Graham Phantom vs Triplaner

I have to commend Thomas on the observation that Triplanar has done the homework on supplied cable. This arm may have no equal here. Mr. Mai may once again have the inside dope seeing the onslaught of nude (lighter) carts available and coming. Seems the entire Benz line will be nude. Now if I can just get him to build me a 12... Z.

Thomas,

Thanks for sharing your observations. It appears that you personally favor the Phantom and the DaVinci. A friend has the Phantom and a Basis Vector, so I've heard both with a Lyra Titan and a Transfiguration Orpheus. I have never so much as seen the DaVinci, so your description has me interested.

Larryi,

what were your impressions of the Phantom/Vector/Titan/Orpheus and in what system?

Piedpiper,

I own a Titan/Vector/Basis Debut combination feeding a Viva Fono phonostage (tube based). I like the "quickness" of the Titan and its wide open top end, and its very precise and unequivocal placement of instruments. I had the chance to listen to a friend's Orpheus in my system. While I did not experiment with loading of the Orpheus (extremely difficult with the Viva), this cartridge sounded GREAT. It is more upper midrange present and slightly more full-bodied than the Titan, but, it has a touch lesstop end openness and speed. Personally, I like both cartridges and would not find it easy to pick between them.

A good friend has two arms on a Basis 2800 -- the Vector and a Phantom, and has both a Titan and the Orpheus that I borrowed. For whatever reason, he slightly prefers the Vector for both cartridges, but I can't say why. He prefers the Orpheus to the Titan.

That same Orpheus spent time in yet another friend's system before that person also bought his own Orpheus. In that system, it was mounted on an SME 309. In at least one respect, namely tracking, the Orpheus performed better in the SME than in either the Phantom or Vector. This is based on the use of an old Shure test record that plays music at increasingly higher modulation level. We use this test to set antiskating, and it was clear that the Orpheus was handling higher levels with the SME (in real world listening, this would not matter as the Orpheus does not mistrack in any of the arms we used).

Larry,as you probably know,I have an Orpheus.My dear friend Sid has the Titan-i which I have heard loads of times.I have to give it to you.....you have the sound comparisons "nailed"!That is exactly how I would describe those differences.Great job,as usual!!