Yeah and Dave Thompson has quite the tube collection, and from what I hear he knows them all like the back of his hand.
Raven Audio Nighthawk MK3
Well, I finally did it. After about two years and looking at Vincent, Primaluna, Leben, Rogue, I decided to buy the Raven Audio Nighthawk. I've had it for about a week. Running NOS RCA Clear top tubes in preamp front besides the rest stock. My speakers are Klipsch Lascala II, Yamaha CD player S2100, Uturn Orbit turntable with Ortofon Blue, Cambridge Audio phono preamp, Tellurium Q cables/interconnects. Interested? Having already played several of my favorite Cd's and LP's I have been amazed, shocked, stunned, mesmerized, I'm running out of words. Probably a tad less expensive than I was planning to spend. My wife had tears of rapture as she heard her favorite Pink Martini CD. She asked, "How can it be this much better?" It is completely blowing me away. Power? Seems to have more than my previous 175 RMS at a mere 20 watts! Bass is so right before I added the Sunfire sub (HRS10) I've decided to leave it out. I really believed LaScalas couldn't do real bass. Wrong, Curious to hear more?
Showing 4 responses by millercarbon
Prima Luna was on my list for a while. Design and features look real good on paper. Reviews say it sounds real good too. But they are made in China. And not to pick on China, but last I looked it is not the USA. Neither is the UK. Or Japan. Texas, on the other hand, could not be more American. I've been doing this a long time now. Used to be I could care less who made it or where. Time goes by, stuff happens. Gradually over the years you come to realize being made right here in the USA by Americans is better. Better customer service, better diagnostics and repair, way better quality and reliability. This is nothing to do with being a patriotic American. Which for the record is a good thing to be. But that has nothing to do with it. Its simply that after 30 years I look around and see Ted Denney at Synergistic Research in California, Keith Herron at Herron Audio, Eric Alexander at Tekton, Graham Engineering, Peter Ledermann at Soundsmith, and more that's just off the top of my head, all legends or on their way to becoming. More to the point, all making total world class performance products. In many cases, best in class. That to me is all the reason I need. The rest is icing on the cake . It doesn't completely rule out Prima Luna. But it does make Raven a slam dunk. |
Beautiful. Not surprised. I've been searching around a while looking to upgrade my Melody integrated https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 its been a good amp but everything around it has upgraded to the point where its probably just about the weakest link. Its real hard to find what you want to home audition so I have gotten pretty good at reading reviews and comments and narrowed it down to a Raven. My 50 wpm Melody has greater dynamics, slam and bass than the 150 wpm McCormack I had before, so not really surprised to hear your much better Raven's 20 seems more than 175. My only question is would I need the Reflection to make it worth my while. You seem to be saying no, the relatively affordable Nighthawk will do that just fine? |