I had previously had a Primaluna Prologue preamp and a Hegel H20 power amp and was looking to go with an integrated tube solution that gave the magic of tubes. I gave Raven an audition, but it fell short in driving my Dynaudio Contour 20i’s (86db; 4 ohms) to their full potential. It lacked a bit of oomph and didn’t play that loudly without saturating (~77 DB).
I was disappointed in the instruments value/quality for the price which isn’t any real value!
The first thing I noticed is how light it was compared to my old Primaluna preamp. Granted weight isn’t everything but it’s directly related to the size of the transformers which means a lot with tube designs. I noticed when inserting the AC power cord into the IEC connector that it was very flimsy, and the entire connector wobbled loosely in the chassis. So it appears to be a cheap press-in style fitting.
The AC power cord that they provide didn’t perform as well as a basic Pangea AC14 cord, it was dull and lifeless in comparison.
The high pass cross-over switch seems to be too high at 80hz, it didn’t seem to blend well with my system I felt it should have been made to go to about 50 hz which would allow it to blend with a larger variety of speakers. When I used it, it made it obvious that I was only using one subwoofer and that it was in the left side corner.
Overall, the amp sounded like a nice tube amp, probably best mated with more efficient speakers.
For the money there are a lot of better offerings IE: Primaluna, Line Magnetic, Doge 10 MKIII, Willsenton R8 & R800i that are of much better quality and out perform the Raven Black Hawk, and at a significantly lower price point!
Don’t let their 45 day Risk Free business model fool you! It will cost you over >$450.00! just to demo the amp, in which I was told it would drive my speakers just fine. Raven charges you 7% plus for the initial shipping plus you pay to ship it back to them, so that’s shipping both ways.
All I can say is to think twice before plopping down a huge sum of money for a Raven amp.
They're playing on your patriotism by saying Made in America, but that doesn’t always mean better quality....