Is the Townshend Rock 7 "the" giant killer?

I owned a Rock 3 and was very impressed with the sound. the front paddle damping is for real. I regret selling it as the bass was as clean as I have ever heard, probably better than I have heard. And that was with a rega clone arm. And I would describe the sound as master tape like in that resonances that I would attribute to the turntable/arm/cartridge system seem to disappear. Just a very clean presentation in the good sense. Not hyper detailed or etched as you would find with a rising top end, just everything there without artifacts.
If the 7 is a lot better, then I could see it being a giant killer, the 3 was close.

I am also interestested in the reasons for Notec's opinion. Were these compared side-by-side? I compared the WTA and Rock 7 side-by-side and both were excellent. With a Rega 301 the Rock did some things better than the WTA (bass for example), while the WTA did better treble. Felt like a pretty lateral move based on personal preferences. And Robert Greene's description of the WTA being top-down vs the Rock being bottom-up rang true for me. BUT the Rega arm on the Rock was a real weak link for me when I made my comparison.

Notec, what arm did you hear on the Rock? This will make a big difference.

In fact, it would be appreciated if anyone giving impressions of the Rock specified the tonearm used.

I heard the Rock with a NOS SME IV.

Roscoeiii- Just to clarify, when you compared the Rock 7 to the WTA, was it a
GTA or standard Amadeus. I am hoping the top-down becomes top-downer with the GTA. I am luck enough for now, to be moving my Amadeus over to a second system. The GTA will replace it in the main system. Certainly the GTA would have been a more fair comparison with the Rock 7. That said, isn't the Rock 7 with say a decent arm over 6K ? Cheers-Don

Don, the price list of the Rock 7 is $3200. The review comparing the Amadeus to the Rock 7 had a Rega 301 mounted on it--a $500 value. With a bit of discount I suspect you can get this combination for between $3000 and $3300. So, it is actually fairly comparable to the Amadeus...