No. The Revelation preamp and the Blackbird amps both preserve phase. So just hook them up straight.
Spatial Audio Raven Preamp
Spatial is supposed to be shipping the first "wave" from pre orders of this preamplifier in May, does anyone have one on order? Was hoping to hear about it from AXPONA but I guess they were not there. It's on my list for future possibilities. It seems to check all my boxes if I need a preamp.
Showing 50 responses by donsachs
@wsrrsw Fasten your seatbelt, that will be a VERY dynamic system. Have you rebuilt the crossovers on the Khorns? If not, there is improvement to be gained there. The Khorns are a wee bit bass shy below 50 Hz or so, but the amps will give you everything those woofers are capable of. Let us know when you have a few hours on it all.
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Yes, please let us know how the Raven mates with your system and your impressions. It will help others get a data point on a new product that is finally reaching production after 2 years of development. Spatial is starting to crank them out now. They are all hand built and point to point wired and they do take time to build. I believe they will have a 45 day return policy, with little or no restocking fee if you pay the shipping. So I suppose one could try one relatively risk free. I use one, and I find it is totally transparent, but I am totally biased:) cheers, Don |
@jc4659 I am using the Shuguang flagship WE6SN7plus in mine. They are finally back in production. That will be the base tube going forward. The hand selected Linlai E-6SN7 is more expensive and the upgrade option. I would say they are both just superb tubes. The Shuguang is a bit warmer and has almost all of the detail and air of the Linlai. The Linlai has a tad more air and is a tad more neutral. That isn't to say the Shuguang is syrupy or the Linlai cold. You would be happy with either, but if your system is a bit bright, then pick the Shuguang, and if your system could perhaps use a bit more air, then use the Linlai. Both are just wonderful tubes. You have to realize that I have a Lampi Pacific 2 DAC, the matching Blackbird 300b amps, and some amazing open baffle speakers so my system allows me to hear even subtle differences between tubes. If you had a more pedestrian DAC and amp and speaker in the chain, then the differences would be masked. The point is that the Raven is totally transparent to my ear and will let you hear everything in a way that most preamps cannot. My 2 cents, and yes, I am totally biased since Lynn and I designed it! |
What Lynn said about coupling caps is true. I have gone through most of the best ones in various designs, and they can sound good to very good. But the entire Revelation series we designed for Spatial has NO coupling caps from the input to the preamp to the output of the 300b amps. When you eliminate all of them the sound is quite remarkable. Provided you have REALLY good custom transformers, specifically designed for their application, and we do. The Raven preamp will actually drive a 600 ohm load, so a 5K power amp is nothing to it. |
@jc4659 Yes, please do. What amps and source(s) are you planning on using with the Raven? |
@jc4659 I see your phono stage also has xlr output, so you can run a fully balanced system, even with phono into the Raven, which is great. I would expect it to work well in your system. |
@terrapin77 Thanks for posting. To me, qualities of the Raven are transparency, tonal correctness of instruments and voices, and that ethereal sound stage. The absolute blackness helps with all of that. It doesn't really sound like anything except the music. The Blackbird 300b amps have the same sonic signature, or rather lack thereof. It is very different than what you are used to listening to, but you adjust very quickly and then nothing else sounds quite right:) My old preamp and amps, which are quite good, sound veiled by comparison.
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@jc4659 I can assure you the preamp sounds believable. The sound stage is entirely dependent on the recording. On most every recording except mono ones, the image in my system using the Raven and the matching Blackbird amps will always extend several feet outside the speaker boundary with good depth. Smaller sounds are physically smaller and things that are farther away are rendered that way. On other recordings, the music will extend towards you and partially wrap around to the sides. I use the analogy of omnimax theater for the ears. Again, it is totally dependent on the recording. I will get in trouble for saying this, but I will say it anyway. My experience is that solid state amps tend to flatten the sound stage just a bit and make it more two dimensional. I am sure there are great SS amps that don't do this, but most of the ones I have heard have this effect, at least to a degree. A very competent tube amp generally is better at a 3D soundstage, provided the speakers are tube friendly. Of course YMMV.
