Raven 9.5"

The 9.5" tonearm is a project that Thomas Woschnick has long been pursuing. His goal was a new arm that is not only highly versatile but also sonically on par with the well-known and highly regarded arms from the same manufacturer. He decided to adhere to the standard REGA dimension of 222 millimeters in length and to develop the arm for an effective weight of 12 grams. The former means that the arm can be used as an upgrade for a wide variety of turntables. The latter means that a large number of cartridges currently available on the market can be mounted without hesitation.

Like its longer siblings, the new 9.5" tonearm features a bearing housing with hand-selected ball bearings and an aluminum tube. The anti-skating is magnetically adjusted – and this brings us to one of those famous details that are usually overlooked. The small stub at the rear of the tonearm must be made of non-magnetic steel, otherwise the magnets of the anti-skating mechanism would interact with it. And since everything is being done right, the tracking force adjustment can also be implemented in two parts: a quick adjustment by sliding the main weight for 0.1-gram increments, and a very precise adjustment for 0.01-gram increments using a fine thread at the end of the tonearm stub.

Of course, we want to do everything right inside the tonearm as well. There you'll find braided Cardas wiring and a Cardas connector with gold-plated contacts. A connection cable is not included, and in principle, any cable with a straight SME-type plug can be used. Naturally, a Cardas cable is also suitable.

Things get really interesting with the headshell. Here, we rely on the calculation of the Löfgren-S geometry according to the IEC standard. This means that the headshell has a slightly different angle than other products and also a lower tracking error angle across a large portion of the platter surface.

To make cartridge alignment as easy as possible, each 9.5" tonearm comes with a small alignment jig. This allows you to perfectly adjust the cartridge's overhang and offset BEFORE mounting the tonearm on the turntable. To do this, simply place the tonearm upside down in its packaging and first connect the cartridge electrically. Then, screw the two retaining screws into the cartridge by hand, without tightening them completely. Now, click the alignment jig onto the headshell from below and fold the transparent alignment protractor onto the cantilever. This allows you to perfectly align the cartridge from above using the markings.

Tighten the screws by hand until snug, and you're done. The adjustment precision achievable here should surpass that of a printed template for 99 percent of users. You can find a video on our YouTube channel demonstrating this adjustment process.

The 9.5" tonearm from TW-Acustic is available with mounting options for TW turntables and REGA cartridges. Users of the TW system can optionally retrofit the TW-specific height adjustment for on-the-fly operation, as used in the larger models.

So, how does such an arm sound? It doesn't. And that's a good thing. The purpose of an arm is not to produce a sound itself, but to guide the cartridge across the record as precisely and resonance-free as possible. This allows the cartridge to operate optimally, and that's precisely what creates the excellent sound of a TW tonearm.