Own a TW-Acustic Raven One?

I have just replaced my Jelco arm with the Ortofon 309D, 12 inch arm, on my Raven one. As you may know, it is the arm Thomas the designer uses and recommends on the Raven One. It really is very good indeed. The sound was a little soft, lacking definition, crispness. With the ortofon, the sound is immediately more sharp, defined and dynamic. In fact it is dynamics and imaging which is most obvious. The Jelco was not good at imaging. Listening to Verdi's Otello yesterday, with the Ortofon, you could clearly hear one singer was slightly to the Left and a few feet behind the other. In fact it represents the best defined imaging I have heard in my system.
The ortofon seems a good choice, if you are not going for a cost no object arm. I have'nt heard them all, but I have heard the Arro, SME 5 and Phantom, the latter on the Raven AC. Thomas again, said he feels the Ortofon is a few percentage points down on the Phantom and other top arms, at a lot less than half the price, at least in the UK. I am not sure of US pricing

If I go with a Raven at some point, I will most likely use my DV 507MKII arm... have you audtioned that arm? However, it may be a bit too 'neutral' overall. I have heard that the Phantom is a little more lively as compared to the 507?

thanks

The Raven replaced a Michell Gyro SE with SME IV arm and Ortofon MC30 Cart.The SME is on the Raven and I now have a Benz wood M2 into an Artemis Labs PH-1 phonostage.

Sound is extremely musical and flowing, very 'solid' with better bass than the Gyro set up.

Sounds good; looking forward to auditioning the Raven One at RMAF in October...

Is it the SME IV,Vi you´ve got.

SME IV,Vi has Magnan Vi-wire. It has good reputation for being very accurate and neutral but without harshness.
Stereophile (2003) gave it excellent review together with SME table.
I´m interested getting this wire (can´t find internal wire at Magnans homepage), if You know where I´d appreciate.
I use Cardas on my SME V/Raven combo but i like to test others.
I belive internal wire is main issue of improvements, not only on SME but in general. Considering transporting signals of tenths of micro volt you need a good conductor, a damn good one, for minimum distortion.

Many thanks and happy listening!
C-G