Spatial Audio Raven Preamp

Well, our circuit is not an afterthought. The Raven is a small power amp, with no resistors in the signal path, but it is limited in scope to medium-impedance headphones. Supporting 8 to 40 ohm headphones would require a complete re-design and a substantial increase in price, with no sonic gain for use with power amps and loudspeakers. Our primary market are people using the Raven with power amps.

The multiple taps of the Raven’s output transformer gives us the freedom to support medium-impedance headphones with no degradation in quality. No series resistors, no attenuation network, and no coupling caps, just a connection right from the transformer secondary.

If we retain the same Class A balanced vacuum tube circuit, but scale it up to support low-impedance headphones, the price would end up midway between the current Raven and the Blackbird power amps.

Thanks for all the info, Lynn. I'm looking forward to trying mine with good headphones. It's an amazing pre-amp with speakers, I can tell you that.

Hi there,

Does anyone have thoughts on what would be the meaningful differences in sound between the Modwright LS 36.5 (which I own) and the Raven pre-amp? I listen to both streaming and vinyl. I have a MSB discrete dac and a Pear Audio Kid Thomas TT.  Merril Thor monoblocks and Magico S1 speakers. Hope this info helps. Thanks in advance. 

@iamsportsdoc  Spatial offers a trial period so I’d definitely do that if I was you.  My guess is you won’t return the Raven. 

thoughts on what would be the meaningful differences in sound between the Modwright LS 36.5 (which I own) and the Raven pre-amp?

My way of thinking is that the preamps I've heard that have xlr inputs but do not have a balanced topography are compromised when using balanced sources. I loved the LTA microzotl L2 and the Don Sachs model 2 preamp as single ended, but really didn't like them using balanced inputs. The Raven is designed as a balanced preamp. I'm quite happy with it. I don't know the relative strengths of your preamp. 

This is not a general comment about balanced vs single ended, but about implementation.