Desire to try tubes

The recommendations for vintage gear are good ones. That’s what came to my mind first when I read your post. I’ve had several ‘58-‘61 Scott (& vintage Fisher and Dynaco, etc.) units, and they were all excellent! The best integrated (IMO) was the Scott 222C. Beautiful to look at, and amazing sound.. even when compared to very good modern components. Regrettably, I sold all of the integrated Scotts. Just too much stuff at the time. I kept a Scott LK-150 tube amp however, which I ended up giving to my son. I really missed it, so I bought another one, and I’m going to hold on to this one! When my son was choosing an amplifier, we brought that 1961 Scott (restored, but not modified) to an audio store to compare to a current, Stereophile class A rated tube amp that he was considering. The Scott not only held its own against the new amp, it sounded better in two key areas: midrange (like human voice and acoustic guitar) sounded more *real*, and the *air/atmosphere* of the recordings seemed more open and expansive. The new amp had a bit tighter bass response, and a bit more power (100wpc vs 58wpc), but it wasn’t as significant as the midrange improvement of the Scott. Point is this: with Heresies, a vintage amp may be a great fit, both visually and sonically. Plus, the vintage gear (properly restored) should prove reliable, easy to repair, and at least comparable to good current amps. Good luck, and as others have stated, enjoy. 

i have not had a raven

but i have many arc amps older and newer, and also a primaluna

i would say primaluna is very good, and an outstanding value for the money with many cool features

but in terms of sound quality... arc is more pure sounding to my ears, even after signficant tube rolling with the primaluna - i believe it is because the better ARC amps use some solid state driver/cathode followers to enhance the linearity of the tube output at frequency extremes... so you get tube goodness on imaging but also solid state extension and clarity

@jjss49  My Dynaco ST70 has been redesigned with an SS rectifier stage, huge storage cap located in the bottom of the case and voltage regulated operation, using the center taps on the transformer so that it is no longer an ultralinear design.  The bass is phenomenal compared to the stock unit which had flabby bass.  Used with Legacy Signature III speakers.  

@fleschler  Do you mind sharing who worked on your ST70?  I have a couple of stock ones, not being used currently, but when I rotate them in every once in awhile I am always amazed how good they sound.

Grover Huffman of GroverHuffman.com  He is a cable manufacturer.  I also have another Dynaco waiting for him to remodel.  His Pharoah cables are SOTA quality at hugely lower prices.  I also changed the RCAs and speaker terminals which were inexpensive from Bob's Audio http://www.tubes4hifi.com/ST70.htm  

The ST70 modified has punchy, deep bass driving 6-10" woofers.  It can also drive my Focuses which have 6-12" woofers with a lower impedance of 2.8 ohms in the bass.

For my main system, Grover took a chassis and transformers from an Altec 1569A and built 125w. monoblock, voltage regulated amps.  After hours of use, you can put your hand around the transformers they run so cool.  Unlike the EAR 890 I previously used which is Class A 70 watts and you could cook eggs on after 20 minutes.