Best Arm for Raven One?


I am thinking about getting a Raven One TT. Would like to hear from owners. What arms do you like for this table?
slowhand
High Slowhand, nice to meet you and your wife and Garcia's last Saturday. Has the Raven One arrived yet? As I said to you then, I am sure a Phantom or Triplanar may be the best option, but Thomas recommends the Ortofon 309D or S. I use the D and am very happy with it. Excellent build quality and adjustability, a steal at the price.
Slowhand, I own two DV505s. I have not seen a DV507 MkII in the flesh, but as far as I can determine the major refinement between 505 and 507 is the use of a magnetic- or spring-based method for applying anti-skate force, which permits the use of a dial rather than a weight on a string to adjust AS. In addition, I think I read somewhere that the DV507 is very slightly shorter/smaller than the 505, to enable it to be used on a wider variety of tables. And also, the DV507 has a vertical shaft that penetrates the tonearm mounting board, so that the wiring comes out the bottom of that shaft, below the top surface of the tt. In the 505, the wiring comes out laterally from the base across the top side of the armboard. It is not therefore necessary to drill a large hole to mount it. For neatness, Dynavector supplied a 90-degree angled DIN plug, so that the wire itself can go down thru the armboard. (I personally prefer the 505 in this respect; you can just plunk it down on any armboard without drilling a hole for that shaft, then use a straight DIN plug instead of the factory one. Then all you need are two screws to hold it in place. This has been very handy with my slate plinths.) FWIW, the DV505 has a "lateral balance weight", and it appears that the 507s do not. The LBW is to stabilize the movement of the arm in the horizontal plane when there is no applied AS force. I cannot see any reason why the DV505 would not work as well/sound as good as the 507s, but the weight of the 505 might be greater, precluding it's use on certain sprung tts. And yes, the DV505 does have the mechanical VTA aduster. I would not dare to use it "on the fly", but it works very well in a static situation. (Just lift the needle before you make an adjustment.)
Hi Lewm,

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I just go back and forth as to weather I would prefer a Graham Phantom 2, a Dynavector, or a Tri-Planer on my Raven One table.

David12,

I really enjoyed our talk at the meet and greet at RMAF. The Raven One arrived yesterday.
FWIW I have the 507Mk2 and compared it against various arms on my Micro-Seiki RX5000 or SX 8000 ,including Triplanar,SME V,Grandezza,FR, Ikeda, Moerch to name but a few and the Dynavector has stayed the course along with the Grandezza. It seems to work well with most carts and it is extremely versatile and easy to set up. With my ZYX UNIverse the 507 brings out all the airy characteristics of the cartridge and with my Allnic Verity Z it brings out the weight and depth. In a head to head it had more "substance" and open sounding than the Triplanar,which sounded a bit dry by comparison.

As always, the caveat is system synergy, but for me this arm never fails to deliver. Low capacitance cables work better than the stock very nice looking dynavector cable using either the Pathos inthegroove phono or Aesthetix IO Sig and various head amps

Steve