The Miller Carbon Story

Nor that he thinks about it.

I'm not that surprised you prefer Dewey Cox...

Dewey Cox. Different connotations. Think about it.

Dewey Care?

I prefer the Dewey Cox story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zcrb1ff1xs

I preferred The Glen Miller Story.

I'm relieved you're moving on. Always felt it was a weak link, along with the JJ tubes.

Cool. I always listed my stuff here and USAudiomart and most things sold over there for free.

Thanks. Spacialking might be interested, the Verus motor alone is a worthy upgrade. The bearing is brand new now as well.

And interesting story for sure!   I have been looking at upgrading the motor in my unit to a three phase brushless motor with much higher torque than the old stock unit.   
But using a DC motor is an interesting concept.

Acquire and read "A Vibration Measuring Machine" by Roy Gandy and the gang at Rega. Then you may have a chance.

Plinths are evil. ;)

Late 1990’s. I was trying different things and his stuff was so good I had to call and guess my enthusiasm made up for not having an actual business and so he let me be his distributor in Seattle. Which really amounted to showing off to the guys at the local audio club, taking them around to try in their systems.

I was young, it was fun. Didn’t pay anything, certainly not enough to cover all my time visiting all these guys. How many people make house calls to demo $60 worth of Cones? 😂 But it was cool, I got to see a lot of systems, learned a lot, massive experience.

So working with him was all over the phone, and working with his products. He sent me some stuff nobody else got, which is how I learned it isn’t really the carbon fiber, that is almost entirely cosmetic and makes for a nice story. When I say over and over again how the "reasons" manufacturers state for performance are best regarded as nothing but stories, it comes from experience. Lots of experience. Not just DJ. Lots of em. All the same. Stories.

Audiophiles take the stories so seriously. Psych!

Back then I had a lot less experience and confidence. The idea for the Miller Carbon turntable came from using the Basis and realizing it was nothing more than a board with some holes in it. If the Basis could be that good with acrylic, which is nowhere near as good as BDR, think what it could be made out of BDR!

Being young, naive, and trusting, I discussed my ideas with DJ. Couldn’t get him to make me one. Finally decided to just build my own from a BDR Source Shelf.

That was the beginning of the end of my working with DJ Casser. First he started telling me his material was too hard, couldn’t possibly be cut except with special tools. Then even if I did the dust would kill me. When I say manufacturers exaggerate, here we go. Cuts up just fine with band saw, table saw, router, you name it. Sands out real nice too. Just look at it. Anyone but chakster can see how beautiful it is.

The end of working with DJ came at CES. I was in the Talon room with my prototype turntable on display. A friend came in said, "Hey have you seen the BDR room? DJ ripped off your turntable!" Went there and sure enough, everything I had told him that he had pretended no interest in doing, he had stolen and built into a real impressive looking table!

So that was my experience working with DJ Casser.

Off topic.  When did you work with DJ Casser?  I've been trying to find a friend that worked with him as well.DB13

I'm sorry, but how many people can say this turntable is beautiful ? I'm just curious. This taste in high-end just killing me. With all my respect I can't say it's beautiful, quite opposite. So many years of tweaking just to have this in the system ? Even if the sound is amazing I would like to stay miles away from such turntables. 

They may find that perplexing but to me it is understandable and indeed a major reason in choosing Origin Live. That was really the over-arching theme or reason for this whole discussion, to try and relate some of what was learned in order to better understand what can be.

The other main point, maybe even more important, is to encourage people to actually try and do some of this stuff. Because it is one thing to talk and think, but really we learn by doing. Without doing, anyone can talk themselves into anything. See it all the time. Narrative is the scourge of our times.

Doing produces results that cannot be denied. When your Sovereign is silent, well that is just a fact anyone can hear. It should be plain as day the turntable and arm have no way of knowing what to silence and what to pass as music. So if you hear silence from one table and not another you can be sure, absolutely certain, which one is doing it right.

The real reason then they are perplexed is they bought into a false narrative. We will know soon enough. The Sovereign is in LA customs. We will know soon enough.

Dear @middlemass : " So if we can’t "prove" something, it doesn’t exist. ""

You are even smarter than the " smart " mc but even that and talking of what the " marter " mc posted:

" digital is noise ", well according your " great logic " as the smarter and you can’t prove it confirm that noise does not exist and is an untrue statement. Got it?

