Upgrade from TW Acustic Raven AC-3 to what?

Dear Alec,
Having read some of the early responses I think the idea of taking an unsuspended table and converting it into a suspended one by means of the support seems to defeat the object of the exercise ;^)

I know that this suggestion might go against the grain but assuming that you are applying the vinyl directly to the copper platter, have you considered trialling a few mats?
One reason I say this is that the mech impedance of the copper platter is dissimilar to vinyl and you may get a more acceptable result by improving the match?

Speaking from experience I was in a similar position to that which you describe. It seemed like sacrilege to add to what should be a perfect interface but I cured the problem by first of all adding the basis of the Ringmat Support System i.e. a hybrid mat consisting of a thin latex Base Mat plus the "Gold spot" Ringmat.

Further to this I also notice that dressing the cables to prevent undesirable vibration being passed into the T/T was critical. (In fact it is critical to suspended tables too but possibly more so here)

The stand I use is multi-stage (3 shelves), tri-spiked on each level (so no micro-rocking) and made not from maple but oak. It isn't massively heavy and the resonant frequency isn't too low - so it will act as a mechanical filter when situated on a concrete floor.
The spikes ensure that only a tiny proportion of vibration is passed from one level to the next and this shrinks correspondingly as you progress up the stack. By the time residual vibration reaches the T/T it has passed through 5 levels of minimal coupling (if you include 2 within a set of Stillpoints.)
Whatever is left we would hope would be dealt with by the T/T's own mass.
This basically leaves airborne feedback and the Supply/Tonearm cables as the final sources of feedback.

Airborne feedback is almost untreatable apart from a separate room or moving the T/T further away from the speakers. The T/T should handle this ok provided it isn't mounted directly on top of the speaker. ;^)
Mech cable resonance on the other hand is treatable. It's worth playing around with this factor as I mentioned earlier.
Hope my experience proves helpful in some way.

Hi Alec,
Glad you are winning :) The SME is a great tonearm.
If you are ever feeling reckless and feel like like using the other arm pillar you should try the Phantom ;^)
All the best,

Dear Alec,
Is there a reason why you have tried the matless approach yourself?

Rather than using the Millenium mat or fancy alternatives like the Zanden, why not try the Gold Spot Ringmat with the latex underlay. It's a (relatively) cheap investment which may transform your listening.
(I recall you saying back on Day 1 that you wanted to relieve the "dark sounding" tendency and enhance the soundstage? Well, the above hybrid combination delivers exactly that. In doing this, you should realise, you may have morphed from a "damped" listening enthusiast to the "undamped" philosophy... ;^)
A platform of the quality of that which you are using would enable an even bigger difference to be heard. ;^)

Final recommendations are to avoid sharing the T/T shelf with anything else and position the phono stage on a shelf under the T/T using a short phono cable (say 0.5m dual midi-coax with Earth). If you can get the motor controller onto the bottom i.e. 3rd, shelf so much the better. Also pay attention to the dressing of the phono cable as any incidental contact will affect tonearm and cart behaviour as it does act as an energy conduit. If it does contact anything, introducing a small amount of interference (don't laugh - a toothpick) as it passes over the back edge will be enough to prevent it coupling directly to the resonance of the shelf itself. I've found this to be easily identifiable in blind tests and indeed this item alone can decrease the tendency of the turntable to be "dark" or "leaden" sounding.
Doing the same "decoupling" trick with the motor cable/s is less important but you may wish to try it anyway?

Decoupling the phono stage itself may not be necessary as they often sound better without any fancy mechanical supports. Much of this depends on whether the shelves are multi-stage spiked tripods (or alternatively suspended supports). Personally, I didn't see the point in trying to turn an unsuspended table into a suspended one but many seem to recommend this so I suppose that must also be considered an option(?)

Apologies that I haven't worked my way through this thread yet and am unaware if anyone else has made similar recommendations which are very simple and virtually free(!) or indeed if you've already done most of what I've suggested above?
Anyway, you can afford to cherry pick any advice you feel is easily actionable.
All the best,