Spatial Audio Raven Preamp

Hello All,

I received my Raven  preamp early last week and have about 20 hours listening to the unit. My CD player is an Oppo 205.  I am not into cd's only having 250 - 300 cds.  My favorite media is LP's having about 4150 of all genres.  Unfortunately my phono stage (Modwright PH 9.0 XT) is out for repair.  So I have been listening to nothing but CD's.  And all I can say is wow. I can't wait to get my phono stage back so i can listen to LP's again.  

The soundstage is wide and extremely clear.  The instruments and voices are well separated and very musical, plus the sound stage is really deep.  It is now very easy to listen to, no fatigue. The sound of cd's, for me anyway, is approaching LP quality. My whole system consist of the following:  A VPI HW19 Mk IV with many modifications, tonearm is a Woody String Theory with a Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC cartridge, my DVD/CD Player  is an OPPO 205, my phono stage is a Modwright PH 9.0 XT,  my amps are V4 QuickSilver mono blocks. my speakers are Watt Puppy clones.  

So, I am 72 and believe this is my final system  it ticks all my boxes.  It is not too pricey, it is very detailed and still extremely musical.  Now I can concentrate on collecting LP's specifically jazz and classical.  I think i will get many hours of pleasure from my system in the future. I will post a review on how the LP's sound when I get my phono stage back.

Richard

@rav6258 

Congradulation on your new preamp. I’m also 72. 
 

It sounds like you are getting amazingly good sound out of that OPPO. It is great that you have such a large vinyl collection. But thinking ahead, you might think about streaming. You can get the same sound quality and not be confined to vinyl as getting up and changing records is not going to get easier. I’ve got 2,000 pristine albums which I never listen to any more. I now spend my time exploring new music. Just something to think about.

George

Actually, I am very curious which phono preamps are a good match with the Raven. As mentioned earlier, the Raven sounds equally good with RCA or XLR inputs, so it caters to all kinds of phono preamps ... solid-state, vacuum tube, or hybrid.

Not going to touch the "which streamer is best" discussion ... there are other fora that go into that rabbit hole.

From the time of the order how long does it take to receive the Raven Preamp? Also is the credit card immediately charged the full amount if there is a backorder?

Good questions to ask Spatial, who are building the preamps (and the Blackbird power amps).

Spatial Audio Lab