Both of you make my day, try to follow that way: smarter.

Btw, how is that been you so smarter can't turn a Dynavector into a Grado cartridge?  Maybe mc can help you due that his TT mmakes " quite good sound ". Go figure a TT that makes sound. Ovbiously following your logic.

R.

The perplexing part seems to be the Origin Live experience doesn’t have some of the low level background noise issues that they claim are intrinsic and almost expected in vinyl playback.  They accuse my reproduction as being like a CD but with analogue emotion.  I agree there seams to be more “excitement” in their system’s analogue presentation but in my system the OL presentation is more of what I strive for in my system at this time. 

I wonder how others feel about attacking someone personally like that over something clearly not even ready to be sold yet?

drrsutliff-

Love my Sovereign Mk3-2 dual tonearm TT. I expect you will enjoy the MkIV as well as the Enterprise MkIV.

Thanks. Initial impression, to judge by reviews and comments such as yours, Origin Live is another outstanding UK performer that has somehow managed to fly under the radar here in the States. We will see.

When you say your OL tables have always perplexed some in your audio group I have a hunch why that might be but curious to know what it is that you think they find puzzling?

millercarbon OP10,409 posts

08-07-2021 1:16pm

Funny you should mention, this thread is sort of a dual-purpose. 

For sure the Miller Carbon is a fine table, and should provide years of listening pleasure to whoever buys it. For me it is as you say time to move on (after 17 years!) and everything learned on this table gives me a deep appreciation for what Mark is doing with the Sovereign.

Now I see why you didn't want any posts by anyone who saw the failings in your homebrew turntable.

This thread appears to be purely an advertorial for you to sell your homebrew turntable through the back door via the forum.

How about listing it on Audiogon and paying a sales fee.

Love my Sovereign Mk3-2 dual tonearm TT. I expect you will enjoy the MkIV as well as the Enterprise MkIV.

Funny you should mention, this thread is sort of a dual-purpose. People have asked me about it, and kept getting put off. Until now, when a new Origin Live Sovereign MkIV and Enterprise MkIV arm are due here next week. 😍😍

Perfect segue, as you will probably notice every step of the Miller Carbon story was in a way slowly leading me to Mark Baker's approach.  

For sure the Miller Carbon is a fine table, and should provide years of listening pleasure to whoever buys it. For me it is as you say time to move on (after 17 years!) and everything learned on this table gives me a deep appreciation for what Mark is doing with the Sovereign. 

Or so it looks in reviews and video anyway. Soon we will see!  
https://youtu.be/8ZkOzh9GFHk?t=5

Interesting read MC.  It is always an curious time when we have modified, experimented, and tweaked a piece to the point we now realize that the next logical step is to move to something new (at least to us) and start our journey over again.  I have had a few quality discussions with Mark Baker and currently enjoy both an OL Illustrious mk3c and OL Enterprise Mk4 on my Soverign TT.  This is my third OL table and they have always perplexed some in my audio group who mostly have higher end VPI tables and arms for a multitude of reasons.  Looking forward to what will reside under the dust cover you describe as being designed for the next table.
Rick

Gotta say, the TA102 on the tonearm base and the tonearm platform (for a lack of a better term) that is part of the VTA tower on a VPI tonearm and a strip along the length of the bottom of the aluminum uni pivot arm tube made a noticeable difference.

This is very cool. So I also worked with DJ on several projects very early in his business. He designed and built some very attractive free form tables for my law firm lobby out of CF that supported massive chunks of glass. Very cool conversation pieces. 
I already was writing for The Audiophile Voice at the time, a column called Ear Candy. DJ was prototyping cones and working on prototypes of the Shelf. I helped him with testing the resonance and bending modes for the Shelf at Newport Corporation in Irvine, CA. Worth looking that company’s products up. DJ made changes over the first year before going into production based on those tests.

I talked DJ into helping me redesign and rebuild the Casser/Goldmund Studio. We did a feature article on the rebuild for The Audiophile Voice. So the turntable has a carbon fiber wrapped Delrin lead impregnated subplinth, enlarged carbon fiber wrapped Delrin base, and Newport Corp active pneumatic self leveling suspension that runs off of a 100 psi air tank; a noise free active suspension that isolated vertically and horizontally to .5hz. We needed a massive subplinth to properly activate the Newport feet. I have not modified the Goldmund platter, but am working on the frame for the T3F pivoting linear arm now. Just recently converted the arm for balance connections. Went with a highly regulated 24 LPS supply for the motor, from a Goldmund ELIM, years ago.

