TW Raven 10.5" Tonearm


Hi All

I'm 'considering' a TW Raven tonearm BUT that silly looking bird painted on the bearing section really puts me off. I've got in contact with TW Acustic but he will not return my emails. The silly looking painted bird looks so out of place on a tonearm. My 4 year old daughter painted one just like it last week.

Does anyone know if it is screen printed on or etched. If screen printed I could take it off with paint stripper!

D
dravden
You raise an interesting point while I thought the graham had pretty good air around the instruments. There was an ease of presentation that i got with the tw that i initially thought had more to do with the cart than the arm. However, i did not quite get this with the graham. The sonic picture was clearer with the tw and that did have something to do with bloom. On the macrodynamics both had plenty of air but the tw seemed to have much more air and seperation on the micro level. Finally, the dimensionality, and seperation of instruments from front to back was much more pronounced with the tw.
Now that are all great news for analog music lovers and I think TW should soon raise - following universal approved and agreed upon market rules - the retail price of the TW 10.5 considerably to illustrate and kind of fortify the sonic superiority of the "white Raven".
i don't make the news--i just report. i realize that some folks get offended if a fellow listener doesn't fawn over their particular favorite. that ain't me. i had several problems with the tw arm initially. it made 3 trips across the atlantic. when the dealer offered me a full refund i was dying to switch to another arm. my first choice had been a graham and i was dying to love it. i found it to be a much easier arm to set up. unfortunately or fortunately-depending on where your loyalties lie--the graham could not provide the same quality of playback in my system for my tastes. while i enjoyed the graham, I felt that the graham had a much more pronounced sonic signature. if you like that--more power to you. buy as many as your table or tables will bear and knock yourself out. Me, i like for the equipment to get out of the way of the music and be as natural, neutral and revealing as possible. on my system the tw did that in spades. like i said earlier, different strokes for different folks. i am not a dealer nor do i have any affiliation with tw other than owning an ac-3. in fact, i am not that much of a gear head. if you check my audiogon activity you will see i spend alot more time buying vinyl than debating how many angels can dance on the head of a stylus. i just felt that there were probably some tw owners like me or just vinyl lovers who would be interested in the OPINIONS (and only opinions) of someone who had actually done an a/b comparison of the tw against a very popular and successful arm. in contrast, many out there may prefer the graham--that just wasn't the case with those who got to compare in my system. what we can ALL, hopefully, agree on is that vinyl beats the daylights out of digital. at least in my case, my old rega p25 could humble my $42,000.00 plus esoteric digital seperates. so, that's my 2 cents. i have not heard anyone report on a head to head of a tw against a triplanar, origin, dyna or a multitude of other well respected arms. if anyone has done an a/b of those arms--i would be interested in their thoughts. keep buying the magic black discs--they are, after all, what all this sound and fury is really about.
There you go at it again. the Audiofilth blowing unwarranted noise again. To be respectable , post respectably