Raven owners - how's your mid-range?

Check the VTA.

Wow - something is clearly amis.

I am running the Raven One, and really considered the Copperhead heavily, but since I had a Phantom sitting in a box, I just went and kept that.

I went from a Well Tempered table and arm to the Raven/Phantom and didn't notice the kind of spectral shift you are referring to. The Tonal balance was not different. I wish you luck - you have a remarkable LP playback system there and I hope you find it's magic.

Fjn - I highly suggest the Raven One with the best arm you can afford. If you buy it and don't like it I will furnish you with my address and you can come beat me to a bloody pulp. The above offer does not extend to you Halcro, since you have a pre-existing condition.

Thanks for posting this. I have been very seriously thinking of buying the Raven One. I hope you get more feedback on this.

Stuff happens. I had a Superscoutmaster with the 9 inch arm into which I had installed a Benz Ebony H. The sound was absolutely gorgeous with deep subteranean effortless lows, huge sound stage with layers of depth, air, and all the good stuff. You could make it earsplitting loud, and not be offended by distortion. Being a nutty audiphile, I upgraded by putting the 10.5i arm on the table and sold the H for the top of the Benz line LP. The sound is very good but not nearly as wonderful as the H in the 9 incher was. I've adjusted everything immaginable..I'm getting new resistors from Ayre to change the loading. I'm hoping its a matter of breakin, but its been a couple of months already. If I do find Nirvana I'm not touching this thing again.

I have a Raven AC on order with Jeff Catalano. I live on the west coast and recently made a trip east. I took the time to visit Jeff in NYC and heard the AC with 3 tonearm / cartridge combos. The best sounding was a Dynavector Arm / Dynavector Mono top of the line cartridge. I did not hear a loss of mid-range character although the Graham Phantom / Myabi 47 and Tri-Planar / Zyx 4D certainly exhibited different characters. All sounded very good. I too am a long time owner of a Welltempered Classic and a Benz Ruby 2 as someone else posted so I have gobs of mid-range as my comparison model. You are not indicating what kind of platform you are using under the Raven or if you are using Still Points for the feet. What cable are you using with your arm? How adept are you at arm and cartridge set-up? Tracking force and VTA are paramount parameters to get right. I will leave electronics out of this since you are using the same arm and cartidge with the Raven as with the Rega. Have you contacted Jeff for help? Hope you get your answer soon.