I don’t have a lot of experience with other tables, but these mods elevated the Goldmund Studio significantly. And the T3F arm, even with Koetsus, sounds better, more neutral at the extremes with far better image geometry to me, than the FR-64s and Syrinx PU-4 that I have, when they were new.

This is a super fun and rewarding hobby when investing your own time to improve manufacturers’ efforts.

And I miss my time arguing with DJ over many of his early years in the business. He sent me some CF momentous just before he passed. Great guy and a true artist.

JHellow

Right. As Spock might say, "A dazzling display of illogic."

Where was I? Oh yes, the turntable.  

At some point last year someone around here- if anyone knows who it was please chime in so they can get due credit - was talking about how great TA-102 fO.q tape works. So we got some and tried it. Sure enough, even a small piece makes a noticeable improvement.

This special tape is designed to eliminate micro-vibrations by turning them into heat through using the piezo-electric effect. This is different than most other materials that work on a more mechanical level. This tape is pliable but not soft, so it preserves dynamics. It does however remove a layer of grunge, leaving midrange and treble quite a bit clearer.

It was first used on the tone arm base, then arm tube and counterweight, and motor pod. Finally it was used on the bearing.

The Miller Carbon was originally designed around the idea of the best approach being to hold the bearing as rigidly as possible. So it was fastened directly to the BDR Shelf on both sides. After learning more about isolation it was thought maybe this tape would be an improvement.

A couple pieces were cut. One was cut to fit like a gasket where the bearing mounts to the plinth from above. More were used on the nut that fastens from below. Together this has the bearing held to the plinth with this tape in between. This was a very noticeable improvement for such a small amount of tape.

Another small piece went over the washer that fits around the spindle, with some more around the perimeter of the record clamp. Altogether these cleaned up a fair amount of grunge revealing greater detail.

These were the last few things to be done to the table itself. When first springs and then Townshend Pods were used under the table, and to excellent effect, that was pretty much the end of my old philosophy of how to approach the whole thing.

Not that it didn't get quite good results. The table as it is now really does sound quite good. It is more a situation of feeling like this is about as far as we can take it. Instead of trying to hold everything as rigidly firm as possible the experience with Podiums under speakers and Pods under components is saying it is better to isolate each thing in such a way that it can dissipate energy without inducing ringing in everything nearby. Another way of putting it is to let the vibrational energy dissipate more rapidly.

So, a lot of learning. A lot of changes, spread out over 17 years.

"So prove it with facts/true foundation and please not try to be " smart " or answer with one of your " tales "."

So if we can't "prove" something, it doesn't exist. Got it. Thanks for the revelation.

@millercarbon :   "" Digital is noise. Analog is music. If ...,  ""

that's what you posted and I posted this about:

""Fortunatelly only a subjective opinion with no true and real foundation/facts that can prove in any way    "

and answered my post trying to be to smart/wise, that you certainly are not, in this manner:

"""  That is just your opinion without any true real foundation/facts that can prove it in any way.  ""

It was you ( not me ) who first posted: "  Digital is noise. Analog is music..."""

So prove it with facts/true foundation and please not try to be " smart " or answer with one of your " tales ".

R.

Everything by ear. There are times and places for everything. Amateurs messing with measurements is more often than not like a monkey trying to fix a helicopter with a ball peen hammer. Sorry. It just is.

Not that it isn't good for a lot of entertaining word salad. We had a thread one time went on and on and on, and all the guy was trying to do was check speaker sensitivity. One would think a simple dB measurement would be a slam dunk. Not even. The whole brain trust of this whole site couldn't agree on it even after a month of back and forth. So good luck.

Or on the other hand, make one change, either sounds better or doesn't, and the result is known to a certainty usually within a matter of seconds. Horses for courses.

MC

Great and enlughtening conversation , while I have read many of your
posts I find that your skills are much greater than mine when it comes to 
making / upgrading tweeks , but I do get a lot of ideas of things to try .
DIY'ing has it's own special rewards and one doesn't have to be an
engineer to give tweeking a try .

Do you evaluate but ear or by measurements ?

@millercarbon

 There never was any indication this thread was about "how to do it" or "this is the best" the thread is simply a discussion of how this table came to be and got to where it is. 

