TW Acustic 10.5 and Graham Phantom Supreme II


I am contemplating (figuring out my funds!) on purchasing a TW Acustic Raven AC. First of all, if anyone is around the Tulsa, OK area and owns a TW Acustic Raven AC, please invite me over to listen!

My question to Raven AC owners who have tried both a Graham Phantom and TW 10.5 tonearm - what are the sonic attributes of each tonearm on the Raven AC? Which did you prefer and why? This isn't a 'which is best' question, but rather which one suited you more with the Raven AC compared to the other.

For background, I listen to about 60% rock/pop and 40% traditonal jazz. Very little classical. I use a Rowland Cadence phono pre.

Thanks in advance for any info and comments.
philb7777
I have both Raven 10.5 and Graham Phantom II (upgraded from I, might further upgrade to Supreme) mounted on Raven Two TT. Still not get to the point to offer any valid comparison on the sound between the 2 arms. But I will offer some of my observations and I think it's helpful.

Installed Raven 10.5 about 4 months ago. Upon fine adjustment of the arm, noticed an issue with Anti-skating, and the arm also skip quite often when lowering onto the LP. I thought my table might lose level, but it's not.

Just mounted Graham Phantom II in the past few days.

When put two arms side by side, I found Phantom is easy to setup especially on the pivot to spindle distance. Phantom also has measurable/repeatable settings for VTA, Azimuth and Anti-Skate. In comparison, VTA on Raven 10.5 is fine, but Azimuth is tough, anti-skate is kind of joke at least as of now.

Phantom offers a plastic spindle cap. There is a hole on the head shell that will fit in the tip of the cap, which will help greatly to setup the distance between pivot and spindle.

The paper scale provided by Raven 10.5 is very hard to use to setup the required 251.2mm distance. I set it up before inserted the Raven arm in the armboard. While mounting the phantom, I happened to notice there is also a hole on the Raven 10.5 head shell, in very similar position as the phantom's. After removing cartridge from Raven 10.5, I tried to measure the distance again from the tip of the Phantom cap to the Raven Bird, I found my original distance is short by 2mm or so. After adjust the distance of Raven 10.5 to let the Raven 10.5 head shell hole sit on the Phantom spindle cap (not quite fit in), I found the distance is quite close to required 251.2mm. Very interesting, I am quite happy that upon installing Phantom, I also solved a problem to setup Raven 10.5 without investing more tools offered by Uni-something or Feickert.
Over a year ago I was running a Triplanar mounted on a AC 1 with a Transfiguration Orpheus cart. I was contemplating a second arm and the toss up was between a Phantom and a Durand Talea. To cut a long story short I ended up with the Talea and found that it was such a perfect fit in my system and with my musical priorities that I got rid of the Triplanar. Am extremely happy and satisfied with the Talea and would recommend an audition though it's a bit more expensive than the arms you are contemplating.
Cheers
Pradeep
Pradeep, Talea should be a fine arm given it's price point. Do you have I or II? Have you ever done a direct comparison between yuor Talea and Raven 10.5?
Kdl
I have the Talea 2. Sorry I have no experience of the TW arm so I can't comment on it.
Pradeep, when you mounted Talea on your Raven AC, did you order a new armboard insert for Talea or simply use the armboard for Tri-Planar? Thanks.