I looked at both table lines and my next table is going to be the Fickert, do the research and you will find that out.
I am not saying the Raven isn't a great table, however, the Fickert is also a remarkable table and the price differential is quite large. I can get a Fickert with a superb arm and cartidge for the price of a fully blown Raven!
Audiofreak,
Have you heard the Feickert Twin ?
I think the OP is considering a Raven One/Two which is about US$5000-6500.
Feickert Twin is US$9000 without arm last i heard. Quite a few were seen at the Munich hifi show i think, likley a sign of a good thing.
When i was considering my new turntable last year , my local dealer/Australian importer had the new Feickert Twin for US$4750 but he soon dropped the Feickert line. It sounds like a good bargain and opportunity missed by myself with hindsight but i had to look elsewhere.
Back to the present, i'm now a very happy owner of Raven One. Got it going with a Jelco 10.5 S arm tone paired with an Ortofon Kontrapunkt B for the last 2 months while i wait for the Phantom II order to be completed. Relative to my previous purchases,this is a significant purchase but there is no regret so far. Sound wise, there is better bass definition + heft (biggest improvement) , more microdetails , airy top end and deeper soundstage when it's compared to my old setup which costed about 1/3 the price ( Roksan Radius 5/Nima tonearm/Ortofon Kontrapunkt A ~ $3K). I was looking for significant improvement obviously and subjectively i think it gives about 20-30% improvement. Happy with that.
And I should finally get my new Phantom II tonearm in the next 2 weeks and hopefully this will take things further.
I still think Raven One is one of the better value new turntable going around.