25cu. Frank has written a whitepaper on why the received wisdom on resonance is wrong. I haven't read it but plan to.

@mijostyn , thanks, great stuff and much food for thought.

I hear you and lewm about VTA and I really want it to be so. Life would be so much easier setting and forgetting. But every time I try that method it only sounds good on the record weight I set it VTA at. My grand experiment not to change VTA yesterday lasted 10 minutes. I set the Graham at level on an apprx 160g LP, put on a 120g, and sat back with the committed intention of not changing VTA. I thought the sound was unacceptable, and in the ways I expected. I’d blame the Graham but I have 2 and a couple of Jelco Ortofons and an SME, all active on 3 turntables, and the same thing happens with all of them. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I have set up issues elsewhere that reveal themselves only when VTA is imprecisely set. Maybe I’m just a Pavlovian dupe of the VTA tower industry.

I have thought about returning to the Triplanar, which I owned for many years and ultimately found to be colored toward warmth. Perhaps the newish option for silver wire would eliminate this quibble.

@lewm , that’s interesting about the sapphire tube cost, and I agree about the arm’s price. Footfall resonance is not a concern. My SP10R weighs 135 lbs and sits on a Minus-K, and my floor is a concrete slab under glued-down wood flooring.

I have good alignment tools, accumulated over the years: a Wally dedicated to Grahams, an older Wally Universal that I use for my 9-in Ortofon, a UNI-Pro that I like best for my 12-in Ortofon, a MintLP for my 12-in SME, and a smattering of others I don’t use. The Wally’s have always been my favorites. And I recently picked up a WallyVTA, which surprised me with how much better it made things.

The main reason for this thread is b/c I’ve started to sour a bit on my Graham Phantoms. Both of them exhibit a frustrating hypersensitivity to how the counterweight is set. I don’t mean VTF, which I set carefully to the 100th of a gram. I mean the tension on the knurled knob that moves the counterweight along its track. Keep in mind that the Grahams use a screw-track to propel the counterweight toward or away from the bearing housing. The weight is slid along the track by an accordion-like mechanism that expands or contracts. I recently discovered that the slightest pressure in either direction on the controlling knob at the end of the track (and therefore the armtube) will emphasize or diminish HF info to an astonishing degree. I’m not talking about enough pressure to change the VTF at all, measured, again, to the 100th g. I mean just pressuring it, with no discernible movement of the knob at all. And pressure in either direction has obvious and predictable sonic consequences.

I surmise that this pressure slightly changes the track-screw tension, or perhaps loads or unloads the accordion-structure (almost like a spring), which changes the resonance of the arm tube/bearing housing assembly by some small but easily audible amount. In other words, the decoupling is perhaps inadequate. This affects both my Supreme and III. Maybe the Elite is immune, I have no idea.

Perhaps I was unaware of this until my system became refined enough to expose it after many years with these tonearms. I just happened upon it accidentally while adjusting VTF. But once you test for it intentionally, it becomes incontrovertible. Changes in damping amounts within the bearing housing don’t noticeably affect this phenomenon. So I’m left with the sense that I’m not sure when I'm hearing these tonearms at neutral, and therefore when I’m hearing the cartridge rather than the tonearm, and that is frustrating me.

No worries, @karl_desch, my nervosa is not so labile :) and I do appreciate your thoughts. It’s certainly possible azimuth is changing with VTA. But in my experience, azimuth pertains more to clarity of image and soundstage rather than what I hear when the VTA is high or low, which pertains more to frequencies. And I can vary azimuth when the VTA is too low or too high and it does not restore what I hear when the arm is level.

Anyway, I do realize that the whole VTA question is tiresome and has been done ad nauseum in these pages. Sorry to drag you all through it again. I’m happy to let it go.

So the question for me is where do I go from the Phantom, given that I want (rightly or wrongly) the ability to vary VTA easily and repeatably, and given the constraints of my Technics plinth.

Here are the choices that come to mind:

Kuzma 4Point-14 (11 won’t fit)

Triplanar 12 (standard won’t fit)

Reeds - 10.5 and 12

Schroeder LT

Technics EPA-100 and Mk2

FR-64s or 66s with B60 base

What else??

Do all these qualify as an upgrade?

I’m using a couple of Jelco Ortofons with the Easy VTA add-on and they are surprisingly good, especially for the price. I also have a Jelco TK-850S Mk2, the one with knife-edge bearings they released a few months before calling it quits, unopned in the closet. I just haven’t wanted to burn a Panzerholz armboard on what I doubt is an upgrade. I’m looking for something at a significantly higher level to replace the Graham. Any other ideas? I would like to be able to use medium and medium-high compliance MC carts without damping, so this might rule out the FRs and the Kuzma 14.

Thank you for the tip. I’ve never talked to Tom. I might just give him a call.

Corrections to two of my previous posts.

a WallyVTA, which surprised me with how much better it made things.

I meant to say WallySkater.

And regarding the Graham counterweight:

The weight is slid along the track by an accordion-like mechanism that expands or contracts.

That’s inaccurate. It is propelled along a threaded rod that functions like a screw. But the issue of resonance and decoupling remain.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

Thanks @rauliruegas . Should I hold out for the Mk2, made of Boron/Titanium, or is Titanium/Nitride Mk1 nearly as good? I’ve neither seen nor heard either one.

Lewm, Thom agrees with you. I just got off the phone with him. Great guy. And like many wise heads in this thread, he gently argued against per-record VTA changes. Then he gave up. :)

@mijostyn , I greatly appreciate your thoughtful post.

I take your advice about VTA seriously and without offense. If it's a delusion, it is a persistent one, decades long, but perhaps confirmation bias is operating in more ways than one. I'm going to try again with my current arms to see if I can be satisfied with a happy median VTA. It would certainly open some doors.

Maybe, too, it's time to set VTA with a microscope and see what's what. I doubt I'm comically off but there's one way to find out. Do you like the WallyScope? Seems pricey but perhaps justifiably so. Other recommendations for a scope with good software for drawing and measuring angles would be greatly appreciated.

Over the course of a very long conversation, Thom was remarkably careful about specific arm recommendations, probably because he shares @lewm's caveat about cartridge and table synergy with any arm. The custom (as opposed to commercial) Schoeders came up a few times, as did the Kuzma 4P-9. For my Technics plinth he thought his hybrid 11 would be great option, if I could get over the VTA thing. If you're unaware, he mounts an 11 armtube on a 9 base, and does so with Frank's blessing and apparently good results. Given the 18g eff mass of the 4P-11, he thought the 19g of the 4P-14 was a misprint on the Kuzma website, so he is emailing Frank for confirmation. I mentioned the Triplanar 12 and he deflected it. MSL is a fairly new line for him, so his hands-on experience with them is in the early stages.

@rauliruegas, I missed an EPA-100 Mk2 by an hour yesterday on HiFiDo! It was scarfed up almost immediately upon being listed, and at a good price. Dang!

Many thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I have a lot to think about as I plan my next move, be it to a new cartridge or tonearm--and perhaps into a whole new VTA paradigm. I much appreciate all the patience and wisdom shared.

@lewm , that would explain why the Mk2 I saw seemed like it was born to HiFiDo on hold. Last week I saw nice one on the Yahoo Japan auction site, complete in the box. Buyee, the bidding proxy for foreigners, would not allow me to bid more than 300,000 yen despite my advance request for a limit increase. It went for 340,000. Foiled again!