ZYX Airy2-X-SB on Graham 2.2

I echo sirspeedy's comments on damping and the Graham. For me at least, it is a slow, time consuming process which is measured in weeks, not days. It takes time for the fluid to settle before the final result can be evaluated. Frustrating for sure, but worth the effort. Who ever first wrote about the critical nature of the damping fluid here on the 'Gon, I owe a debt of gratitude. It changed my perception of the Graham completely. It’s too bad it has taken all these years for this choice bit to get out and become public knowledge.

I ‘m now doing the fiddling part of this process with a Airy 3-X-SB (on a Graham 2.2) which now has enough hours on it to where the top end opened up about a week ago. On that happy event, I changed the loading from 500 ohms to 100 which seems about right. Right now it sounds pretty good and I have been able to tweak out the stridency that showed up when the top end opened up. However, I doubt I’m done with the fiddling.

As it is, the Airy just slaps my Ruby 2 silly. It has the natural instrumental timbre that I crave along with utter transparency across the entire frequency range – or at least as much as you get from Quads. Wow! It captures the sound of both the body and the string of violins, violas and cellos – a feat that fat bottomed girl named Ruby could never manage. The other thing that amazes is how quite the Airy rides in the groove – I can hear so much farther into the music in the soft passages that I ever could with the Ruby.

If you can’t tell, I am thoroughly enjoying the Airy and it has been keeping me up late – a good sign. If the top end continues to open and cause problems, I’ll report back. In the mean time, I’ll keep the platter spinning.

Scott

I’ve been thinking about this damping issue. I using the high viscosity blue fluid. I forgot to mention that this stuff is also sensitive to changes in temperature. Maybe that’s not a big deal to some of you guys, but here in the Midwest living in an old house with no insulation in the walls, it is.

I was wondering if any of you guys have tried going back to the lighter weight clear fluid that came with pre 2.2 versions of the arm. I’m conjecturing here, but seems that while it would require more of that fluid to obtain optimum damping , it would also be less sensitive to changes in level. Any thoughts?

Sirspeedy,

I did a little research and found that the damping force is linearly proportional to the viscosity of the fluid and to the square of the area of the damper. That certainly supports your observations. All I was pondering was a way to adjust damping that was less sensitive than what we’re living with now.

Regards,

Scott

Sirspeedy,

I didn't take any offense to your post at all - in fact I enjoy reading them. You always seem to be both helpfull and gracious - something not all people do.

I fully agree with your statements concerning setup with the Graham. All of the adjustments are simple to do but it is extremely difficult to optimize setup due to the fact that all setup parameters are a function of each other,ie, you can't vary one independent of the others. So yes, you were right when you said that you'll probably here about your statement but is the chorus of agreement from these parts. I've lived with this arm since it was in it's 1.5T version and know exactly what your saying.