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Thanks for the kind words! Working with Lynn has been a pleasure and I have increased my knowledge of tube circuits considerably since I met him.. He got me to consider "going outside the box". The Raven and Blackbirds are about leaving the box. Paradigm shifts are always healthy, or at least the consideration of them. I have built or restored a LOT of tube circuits over the years and nothing I have ever heard or built or restored can touch the Raven and Blackbird sonically. I think a lot of that is due to what Lynn discussed above about all the very subtle spatial cues that can be lost with lesser electronics and speakers. I hear things with the Raven and Blackbirds that I have never heard in any stereo before. Those who have heard them agree. They don't sound like what you are used to hearing. They push through boundaries. As for reviews... we are working on it. The final production versions of the preamp and amps are just finishing. These include new cases from a different woodworker. We didn't want to send out review units that did not look exactly like the final product. Sonically the gear has been stable for a while, but the final cases had to be sorted out from a reliable supplier who could meet our demand. That has happened and a set for review will be finished in the next month or so. We have made arrangements with Positive Feedback to send them a set in the fall, and expect a review by the end of the year. Of course we hope that owners will chime in as on this thread. Lastly, I don't know what shows we may attend, but I am pretty sure there will be a special demo in Portland for the Oregon Triode Society. Maybe in August or more likely in October. We will have a large room for two full days with the Raven and Blackbirds, and of course Spatial Audio Lab speakers. I will be there along with the Spatial team. So if you are in the Portland area, or perhaps want to make the trek from Seattle, you can hear the preamp and amps paired with top end gear in a good room without all the buzz of an audio show. When we have a schedule we will let everyone know and hope to see some of you in a relaxed setting where we can all hang out and listen to music! |
@sjsfiveo Yes, price has very little relationship to sound quality beyond a certain point. One walk through an audio show will make that abundantly clear. The Revelation series project was about designing the best sounding preamp and amps that we could using ideas that Lynn has been working on for decades, that have their basis in wonderful circuits and approaches developed a LONG time ago. We implemented those ideas with modern power supply, filament supply, transformer, and attenuator technology that I had been using for a number of years prior to that. The idea was to build the best sounding preamp and amps we could and then price them based on the build cost and required profit margin for the manufacturer to stay in business, while paying real technicians in Utah, real living wages. You really cannot build gear of this quality on a shoe string budget. That said, the gear does not cost six figures, nor does it have to! |
I want to revisit what Lynn said about subtle content that is present in two channel recordings. The content that gives the ethereal sense of space, and the very subtle reverb that is present from recording techniques or actually added by the producer. I have owned really good stereos for years, both rebuilt vintage-based, and my own creations. What the Raven (Revelation) preamp and the matching Blackbird amps do is to present this information. It is not masked as in most systems, including some very good ones I have owned, and some very expensive ones I have heard at audio shows. I am listening to the final versions of the Raven and Blackbird amps, and I hear these things that I have never heard before in recordings I am very familiar with. It adds a whole new level of enjoyment and has been discussed, you can hear the intent of the musicians and the producer or recording engineer, and the room if the recording is from a live performance. The shoebox mono prototype amps mentioned by @sjsfiveo and @whitestix will give a portion of this effect and are very good. The final version of the amps have it in spades. We have improved both the preamp and amps just a wee bit since the Dallas show and I am looking forward to the next demo of the Revelation series so that others can hear what I get to enjoy in my living room daily. I completely understand that a $19,995 pair of amps is outside the budget of many folks, but I do thoroughly enjoy playing them for people so that they can hear what is possible and what we have been up to. Most people (myself included up to two years ago) have never heard this sort of presentation. From a design standpoint, I understand exactly why all of our choices work well with this circuit idea, and why the system sounds as it does. But hearing it is quite astounding to me. It just vanishes and leaves the music hanging space for you to enjoy. |
