Dear Dover,
Read the reviews on the Merrill it is being compared to the most expensive tables on the market, and George does have several new customers who have purchased the Merrill after comparing to their tables which were much more expensive, tables that were over $20k!
I am being honest I never had a Raven in my system I can tell you that the sound of the Merrill is way better than my customers $50k Basis, as per the Spiral Groove I have heard that table and it is nice there is nothing magical about it. Go find a Merrill and Listen to it, it sounds amazing and for the money is a bargain, look at Merrill's background and you will see that almost all modern table's borrow some of the ideas Merrill started incorporating into his table in 1981!
The new Merill REAL table blows away the Merrill Scalia which was a $24k table.
All I am saying is to look at a design and see if it makes real sense in terms of solving a problem, with most of these tables I see more hype than originality in coming up with real solutions.
The entire reason an analog rig sounds the way it does is how energy is stored or removed, lighter weight english PRAT tables tend to sound that way due to lighter materials with higher resonant frequencies and a faster removal of resonances, higher mass tables tend to have the big bassy quiet sound due to a slower movement of energy and heavier materials resonating differently.
You can draw your own conclusions or look at reviews the Merrill is a real breakthrough the Raven is not, again I am not saying the Raven isn't a good table there is nothing unique in the design, just a well executed conventional design with very good materials and superb construction.
Read the reviews on the Merrill it is being compared to the most expensive tables on the market, and George does have several new customers who have purchased the Merrill after comparing to their tables which were much more expensive, tables that were over $20k!
I am being honest I never had a Raven in my system I can tell you that the sound of the Merrill is way better than my customers $50k Basis, as per the Spiral Groove I have heard that table and it is nice there is nothing magical about it. Go find a Merrill and Listen to it, it sounds amazing and for the money is a bargain, look at Merrill's background and you will see that almost all modern table's borrow some of the ideas Merrill started incorporating into his table in 1981!
The new Merill REAL table blows away the Merrill Scalia which was a $24k table.
All I am saying is to look at a design and see if it makes real sense in terms of solving a problem, with most of these tables I see more hype than originality in coming up with real solutions.
The entire reason an analog rig sounds the way it does is how energy is stored or removed, lighter weight english PRAT tables tend to sound that way due to lighter materials with higher resonant frequencies and a faster removal of resonances, higher mass tables tend to have the big bassy quiet sound due to a slower movement of energy and heavier materials resonating differently.
You can draw your own conclusions or look at reviews the Merrill is a real breakthrough the Raven is not, again I am not saying the Raven isn't a good table there is nothing unique in the design, just a well executed conventional design with very good materials and superb construction.