GrahamModel 1.5TusedGraham Model 1.5T 9" Extraordinary Arm !Graham Model 1.5 tonearm With XLO Phono cable RCA to DIN Connectors:Like new in exceptional condition, papers and box, extra Silicone, some or all factory tools and great SOUND.This is a wonderful ...1495.00

Graham Model 1.5T 9" Extraordinary Arm !

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davidamb 

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Ships fromLos Angeles, CA, 90077
Ships toUnited States and Canada
Package dimensionsunspecified
Shipping carrierUPS
Shipping costSpecified after purchase
Original accessoriesBox, Manual
AverageResearch Pricing

Graham Model 1.5 tonearm With XLO Phono cable RCA to DIN Connectors:

Like new in exceptional condition, papers and box, extra Silicone, some or all factory tools and great SOUND.

This is a wonderful sounding Arm ready to be enjoyed as a main arm or as a second arm.
Comes wit XLO's Top tone arm Cable (see picture).

See Rave Stereophile Review in full by Dick Olsher

In Part:

The Graham Solution:"
Let's look at how the Model 1.5 addresses the various criteria for the "perfect arm," starting with the pivot design.


It may surprise some of you to find that Graham has chosen to go with a
"unipivot" bearing. Nevertheless, a unipivot has a lot going for it:
First, it is the simplest design. Second, it pre-loads the bearing
surface to zero tolerance, and is capable of yielding the lowest
possible friction in a mechanical design.

Bob sent me a
videotape of a test he conducted where he pitted an SME IV against an
undamped Model 1.5. Both arms carried the same cartridges and were
statically balanced. Both arms were displaced vertically downward the
same distance at the start of the test. The idea was to see which arm
bobbed up and down the longest, as this would indirectly reveal the
degree of vertical friction in the bearings. The SME pooped out after
about 30 seconds. The 1.5 kept going for two and one half minutes before
Bob stopped the arm for fear of having me fall asleep. He claims that
the arm actually continues its pendulum-like motion for over five
minutes.

Third, bearing performance does not drift out of
tolerance, as there is nothing to adjust. Graham uses tungsten carbide
for both the bearing cup and pivot. Both elements are said to be
polished to stylus-tip tolerances. With a typical 7-9gm cartridge
mounted on the arm, Graham calculates the loading on the bearing point
to be in excess of 100 tons per square inch. With this sort of loading
there is no play in the bearing to interfere with the transduction
process. Finally, a unipivot design makes it easy to add damping fluid
around the pivot point. Viscous silicone fluid (about 0.75ml) is used
here to provide damping in both vertical and horizontal planes.

Older unipivot arms, such as the Formula Four,
used stable balance with the pivot point well above the center of
gravity of the system. In contrast, the 1.5 places the pivot point in
the vertical plane essentially at the center of gravity of the assembly,
hence in neutral balance. The pivot point is in line with the
longitudinal axis of the arm tube, main pivot housing, and
counterweight. Two outrigger weights are positioned to either side of
the pivot housing and slightly below the pivot point to provide lateral
stability—otherwise the arm could tip over to one side or the other
because it does not favor a particular rest position. The short lateral
levers connecting the outriggers to the pivot housing create a strong
stable balance along the line connecting them, thereby resisting
torsional motion and keeping the arm in the correct upright position.


The outriggers manage to lower the center of gravity of the
assembly—but only slightly in the vertical plane—and the arm operates
essentially in neutral balance with minimal restoring forces. According
to Bob, if the arm is lifted a full 0.5" off the record, the generated
restoring force at the stylus tip is only about 30 milligrams. Because
the outriggers are so close to the pivot point, their effect on the
effective mass of the arm in the vertical plane is minimal. However,
they account for most of the moving mass in the lateral plane.


These same outriggers are used to adjust the azimuth. The weights are
moved in and out along threaded rods that provide a precise and stable
adjustment. A closer look at these weights shows that they are displaced
from true perpendicular in reference to the arm tube. This is by
design, and assists in preventing the cartridge from twisting while
negotiating record warps.

Much time and effort went into sorting
out the counterweight design. Initially, rigidly coupled counterweight
designs were investigated. This resulted in overemphasized bass that was
representative of a high-Q tonearm/cartridge resonance. The bass was
impressive, to be sure, but without the pitch definition and tightness
of live music. According to Pramanik of B&O (see Audio, June
1980), a decoupled counterweight whose suspension is tuned to around the
arm resonance offers a major advantage over fixed or stiffly suspended
counterweights because the resonance peaks are much reduced in
amplitude. Along these lines, a decoupled counterweight with a soft
Sorbothane suspension was designed that gave a much more natural bottom
end. This is something that Graham sweated over. He tells me that he was
worried about the public mistaking a high-Q bass with its impression of
slam and punch for real "killer" bass quality.