@wsrrsw Yes, I heard someone bought the preamp in the last of the old style cases, and one of the last two pairs of amps in the old style cases. The amps are electrically the same and so is the preamp. Please report back once you have them up and running and have 10-20 hours on them. Please let us know what other gear you are using with them. Thanks! |
If the Khorns are basically new models from Klipsch, I wouldn't dig into the crossover because, yes, you will void your warranty. Just enjoy them. I modded Cornwall IV and they had cheap caps in them and very cheapo sand resistors, including one in series with the midrange horn. Changing to good caps and path audio resistor on the horn made the speaker much better than stock. I sold them to a guy who loved them, so the warranty wasn't an issue for me or him. If the khorn has similar caps and resistors in it as compared to the Cornwall IV, then you can definitely get better sound, but at this point, get your system set up and just enjoy it. You may go in a different direction on speakers eventually, who knows. |
@fthompson251 Lynn and I designed the Raven and I have lived with all the prototypes and final version for many months and it has all the tube things you like, but is far better than any tube preamp I have ever built or heard. It throws a sound cloud with very detailed pinpoint imaging, provided the rest of the system can do that. Plus, it will drive the XLR inputs on your Coda amp, so if your source is balanced, then you will have a completely balanced system. Of course the Raven will also handle rca inputs and outputs, but there advantages to a fully balanced system from source through the power amp output. So I hope a few folks with Ravens will give their impressions on this thread. There are a couple of prototype Ravens floating around and those folks have chimed in above I think. There is also a Raven thread on the spatial audio lab audio circle. I know that Spatial will be building the next 5 Ravens within 7-10 days, so hopefully a couple of the new owners will also chime in and you will have a basis for a decision based on an opinion other than mine, since I am incredibly biased:) |
You can make very nice xlr runs out of Duelund tinned stranded, but it is spendy these days and you are talking long runs. I use Paul's anticables in my system, but they are only 3-4 ft runs. If you are running 8-10 ft over to a powered speaker that could get expensive as well. Belden wire is quite cost effective usually if you hunt around for sources. There are a million pro audio cables in the world, and that is essentially what you are doing. I would start there and see how it sounds. Like Lynn said, avoid super thick "audiophile" cables. |
@grannyring The preamp, and the matching amps are point to point wired, yes. The tube sockets are all mounted directly to the top panel in both pieces. The only pcbs are there to hold large film capacitors to facilitate mounting them securely. The regulated power supplies, both high voltage and tube filament, are built on small pcbs, which are point to point wired to the rest of the components. Again, all signal path wiring is point to point with very high quality wire. The power supply wiring is all teflon insulated mil spec copper. Signal path is all copper as well, but there is no teflon insulation in the signal path. There are NO electrolytic capacitors except in the regulated DC filament supplies. The entire high voltage B+ supplies in both preamp and amps are built wtih all film capactitors, all resistors are wire wound. All parts are chosen so that they are run very conservatively. No part exceeds 60% or so of its voltage or current or temperature rating. For example, the DC filament supplies can deliver 3A of current and in the preamp they provide 1.2A to the pair of 6SN7 tubes. Resistors are run at no more than about half of their power rating anywhere in the circuits. The preamp and amps are designed to last a long time and to survive the odd tube failure without damage to the unit. You can put your hand on the power transformer of the preamp or amplifiers after hours of use. Even though both circuits are class A, they run at reasonable temperatures and do not stress their transformers at all. |
Let's just say that before building my own tube creations I restored probably 300-400 pieces of vintage tube gear, including about 75-80 citation II amps, over 40 citation I preamps, and many Scotts, Fishers, Sherwoods, Macs, Marantz 8b, etc... I saw what were clearly high quality build practices, and cheap ones too. I always appreciated the gear that was easy to work on, and hated designs that were difficult to rebuild. So everything we build is designed so that it is easy to work on should anything ever go wrong. It is designed so that things are never run anywhere "near the ragged edge". Tubes are in class A, but still conservatively run and should have long lives. I want the customer to enjoy the gear for years, and should there ever be a problem, I want the tech to easily be able to swap out a part and have it running again. I remember working on Marshall guitar amps for musician friends. They have a dozen little pcbs, tied together with jumpers cables that all have the same terminals, so that you have to mark each board and cable so you know how to put it together again. The problem would always be on the bottom board! So we avoid construction like that. This gear is a bit complex, but very modular, the layout is neat and clean, and it is designed to be trouble-free. For example, all AC is on one side of an internal shielding bracket, and all signal path on the other in both preamp and amps. Star grounding, with strong attention paid to current loops. No hum! |
