SME 20/2 SME V or Triplanar VII?

Hi Ed,

If I had the time, I'd be evaluating the Phantom right now. Unfortunately, this is proving to be a busy Summer, and free time such as it were is booked for other projects. I'm hopeful that I can pick this up in the Fall.

Some on this list may think that because my tastes do not lean towards the 2.2, that I might not be interested in the Phantom.

There are two very potent reasons for me wanting to spend time with the Phantom.

1. The 2.2 is a joy to set up and tracks marvelously. I expect nothing less of the Phantom.

2. My experiences with the shift from my Teflon composite platter architecture to the TPI may very well parallel what Bob has learned about his tonearm designs.

With respect to item 2 above, the single minor criticism I had with my Teflon composite platters (and I do mean minor), is that in the wrong system, they could sound the slightest bit bright. To my ears however, their other virtues could not be ignored. The TPI top layer addresses this issue.

The general reports I've read about the Phantom would lead me to believe that there is some parallel progress being made in this area and I'm very interested in hearing the results.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

OK, I've decided and ordered a Phantom.

My bottom line reasoning was (a) it has the adjustment flexibility of the Triplanar, but the adjustments are easier to make, (b) its craftsmanship, fit and finish are up to SME standards, (c) I called Bob Graham and he told me that his personal TT is an SME 30/2 and he developed the Phantom on the 30/2 and on an available 20/2, causing me to reason that the Phantom should be at least as synergistic with the 20/2 as the SME V and probably even more so since it was developed more recently on SME's current TTs and with the current best cartridges, (d) the guy I bought the 20/2 from is replacing it with the Grand Prix Audio Monaco TT, an unsuspended design I believe, and he evaluated it with the following arms: Dynavector, Phantom, Triplanar & SME V, which finished in that order top to bottom, with the Universe, XV1S, top of the line Lyra, causing me to reason that the Phantom should work very well with the Galibier tables, a theory I hope is born out when Thom does find the time to evaluate the Phantom with his tables (so it should work equally well for me with Galibier), (e) Bob Graham put a lot of time and resources into developing a current state of the art arm so it should have bettered most if not all of the current top arms out there, (f) being among the latest designs-redesigns among the top arms makers, it should be around a while.

In other words, I've listened to the many excellent points made by each of you on this thread, and I think the Phantom satisfies more of those points than either the Triplanar or the SME V, at least for my purposes.

BTW, Bob Graham is a really nice guy, very approachable and easy to talk with and he's using a new bearing (Swiss-made, I think) with the Phantoms he's making now which he says surprised him at how much better it was than his initial bearing.

Next up, which cartridge with the 20/2 and Phantom?

Thanks and best to you all. I will keep you posted.

Ed

I use the Zyx UNiverse on my Phantom, a real outstanding match. It's natural sound with the enormous power and speed from the Phantom is a real special experience.

Hi Ed,

When you get into high-mass unsuspended turntables, the arm compatibility is reduced to a non-issue - at least from a mass perspective, because there is no resonant tuning to deal with a turntable's suspension.

This reduces the challenge such as it were to the non-trivial task of component matching - canceling colorations and such. The good news is that we're at the top tier of components and so the task becomes both easier and more difficult:

It's easier, because all of the tonearms under consideration control cartridge resonances quite well - to a greater or lesser extent. The interesting thing about this is that you'll discover different cartridges sounding paradoxically both more resolving and yet more alike. The reason for this is that as you mitigate a major source of coloration (resonance), resolution rises, and one major contributor to their sonic signatures is reduced.

Of course, it becomes more difficult as you hear more deeply into the rest of your system ... but that's why we play this crazy game.

The best news to come out of all of this is that as you tame resonances, you'll be listening to more of your record collection and not less.

This is the single most significant reason I see for going to extreme with your analog - to be able to listen to your dumpster RCA Dynagrooves. I regularly pull them out during a demo to show how a good analog rig expands your record collection.

A system that shunts you into playing only your best recordings is a system that is ultimately flawed.

Enjoy!

Thom @ Galibier

Thom, interesting that you should mention Dynagrooves. I love flamenco guitar and jaleo. My favorite recorded performance of this music (in my collection) is by Juan Serrano and it's a Dynagroove! I bought it in 1967 (that certainly shows my age!) when I had my first post-college system - Garrard changer, shure cartridge, Revox 10" Reel to Reel tape recorder, Sansui receiver and very large Sansui speakers.

Yeah, I would like to hear tha LP sound better than ever!

Best,

Ed