Well Tempered Amadeus vs TW Acustic Raven One

That's interesting. I just moved from a GTA to a Rock 7 with Helius arm and the difference was pretty profound. I don't disagree that the phono stage matters, but in my experiences I put the order of importance at table/arm - phono pre - cart - cable. I now wonder if the Raven with a good arm will be a similar jump in performance from the Rock 7?

Dear Vortrex: ++++ " but in my experiences I put the order of importance at table/arm - phono pre - cart - cable. " ++++

I respect your opinion but I have a little different one:

well the cartridge is the source and the ones that is asking for what surrounded it can fulfil its needs. A cartridge needs to be ( a must to ) in " perfect " match with its couple: the tonearm ( its couple is not the TT. ), as better matched as better quality performance level you will hear from that cartridge.

Now, my second item on importance is where the cartridge signal is proccessed that's where that signal could be degraded in high way adding and loosing precious recorded information through that signal proccess. This cartridge signal proccess happen in the Phonolinepreamp and what you add there you can't disappeared latter and what you lose there you can't recovery again, the cartridge signal pass through a tortuous and heavy proccess to say the least. So IMHO as better accurate/neutral/low distortions/low noise is your phonolinepreamp as better the quality pwerformance level you achieve.

Then comes the TT.

Of course is only an opinion.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Vortrex, are you still using a Denon cart? If so, you owe it to yourself to try some others. (Not that the Denon is a bad choice, necessarily.)

I have a cheapo 103R on the Rock 7 and a XX2 on the Amadeus GTA. The Rock 7 is significantly better in my opinion, shockingly better. Believe me, I wanted to hate my Rock 7 for various reasons, but it is truly incredible!