Indeed the signal path on both the preamp and amp is very simple. That said, the power supplies supporting it are rather complex and they are kept well away from it. Also, the preamp output transformer and amplifier interstage transformers took over a year of prototyping to get right. So the circuits are "deceptively" simple, but there is a lot supporting them, and as Lynn stated, these circuits are kept well away from the signal path, both electrically and physically. Also, if you spend time reading this thread and the very long 300b lovers thread, you will see that the "deceptively simple" circuits are also cleverly designed to eliminate distortion at its source as well. |
@jc4659 Well, it's ok to post an initial impression:) But then please follow up with the 20+ hour report. You get most of it within 20-30 hours, but there are subtle improvements out to 100 or so as the big cathode bypass caps run in. Most of it is there by 20-30 or so though... Enjoy. Hope it works well in your system. |
The damper diodes are extremely tough, they are very quiet, and we are running them VERY conservatively. They have tons of headroom and will last a long time. That, and you can buy lots of them for very little money. So a customer can buy a couple of sets for the price of one decent quality conventional rectifier, and FAR less than an NOS Mullard GZ34, or even new production high quality 5U4 or 274b types. Truth is the damper diodes sound better anyway. Also, in this preamp you can use the 6W4 and there tons of those out there as well for under $10 per tube. My previous preamp sounded best with the 6BY5, a dual damper diode. So that was my first experience listening to them a lot in a preamp circuit. |
What Lynn said is very audible. Both the Raven preamp and Blackbird amps use this approach to power supply and balanced circuits. Once you start listening to circuits built and powered this way it is very hard to go back to conventional approaches because they sound just a bit cloudy or muddy. It is like a veil being lifted. The constant merry go round of trying different coupling caps and other things to color the sound in a way you prefer comes to an end. Instead, once you understand what is going on, you spend a year or two eliminating every bottleneck you can so that the circuit can perform at its best. What becomes evident is that the circuit and the approach are incredibly transparent. If you change anything that supports it, you hear it instantly. Cloud, the main tech at Spatial made the same comment. You can instantly hear any subtle change you make. The type of wire becomes very noticeable. Tube choices are very audible. Of course you hear these things with other more conventional gear, but not to the extent you do with this circuit and power supply architecture. Obviously, there are lots of very nice preamps and amps in the world that sound very good. I used to make some of them myself. But they don't sound like this. When you eliminate a lot of the "grunge" that you didn't even know was there, you get a very spacious and airy sound, with incredible detail that you have never quite experienced before. That is what I hear, and most others who have heard it have made similar comments. It is not so much about what the circuit sounds like, but rather what the music sounds like when you eliminate a lot of the coloration and distortion that you were never really aware of. For example, we touched on the idea that there is very subtle spatial information in the signal that is partially obscured by other circuits. These things are hard to measure, but they can certainly be heard. I understand that two more preamps have just shipped, so we should get some more reports from owners here fairly soon. I know it is hard for people because you cannot just go to a dealer and hear the gear, and there are only a few of these in the world, and most are prototype versions. The production versions are entering the market now, so when people post, the rest of you will get a better impression of how the preamp sounds in a variety of systems to a variety of ears. |
