Raven Audio Tube amps

Here’s my 2 cents on Raven:

I had previously had a Primaluna Prologue preamp and a Hegel H20 power amp and was looking to go with an integrated tube solution that gave the magic of tubes. I gave Raven a try but it fell short in driving my Dynaudio Contour 20i’s (86db; 4 ohms) to their full potential. It lack a bit of oomph and didn’t play that loudly without saturating (~77 DB).

I was disappointed in the instruments value/quality for the price which isn’t any real value!

The first thing I noticed is how light it was compared to my old Primaluna preamp. Granted weight isn’t everything but it’s directly related to the size of the transformers which means a lot with tube designs. I noticed when inserting the AC power cord into the IEC connector that it was very flimsy and the entire connector wobbled loosely in the chassis. So it appears to be a cheap press-in style fitting.

The AC power cord that they provide didn’t perform as well as a basic Pangea AC14 cord, it was dull and lifeless in comparison.

The high pass cross-over switch seems to be too high at 80hz, it didn’t seem to blend well with my system I felt it should have been made to go to about 50 hz which would allow it to blend with a larger variety of speakers. When I used it, it made it obvious that I was only using one subwoofer and that it was located in the left side corner.

Overall the amp sounded like a nice tube amp, probably best mated with more efficient speakers.

For the money their are a lot of better offerings IE: Primaluna, Line Magnetic, Doge 10 MKIII, Willsenton R8 & R800i that are of much better quality and out perform the Raven Black Hawk, and at a significantly lower price point!

Don’t let their 45 day Risk Free business model fool you! It will cost you over >$450.00! just to demo the amp, in which I was told it would drive my speakers just fine. Raven charges you 7% plus for the initial shipping plus you pay to ship it back to them, so that’s shipping both ways.

All I can say is to think twice before plopping down a huge sum of money for a Raven amp. Made in America doesn’t always mean quality....

@bob7296 thanks for sharing your impressions. My experience with the Blackhawk is almost exactly the same as yours. Nice little amp but significantly overpriced for what you can get in today’s market. Looks and feels cheaper than what the price would otherwise indicate. I was also told that it would drive my SF Olympica 2s without any problems. Turns out, it was not even close. It failed again to drive Harbeth M30.1s. Granted that I’m partially to blame for not matching the amp to speakers, but I trusted the Raven guys and that just left a bad taste in my mouth. In the past, I’ve been told by manufacturers and dealers if their product was not a good match with my system even if it meant no sales for them. And I always appreciate their honesty. Not these guys :(