The details and performance of a shot-noise-limited high-resolution (≤ 2 MHz) Raman gain spectrometer are discussed and compared to a "standard" continuous wave (cw) spectrometer. For a single pass cell and 1 s integration time, a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 1000 is obtained for the Q(2) line of D2 at pressures above a few atmospheres. The quality of the spectrometer for the determination of spectral profiles is demonstrated by examining the Dicke narrowing of the line.