The Raven requires a 6sn7 tube on each channel that has matched sections. Really, a difference of 1 mA is no big deal, but tubes with wildly mismatched sections will not have good bass response. Any modern 6sn7 you buy will have sections within 1 mA of each other. The two channels don't have to be matched to each other, just the tube on each channel needs proper section matching within that tube. The Blackbird amps require similar matching between pairs. 1 or 2 mA difference is fine. Any more than that and bass response will suffer. Of course both units are supplied with matched tubes and it is not hard to buy them. If you want to run NOS tubes or ANOS, you should ensure the matching is as above. Smoke won't come out of the preamp or amps, they will work with mismatched tubes, but they won't sound as good. |
@brbrock It is a cumulative thing. Especially if your source is a DAC with balanced output. The Raven will happily communicate with all things RCA on both input and output. The gain is slightly less because XLR is a 5V swing and RCA is at most 2.5V. But the Raven will work fine with anything. That said, it can be in the middle of a fully balanced system, which has advantages. I am pretty sure Spatial has a 45 day return policy with little or no restocking fee. So you would just be out the shipping to try one. I would say if your SS amp can be driven to clipping by 1.5 V or less, you will be just fine. |
@jc4659 Glad it arrived safely and fired right up. Thanks for your initial impressions! It will become more 3D, with more sound stage depth and pinpoint imaging as it runs in for another 50-100 hours. Tone colours will become more vivid as well. I am sure the Ayre is a very nice preamp, but it should sound a little flat and two dimensional compared to the Raven, once it has run in. That eery sense of space will develop on the Raven over the next week or two. We call it the "trippy" sound:)
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@jc4659 I know Spatial runs the tubes at least 20 hours before they send things out, just to weed out any failures. A 6SN7 is pretty well run in by 20 hours. Yes, there are subtle changes in them out to 50-100 hours, but most of the sound is there in 20 or so. What you will hear is the cathode bypass caps running in. They are very large film caps and they are idling along at literally about 2% of their voltage rating. So they take a while to settle down. When they do you get that last 10-20%. Where the real magic lives if the rest of your system can present it.
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The transformers in the Raven preamp and Blackbird amps are all custom designed to work perfectly with the tube sets chosen. They don't require loading resistors, and there is no need for a grid resistor on any of the tubes. The number of parts in the direct signal path is very low and all are of very high quality. You cannot get an off the shelf transformer to achieve these specs or operate that way. You have to work with a very talented transformer designer to get what you need. |
To further the transformer discussion. We don't need to name companies, but many take a sort of swiss army knife approach with multiple windings that allow for many connection schemes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But they are not optimized for the task. I auditioned several with exotic core materials and found them to be a bit tipped up in the treble to give hyper detail, but they didn't sound right. Of course, they look fine on the scope. Interstage transformers from well known companies would ring at 15KHz or so, or others would run out of steam at 50 Hz and below in our circuit. We are not talking Hammonds and Edcors here, but very well respected higher end manufacturers. Our preamp output and amplifier interstage transformers are custom wound and use interleaved laminations of nickel and steel in a proportion that gives very even frequency response and hits the sweet spot balancing detail with proper tonality. They have full frequency response without any oscillation. This is based on years of experience by Dave Geren, the designer at Cinemag. Dave tells me there are only a few sources in the world who can make the cores to his specification. So a lot of design experience has gone into the transformers used in the 300b project, and as Lynn noted, several iterations for each transformer to get it right. |
@wsrrsw It will not be the amps unless something is wrong with them or you have a bad tube. The easy test is to move them to your other system. Your Sonus are 86 dB, 4 ohm. Not the best load, but the blackbirds will drive them and that will tell you if the amp has issues. Khorns have limited bass below about 45-50 Hz. It falls off like a stone. They are what they are..... They do other things quite well. The crossovers can be upgraded if you have not, but the physics of the speaker in that cabinet are what they are.. the spec is 33 Hz, but that is - 4dB. It is an incredibly easy load for the amps. If you have the patience, put the preamp and amps in front of your other speakers and see if you are satisfied with the bass. I suspect so. If not, then you may have a tube that didn’t ship well. My guess is it is a combo of the Khorn and the room they are in. The first thing people say when they hear the Raven and Blackbirds is how amazing the bass is.... and your speakers are trivial to drive. The amps hardly know they are connected. |