Apologies - didn't realise you only wanted to hear from folk who agree with everything you've done. I'll move on.

Okay sure. But what good would reading up do if the reading up misses the point and jumps to a lot of unwarranted conclusions? I didn’t choose the inferior platter. You can’t find anything here to indicate that. Matter of fact the lead shot platter I bought was the best one available at the time. The demo with cocobolo and delrin was years later. Go ahead, search back and see where you can substantiate your pre-determined narrative. Not in anything I wrote. If you are gonna read up, read up.

Bearing, ditto. All of which is beside the point. There never was any indication this thread was about "how to do it" or "this is the best" the thread is simply a discussion of how this table came to be and got to where it is. Along the way people interested in learning can maybe learn things here and there. If they are interested in learning. Not showing off.

This is not a BSD contest. When you make your system better it does not make mine worse, and vice versa. We all can learn. We can even learn by others mistakes. One of the best ways (and least expensive) to improve your writing is to read up, question everything, and most importantly, think!

@millercarbon

Great to have a thread for discussion on TT tweaks. Here are my questions and observations.

Matter of fact both the black and cocobolo platters were clearly superior. But the black was solid black like a hockey puck and cocobolo while beautiful hides the carbon fiber, they just do not look good together and so we had to pass. Lead shot spinning really looks the treat.

I cant understand why you would start with an inferior sounding platter if you are looking to build the best sounding TT you can.
This would suggest that all your subsequent  modifications and your conclusions as to their efficacy and impact on sound have been assessed with a platter that is not optimised, and could have led you to wrong conclusions.

Battery power supply. Same motor, only the power supply changes. Ability to run battery connected or disconnected from AC charger. So effect of RFI in AC is demonstrated and learned. 

Why do you conclude it is about elimination of RFI, you are comparing a mains AC to to battery supply - I would have thought the stability of the mains supply affects the sound as much as any RFI. In fact a power supply does not need to be connected to the mains to be affected by RFI.

Chris used an inverted bearing design. Ours was an early version, with a stainless steel ball bearing riding on a teflon coated brass thrust plate. 

Teflon or self lubricating polymer type materials are a cheaper alternative to a properly desgned bearing. Teflon thrustpads wear out - quite rapidly actually. Have you thought about try lignin vitae for example. I see you replaced it with silicon carbide and tungsten thrustpad. You might be interested to know the Brinkman uses a plastic thrust pad - very disappointing.

If you want to look at some of the best TT's on the planet, check out TechDas, Clearaudio, Brinkman and if you want to go cheaper, check out Kronos and VPI. 

Well the Brinkman uses a plastic bearing, the Clearaudio Statement cant hold speed accurately - some of them are not a great as you might think. There are a lot of shiny balls in audio.

One of the best ways ( and least expensive ) to improve your system as you have done is to read up, question everything and most importantly think !

Yes the Blackhawk review is coming ozzy62! I was on the phone yesterday with Dave Thompson gleaning more fascinating tidbits to sprinkle on my already sparkling prose. It’s just with the Raven now the Melody needs to find a new home, and this thread is the last (for me) curtain call for the Miller Carbon, next weekend is the big Audio Extravaganza at Chez Chaz with the new... oops man that was a close one almost let the cat out of the bag! 🤣😂

Lewm I thought we where supposed to be going for what real music sounds like.  I have played  the trumpet  in cars,  trucks, in doors/ outdoors , hotel rooms, concert halls, even in the bath tub.  Yes each place it sounds a little different,  but it sounds like a trumpet not a digital trumpet.  Yes and a trumpet can get in your face but also be smooth like Miles.  But it does not sound electronic. 

Subjective  makes plenty  of sense if one does not care about what real acoustical  instruments  sound like and  just wants to dance  or have a good time.  People should enjoy music regardless if sounds real or not.  My subjective choice is real , I like  to hear and feel how the makers of the instruments wanted their goods to sound.

To back up Miller Carbons observation  of inexpensive  turntable getting the job done.  I was at a all tube stereo store in Phoenix  15+ years ago.  The owner had a small room with some Quad 989 in them.  Modest tube amp and Some small turntable with a grado 300.00 wood body cartridge.   Had Ben Webster on tenor playing.  It was as good as it gets.  

