One of my personal best sounds of the show was the TW Acustic room. As usual, they were partnered with the huge Cessaro horn speakers but there were new amplification in the form of TrueLife Audio, a tube amplifier manufacturer from Greece. However, the star of this room must surely be the new Raven Black Night turntable. Weighing a total of 65 kgs (!), it features a unique 3 motor drive mechanism built into a massive housing, with 2 motors turning clockwise and one motor rotating anti-clockwise while driving the same belt.

The platter itself is made of 2 parts; a 40 mm block of finely machined solid copper is bolted onto a 20 mm base that is made of a secret composite that is known only to the designer, Thomas Woschnick. There is also provision for VTA adjustment on the fly, achieved by rotating a ‘wheel’ at the base of the new arm mount, a mechanism that is capable of fine adjustments over as small as a 10 mm range! There are other innovations and details that make the Black Night the special table that it is, but that will take too much space to fully describe here, so I guess you can expect another article devoted to this beauty in the future…

Another piece of juicy news that I learned from TW is that he is in the process of buying over the company that manufactures the Breuer Dynamic tonearms. The Breuer tonearm is almost legendary and has achieved cult status among hardcore vinylophiles the world over. The availability of this arm is extremely scarce as each tonearm is hand assembled from up to as many as 120 parts! The end result is reputed to be a work of art, every part being of jewel-like precision and beauty. If this indeed becomes fact. Then TW Acustic will finally have a tonearm that is befitting of the quality of their highly rated turntables.

Good news for budget constrained audiophiles is the introduction this year of the Raven 0.5. This compact turntable retains all the basic design features of its bigger and more expensive siblings, but at a much more affordable price. It uses exactly the same materials for the platter and plinth as the Raven One, and also the same motor. It is also expendable to a 2 arm version simply by externalizing the motor and fitting on a second arm mount in the location that is vacated by the motor. Expect to see and read a lot more about this interesting model in the months to come!