Upgrade from TW Acustic Raven AC-3 to what?

Getting back to the original question posed, why don't you try the new Basis Inspiration TT? It's their finest TT and it looks like a spectacular TT. Basis products have a great reputation for wonderful music reproduction.

On the other hand, have you tried more arm and cartridge combinations? You could even do this with adding a Graham Phantom MKII to the TW-Acustic with a couple of arm wands. Any high end analog dealer in your area should let you try out some of their demo cartridges over week ends. I know that Bryan at Analog Room San Jose, CA lets his high end customers do home demos. Maybe that's a way to get the sound you want without spending another $50K. After-all, you do have one of the very best TT's in the world.

If not that, then go the Walker route.

Good Luck!

Having ben a high end dealer and set up many turntables - Linn, Pink triangle, Roksan, Sota, Oracle, SP10's, Mapleknoll ( Walker ) etc yrs ago my conclusions are as follows ; go back to first principles - the stylus, arm, platter AND motor drive MUST be absolutely rigid and referenced to each other to obtain ultimate pitch stability. I have found that most suspended tables suffer considerable wow. Similarly if you consider the first princiles I espoused - air bearings are out, not rigid, that rules out the Walker, Da Vinci & Air bearing micro seiki's. You need to consider the bearings - the Raven has a teflon thrustpad as do many high end decks, thats like playing your record on a spongy pudding - the platter and cartridge coupling are not rigid. I currently run a Final Audio Parthenon - high mass, copper platter, all chassis components made of composite gunmetal, totally rigid and massive ac motor with a power supply that includes power regenerator for accurate voltage and hz etc. This designed in the 70's ( Absolute Sound ultimately wrote it off as they mounted it on an air bed - completely against the designers philosophy ). It is mounted on a custom stand with true mechanical grounding ala Goldmund. The only turntable I lust after is the Verdier - with ball installed in the bearing so it is grounded - but dial the air pressure so that the grounded bearing only sees 4-5 lb ala the Continuum. Tonearm recommendations - no air bearings again not rigid - I use Naim Aro as the unipivot has true single point grounding and is rigid given correct arm/cartridge matching. Cartridge recommendation - currently use an Ikeda - no cantilever slewing around creating time distortion, diamond mounted n a hoop - so speed of a Decca without the hassles. Direct drives - have 2 friends with SP10 MkIII's in custom plinths - I'm not convinced - the sound is chopped up ala digital - have reservations about direct drives with constant speed correction impacting stability. Non air bearing Micro Seiki's and Melco's are also on my list of resonable decks.

Hi, I am not enough of a technical guy to understand all the comments and recommendations about designs, etc. I just trust my ears. Anyway today I had the good fortune of listening to a well set up Walker Black Diamond (+ Goldfinger v2 cart) and was impressed. Extremely detailed and transparent with superb soundstaging and imaging. It was very flat and neutral that i couldn't hear any part of the frequency spectrum that was more prominent than others...i suspect as a result that it was very non fatiguing to listen to, which i did for 2 hours. Best TT i heard so far.

Dear Dover, air-bearings are not out. Just look at the new Bergmann concept. It looks that more and more developers dealing with Top-High-End TTs are having an eye on air bearings. For what reason?

Dear Dertonearm, Sorry to see you go. We could discuss it privately. I allowed all along that my reasoning could be faulty, but I have yet to hear the science-based counter-argument from you for your thesis that higher mass of the slate would result in a longer run of the billiard ball (which of course leads to the more relevant argument that higher mass platter per se gives better sonics). To say that your proposition is a well known given fact for billiard tables is not convincing to me in the slightest. It seems too obvious to say it but it was once a well known given fact that blood-letting is the best treatment for infections.

Dover, if you did not have your concept of how the servo mechanism works in a direct-drive turntable, would you still say the sound of an SP10 Mk3 is "chopped up"? What do you think is the frequency of servo action once the 22-lb platter of the Mk3 is up to stable speed? I would guess it is not sufficiently frequent to give the phychoacoustic effect of "digititis". I think your impression may be biased by your preconceptions. It happens to all of us. I am running an SP10 Mk2 right next to a Lenco w/idler drive. Comparing the sounds of the two, I hear nothing like what you describe. Since the Mk3 platter is 3 times heavier than that of the Mk2, I expect the Mk3 would be even less likely to exhibit the artifact you describe.