The Raven Has Landed

Raven Audio Blackhawk MkIV: The Raven Has Landed!

As many of you know the Raven Reflection has been on my radar for some time now. Couple months ago it was getting serious enough to start making phone calls. Dave Thompson is the ears and the vision behind Raven Audio. To hear Dave talk about tubes and music is to fall in love with them all over again. Like we even need that, willgolf all by himself had us excited enough. But Dave is in love, and it shows.

Sad to say however it turns out to actually get one built is another story altogether. A long, involved, frustrating story of global supply chains and inexplicable penny wise pound foolish decisions. More about that later. A Raven Reflection is many months out, maybe a year, maybe a lot more than a year. Dang.

Dave however was adamant the Blackhawk is one fine amp. Comes close, or at any rate a lot closer than one would expect from the huge price difference. Raven has a trade-up policy, offering 100% credit. An appealing offer. We went for it.

The little Blackhawk arrives in a box within a box. Easily the best most elegant damage-proof packaging I have seen, at least since the Graham 2.2. Even better is opening, the first thing you see is a box warning you what not to do. Tubes are quite a bit different than SS. They do not like to be turned on without tubes plugged in and speakers connected. Bad things happen. Intelligent warnings, and only the intelligent ones, are called for. So nice not to have to read about not using the amp in the hot tub, on a ladder, etc.

Another interesting feature, this is the first amp - or component of any kind - to come with a power cord one might actually want to use. We haven’t tried it yet. Maybe next weekend? But it does look the business!

The Blackhawk itself is inside a pretty darn nice bag, with a little box of tubes on top of the bag. The tubes go off to the side and the Blackhawk comes out. It is a lot better looking in person. Pictures to my eye make the handles look a bit out of place. In person though they really balance it out, the black amp with silver face and handles, just a real nice package. The Melody I880 is one beautiful little tube amp and had set the bar high. Happy to say the Raven is not a disappointment and actually looks really good in person.

Speaking of which, let’s get the nits and quibbles out of the way first. The amp arrives with a small blemish in the powder coat. Pretty minor and way back on the left corner where it will never be seen, hardly worth doing anything about it. But writing a thorough review, got to let the folks know.

Also, remember the pennywise pound foolish part at the beginning? Dave puts tremendous effort into testing everything for sound quality, even the power switch. The supplier changed the construction of the power switch they had been using for years. Not that affects sound, but reliability. They were breaking! So Raven had to stop production until another equally high quality part could be found.

The result is a push button power switch that works great and all by itself is quite nice. But it does mess with the otherwise beautifully balanced aesthetic they had going with the knobs.

The Blackhawk really is a nice looking amp. Especially with the lights down. We listen with the lights down low. The Raven Blackhawk is the first component of any kind we have not had to do anything about LED glare. Not only that, but these are a really nice warm orange that beautifully matches the tubes. Dave told me they used a rheostat to find the right LED brightness to balance with the tubes, then used a resistor with just the right value. The result is power and volume lights that glow just like little tubes! With the lights down low the Blackhawk is easily the most beautiful amp we have ever seen.

One last quibble. People have complained about hum. When first turned on the Blackhawk emitted a near alarming BWOOM! This quieted down a lot and now after a few weeks can only be heard if you listen real close. But it is there. Important to note this hum is physical not electrical. The Blackhawk is impressively silent where it counts, through the speakers.

Dave tells me this is a conscious trade-off. Raven could achieve silence with rubber grommets, but then bad things can happen in shipping. Or they could use a thick aluminum chassis. But then this would be a lot more than $4k. Or Raven could go with different transformers, but then it would not be the magical sounding amp that it is.

Which brings us at last to the good stuff. The Blackhawk is one sweet little amp! Right out of the box and still with the factory fuse the Blackhawk easily had more palpable presence, detail, and extension than the Melody, an amp it is hard to say anything bad about. Bear in mind this particular Melody has been tweaked out with Orange fuse and plenty of PPT. Indeed, the Melody is quite good. Just not up to this level. No shame in that. Very nice depth, excellent imaging. The Blackhawk is just… better. Makes the Melody sound a little flat and dull.

This is an amp that sounds quite good when first turned on, but really rewards a good warmup. By the end of the first side compared to the beginning is like going from really good to amazing. Then it continues to improve very gradually until somewhere around 1.5 to 2 hours it is just plain magical! Hard to describe, there is a tremendous amount of inner detail that comes through in the most seamless and natural way. Nothing that hits you over the head, more a realization that grows and wins you over.

Normal routine is listen to a side, or sometimes a couple favored tracks, then go get something else. With the Blackhawk at 2 hours it was like being in a trance. Side ended? What? Already? Flip it over! Then go get another one. Which one? Doesn’t matter! They all sound fabulous! "Spellbinding" comes to mind.

Forced to focus on specific traits, the top end is wonderfully extended. This in a way that never draws attention to itself. Midrange has real presence, but in the good sense of being present, actually there not the bad sense of merely hearing all the frequencies.

Dynamics are terrific, way better than anyone would ever think from only 20 watts. Granted the Moabs are 98dB, but then again we like to listen loud. Sometimes, real loud.

We put on Nilsson Jump Into the Fire. At concert level the drums don’t have quite the same attack as with the more than twice as powerful Melody. On the other hand, they do sound a lot more like actual drums. The bass line, at one point the bassist goes detuned- slackens the string to where it isn’t a note any more. On a lot of systems this sounds like he just goes too low and powerful and distorted. Not so, the technique is clear as can be. The climax screaming jangling guitar is high and piercing and clear as can be. Lotta stuff going on, every individual thread clean and clear even at real high volume. The Raven is getting it right, even at very high volume.

This is all with the $200 non-published upgrade power tubes. Dave Thompson has a superb collection of some of the best NOS tubes around. Rare tubes, available only to us in the Raven family. If you enjoy tube rolling this by itself might be reason enough to go Raven. This is also with just the normal Tungsol in Row 3. We have Brimar black plates still to try.

So it’ll get even better? That’s the beauty of this review format. We can write a review longer than anyone wants to read, and that is just for starters. Then add as the days and weeks go by. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.