Spatial Audio Raven Preamp User Experience

Thank you Lynn. In the absence of other feedback (I’m surprised), very helpful. I’m not great at using some of the audiophile terminology, so saying "is it good for rock" is my shortcut. I think you’ve answered that. I have no experience with the larger plate tubes, it’s mostly based on the miniature type, which have fallen short of my expectations. I also had an ARC pre with the 6H30 tubes but it was a little too clean and lacking in any tube character.

I was surprised that my newest, highly regarded $5k miniature tube-style preamp has a fairly narrow soundstage. Can you speak to the Raven’s soundstage?

Many of the better (pricier?) preamps seem to use the 6SN7. I’ve been looking at a few of these, but most of the more highly regarded ones seem to have long lead times of 6-9 months. It's 6 weeks for the Raven.

Thanks again for your reply.

The soundstage is enormous, although if the recording is poorly panned and the reverb not that great, it only goes a little way beyond the speakers. On the other hand ... if the reverb is natural, or classic EMT plate from the Seventies and Eighties, or good-quality modern, the whole front half of the room lights up. Not "bathtub reverb", but a sense of air and space.

This takes many first-time Revelation Series listeners by surprise, but it’s not a surprise for me ... preserving very quiet, slightly delayed signals is essential for a spatial impression. My entry into the world of high-end audio was the Shadow Vector Quadraphonic Decoder in 1974, one of the first dynamic decoders to preserve spatial cues. That’s still a focus that I have, some fifty years later.

A key design principle of the Revelation Series is a straight-through signal path with no secondary delays or "helper" circuits. Just wires, transformers, and triodes. Distortion reduction is accomplished through signal balance, not feedback.

Here's an early review of the Raven and Blackbirds:

YouTube Review of Raven and Blackbirds

I have one on order after talking to Dave at Spatial