The Raven will have no trouble driving an RCA output at the same time as XLR. This has been tested by Spatial. You should have no problem except that the XLR output is higher level than the RCA. That is as it should be. If your subwoofer amps have gain controls you should be able to match levels. Subs are always tricky. The other option is speaker level outputs to drive stereo subs near the main speakers. That is the way I have always done it, but thankfully, my current speakers easily play 30 Hz in room so I no longer use subs. |
@wsrrsw Good, sounds like you are on the right road. Subs are tricky. Good luck. I am sure you are getting some nice imaging and very real sounding instruments with great dynamics. Klipsch and bass... well...... that is not their strong point (but I didn’t say that out loud) |
@curiousjim The answer is probably yes. We have run them with 86 dB 4 ohm speakers and it worked just fine. What kind of load is your speaker? Can you tell me the speaker so I can look up the spec? Unless it is some sort of terrible reactive load and you are trying to create rock concerts in a cathedral they would probably work just fine. |
When I was playing around with Cornwall IV I pulled all the cheap $4 MKP caps out of the crossover and replaced them with vcap odam. I put path audio resistors in there as well. The main resistor directly in series with the midrange compression driver was a $1 sand resistor on a $5000 pair of speakers. I was not impressed. The sonic improvement was quite staggering. I then used a pair of decent quality Hsu subs run with their speaker level inputs with pigtail cables from each speaker. I simply ran a stereo pair of subs, one by each speaker. Much better.... Finally sold it all and got a custom pair of open baffle speakers made with a horn as the top end. Embarrased the Cornwalls and sub combo ..... Klipsch are lots of fun, but they are not the top of the heap when stock. They can be improved. Hence the millions of Klipsch modding threads in the world. |
@williamdc Glad you are enjoying your new Raven. It does seem to tick all of your boxes! We arrived there after much experimentation and listening. I have always loved damper diodes, so I knew we were starting there. The transformers took a few rounds to get exactly the performance we sought. I had used the Khozmo attenuators for years, but I had to think hard about how to get them to do what we wanted. It all came together. You will find the bass improves over the first 100 hours as the very large cathode bypass film caps run in. You get most of the sonics after 10-20 hours, but it subtly improves. Enjoy! |
The Blackbird amps are indeed the next evolution of the Karna amps. Same circuit, but updated power supplies and simpler tube choices. All tubes are in current production with multiple manufacturers so there is plenty of choice. The only exceptions are the voltage regulator tubes, but there are literally thousands of them out there to buy for under $10 per tube. In the Raven, the damper diodes are no longer in production, but the same is true. Many to buy and they last for years. As for the coupling caps, yes I have heard most of the great ones. I prefer a custom designed transformer. To me, the transformer has basically no sound. Not if they are custom designed for the circuit. The caps all sound very different from each other, plus they take at least 20 hours to run in, with subtle changes for 100 hours. The transformers sound the same from the first minute. I was on the cap side of the ancient cap vs. transformer debate for years. Then I got custom designed transformers.... Now I don't use coupling caps in any of my builds..... |
@abd1 As far as I know, Spatial still plans on going to Portland in the fall sometime. They are busy with the launch of the new smaller S6 speaker and the newer Q3 as well, plus they are ramping up the Raven builds. I will post here, and of course on their board whenever there is a trip scheduled. I know there are lots of folks in the PNW who would make the trip for a two day showing of all the gear...and Lynn and I would love to renew some friendships and meet new folks. |
Imagine high speed levitating electric trains down the insterstate medians..... They would be far more efficient than planes for the 500 mile or less journey. They have trains that go 199 mph in Japan. Imagine just 120 mph..... a few hours and you are across a couple of states and you can walk around, go down to the club car for a beer, etc... Contrasted with spending 2 hours in airports on either side of a 90 minute flight in a tuna can. Sure, for cross country flights the plane is better, but for the 300 - 500 mile journey... I would love a train. |
Hi The Raven gain is about 13.9 dB (5X voltage gain). The RCA and XLR inputs have the same gain. The Khozmo volume control has a very nice log taper and you should have good adjustability in most systems. Not touchy.
