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TW-Acustic Raven Black Night
Naturally, the experience gained over the last few years stood us in good stead for developing the Black Night, yet despite drawing on these experiences, the Black Night also incorporates many innovative features not seen before in this form. The Raven Black Night is a truly monumental turntable, as its sheer size and weight testify. Despite this, thanks to the proportions, colour and choice of materials, the design remains pleasing and harmonious.
In developing the Black Night, our aim was to build a turntable that could top even our own Raven AC in terms of subtlety, ease and silence. In this we have succeeded, and the results are seriously impressive. The Black Night portrays the music’s every detail with subtlety and stereo depth, whether it be human voice or instruments. Everywhere, you’ll discover nuances that had previously remained hidden. Attack and decay of transient notes are reproduced impressively. Thanks to the three-motor drive and the battery power supply, the Raven Black Night does its job with poise, serenity and composure, yet just like the other TW ACUSTIC turntables, it is highly dynamic, involving and rich in timbre.
The Raven Black Night is incredibly musical, its spatial presentation is so three-dimensional and tangible that the music is always reproduced with the utmost authenticity. As with the Raven AC, the Black Night also provides for the use of up to four tonearms. As an additional feature, we have developed an armboard that allows VTA to be safely and accurately adjusted during operation. This is achieved via a knurled thumbwheel, which allows adjustment to be precisely carried out without float.
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Professional Reviews 92/100
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
94/100
Build Quality
95/100
Features Usability
89/100
Value for Money
85/100
The Raven Black Night delivers organic tonal richness, black-background silence and towering spatial scale from its triple-motor, battery-powered architecture. Knuth Zensen found instruments precisely layered, bass deep yet comfortable, and dynamics alive from delicate cues to full orchestral force. With a massive copper/POM platter and provision for four arms, this is a deeply configurable reference deck built for emotionally absorbing vinyl replay.
What Reviewers Are Saying
Pros
Expansive, naturally layered sound with clear instrumental separation, rich tone and strong emotional engagement.
Exceptionally quiet presentation reveals low-level ambience and a notably dark background.
Triple-motor drive and high-inertia platter deliver outstanding smoothness, dynamic authority and detail tracking.
Superb engineering includes smooth on-the-fly VTA adjustment and flexible support for multiple tonearms.
&
Cons
Its extreme mass and separate motor/control units make installation and precise alignment a demanding two-person task.
The very high price places it firmly in specialist, reference-level territory.
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 94/100
The available listening report describes an unusually complete, emotionally compelling presentation: spacious and naturally layered, richly toned, dynamically alive and highly resolving without becoming analytical. Its very dark background, strong retrieval of low-level detail and convincing authority with both rock and classical music are central strengths.
Overall Sound
96/100
Fidelity found the presentation organic, natural and opulent, with clear instrumental colors, deep comfortable bass and cymbals that were both refined and dynamically forceful. The reviewer also praises exceptional resolution, scale and emotional communication, saying the deck made familiar recordings unusually moving while retaining drive and presence.
Speed Stability
93/100
The three-motor drive, high-inertia platter and control system are said to produce enormous smoothness, with less corrective intervention required from the controller. The listening report’s praise for assured dynamics, drive and fine-detail tracking supports a highly stable musical result, although it provides no measured speed figures.
Tonearm Performance
94/100
The reviewer calls the smoothly operating, on-the-fly tonearm-height adjustment a particular design highlight. They report no criticism of either the turntable or tonearm, and found the setup capable of following both the finest and broadest dynamic gradations.
Noise Isolation
94/100
Battery-powered motor operation is designed to separate the electronics from mains-borne interference. In listening, the reviewer heard very small background cues clearly and described an exceptionally black background, helping establish the scale of acoustic space.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
95/100
The Raven Black Night is built on a 30kg solid-aluminium chassis, with a 20kg copper-and-POM platter whose elements are screwed and glued together. Fidelity also highlights the high-precision bronze bearing, while the overall 70kg system mass and substantial execution suggest a genuinely uncompromising platform.
Features Usability
89/100
Useful provisions include microprocessor-controlled battery operation, automatic changeover and charging, a remaining-charge display, and capacity for up to four tonearms. The on-the-fly VTA adjustment is especially convenient, while variable motor-block positioning allows belt tension and presentation to be fine-tuned.
Value for Money
85/100
At roughly $26,950–$29,500, this is an unambiguously expensive specialist turntable. Fidelity notes that it costs around 3.7 times as much as its smaller sibling, but does not directly assess whether that premium is justified or compare it with competing decks at the price.
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Authorized dealers for TW-Acustic Raven Black Night
- Analogue Seduction — online and in-store — Whittlesey, England, United Kingdom (website)
- AURA HIFI — in-store — Stadtbezirke II, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany (website)
- Echo Audio — online and in-store — Portland, Oregon, United States (website)
- gestalt FINE AUDIO — in-store — Nashville, Tennessee, United States (website)
- Maestro Audio — in-store — Tel Aviv-Yafo, Tel Aviv District, Israel (website)
- SelectAudio — in-store — Flimby, England (website)
- Sievking Sound — in-store — Findorff, Bremen, Germany (website)
- United Home Audio — in-store — Washington, Virginia, United States (website)