Enjoy the ride
Tom

MC, there’s no question that mediocre vinyl, like what one can get out of an SL1700 with a 681EE, could trounce nearly any of the early one box CDPs, in nearly anyone’s opinion. Modern digital is miles better, whereas an equivalent modern mid price vinyl rig is also way better than an SL1700 + 681EE, but maybe not by as big a factor. I don’t bother to make comparisons these days. I know that my own preference for vinyl is the product of many variables, not all of which are based purely in SQ.

So now that we have the Miller Carbon story, how about we get a report on that Blackhawk.

Oz

News flash rauliruegas, it is all subjective opinion with no true real foundation/facts that prove anything. You may think otherwise but guess what? That is just your opinion without any true real foundation/facts that can prove it in any way. You can measure, but your measurements are only valuable to you, and only because you have faith in them. 

There is nothing fortunate, or unfortunate, about any of this. It is what it is. 

Dear @millercarbon : ""  Digital is noise. Analog is music. If ..., why can’t audiophiles? ""

Fortunatelly only a subjective opinion with no true and real foundation/facts that can prove in any way that " ridiculous " ( for say the least. ) statement and remember that even that you read in more than one Agon thread posts the explanation that your ears has an ADC for the " brain " can comunicates what we are perceiving through the ears you still do don't understand it.

R.

The story has been told before but bears repeating. One day back around 1992 the Technics SL1700 bought in 1976 and stored for nearly a decade was dug out of the garage and hooked up. The Stanton 681EEE cantilever was bent, but straightened out pretty good with pliers. This was hooked up, using the crap patch cord hard wired into that table, to the phono stage in a vintage 1974 Kenwood KA-8004.

The Technics had a natural warmth and inviting ease the Cal Audio Labs CDP couldn’t touch. When the wife came home she asked what sounds so good. She couldn’t see and had no way of knowing it was a record. Assumed it was CD. When she saw what was going on she was shocked. How can it sound so much better, she wondered?

Year or so later listening to Jennifer Warnes on Basis/Graham/Glider/PH3SE she said in awe, it is so quiet! This was surprising since everyone always assumes digital is the quiet one. Then she explained, the noise with vinyl is ticks and pops, but between the ticks and pops is music. The CD has no ticks and pops, the whole thing is noise. There is no music.

Some audiophiles just need to try and get their minds around this. Yes indeed there are an unbelievably long list of sonic attributes one can listen for and hear. Among those are ones that some of us hear as noise, while others pretend the same noise is music.

Digital is noise. Analog is music. If my wife can understand, why can’t audiophiles?

I am still working on what mglik wrote,
"For me, even an entry level TT rig surpasses digital. Sure the relative SQ is low but the physicality of the vibration of the stylus is an organic sound."
What does that mean? Isn’t this all about perceived SQ? Different ones of us are programmed to search for different qualities that go into our own definitions of SQ. This leads some of us to prefer excellent digital reproduction to excellent vinyl reproduction. There is nothing to argue about there, but SQ is the name of the game, the only reason to even play the game. Aren’t we all listening to music, not the vibration of the stylus in isolation?

Dear @njkrebs  : ""   if you need to read through previous posts of what people wrote...""

Some times could be good  to know or " figure " out something of what is posted by a gentleman trying to understand his post reason to posted.

I did it with your " rethorical " post. 

Btw, normally always exist " opportunities " to make up-grades in an audio room/system with out spend money but only our time, some examples: changing the cartridge alignment ( overhang/offset angle. ), time to time check/fine tune the VTF/VTA due that cartridge suspension over playing hours has a kind of low degradation that could affects those cartridge set up parameters, small speaker position changes or even our seat position and many other tweaks we have on hand. The ones that could help the more are the system transducers links changes/fine tune.

As you I'm satisfied with my system.

R.

Microfiber dust off the platter beginning every session. Damp cloth tone arm every month or so. Every once in a while wipe off the shelf and granite. 

The next one will probably get a proper acrylic cover. Floating, hinged off the wall, no part of it touching any part of the rack or table open or closed. 

How do you keep the dust bunnies off from all this ?

Have Netflix expressed any interest in running a serial?

Diminishing returns is more a phantom than a thing. More often than not all it means is doing the wrong thing. Because over the years it always has turned out doing the right thing is never a lot for a little, in fact it is usually quite the opposite.

