Spatial Audio Raven Preamp

@wsrrsw

Also, yes, in my experience the streamer has a huge effect on things.  So play around.  The Raven will happily use RCA inputs, but your best performance will most likely be with a DAC that has XLR outputs.  Then you have an entirely balanced system through the amps all the way to the speaker.

@wsrrsw You have an ideal situation for using subwoofers. You might look into something called a Distributed Bass Array which is the use of 4 subs placed asymmetrically in the room so as to eliminate bass nulls and peaks in the room. This is often particularly noticeable at the listening position if the room has regular dimensions.

My main speakers are flat to 20Hz yet I have no deep bass at the listening position in my room. So I use a pair of subs to break up the standing waves that cause this problem. One is to my left and the other slightly to the right and behind me. Both are as close to the wall as I can get them.

In your case since your speakers don't go much below about 45-50Hz, you are an ideal candidate for all 4 subs. The Swarm from Audiokinesis is an ideal candidate for this since they are meant to be placed directly against a wall so as to be out of the way as possible. The subs are designed to roll of at 3dB per octave starting at 100Hz going down. The room boundary effect provides a +3dB/octave boost, so they are flat to 20Hz. They are 1 foot square and 2 feet high. I have the 10" drivers actually facing the wall so as to maximize the room boundary effect.

The idea here is to run them no higher than about 45-50 Hz, at which point its very easy to get them to blend seamlessly with your Klipsch speakers since below 80Hz in most rooms the bass is already entirely reverberant before your ears can sort out the bass notes being played. As long as the are not allowed to go too high they won't attract attention to themselves- the main speakers will convince you the bass is coming from them via the harmonics of the bass instruments.

It will be easy to get this setup to integrate with the Spatial amps and preamp. Then you will hear how much bass is really there and not only that, you may find that the mids and highs get more relaxed and detailed due to how our ears alter the tonality we perceive when part of the spectrum is missing. So getting the bass right calms down the mids and highs.

I would be really interested to hear any reactions/reviews of anyone using the Raven preamp with the praised Class D monoblock amps such as the Atma-Spheres or the AGDs. 

@donsachs Yahsureyoubetcha I'm using Hijiri XLR's from a LuminX1 streamer into the Raven PRE and Cardas Clear Beyond XLR's from the pre into the Blackbird Monoblocks. 

I boosted the base a bit more w/ the roon parametric equalizer at 20 and 40 hertz.

Rather than take the pre and monoblocks 200 feet or so to the other speakers up and over hill and dale, I used the Lumin AMP w/ X1 streamer and compared that to the Blackbird Monoblocks and the Raven Preamplifier. Apples to apples; heck no. The Lumin AMP is 160W per side into 8Ω. It's a class A amp. The tubes vs solid state sounded too close to call. Take that SS.

@atmasphereI was just thinking sub(s) and your post said it better. I'm not sure how to attach a sub(s) to the Raven Pre? Must be an easy way? 

T H A N K you both.

was just thinking sub(s) and your post said it better. I'm not sure how to attach a sub(s) to the Raven Pre? Must be an easy way? 

@wsrrsw It appears there is a single-ended output in parallel with the balanced output. You'll have to check to see how this works but it might be quite simple- the main amps on the balanced outputs and the subs connected to the RCA outputs. I would expect to see a switch that grounds pin 3 to pin 1 so the RCA connections will work properly but they may not be connected to the output transformer driving the XLRs, negating the need for a switch.