Raven Audio Nighthawk

Wow, that was really nice. You don’t want to "hear anything about communications problems because of Covid" I actually wasn’t even talking to you Sir. But I certainly would have, had you ever asked.

But since you are so quick to interject when I am trying to help someone... let’s get to it.

I don’t believe you have ever even tried to contact me? I also don’t think I have ever left you or anyone else hanging - that I know of. EVER.

We have gone through at least four generations of packaging over the past two years alone. To great expense I might add, though it probably doesn’t matter to anyone other than us.

And since COVID shipping situations in this country have become a lot more troublesome due to the volume of people staying at home because of COVID. I have to mention it, because it COVID is HIGHLY relevant in my conversation to the person I was responding to...

If you are disgruntled enough to come on this forum like this when I came to try to help someone else - without even trying to contact me (founder of Raven Audio) after all of the suggestions to that I have just read, I am wondering if you are even open to being helped?

I truly am sorry that we couldn’t have made you happy Sir. But I am always here for anyone that is having problems. I get dozens of calls per week. So I have to wonder why I haven’t a clue as to who you are or why you would interject yourself into a response to help someone. Else.

I hope to help the person I was talking to first though, if possible.  I am unsure of who he is, and I would really like to make sure that he is taken care of first if that's alright.

I probably should have toned it down a bit, but I was a little surprised at the level of vitriol I was hit with right off.  Maybe it was a bit unprofessional of me.  I will be a bit more er, politically minded next time...  though maybe not in a Texas way....   ;-)

Though it is true that we are manned physically by only 1 person in the new Raven Audio facility in Shreveport, others are working FOR Raven in manufacturing elsewhere - all of the time.

We are only down to 3 in the sales department, with James being the only one physically in the office - for good reason.  We are trying to be careful to not contribute to the (worldwide) problem at present because Shreveport has been hit quite ruthlessly in the recent past - including our new Raven Audio facility - twice.  Of course we had to shut down both times and extreme clean it.  We too have had our share of Covid problems, though we are not using this as an excuse for anything.

With the vaccine being so readily available now we all hope things are going to change quite quickly in the very near future.

Hey Robert,

This is Dave Thomson.  Please call me so I can help.  I don't know what's going on but I promise I will make sure that whatever it is is taken care of. 

Sorry for anyone and everyone that has ever had a problem with my products, but we are indeed growing and with this Covid problem sometimes this alone has been a very difficult situation.  Horrible even. 

You guys just cannot imagine what occurs in the supply chain behind the brand sometimes that nobody else ever hears about.  But it is substantial right now especially...   still there is never any GOOD reason to ever not take care of a customer and make sure that he/she is eventually happy with the Raven  Audio product they receive.

Sometimes the problem behind communication is that we need a break sometimes too.  And our new facility has been hit hard by the virus. With only 1 person full time, and two current part timers due to our age and family situations, it has been a bit of a struggle to make everyone perfectly happy immediately. 

I therefore am here right now to make those that aren't happy - if possible, eventually.  As in NOW!  Call me, or email me at dave@R_____.com please.  If you don't have my number already email me and I will send it to you right away so we can talk ear to ear.

I will also apologize ahead of time for not being able to be here all the time anymore.  I am unfortunately not going to be able to do that for a while.  But I am here to try to catch up right now, so please.  Get with me directly and I will try to figure this situation out. 

Especially....   thanks to all the RavenHeads that notified me of this problem on Agon.

Most Sincerely,
RavenDave Thomson

Thanks everyone...  I really should come by more often.  I see some old friends on here that I really miss. 

Apologies for not being more active on the forums the last year.  I could talk at length on the supply chain problems we have had this year. Not as an excuse, but just to talk about what's been happening behind the overall scene.  We're not the only ones, many others are having problems too.

Not only is just trying to GET parts difficult, the quality dip we have seen during the last year has been very disheartening.  In fact we've had to change some parts out completely in our Avian Series amps lately due to poor quality. 

Heck...  even our power knob had to be changed to a push button lately because the shafts of the great old radial power switches were starting to break off in shipping.  Even though it was just one batch...   it was a LARGE batch.  We never had that before - and from a great old time-honored Japanese brand too.

Steel and aluminum have doubled in price since Thanksgiving too.  So just getting the raw materials to the chassis shop in Dallas has been a chore lately.  Heck, even powder coating has doubled~!

The manufacturing world is changing fast, we can only hope that the quality gets better again once the vaccines are distributed and old codgers like me can finally feel safe going out.  Maybe we can even go to a show again someday!?

As to getting an amp to millercarbon, I'd love to.  And I certainly would have once upon a time too.  But I don't even have a single MK3 or MK3.1 myself, and haven't for almost 8 months...   we are shipping them out as soon as they leave the 72 hour break-in table.  We just simply cannot seem to build them fast enough.

I think well over 90% of our customers never even write on any forums.  They get their amps and just listen to music and call me if they need some great old tubes to play with.

That may be a good thing in retrospect...   it was well over a decade before we ever saw anything negative written about us anywhere.  That was a great run.

Gnite all...  it's way too late.