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Ortofon's MC Anna and 12" arms

As we have seen, discussion about the 'sound' of decks is contentious; not least because you never 'hear' a deck....you hear a deck, interacting with arm and cartridge.
There is another way of looking at this: If you are spending serious cash, then you need to consider the whole 'package'. By which I mean, obviously, your preferences in sound, but also, your preferences in build quality, design, isolation, finish, durability and long-term service. As a recent example, customers who spend the price of a new Bentley on a Continuum now have no back-up or long term value (the company went under).
All of this affects value and pride of ownership. Factor everything in and the choices become starker. I've been caught by manufacturers who went out of business. Now I take more care.
 
I'm using a turntable that is four years older than I am (made in 1959) and built by a company that went bust 30 or more years ago. It still works fine! Genuinely good engineering and build quality should equate to a very, very long life.
 
Having owned SME stuff and now having seen TW - I would say both are very well built and would last a long time. Also TW have been in business over ten years now and their turnover has increased. They also look after their customers in a similar way to SME from what I have seen so far. I can understand Continuum going out of business as they had a product only a tiny tiny number of people could afford and their investment was huge. Thomas (TW) has grown his business slowly and only introduced new products as and when he was happy they were to his exacting standards. This is similar to SME's history. I have been an SME fan too for similar reasons.

However having done some auditioning and having lived with the TW deck in my own home for a year all I can say is give them a listen. You will defo not be dissapointed and more likely you will be stunned.

As to what you hear....you hear more of what's on the record and less of the system. I like the TW deck with their arm and the 4D cartridge for this reason. All of them have very little sound of their own (what Graham Tricker calls a no BS sound) and all collect a lot of natural information and project a very natural soundstage. What I have been looking for in a system for 30 years!
 
Tony L said:
I'm using a turntable that is four years older than I am (made in 1959) and built by a company that went bust 30 or more years ago. It still works fine! Genuinely good engineering and build quality should equate to a very, very long life.
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Indeed. But the Garrard was made in huge numbers, over a long period, to a high standard. There's a little industry supporting it. That's not always the case; I had an Oxford Crystal, when the company went under you could get some service (the isolation would collapse, the power supply fail and so on) but it was hard work. Then there was my wonderful Pink Triangle anniversary. When Pink went under (again) it became hard-work to get parts such as bearings. Goldmund is another fine range that became incredibly hard to service. There are plenty of others. And something like the Continuum has micro-chips and eproms....its like cars,older ones are pretty basic, modern ones can be a nightmare.
It's also about aspects such as finish and durability. Away from decks, look at an older amp from Audio Research. The quality of finish is such that they seem not to age much at all. Same with Jadis, their amps can be decades old and still look like new. Quad ages well, my 303/ 33/fm3 looks pretty timeless to me. There are other firms, where the stuff looks knackered within a few years.....
 
Time Audio said:
However having done some auditioning and having lived with the TW deck in my own home for a year all I can say is give them a listen. You will defo not be dissapointed and more likely you will be stunned.
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It should be born in mind of course that the TW combination retails for twice the cost of the deck that you felt it bettered - not overly surprising really.

TW is a lovely deck, but then so is the Brinkmann Bardo, Balance, SME20/3a and a whole host of others. We are blessed to have such a great choice if not in having to pay so much for it.

Sorry to be picky but is there an English translation for the "word" "defo"?
 
I loved my BardoIII/ 10.5/ HRS combo, do I think my new 20/12 V12 will destroy it, absolutely not. At this level it's all good but different. Nothing is leaps and bounds better. Even an old stinking Linn with an Ittock sounds very good indeed, at a lower level but still a joy.
 
merlin said:
It should be born in mind of course that the TW combination retails for twice the cost of the deck that you felt it bettered - not overly surprising really.

TW is a lovely deck, but then so is the Brinkmann Bardo, Balance, SME20/3a and a whole host of others. We are blessed to have such a great choice if not in having to pay so much for it.

Sorry to be picky but is there an English translation for the "word" "defo"?
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Definitely....to all :)

It is a shame that prices have risen at such a rate - but this is inevitable owing to todays lower volumes and the raw material prices having increased so much. The price and the sustainability of the factory were things I thought very carefully about before making my decision but the sound quality was the main objective.
 
There are night and day differences Merlin. I heard dozens of decks when auditioning for the PT replacement. A couple of them were streets ahead.The Raven AC may be one of those as well but the raven 1 certainly wasn't!

Bear in mind a single weak link in your system that is the bottleneck after the deck (phono / pre / power / speakers) will render the night and day difference into nothing. Everything has to be perfect and that is not easy.

An example of a night and day difference is running a phono or cdp through a pre compared with direct if they have built in volume control

My £1k ish modified ps audio gcph easily out performs TEAD Groove + / Vibe + used in this way and it is not a subtle difference
 
How does one meaningfully audition these various high priced decks. Is there a dealer who sells them all? Are we directly comparing them using the same phono cartridge through the same system? Is this even possible?
 
I auditioned almost all of the decks that Walrus had before I bought the BLG and that was through the same system. The brinkmann vinyl replay comes as a complete system from the manufacturer but I also listened with the airtangent and breuer arms and various cartridges - lyra, dynavector, VDH, transfiguration etc as well as the brinkmann. The other decks were fitted with what Walrus deemed to be the most suitable arm often SME. I also listened to decks elsewhere but then you are just limited to comparative differences with what they had. Not ideal but about the best you can do.
 
