Graham Phantom B-44 Tonearm

Careful Research, Proven Results

Veteran TAS readers and analog aficionados need little introduction to Bob Graham, who has been building variations on his unipivot tonearm design since 1990. That was the year Graham Engineering released its model 1.5—a beautifully machined and excellent sounding unit that firmly established Graham as one of the world’s premier tonearm builders. From the start, Graham’s unipivots were known for their nuanced bass, silky highs, excellent detail, and highly controlled sound. For some, though, the sound was too controlled. And while praising its strengths, many listeners found the Graham lacking in deep bass and dynamic excitement. For a decade and more Graham pushed the design through several iterations: from the original’s aluminum and stainless wand, through tungsten and ceramic incarnations, as well as other modifications that tended to focus on bettering the arm’s deep bass extension and dynamic pop. Graham was successful. Each change did improve these areas of performance, while also tightening image focus and opening up the soundstage. But after reaching the model 2.2, it became clear to Graham that he’d exhausted the limits of the series, and he decided that an entirely fresh approach was in order. His research would continue for the next two years.

“My best ideas tend to come while I’m in the shower or while driving,” Graham recently told me. “I’d ask myself, ‘What would I radically change about the arm if I could?’” Graham knew that he didn’t want to sacrifice the detail and smoothness that his arms are known for, but he did want to take the dynamic performance to a new level. “The ideal tonearm would be sonically invisible,” Graham said, which prompted me to ask if that’s what inspired the name “Phantom.” “Actually, my wife Justine coined that one.” And the B-44 part was intended to evoke some kind of military aircraft? “Yes,” said Bob, “in a way. I like the idea of something quick yet potent. But that designation is really a silent homage to my late brother Bruce, who was born in 1944.”

Two thoughts kept recurring to Graham throughout the prototype stage. First, his new arm would need to be built with even greater structural rigidity to further suppress resonance and better manage “energy flow.” The result was a significant beefing up of the junction point where the removable arm wand threads onto the arm’s main assembly. In addition, the Phantom’s arm wand is slightly larger in diameter than those found on Series 1 and 2 arms. Like those units, the wand is progressively extruded to minimize standing waves, and it’s made of the proprietary Lorzig-ceramic material Graham developed for the 2.0 (this glass-overlay process provides “extensional” damping and also adds to the arm’s elegant appearance).

Returning to that removable wand momentarily, although not all Graham owners will choose to use multiple cartridges, those who do will find what is surely the cleverest solution to the old convenience vs. performance conundrum. The new connector is nearly half-an-inch in diameter—almost twice as large as the older version—and the junction point is so strong that it is said to effectively amount to a single-piece assembly, while making it relatively easy for those who own multiple cartridges (and wands) to swap them out. For a reviewer this is a dream, and I took advantage of it to audition the Phantom with four different moving-coils (see the associated equipment list below). The connectors are made of “high copper-content phosphor bronze,” which Graham says is not only a better conductor than brass, but also one that will retain its original shape, tension, and strength over time.

Graham also likes to emphasize his arm’s neutral balance system. “There are three different ways to static balance an arm” Graham said, “neutral, stable, and unstable.” Stable balance, the kind typically found in lab scales, results when a moving system’s center of gravity occurs below the pivot point. Unstable balance, which Graham says is wholly undesirable for a tonearm application, happens when the center of gravity is above the pivot point. (When an arm is moved from its rest position, stable balance will create an opposing force in the attempt to move the arm back to the rest position, while an unstable balance results in a reduced force as the arm is lifted.) In a neutral balance system, such as the Phantom’s, the pivot point and center of gravity are in exactly the same plane, so when the arm is raised or lowered there is no opposing force. “As a result, Graham continued, “the only downward tracking force is provided by the counterweight, and there is no change in VTF as the arm and cartridge track our less-than-flat records.”