No contest, Conrad Johnson is as good as it gets in tubes. They keep the pathways simple, and utilize the highest quality materials. That's their ethos. Their reference amps ART300 are the best high powered tube amps in the world, so I assume that would trickle down to their integrateds. I used the CJ LP260M with the Focal Sopra 2's and had tremendous results. And, it is American Made. |
Hold on there gentlemen... Raven Audio is and always has been an AMERICAN manufacturing business, started in Trinity County, Texas by ME in 2008. At first, back in 2008 I hired a very talented engineer from Seoul, South Korea to design some of our first amplifiers. They were though all ALWAYS manufactured in the little town of Chita, Texas in Trinity County. Only! That older facility is in fact still here on my property and I still do some wiring and prototyping there, and the listening rooms are all scattered throughout the original 2.2 acre property, which we lovingly call "La RanChita - Home of Raven Audio". We have also always had our main listening rooms here, and for a while there was a larger 5 room facility in Onalaska, Texas when we started getting really busy and needed more space. But we grew out of that also. Since then we have moved on to a MUCH larger facility. We now sell hundreds of amplifiers, thousands of cables and dozens of speakers per year. The Raven Audio speakers were designed by our newest partner, James Connell of Dallas, Texas and the first ones were also built in his home shop. The Avian Series integrated amplifier chassis are manufactured and powder coated in Dallas, Texas. The PC boards are manufactured and stuffed and machine soldered by an aerospace manufacturing facility in College Station, Texas where Texas A&M is, and all the employees are A&M alumni. This is the same facility that built the boards for the Shuttle, ISS, several black projects for the US Air Force, and the Mars and Moon Rovers, and many other NASA and military aerospace projects. They are the best of the best and security is extremely tight at all times. It took years to get into that facility. The hand wiring for the Avian Series (between the chassis and the boards and transformers - is also done there by highly experienced ladies that have a minimum of a decade of experience each. The Elite Series amplifiers are wired and built by James Connell, and Bill Baker at our new facility in Shreveport, Louisiana. The new amplifiers and preamplifiers for the last few years are all designed by Bill Baker of New York, an electronics/designer for several well-known USA manufacturers. The Avian Series products are all PC board based, and the Elite Series are all point to point hand-wired products. We are NOT a Korean company. Never were. We are USA made to the bone~!!! Just goes to show you that what you read on this forum should always be suspect unless you do your homework. Sincerely, Dave Thomson Founder Raven Audio |
Good to read my suspicions are false. Doesn't matter to me where something is made. Only my 2 most used sources are domestic-table and tuner. The rest is international-China,Italy and England. Hopefully, this thread doesn't fall off a cliff. The earlier post unintentionally sidetracked from the topic, which is CJ or PL. Apologies. |
