Spatial Audio Raven Preamp

After two weekend listening sessions, I now have about 25 hours on the Raven. I can honestly say this is my final preamp. On AudioCircle, sjsfiveo described the preamp as blacker backgrounds, greater detail, quieter and the sense that the music just floating around me." Him, like me, had a Don Sachs preamp before the Raven. I’m in 100% agreement with his review. In fact, the sense of the music floating around was the first thing I noticed when I played it in my system for the first time. I’m also in agreement with Don that the Raven is very transparent. It captures the nuances and subtleties of the music ensuring a lifelike and immersive listening experience. Even though I tell myself on a daily basis to stop spending money on audio gear, I’m 100% happy with my decision to buy the Raven. Now, I wish I had the funds to get the Blackbirds!!

@terrapin77 Thanks for posting.  To me, qualities of the Raven are transparency, tonal correctness of instruments and voices, and that ethereal sound stage.  The absolute blackness helps with all of that.  It doesn't really sound like anything except the music.  The Blackbird 300b amps have the same sonic signature, or rather lack thereof.  It is very different than what you are used to listening to, but you adjust very quickly and then nothing else sounds quite right:)  My old preamp and amps, which are quite good, sound veiled by comparison. 

The Raven does get my curiosity going into overtime.

The idea of experiencing one in use is quite an attraction, the idea of one with the owned 845 mono's well that just double cool 😎😎.

All that I have come to know about the design intent to the working model has been a thoroughly good read, and the entirety of my local HiFi Group were supplied the Link, to share in the content of the Thread. 

@terrapin77 Thanks for posting your early impressions of the Raven preamp. Happy to hear you're loving it!  I'm not sure I understand the meaning of "the music floating around me" but as long as it sounds real (believable) is what's important to me. Do you mean immersive?  I can't say I've experienced this before in my system where all music is spread out in front of me and in a plane behind the speakers. I'll just have to wait a few more weeks to experience it first hand.  I look forward to reading more comments from you and others about the Raven preamp from Spatial Audio Labs.

@jc4659 I can assure you the preamp sounds believable.  The sound stage is entirely dependent on the recording.   On most every recording except mono ones, the image in my system using the Raven and the matching Blackbird amps will always extend several feet outside the speaker boundary with good depth.  Smaller sounds are physically smaller and things that are farther away are rendered that way.  On other recordings, the music will extend towards you and partially wrap around to the sides.  I use the analogy of omnimax theater for the ears.  Again, it is totally dependent on the recording.  I will get in trouble for saying this, but I will say it anyway.  My experience is that solid state amps tend to flatten the sound stage just a bit and make it more two dimensional.  I am sure there are great SS amps that don't do this, but most of the ones I have heard have this effect, at least to a degree.  A very competent tube amp generally is better at a 3D soundstage, provided the speakers are tube friendly.  Of course YMMV.