So for example the motor was upgraded from the original pod to battery power and then a big $2500 jump to the Verus motor and controller. This was a diminishing return in the sense it was about what the platter, bearing and plinth cost, so nearly double the cost, but not double the performance. But on the other hand looking around, what other turntable was there that could be bought that would be better? 

So a good worthwhile improvement, but yes a diminishing return. However this was not the case when going from the Graham 2.2 to the Origin Live Conqueror Mk3. That improvement was huge! So there was no diminishing return. 

We could even go off-topic onto speakers, where Tekton Moab are far better speakers than the Talon Khorus they replaced, yet the incremental cost after selling the Khorus was so small no way it could be called diminishing. 

Same sort of thing again with the Raven Blackhawk (review to come) that cost more than the Melody integrated but is so much better no way it could be called diminishing return.

Sure everyone can find all kinds of overpriced stuff where the return is not only diminishing it is outright negative. All that does is prove my point. If the return is diminishing it is more likely due to some fault in system evaluation or component selection than some iron law of audio.

@rauliruegas,
My question in this thread was more rhetorical in nature. I was simply stating I'm very happy with where I currently am with my system. I've make some minor tweaks along the way, but as I said, not sure what I'd change at the moment. Adding 1-2% improvement doesn't matter to me, diminishing returns for $1000's I'd rather invest elsewhere. I enjoyed what the OP (millercarbon) had to contribute, he obviously looks at every angle, which for him works and he enjoys taking his path. For me, that approach wouldn't work, but nonetheless I like reading about other people's perspectives and approaches. 

The rest of what you said in response to me was rambling, not sure what your point was. Also, if you need to read through previous posts of what people wrote to make a counterpoint, I'd suggest getting yourself another hobby in addition to music. Enjoy your tunes! 

The first arm used on the Miller Carbon was the Graham 2.0, with a Benz Micro Glider. Then the Graham was upgraded to 2.2 with the new more massive knob that holds the point the arm pivots on. There was also a different weight silicone fluid as I recall.   

This was a fairly minor upgrade, not really worth the money frankly, although maybe so because back then it was still pretty exciting to hear such simple things make any difference at all. So, more learning: Even something as seemingly minor as the viscosity of a few drops of silicone does make a difference you can hear.  

This also was a change to the arm itself. Lots of people ask what does what, how much does it matter, and so on. Well, we learn by doing.  

Eventually the Glider was replaced with Benz Ruby. A clear case of the same only better. Which was exactly what was wanted. Wasn't looking to change. Just looking for more of the same, only better. 

The same Graham arm had now been used on two different turntables, Basis and Teres, or more if counting by the mods made to the tables while the arm remained the same. But those two tables anyway.  

The Graham requires an interconnect. Experience with this led to questioning the wisdom of all those extra connections. The Graham had cartridge pins, wand contacts, DIN connector, RCA to phono stage. Each one of those connections is also a solder joint. So add them all up: 11 connections! Compared to only 4 or 5 if the arm is hard wired.  

Cartridge output is exceedingly faint and fragile. All these connections cannot possibly be good. Yeah sure Ted Denney had made me some custom phono interconnects and they were mighty fine. But, still....  

So we wound up with the next big upgrade, the arm that is on there now, the Origin Live Conqueror.  

This was easily the biggest single upgrade yet! The cost increase, once factoring in the interconnect which we have to do to be fair, was not that much. But the performance improvement sure was! This was not just an upgrade. From Glider to Ruby was an upgrade. The motor stuff was upgrades. This was something entirely different. This was another realm.  

larry5729, you were asking about the cartridge? Now you have your answer: nope! A good arm is a greater upgrade than any cartridge. Dollar for dollar, put your money into a good arm. 

This was proven yet again later on when the Ruby was replaced with Koetsu Black Goldline. Yes indeed the Koetsu is a fine cartridge. Wonderful! Fricken love that thing! Totally. But really, it was just another upgrade. A nice one to be sure. Have we mentioned how much we love our Koetsu??! But where the arm was transformative, the cartridge was merely evolutionary.   

Always hard to objectively compare these things. Put it this way. The Graham 2.2 with Ted Denney custom IC and Koetsu, against the Conqueror with Benz Ruby, are pretty darn close in total cost. Just don't see anyone listening to them side by side picking the Koetsu. Not on that arm. Seriously doubt it would even be necessary to mount the Ruby. Probably everyone would pick the Glider on the Conqueror.  

The arm makes that much difference. When it is a good arm.