Moving into vinyl. Brinkman, TW Raven, GrandPrix??

Hi!

I listened to a Brinkman with the Breuer Arm and Breuer EMT pickup plus tube power supply. The rest of the equipment is 4 pcs mono amps from Classe' and Audio Research REF 3. I think he used a Ayre phono amp. B&W 802D loudspeakers. The sound was on the bright side I think, but that is not necessarily the turntable. Its more the total set up and the listening room. However, a great great turntable, but expensive.

You can buy TW Acustic for a fair price from Europe. I have seen some second hand Raven 3's without arms for approx. USD 9.000. With a Graham Phantom II for approx. USD 12,000 in all. Not bad I think.

Good luck!

Cheeers, ToffenG

I tend to agree with Peter, start, with something small and cheap. Not necessarily a Thorens. If you have no vinyl at the moment, I am not sure I would spend north of $20000. Mind you, I can't afford $20000, with 3000LPs. Thats kids at University for you.
I settled on a Raven one, which is much cheaper than the AC and according to the designer, gives you 95% of the performance of the AC. I listened to a number of TW decks at RMAF and all the combinations made some of the best sounds at the show. As Fafion said, I am sure all 3 decks are state of the art and would give years of pleasure. I have heard the Brinkman, not the Monaco, but it comes with a great reputation and reviews.
The problem with vinyl, is it is almost impossible to make meaningful comparisons. No dealer will have all 3 and if he did, they would probably have different arms, cartridges, phono stages etc. If they did have the same arms etc, it still would'nt be a fair comparison, because of synergies between decks, arms and cartridges. So I think, even with careful auditioning, any purchase will be a leap of faith, to an extent

The benchmark is the Linn lp12. This table has been continuously improved. I would then see what you get for more(or less) money. Are you into sound or the emotion of music? Careful cartridge/arm tweaking can make an amazing difference(Note: I believe that Linn says to take off their arm to tighten the cartridge screws.).

Hi!

I have decided for a TW Acustic Raven One. I did have a Micro Seiki 5000 in the 80-ties, and before then various TT's. Silly me sold the Mikro Seiki a few years back. The same happened with my Mørch DP6 Gold... I have to forget.

I have a few thousand lps, and I want a turntable with the possibilty of upgrading. VPI Classic is a bargain as you can add upgrades, and it will play very well indeed especially for its price. The downfall is that you are stucked with one type of arm. Therefore I decided to go for the Raven One with a Graham Phantom II arm.

I did have serious plans buying a TW Acustic Raven 3 / Brinkmann La Grand with a Breuer arm / Basis 2200 with a Vector arm. But it became too expensive for me. The Nordic dealer of TW then told me that Raven One with a superb arm such as Graham Phantom II or Triplanar would give almost the same result, and money left to a good the phono amp and cartridge.

You can always sell the turntable, and keep the arm, cartridge and phonostage. And step up to a better one later.

Sorry for the long tread!

Cheeers, ToffenG

Don't be sorry man! Be happy! Vinyl Lives!