Although the arm
tube of the 1.5 is visually less impressive than, say, that of the SME
V, it is in fact extremely rigid and sonically inert. There's more here
than meets the eye. The arm tube is made up of two concentric tubes. The
outer tube is made of a magnesium/aluminum alloy, the inner of
stainless steel and covered with bands of damping material. The inner
tube also acts as a shield for the signal wires. The arm tube is heated
to expand the damping material and bond it to the walls of both tubes.
This results in true constrained layer damping of the arm wand.


The arm tube does not ring. Tapping it with a pencil results in nothing
more than a well-muffled thud. The arm wand connects to the pivot
assembly via a miniature Bendix "aerospace" connector that provides an
extremely rigid mechanical connection. An additional wand amy be
purchased with the idea of pre-mounting another cartridge for quick
changeover. To use the patented Graham alignment fixture, it is
necessary to separate the wand/cartridge shell from the rest of the arm.
This makes it much easier to mount the cartridge in the headshell.


The signal cable connects to an external RCA jack box via a multi-pin
connector. This means that you are free to use and experiment with your
favorite interconnects between the arm and preamp. Tiffany and WBT jacks
are available, the Tiffanys being standard. The latest Tiffany
connectors using an OFC copper base with direct gold-plating (no
intermediary plating surface)—the CM-4 OFC and CM-3 OFC—are also
available at a premium. And that's what I used during the evaluation


Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/graham-model-15-tonearm-page-3#QtzkoUdsfDjT5aFR.99

Description: 9" pivoted arm with unipivot bearing design.
Cartridge compatibility: Cartridge masses from 3.5 to 20 grams.
Available adjustments: micrometer adjustments for overhang, azimuth,
VTA, and tracking force; up to 3.0 grams of antiskating force, in 0.5
gram increments. Arm mount: SME-type cutout, compatible with existing
SME arm boards. Special features: interchangeable arm wands which
facilitate cartridge mounting and changeover. Arm wiring: van den Hul
silver wire with silver solder connections.
Price: $2240. Approximate number of dealers: 15.

Manufacturer: Graham
Engineering, Inc., 6 Kimball Ct., Woburn, MA 01801. Tel: (617)
932-8777. Fax: (627) 932- 8782.


Listening impressions:



It was understood from the start that the Graham arm would live or die
on the basis of its performance relative to the SME V. Bob Graham
understood this very well during the design stage of the arm. After all,
the SME is the arm to beat. It has established a strong reputation
worldwide and has even been considered by some as the best pivoted arm
money can buy. The SME had been my own reference for the past couple of
years. I had grown to appreciate its strong suits, and it has happily
partnered a variety of cartridges. If the Graham could exceed the SME's
sonic virtues, it would be a miracle indeed and something really worth
writing home about.

It didn't take me long to find out that the
SME was in serious trouble. During his visit to Santa Fe, Bob brought
along a Koetsu Pro IV, an utterly amazing cartridge that I had a chance
to briefly audition on both the SME and Graham arms. The SME just wasn't
as quick or as detailed as the Graham, and the Graham's bass registers
were tighter and better-defined. Nor were these subtle differences.
Differentiating between the two was child's play.

Over
subsequent months the 1.5 partnered both the Rowland Complement and the
Benz MC-3 cartridges. The Rowland is pretty fussy, demanding a rigid and
well-damped arm for optimum performance. I never heard the Rowland
perform this well in other arms. Its tracking ability, which I had
complained about, improved to the point where I was placated. Detail
retrieval, transient speed, and spatial resolution hit new highs. Much
of the same differences were apparent with the Benz MC-3, which I
shuttled between the SME and Graham arms.

Before I elucidate the
major differences between these arms in greater detail, let me point
out that a revised Australian Aura 'table was used for these listening
tests. A new, plaster-filled platter, much more inert than the older
one, and a new arm pillar further improved the bass-detailing capability
of the 'table. The Threshold FET Ten/e preamplifier and Lindsay-Geyer
and Kimber KCAG interconnects completed the front end. Loudspeakers were
Apogee Stages driven by bridged Classé DR-8 amplifiers.

