
$25,000
I had this sinking feeling I was headed for trouble. While refreshing my memory of the history of Basis Audio for my review of the company’s first new (and most affordable) turntable in ages, dubbed the Bravo (see issue 341), I read these words from Editor-in-Chief Robert Harley’s 2016 review of the Basis SuperArm 9: “There’s one specific component swap that in my view delivers such a large increase in performance that it will likely dwarf any potential improvement in amplification, cables, and even many speakers. That upgrade is moving up from the Basis Vector IV tonearm to the recently introduced Basis SuperArm 9.”
Like Robert, I’d been a highly satisfied owner of Basis’ Vector 4 tonearm, a brilliantly innovative design that the late Basis founder A.J. Conti perfected over the course of 16 years before deciding it was ready for production.
What makes the Vector special is also fundamental to the SuperArm and is actually identical in both models—a dual-bearing system of Conti’s design that mitigates the dynamic azimuth error found in unipivot tonearms, which tend to “roll” side-to-side as the stylus tracks the irregularities of an LP’s groove modulations. Conti’s brilliant solution employs a secondary “stabilizer” bearing that the arm “leans” into, as the arm is asymmetrically weighted via a halfmoon-shaped cutout in the counterweight. Exceptionally stable, the design also eliminates bearing chatter and demonstrably reduces mistracking, as Basis arms hug the grooves like a speeding Porsche on a snaky mountain road.
But because my Vector 4 was mounted on what was then the most affordable Basis turntable, the 2200 Signature, a model priced at less than half of what the SuperArm goes for, I wondered if the sonic improvements Robert described would be as impactful on this relatively simpler Basis table?
Robert’s concluding words further captured my attention (as well as that sinking feeling): “If you own a Basis turntable with a Vector arm, I can’t imagine a greater sonic upgrade than switching to the Superarm. If you are thinking about buying a Basis and a Vector arm, you should seriously consider stepping down a level in the Basis’ turntable line so that your budget can accommodate the SuperArm.”
Uh-oh.
Once the path before me was undeniable, and I’d made the monetary commitment, it was time to ask my wife not for approval but for forgiveness.
While the SuperArm may be based on the Vector 4, it’s a very different beast. Just look at them. The Vector is a svelte beauty, a swan-like Odette compared to the SuperArm’s Siegfried-like masculinity.
After much experimentation, modification, and testing of how far he could push the Vector, Conti found himself with an arm with much greater mass than he’d expected but also with far greater rigidity and significantly lower resonance and hence distortion.
As they should be for roughly the 3x price uptick, materials and fit and finish are a major step up from the Vector, which I must emphasize is no slouch itself, but befitting its name, the SuperArm is a balls-to-the-wall effort in every way. (Please see the Basis website and link to Harley’s review for greater details.)
Sonically, the anticipated improvements were immediately not just apparent but rather mind-bogglingly so. From the first LP I played—Kissin’s heaven-sent recital of Beethoven’s Opus 111—to anything else I might note here, it was akin to hearing these platters for the first time. The grooves were quieter than I’d ever (not) heard them; and the staggeringly improved resolution, though eye-popping, tells only part of the tale. In every sense, both from an audiophile POV but more importantly from a musical perspective, the SuperArm delivers what we ask for from all great components: to bring us that much closer to the mastertapes, to the musicians performing on those tapes, and maybe, just maybe, to a sort of transcendental state where, with eyes closed, we are fully immersed in the magic of the music, and for that time that’s all that matters, the woes of our chaotic world blissfully forgotten.
Tags: AWARD VINYL ANALOG TONEARM GOLDEN EAR

By Wayne Garcia
Although I’ve been a wine merchant for the past decade, my career in audio was triggered at age 12 when I heard the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! blasting from my future brother-in-law’s giant home-built horn speakers. The sound certainly wasn’t sophisticated, but, man, it sure was exciting.
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