Well Tempered or Teres .....

Richard,

I have never heard a WT so I can't comment on them. I can say that if you want black backgrounds and powerful dynamics, a Teres will supply them in spades, especially with the cocobolo base.

Do a search for cocobolo + acrylic + Teres and you'll probably turn up the post by Twl where he compared the two directly in his system. For him, the cocobolo won hands down. Night and day, etc. etc.

For tonearms, again with the goal being maximum dynamics, I'd stick with a gimball based design. Few unipivots will stabilize a cartridge as well, and a stable cartridge body is essential for allowing maximum cantilever acceleration and extension. That's what creates dynamics. My Shelter 901 on an appropriate arm is dynamic as hell. I wouldn't put either Shelter on a Unify.

Enjoy the hunt!

In addition to Twl's logical arguments, one of the factors that convinced me of the advantages of dual bearing arms for bass and dynamics was the way I acquired my cartridge.

I knew I wanted a Shelter 901. We listen to a lot of large scale classical, and last year the 901 was being widely discussed as the best cartridge on the planet for that kind of music. People were marveling at its perfect control during the most complex and dynamic passages. They were also remarking on its deep, powerful and musical bass.

Then one showed up for sale here with just 100 hours on it. This is pretty rare so I grabbed it. Out of curiosity I asked the seller why he sold it. "Didn't like the bass." was his answer. WTF?! So I asked what arm he'd used it on. It was the Well Tempered arm. Not exactly a unipivot but certainly not a gimbal design either. I didn't say anything of course, but he should have kept the Shelter and sold the WT arm.

Everything everybody was saying about the 901 is true. Properly supported and set up, it continues to astonish us every day. IMO a low compliance cartridge like this performs best when provided with a very stable platform, ie, a high mass non-suspended TT and a dual bearing arm. Really good suspended tables like a top Basis, SME or Walker might do as well, but they all cost $15K+.

I have trouble changing the batteries in a flashlight without screwing up, guess I'm electrically challenged. I've never rewired an arm, but lots of others have done the Expressimo rewire so I guess it's doable.

Chris Brady is totally swamped at the moment so his lead times are a little stretched. Be prepared to wait some if you do decide to take the plunge.

The HIFI mod is a killer. If you go the Rega route and buy the weights from Twl, you get the extra benefit of being able to add my mod to his mod. Twl's weights accommodate a micro-VTF adjuster I discovered. It lets you change VTF over a .15g range without moving the counterweight! Big benefit for VTF-sensitive cartridges like the Shelters.

Yes, I'm nuts and no, it never stops!

Richard,
It looks like you're going to be VERY broke. I wouldn't count on that hearse, more like a donkey cart! ;)

Steve,
I am currently bedeviled by a trace of inner groove distortion. Try as I will I cannot quite eliminate it, despite multiple cartride realignments and fiddling with every adjustment known to analog man.

I presume your ET2 is immune to that little problem. Have you ever had another arm on the same table as your ET2? Can you compare the sonics? I don't want give up bass, dynamics or transient speed (or anything!) just to solve the inner groove problem.

Hey, at least make it a cocobolo donkey cart!

DtM,

It's a little hard to talk about Cello's Vector. IIRC we only heard one cartridge on it, his Shelter 901, and that clearly hasn't broken in yet. My 901 sounded less constrained, edgy or peaky than Cello's no matter what arm we put it on. Keeping that in mind, here are my impressions of the Basis Vector and Graham 2.2:

The Vector is more dynamic. Those dynamics sounded a bit strained or "hifi" at times, but I'm pretty sure that was due to the new cartridge.

The Graham seemed a bit smoother, rounder or warmer, though again that could be due to Cello's newish 901 making the Vector sound edgier.

For useability and ease of adjustment it's no contest, the Graham wins by a mile. It's an easy and pleasurable arm to use. The Vector's lack of VTA adjustment is a major oversight. Cello was wise to order the Teres VTA adapter for it, without that the Vector would be a non-starter for me despite it's considerable sonic merits.

For clarity and neutrality however I think the eventual winner may be the Vector. Once everything breaks in I think the Graham's very slight warmth may be more noticeable. This is very subtle however, and either arm could be right for certain systems, tastes, or cartridges. It may even depend on the recording. Electric guitar and female pop or jazz vocals on the Graham/Koetsu RSP were just magical. Nice to have a 340-2 and two such fine setups to choose from.

Here's a revelation for you: either of these fine arms clobbers my modded OL Silver! Who'da thunk it? I heard no inner groove problems on the Vector or the 2.2. I have those constantly with my OL. It's nothing to do with cartridge alignment, the OL just won't let the stylus trace those tight inner groove modulations cleanly. The Vector and 2.2 both do a better job and they're both less colored. Since returning home, Paul and I now both hear the OL's limitations on every record. (Curse you Cello! I knew something like this would happen.) Of course a $900 arm has no business playing in this kind of traffic, and Twl's $20 HIFI Mod gives the Silver every inch of the Vector's stunning dynamics. It actually beats the Graham there, if nowhere else.

At the opposite end of ridiculous was CB's Schroeder Reference. It's in a class of its own, price-wise and performance-wise. With my Shelter 901 on it we had an open pipeline to the music, there were no sonic artifacts from arm or cartridge at all. It was like both components had just disappeared. Fairly amazing stuff, as you'd hope for from an arm that costs nearly as much as a Vector and a 2.2 combined.

Say, anyone wanna buy a lightly used, lovingly modified OL Silver - for about $5K? We'll even throw in Paul's paper clip VTF adjuster, which works better than the VTF on any of those overpriced sticks we heard at Cello's! :-)

Cmk,
Thanks for the tip. We're taking a close look at all Frank's models. It was indeed the lack of any sound attributable to the arm that was so stunning.

Interesting comment about gimballed arms being more susceptible to inner groove problems. I'd love to hear more, whether experiences or theories, about why you think so. (I'm not challenging, just curious.) Is it based on your experiences with several gimballed arms? Theory about bearing chatter? Or...?

As I mentioned above, we've had inner groove problems since our ears got smart enough to recognize them. We also have a bit of coloration across the record, more at some frequencies than others. Resonances are the obvious culprit, and I suppose bearing chatter excited by resonances could make a gimbal design more vulnerable. Am I getting close?