Upgrade from TW Acustic Raven AC-3 to what?

Alec,

Great system.

I would verify that it is a problem confined to the analog chain by listening for the same problems during digital playback. Ascertain that this is not a problem with speaker/room interaction.

If it is indeed the Analog source, changing (arm/cart/isolation) may get you there. I have the 12inch Grandezza on AC1 and the Phantom. The Graham produce a different response that is closer to what you describe.

I agree that TT is a factor too. The Avid Acutus or SME did produce different tonal balance in my system but they had oth compromises.

Best of luck

Most Audiophiles have experiences, some have dreams (in a positive way), some have an altar and all listen to music. Some to originals, some to reissues and some use it to relax because life is boring otherwise :-).
No matter what the direction is, sooner or later some (not all) will realize that a cow can't be a race horse. No matter what you do. Some try to do that with better food, with training... but at the end of day (and the next...) it is still a cow.

Syntax agree, a cow is a cow and remains a cow but you can feed it properly, put it on good ground and you will like it much more. Agree not with Dertonarm: You need to ask many audiophiles first and get many opinions. You might learn from these opinions if you are able to draw some conclusions. It is important that you build up a proper decision path which is not so easy. Didn`t we all make some wrong decision on our journey and learned from that!!

Dear Thuchan: I agree with you in all your words.

Each one of us have our each one audio learning curve that is formation comes from our own experiences, other experiences, our own know how and other know how, at least is the normal way to do things: learn/learning is the name of the game. We learn everywhere and from any one, we learn on our own mistakes and learn on other people mistakes: our life is a whole learn process.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Dear Raul, dear Thuchan, we hopefully learn from mistakes, we learn certainly from results and sometimes from experience. But I can not see, what can be learned from an "opinion" of another listener who always have (must have, as he is a different individual...) preferences, taste and bias more or less different from your own.
We shouldn't mistake the gathering of opinions for "learning" from others.
An opinion is no more than that - an individual impression (expressed however...) formed by an individual matrix which has evolved over a lifespan of very unique - in fact singular in their combination - experiences, preferences, taste (or the lack of it....), moods and social circumstances.
An opinion is not transferable (well - all audio reviewers do make their living out of the fact that 99.9% of all audiophiles don't agree with me on that point....) - not in audio and not elsewhere in life.
If more people would trust their ears only and would listen to the set-ups more carefully and with less prejudice (i.e.: opinions from others...) more audiophiles would get much better results.
Enjoy the - long..... - journey.
D.