Motor Controller ugrade for Raven One Turntable

Dear Blackburn, A Maybach? A Rolls? A Ferrari 599GTB or Italia? What, for $300K? I am a car guy without your kind of bucks, but I was once a very successful Porsche collector (550 Spyder, Carrera GT Speedster, etc). If I had not sold them all, I probably could now afford an MBL amplifier, but I probably would not buy one.

I visited the Raven showroom last October at RMAF. Thomas seems like a very nice man, and the products appear to be beautifully made. I cannot but wonder therefore at the hostility typically provoked by discussion of one or another of their products on this website. As someone else commented, there seems to be a group of Raven-haters that is at least as enthusiastic and devoted as are the Raven-lovers. I have no idea why this is, but the turntables cannot possibly be as flawed as the detractors claim, just based on the quality of construction and the fact that there is nothing particularly adventurous about the design, meaning Ravens stick to the consensus approach to building a belt-drive, which has evolved over the last two or three decades. (How different sounding can a Raven AC be from a Brinkmann belt-drive, for one example?) I will never be a fan of 3 motors, however.

I can't imagine why someone would hate a particular manufacturer of turntables. The Raven seems reasonably well built, with accepted design choices. I'm not sure that you could ever perfectly calibrate 3 motors to run at exactly the same speed with exactly the same torque, but I believe that heavy platters and inertia more than cover up any speed issues when used with a belt drive. So while I have perhaps criticized the motor controller theory in this thread, it was not meant to be a criticism of Raven or any other manufacturer. I just dont get how a motor controller can have such a great effect on sound with a heavy plattered turntable using a reasonable quality motor.

Hi Lewm, There are usually only a few reasons someone bad mouths a high quality product line such as the TW Acustic turntables. Many times a dealer of competing products will chime in on a post and bad mouth the product being discussed. Someone may have an ax to grind with the manufacturer for some unknown reason. I don't know the reason for such negative comments on this thread, but many people have hidden adgendas. TW Acustic tables may not be your cup of tea, but to say they are a good starter table is a ridiculous statement. Many of these people have probably not even heard a Raven table in there own system.