John said:
How does one meaningfully audition these various high priced decks. Is there a dealer who sells them all? Are we directly comparing them using the same phono cartridge through the same system? Is this even possible?
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Even if there was a dealer who stocked everything, it would still be very difficult to get any kind of meaningful demo. I've never heard anything in a shop sounding what I would call "good", let alone "outstanding". The setup of these decks is critical, so any demo is moot.

I think what happens in the real world is that people pretty much make up their mind what they want in advance, then go along to a demo in order to convince themselves they've made the correct choice.

I don't bother with that. If I make a mistake, I'll sell on and move on.
 
Jek said:
The balance has slightly larger scale while the lagrange is fleeter of foot

A number of balance owners say the same thing
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Offer all Balance owners the no-cost option to swap to a LaGrange, and vice-versa, and I can guarantee that movement will be one-way.

Anyway, should I get a Balance next, or not? You are the expert.
 
Jek said:
There are night and day differences Merlin. I heard dozens of decks when auditioning for the PT replacement. A couple of them were streets ahead.The Raven AC may be one of those as well......
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Blzebub said:
I've never heard anything in a shop sounding what I would call "good", let alone "outstanding". The setup of these decks is critical, so any demo is moot.
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Precisely why some of us demo decks in our own systems at our houses. We know when they are properly set up and keep them as such. If a deck is that good now it is not long before the penny drops something is just very right and the Raven AC did that for me at GT's house and has done it for some others at my house. It is not the small difference between a Lingo'd LP12 and a pre-Lingo'd one we are talking about here so to some extent A-B comparisons are not required. As was alluded to by Jek these new top flight decks are "night and day" something special. An evening's listening at Graham's house was all I needed to know the Raven AC was the deck for me - why? - simply because it sounded so natural I had heard nothing like it before! When I got it in my own system it was so far away from other decks I've owned I was shaking my head in disbelief for weeks after. Now it seems so natural and when I hear other systems I feel a lot is wrong/missing.
 
Time Audio said:
Precisely why some of us demo decks in our own systems at our houses. We know when they are properly set up and keep them as such. If a deck is that good now it is not long before the penny drops something is just very right and the Raven did that for me at GT's house and has done it for some others at my house. It is not the small difference between a Lingo'd LP12 and a pre-Lingo'd one we are talking about here so to some extent A-B comparisons are not required. As was said earlier these new top flight decks are something special. An evening's listening at Graham's house was all I needed to know the Raven AC was the deck for me - why? - simply because it sounded so natural I had heard nothing like it before! When I got it in my own system it was so far away from other decks I've owned I was shaking my head in disbelief for weeks after. Now it seems so natural and when I hear other systems I feel a lot is wrong/missing.
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That's all great, but that's not really a comparative demo with the other uber-decks. Mentioning the LP12 rings alarm bells as the LP12 is not comparable with my current deck.

I've heard it said that the Raven decks sound a bit cold and mechanical. It does look the part, though. Couldn't buy a German deck in any case, so don't shoot me! Car, yes, hi-fi, no. Plus, you are selling it, so your opinion has to be taken with a pound of salt.
 
Blzebub said:
Mentioning the LP12 rings alarm bells.
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Reason for mentioning the LP12 is because the small upgrade differences are well known to many readers - I was trying to illustrate we are not talking those kind of differences here.

Blzebub said:
Couldn't buy a German deck in any case, so don't shoot me! Car, yes, hi-fi, no. Plus, you are selling it, so your opinion has to be taken with a pound of salt.
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Thought you were talking about a Brinkmann...?!

The Raven AC is certainly not sterile/cold sounding and certainly not artificial. It is actually very natural and has stunning tonal colour. One of my main reasons for buying it was this full tonal colour spectrum. It has been called the "tonal colour machine" by one reviewer. I listen to a lot of classical music and instrument tone and colour is important to me and was what was lacking in my system as were dynamics. These were fixed the day I put the AC into my system.

Don't take my word for it though:

http://www.soundstage.com/vinyl/vinyl20080501.htm
 
Blzebub said:
Offer all Balance owners the no-cost option to swap to a LaGrange, and vice-versa, and I can guarantee that movement will be one-way.

Anyway, should I get a Balance next, or not? You are the expert.
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No it wouldn't - a number of people have listened to both and chose the lagrange

Bub you want to buy British and want a suspended deck so isn't there little point to consider it?
 
Jek said:
No it wouldn't - a number of people have listened to both and chose the lagrange

Bub you want to buy British and want a suspended deck so isn't there little point to consider it?
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Sorry Jek, yours is bestest, momentarily forgot. Yes, I want a suspended deck, for philosophical reasons.
 
Time Audio said:
Reason for mentioning the LP12 is because the small upgrade differences are well known to many readers - I was trying to illustrate we are not talking those kind of differences here.

The Raven AC is certainly not sterile/cold sounding and certainly not artificial. It is actually very natural and has stunning tonal colour. One of my main reasons for buying it was this full tonal colour spectrum. It has been called the "tonal colour machine" by one reviewer. I listen to a lot of classical music and instrument tone and colour is important to me and was what was lacking in my system as were dynamics. These were fixed the day I put the AC into my system.

Don't take my word for it:

http://www.soundstage.com/vinyl/vinyl20080501.htm
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It is a lovely thing. How many do you sell per year? I only ask because this is such a super-niche market.
 
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