We’ve all read reviews of audio gear before buying a piece of equipment. It’s normal to seek out the advice of other audiophiles when trying to ascertain how an amp, a pair of speakers or a set of cables or might work in our system. Reviewers have the difficult job of doing proper tests, and then sharing the results in a way that will help others make a better informed choice.
Of the various components in an analog system, the turntable and the tonearm have got to be the toughest and most time consuming to review. Swapping wires or electronics is fairly easy. A reviewer can drop an amp into their system in place of another, or switch out a pair of interconnects or speaker cables without a lot of headache. And with an amp or a pair of interconnects, the change in sound should be fairly obvious because the time it takes to replace one with the other is relatively short.
Even swapping cartridges, while a total PITA, still seems fairly doable. Each time I’ve changed cartridges I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at doing it. So I could imagine that if I did it enough, I could listen to my demo records with one cartridge, take the cart off, install another, and then listen with the same records again, and be quick and effective enough to hear the key differences.
But taking one tonearm off of a table and installing another in its place, or moving that tonearm to a completely different table altogether? Given the amount of setup involved, that strikes me as some very heavy lifting for anyone ambitious enough to even try it. Particularly when using the same cartridge.
For a long time now I’ve wanted to write a review of the Triplanar tonearm, but I just couldn’t come up with a good way to do it. Ideally, I would compare my Triplanar MK VII with another tonearm, preferably at a similar price point, and each would take a turn mounted on my Merrill-Williams REAL 101.2 turntable running my Dynavector 17dx cartridge and playing my best test records.
That, I regret to say, is extremely unlikely to happen. Therefore the most I can offer you in the way of a comparison would be to tell you that the Triplanar mounted on my Merrill-Williams clearly outperforms the Graham 2.0 mounted on my last turntable, a highly upgraded VPI HW-19. I could also say that the Triplanar is worlds better than the standard issue Audioquest tonearm on the HW-19 Junior I had before that. But clearly these comparisons are of little value.
The other day it occurred to me that maybe I could write a review of the Triplanar in a way that didn’t require all of the time, energy and resources a more conventional approach would. Maybe there was an easier way to do it that would still offer valuable, accurate, even insightful advice.
If you read the majority of audio reviews out there, the reviewer will rattle off a list of albums or songs they used to make their assessments. What do we even know about the quality of that source material beyond the assurances the reviewer gives us that it can deliver good sound? What do we really know about a reviewer’s turntable setup? The fact is, we no little of either. We have to take it on faith that the reviewer is playing a high quality pressing on a well set up analog front end to conduct their tests.
Meanwhile, you only need to read a few of my articles, particularly what I’ve written recently about turntable setup, to know that I know a great record when I hear one, and that I work tirelessly to be able to play my records back in a way that brings out the very best they can offer. I am also constantly testing every aspect of my system in an effort to keep pushing its performance forward. Being an audiophile for me is basically a part time job.
Given that, maybe the review I’m about to give here, based simply on my experiences using the Triplanar tonearm in my system, will tell you as much as you need to know to decide whether or not to buy one. And if you’d rather not spend the time to read my review, let me give you the gist of it here.
BUY A TRIPLANAR TONEARM. I GUARANTEE YOU WON’T REGRET IT.
Triplanar has been around a while. The company was started by Herb Papier in 1981 when he introduced his first tonearm, the MK 1, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. I’ll leave it up to you to visit their website and read about the history of the tonearm and the company that makes them. Needless to say, as audio gear manufacturers go, Triplanar and their products have stood the test of time.
The company was bought by Papier’s “handpicked successor,” Tri Mai, in 1999. When I bought my Triplanar tonearm a couple of years ago, I bought it used from a private seller. Once I had it installed on the Merrill-Williams turntable I bought with it, I discovered the tonearm had some bearing chatter. I didn’t know at the time that what I was hearing was bearing chatter, only that something wasn’t right. So I called up Triplanar’s customer service number and spoke directly with Tri.
I described the sound I was hearing, and he knew immediately what the problem was. He explained to me that other manufacturers often tried to copy Triplanar’s unique gimbal bearing pivot through reverse engineering. To do this, the tonearm bearing needed to be taken apart, and very often the person doing it wouldn’t know exactly how to put it back together. Thus the bearing chatter.
I sent my Tonearm to Tri in Minneapolis to have the bearing rebuilt, and while it was there he revamped the arm and brought it up to the current specs. He shipped the tonearm back to me fairly quickly, along with the latest version of the Triplanar protractor and some additional parts that he recommended for remounting. I’ve been nothing short of thrilled with it ever since.
Throughout that experience, the level of customer service I received was at the highest level possible, and that is not something to be taken for granted. When I had my Graham 2.0 tonearm, it was literally impossible to get anyone at Graham to return an email or a voicemail for help. At one point I spoke with a salesperson at one of the few remaining Graham dealers in California, and she helped answer some of my questions. She also told me that even she couldn’t get anyone at Graham on the phone!
Besides their history, the other thing you’ll read on Triplanar’s website are words like “maximum adjustability” and “watch-like precision”. In my experience, these words are not marketing hype, but simple facts. The level of precision that you can bring to the setup of your Triplanar tonearm is so high as to suggest that it would be impossible to exceed it with any other tonearm.
Tracking force, anti-skate, azimuth and VTA can all be adjusted to such a fine degree that seemingly indetectable changes can mean the difference between hearing nearly everything on a particular record and hearing significantly less of it.