The
Graham arm consistently displayed a remarkable ability to retrieve inner
detail. This was a result of several factors. Its noise floor was
extremely low, which indicates a rigid and well-damped arm. Surface
noise was not emphasized, and soundstage transparency was increased over
the SME, the latter sounding slightly more veiled and fuzzy. Transient
decay was exceptionally clean. It was easier to resolve the decay of
reverberant information down to the noise floor of the recording venue.
Instrumental focus was tighter and spatially more precise. The sort of
detail that normally gets buried in mud was resolved this time around.
In a large chorus, such as that featured in Belshazzar's Feast
(EMI SAN 324), with that many voices in full stride, it is quite easy
for the sound to homogenize to the point of being unable to pinpoint
individual voices. With the 1.5, the individuality of the chorus was
never lost.

A favorite of mine, the "Goodnight, Irene" cut on the Weavers at Carnegie Hall
album (Vanguard VSD-2150), features audience participation at a level
that makes it not only hard to resolve in the first place, but difficult
to locate in the proper section of the hall. The SME was good at this;
the 1.5 was simply better.

This level of detail resolution was
not due to some sort of psycho acoustic trickery. The treble was not
etched to the point of artificially highlighting detail. Far from
it—treble transients were cleaner, well-behaved, and distinctly faster.
The rise-time differential between the arms was significant. As a
result, transients were more energetic and convincing in their impact.
Less smearing or time dispersion took place. The extreme treble had more
air and the lower treble sounded less affected by overlying grain and
grundge. Upper registers of soprano voice were sweeter and more delicate
in texture. Taj Mahal's steel-bodied guitar (Recycling the Blues & Other Related Stuff,
Columbia 31605) had a more explosive impact because the transients
seemed to erupt from a background of silence and decayed away into
silence rather than into a sea of fuzz.

In the midrange, the
sound of the SME was warmer and fuller through the lower registers.
Whatever it contributed to the sound was clearly euphonic. It was easy
to listen to, just the sort of romantic flush most audiophiles crave.
The 1.5 lacked the SME-V's gutsy balance. The Graham's virtue here was
neutrality. Lower mids were portrayed just as the master tape intended
them to be, with no enhancement through the orchestra's power range. If
you desire a slight lushing-out of the sound down here, use tube gear
with the Graham.

The SME's bass octaves were plentiful. In fact,
there was a bit too much with the British arm; in terms of quality, the
character of the bass was significantly looser, lacking the Graham's
convincing pitch definition. Of course, to hear these differences, don't
use a wimpy minimonitor. With the Apogee Stage, the deterioration in
bass definition upon switching to the SME was quite startling. You've
got to listen to double bass with the Graham arm in the chain: natural,
tight, unadulterated bass. The 1.5 was also capable of reproducing
timpani strokes with plenty of impact. More control was apparent at the
end of the transient than with the SME. What the 1.5 did not provide,
however, was the cheap thrill of a highish-Q arm resonance.

Summary:


The Graham Model 1.5 tonearm is the sort of component that comes along
once in a generation. It has coaxed more information from my favorite
cartridges than any other arm I've auditioned. It is remarkably
resonance-free. Transients are exquisitely preserved without smearing or
etching. The soundstage is transparent and focused with great
precision. Musical textures are cleaner and purer than ever before. The
1.5 resembles a high-powered telescope in its ability to penetrate deep
into the soundstage and follow ambient information clear down to the
noise floor of the hall. Reproduction of the bass octaves is remarkably
free of the artifacts that afflict most tonearms. The 1.5's bass is
tight, precisely controlled, and frighteningly natural. As I recall,
only the Versa Dynamics player in J. Gordon Holt's reference systewm did
as well in this respect.

The 1.5's tonal neutrality is the
perfect setting from which to fashion one's favorite tonal balance.
Leave it alone, or add a bit of spice. Either way, you can be assured
that you're retrieving everything off the record your cartridge is
capable of.

The 1.5 is the perfect arm with which to enjoy my growing vinyl collection till the end of time. If you haven't heard the Graham, you haven't heard the future of analog.


Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/graham-model-15-tonearm-page-5#VTOBh3zbMw5xoBjE.99


=================================

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    Making Audio Systems

better one system at a time,


     
        David Weinhart 

     Weinhart Design, Inc. 
        President & CEO 

e: [email protected] 
www.weinhartdesign.com 


The Audio and Video Expert

2337 Roscomare Road, Studio #1 
Los Angeles, California 90077 

Showroom) 310-472-8880 
Cell) 310-927-2260

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