I would run XLR from DAC to Raven if you can, but it is not required. It will generally sound better with most DACs. Also, if you ever change amplifiers you can run XLR out to an amp with balanced connections. The RCA output of the Raven will by definition have less gain. That said, there is plenty of gain to drive almost any amplifier. I believe Spatial has a return policy if it doesn't work in your system, but honestly, it will work well with most anything, single ended or balanced. |
@jc4659 So glad the anticables worked out for you. Same setup I am running, with xlr from my Lampi Pacific 2 to the Raven and xlr to the Blackbirds from the Raven. I am going to get Paul to make me speaker cables eventually when I get around to it. It is always a bit of a stretch recommending cables because we all have our taste. There are lots of very good cables in the world and people recommend them to me regularly. I just tell folks what I am using that works for me. I heard Paul's cables when Spatial used them in our demo in Seattle and I was impressed, so I bought some. The Raven is very transparent and will certainly show you what your cables sound like. I don't think Paul's cables really sound like anything, which is the best praise I can give anything. They are just transparent without any trace of brightness in my system. Glad they worked out for you.
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I stopped shipping cords with my builds as people always tossed the cheapo one and used something better, and I was tired of the waste. I suspect Spatial has the same policy, so you probably should enquire. I know Lampizator doesn't ship cords with their DACs. Honestly, any of the $50+ entry level "audiophile" cords will be far better than the cheap computer grade ones that come with most gear. It is the standard N American 3 prong male connector. I would just order some half decent cord. You don't need to go crazy. Many of us have a bit of a collection of them, so you may already have something to use in your stash. |
@pindac Sadly, it appears that wire is out of stock..... Might be a fun experiment if some were available |
@rav6258 I looked at the Bottlehead kit and indeed it is a steal for what the price was. I expect that it sounded very good. They cut corners for the price point, but made some very clever choices. Just looking at the kit photo I would expect the Raven to have more inner detail, and if the rest of your system is up to the task, a lot more inner detail and tonal correctness of instruments. But you are paying 3-4X what the Bottlehead kit costs, so it better..... The Bottlehead could be improved by a better volume control setup, the best coupling caps, etc... You are still listening to caps though rather than the custom wound transformer in the Raven. But you could still do a Bottlehead for $2200 or so if you built it yourself and I am sure it is a great preamp! |
To follow up on what Lynn just posted. I spent my time rebuilding vintage tube gear with modern parts, then I decided to make my own and always tried to make it reasonably affordable and be better than the vintage gear. The Raven and Blackbirds are a departure. What is possible if you remove the cost constraint, and instead build gear that will sound the best without regard to parts costs? The Raven and Blackbirds are built with the best parts for sonics so they are expensive. They are not built in insanely expensive cases, nor do they have a dealer network to add to costs, so they are not stratospherically expensive. They are built with very nice panels and in solid cherry or other solid wooden cases. They are expensive to build, and I understand that prices them out of many people's budget. So something like the Bottlehead kit mentioned above is very cost effective, and I have no doubt it sounds wonderful. My previous preamp and amps were very good to my ear and were cost effective. But they do not occupy the same sonic universe as the Raven and Blackbirds. Nor should they. The parts cost for the Raven and Blackbirds exceed the sale price of the other gear. Obviously, the lower cost gear sounds very good and will provide the foundation for a very pleasing stereo system. Diminishing returns is always at play. But it is fun to make the best sounding gear you can, and then worry about the price..... |
Well.... here we are. It happened. We now have a tariff war and I happen to know a number of parts in the Raven come from Canada. Others are European so let's hope the USA doesn't get into a tariff war with Poland or Belgium. There are some American parts too..... Like everything else, the Raven contains parts from all over the world, but it is built in the USA. I suppose I should stop typing. Since I am in Canada there may soon be a tariff on my words:) |