One of the most appealing features of Triplanar’s tonearms is the “on the fly” arm height adjustment. Being able to put on a record and dial in the precise arm height to optimize VTA and SRA is essential for the kind of critical listening I do. When I occasionally find myself listening to systems with turntables that don’t have this feature, I find it annoying. It’s frustrating hearing a record that I know can sound better and being unable to adjust the VTA to improve it.
Other tonearms, such as those from Graham and some from VPI, also have an “on the fly” VTA adjustment. But what makes this feature special on the Triplanar is that it is such a revealing tonearm that its VTA adjustment is not just a nice feature, but an essential one for reaching the full potential of their product. The extreme accuracy of Triplanar’s tonearms means their VTA adjustment can fine tune the sound of a record to such a point that the sonic strengths of each record, not to mention shortcomings, are laid bare in their entirety.
When complemented by the right system, a Triplanar lets you reveal what’s on your records to such a degree that you will begin to discover you don’t like some of your records as much as you thought you did. Meanwhile, other records, perhaps even some that didn’t impress you before, will BLOW YOUR MIND! The Triplanar makes it possible to pick out the winners and losers in your collection with ruthless precision.
The MK VII does have one feature that might be considered a flaw. Well, not a flaw exactly. Let’s call it an unnecessary distraction. The Triplanar has a damping trough that can be filled with silicone oil that’s meant to help control vibration in the arm as it plays.
This might be useful for some customers? Maybe those with systems that are not all that revealing and / or who use a lower quality cartridge? In any case, those with a very high quality cartridge and a revealing system, especially a system with state of the art isolation, should most certainly leave this trough empty. Damping the arm this way on my MK VII only served to soften and blur the sound.
The irony of this damping trough is that those who might experience a small benefit from using it would necessarily have a system that could barely scratch the surface of the Triplanar’s full potential. And though it seems a waste for an audiophile with such a system to get a Triplanar, there’s an argument to be made for growing into a great piece of equipment, and the Triplanar tonearm is certainly one worth building an entire system around.
Recently I spent some time working to improve the electricity to my system. I describe the methodology in detail in a recent article, as well as the resulting improvements which went so far beyond anything I had expected I almost had to pinch myself. The size and transparency of the soundstage became unfathomable, and musical elements on certain records were revealed to a level I hadn’t thought possible.
I’m convinced that the improvements I heard were due in no small part to the performance of my Triplanar tonearm. In fact, I’d say they would have been impossible without it, and here are 2 important reasons why.
First, the Triplanar helped me identify the records I owned with sound so immediate, transparent and “live” sounding, they seemed to convey what was on the master tapes as well as any record can.
Second, the Triplanar tracked the grooves of these records with such uncanny precision, and extracted the content in them so completely, that with the help of proper isolation and the highest quality electricity, my system was able to bring the recordings on these records to life with a startling and convincing REALNESS.
The Audio world is just as subject to trends and fads as any other product industry. Audiophiles love the latest and greatest just as much as car enthusiasts or technology lovers. Triplanar has been around a while, and therefore they may not be the brand of tonearm that audiophiles are seeking out these days. I also can’t help but wonder if, among those in the market for tonearms in the $5 to $10k price range, any have built a system that can actually do a Triplanar justice.
Whatever the case, the records most analog audiophiles are playing these days are so low resolution as to be child’s play for the Triplanar. How can such a high quality audio product distinguish itself without a real opportunity to show off its talents? I’m willing to bet that many of the records used for reviews these days would actually sound better with a lower quality tonearm, because the Triplanar will be more likely than many of its competitors to reveal just how mediocre those records actually are.
All we need do is read a review of just about any audio product these days to know that, at best, we know nothing at all about the quality of the records that reviewers are using to write their reviews. Therefore, we have very little basis for taking their criticisms, or their praise, with a great deal of seriousness.
At worst, we know they are likely not using very good sounding records. Most records leave a lot to be desired in the first place, especially the very records being mastered and pressed specifically for the audiophile market, which are those often used for reviewing audiophile gear.
What can a jazz reissue from Analog Productions with a rolled off top end, or a rock reissue from Mobile Fidelity with its midrange scooped out, really tell us about the quality of the tonearm or the turntable playing it? Not a whole heck of a lot if you ask me.
I won’t go so far as to say that a reviewer with a significant level of expertise and who takes what must be a great deal of time and energy, not mention resources, to compare 2 or more different tonearms on the same turntable, doesn’t deserve a lot of credit. Even if that reviewer is using an average (or worse) sounding record to conduct their review, it would be obnoxious of me to simply dismiss all of his or her or their hard work.
What I will say is this – I have some incredibly good sounding records that are incredibly hard to play, and the Triplanar tonearm took those records and delivered tonally accurate, satisfyingly weighty, highly transparent, achingly musical and startlingly real sounding musical performances without even breaking a sweat. If that’s not the mark of an audio product sitting at the very pinnacle of the industry, I honestly don’t know what is.
Currently my MK VII retails for $7500. That’s obviously not cheap, although it stops short of reaching the “cost no object” category that keeps outdoing itself with increasingly outrageously priced products that perform no better, or even worse, than far cheaper ones. Having been completely underwhelmed by yet one more high priced system just the other day that was pushing upwards of one MILLION dollars in retail value, I speak from experience.
If you’re like me and your primary aspiration is to build an analog system that can play your best records at the highest level possible, then I’m fairly certain you can do no better than a Triplanar tonearm on a high quality table. Just remember this – you need the right records to realize both the Triplanar’s full potential as well as that of the records you play with it.
So the next time you’re putting some money aside in your system upgrade fund, perhaps money that will go towards your very own Triplanar, make sure to include some for a few Hot Stampers. Once you’ve got that tonearm, you’re definitely going to need them!