Schroeder arms: order of merit?

Lapaix: May I relate my experience the Schroeder Reference? For over 30 + years I have been a Tube and LP guy. Over that period of time I have auditioned/listened to so many combinations of tonearms/turntables that I feel somewhat jaded. On a Bell Curve I estimate 97% or so fall in the middle , a tad are down-right failures ( mostly early attempts at stereo T/A or sloppy plastic cheapies ) and mostly none in the top 1%. That all changed for me when Frank appeared at my good friend's home, Barry Tayman in Columbia , Maryland (USA) , where Frank personally installed his Reference Tone-Arm on a Verdier. The results were shocking. Frank's work obilerated a $15k+ TA/TT combo within moments of playing time. That's how good the Schroeder/Verdier mating can be. Lord knows what that T/A contributes to other turntables but I feel confidant that the result I had the pleasure to experience would probably be repeated with other Turntable renditions. Note that I have avoided comment on cartridges because to me that purchase is the most personal of all being dependent on factors including age, sex and hearing ability. But make no mistake whatever cartridge one chooses the Schroeder will extract more of its "soul" than what you could expect. In closing, I recommend that all TT folks read a tome by George Merrill " How to Set Up and Tune Your TurnTable and Tone Arm" sold by "Underground Sound" in Memphis,Tennessee(USA). Slightly dated but nevertheless quite a helpful guide for a lifetime of T/A an'TT pleasure. Cheers To All

Just yesterday I had an opportunity to hear a Schroder Reference and the Graham Phantom on the same turntable (Teres 360). They were fitted with different cartridges (Lyra Olympus on the Schroder and a Koetsu Tiger eye platinum with a diamond cantilever in the Phantom). There was not enough time to switch cartridges so we were not able to do a true apples to apples comparison. However, I did form some opinions that others may find useful. Remember I said OPINIONS so please, no flames.

From what I heard the Phantom appears to be big improvement over the 2.2. I thought that the Schroder/Olympus
combination was clearly better overall. However, the gap was smaller than I would have expected. Reading between the lines a bit I suspect that the Schroder is still quite a bit ahead of the Phantom.

The Phantom has the same ease of setup as the 2.2 and great build quality. There was one small glitch with the setup. The Phantom has less lower VTA range than the 2.2. For this
particular setup there was only about 1/16" downward range left when it was dialed in. Odd that Bob would make a change in this parameter.

I would also like to confirm Cello's comments. I owned a Graham 2.2 for about 1-1/2 years and at the time it was my favorite, easily displacing an older Triplanar. However, it was completely out classed by the Schroder Reference. I spent considerable time with both arms so this was not just a quick comparison. This conclusion was confirmed twice during the well conducted comparisons that Cello has already discussed.

Albert: The setup for these evaluations were carefully done . No doubt all of the parameters were not dialed in to perfection, but they were close. Similar effort went into each tonearm setup so in my mind the playing field was even. If am arm needs hours of fine tuning to sound right then that should be considered to be a liability. That liability rightly should be part of the evaluation equation. Not that I think that came into play here, more of a philosophical point. Besides that magnitude of the differences we heard between each of the tonearms was much more than what could be explained by setup differences.

Gmorris: Love fest you say... Funny how this mantra often comes up when a group of people enthusiastically endorse a product. It would pay to ask why the "love fest" exists rather than dissing it. Maybe it is simply because the product is a good as it is claimed to be. I both recommend and sell Schroder tonearms. From a business perspective this is a poor practice. Many sales have been and are stalled waiting for a tonearm from heir Schroder. So what possible motivation could I have for recommending Schroder tonearms other than I think that they are the best choice for my customers. I have an arrangements to OEM Graham, Basis, Orign Live, Morch and Triplanar tonearms. All of these tonearms have better availability. I recommend Schroder tonearms because I believe in them. When I find a better tonearm, I will recommend it. No conspiracy here.

Teres,thanks SO much for the feedback.I find your comments extremely interesting,and will consider them at a future point.Though you do indicate there were two differing cartridges at play,I feel confident that you were able to extrapolate some meaningful results.That being said,I do wish you could report back,soon,as to a final comparison using the same cartridge.

Recently Michael Fremer,giving a RAVE review of the Phantom (which I'm sure is wonderful)stated that he could not get a Schroeder Ref for review,and went on to assume that this was because of the backlog in orders,and that a review could be taking a chance.While I understand this,and don't know the reasoning,I am fascinated as to what that potential review would be like!

Best regards!

Hi Lapaix,
as I needed a new TA for my H&P TT, I did some
Extensive test with a schroeder TA against my
existing Kuzma Airline.
I decided to by another Kuzma Airline.
In both TA I mounted the Myabi and the phono pre
were both Klyne 7 newest model.
So that the only diference is the TA.

Best regards
Karl-Heinz

Mr Teres:

I note that you have consistently recommended the Schroeder arms for your turntables. That's fine with me.
You have made a subjective determination based on the comparison of the two arms with different cartridges. Obviously, this is a flawed methodology of comparison: in order to make definitive statements about the relative performance of the Schroeder and the Phantom, it is imperative that the same TT/cartridge and front end/system are the same. Admittedly, it is entirely possible that the Schroeder may subjectively sound better on your TTs even with the same components/system. However, the opposite may be true in other systems. In audio there is virtually no absolute truth.