Around the shop..

Parts are piling up as we put more systems together. Take a quick look.

This day in music - June 17th..

Head over to the Ultra High-End Forum and check out today's post and video.

Sweet Spot - Clear Lake, Texas

THE SWEET SPOT - A LOCAL TEXAS HIGH END AUDIO DEALER IN CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS - MEETS RAVEN AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME!



SE and Dave at Sweet Spot in Clear Lake, June 2011

RAVENEWS! On the Road!

RAVENEWS!

Raven Audio goes on the road!!!

We will accompany our new band "Downfall Rising" to a live show in a really neat natural venue called "Durango's Canyon" on Saturday June 25th. Downfall Rising will play the acoustically alive natural earthen and rock bowl set against a short and somewhat strange little rock outcropping out in Mount Enterprise, Texas. Rock Concert: Half-Life, Exiled, Victims of Sanity, & Downfall Rising


This is going to prove to be a very uniquely Texas experience with live rock underneath the East Texas star canopy, set inside a large grass-covered depression. With the temperatures nearing the century mark we may indeed be very glad that we will have the 37 feet long three-slide-out Raven Mobile with us. But when it comes to showtime we will be right there on the grass with everyone else to hear this "Texas electric alternative metal arts rock band" that fills their nights onstage with their own blend of mostly original music. And that's what this part of life is all about - uniquely well written Texas music set beneath that Texas Sky! Yeah! The grass may be somewhat dry and the ground a little cracked from this brutal summer we have been having, but the ground soaking up a little bit of that home brew music all around our butts on the ground - something about that just feel right thinking about it.

Come with us??? Sure, the Raven Audio & Downfall Rising tour bus leaves El Ranchita at about 2:00pm and stops briefly in Lufkin and Nacogdoches. The trip plan: Is here!
If things go over the edge and the nights eats our toes off, we may wake up to a Texas Sunday Morning in the Durango's Canyon. So emergency breakfast provisions may be made. On the road with a Texas rock band is not something to be attempted by those thin of skin.

Dave

The Sweet Spot - special listening audition

THE SWEET SPOT - A LOCAL TEXAS HIGH END AUDIO DEALER IN CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS - MEETS RAVEN AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME!

The RAVEN AUDIO guys made the two plus hour drive from our "El Ranchita" home Saturday afternoon to meet with Rob and Len of The Sweet Spot in Clear Lake, Texas and brought some of our new products down with us for a listen in NASAville.

We ended up having a great time spinning a few CDs and watching the faces of our new friends as they listened for the first time to our Raven Audio Shadow System.



We also brought our newest Silhouette Preamplifier and Monoblocks along. The fact that only the Silhouette System came back home with us - well, let's just say it we hope that they are listening to it right now and enjoy it as much as we did!


When teamed up with the Danish designed and manufactured Dynaudio Contour speakers - some real magic occurred in that room. An important symbiosis occurred between the two products, and the fact that Raven Audio is already known to work incredibly well with a vast amount of brands, this one seemed to be rather outstanding.

Time will tell, but for the first time we are now at least considering the idea of teaming up with a brick and mortar establishment like THE SWEET SPOT, that will allow people to actually come in and listen in person to our products.

It takes an agreement on each side to make something like this fly, and for now its just an idea we are toying about. But the music and conversation was great. We love the store and its people, we know they loved our Raven Audio products.

Thank you Rob and Len for a nice Saturday afternoon. What Great Fun!

SE Han & Dave Thomson
Raven Audio

RAVEN AUDIO PRO gets Amp'd up

Raven Audio Pro has met with the top notch, excellent, "on the verge of stardom" Texas artists "Downfall Rising" and listened to their latest studio product. We are proud to announce that we have made a deal to offer full sponsorship and ride on the coat tails of this highly talented bunch of local musicians on their climb to the top. We know that Downfall Rising will soon be playing on sound machines worldwide.

Since Raven Audio has already started the process of designing and building some of the best "sound machines" on the planet it seemed like a normal step to us to start our plan to bring Raven Audio Pro to life. Yes, its a little bit earlier than we had originally planned, but there is good reason to "amp up" our schedule. This is a special situation - something we know about after 40+ years in association with music in general.

Raven Audio Pro will soon be building some of the absolute best guitar and bass amplifiers to go along with our high end vacuum tube home audio products. We have known about this relatively new Texas Rock act for quite a while, and finding out that Downfall Rising is using gear that is below their obvious talent level made us feel like - Hey! maybe we can help in some small way. Soon these guys will sport a new sound that will be reinforced by the new Raven Audio Pro products division.

We have to be truthful about it though. We found Downfall Rising's new sound so incredible that we knew at once we had to go ahead and offer our only sponsorship spot to them. These guys have something very special, and we want to be part of it.

Thank you DOWNFALL RISING for accepting our small toast to your future. Just make sure that the logo is not hidden when the video comes out!

Follow Downfall Rising on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and watch on Youtube.

Dave & SE
RavenAudio.com

Lone Star Audio Fest.. pictures

Raven Audio Group at the Lone Star Audio Fest

We had a great time at the Lone Star Audio Fest in May.

Check out some of our room pictures.


Wine Label


Room Setup


SE and Dave

Thanks for taking a listen in our room. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did.
-Christa

Raven Audio at Lone Star Audio Fest!

Countdown to great Sound 3... 2... 1....
We are at Lone Star Audio Fest May 13-15th. Come check us out in room 321 at the Embassy Suites in Dallas, Texas. See you here!

This day in Music..

Head over to the Ultra High-End forum and check out today's post.

Raven Audio -- Silhouette Preamplifier

We are very excited to announce that our first product has come off the line in our new facility in East Texas!

She is a beauty too. Solid aluminum case, chrome ball footings, and Brazilian Ironwood knobs that feel like black ivory.
Raven Audio -- Silhouette Preamplifier

To Tug the Heart

Found this article on the HAS group that originally posted on Audiogon. The science of sound explained through the heart.

It's worth the read if you haven't already come across it.

Chris

Raven - This Week

Raven News:
This Friday Michael comes to pick up the design drawings and case component samples so he can start entering the dimensions and specifications for the cases for all of the new Raven Audio products. He will start to machine the new amplifier cases sometime next week, and we should have the first 16 new amplifier cases ready before the end of April.

The cases must first be machined out of solid blocks of aluminum and then sent to Houston to the coatings company for anodizing - and then must be picked up and brought back ready for assembly by the time SE arrives on April 23rd.

SE will be very busy while he is here because we have to have the new examples of the Spirit 300B, the Echo Integrated, the Shadow and the Silhouette amplifiers and preamplifiers completely ready for the Lone Star Audio Fest on March 13-14-15. It is an exciting month for sure.

More later!

Dave.

Thoughts and Prayers..

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people affected by the earthquake in Japan earlier today.

Stay safe!

Raven - This Week

What component are we testing this week?
I need to give you a more thoughtful reply than " it's a secret" but, it's a secret. Until we have permission that is.....

What speaker are we pairing it with?
Full Range Towers - Quad tower speakers, MB Quart towers....

What music are we loving this week?
Music: Hmmmmm... Zucchero, Melody Gardott.

And all of the music from one of my Favorite movies ever: A Love Song for Bobby Long - like: Grayson Capps (Washboard Lisa, My Heart Was A Lonely Hunter - owww yeahhhh!!!!), Los Lobos, Trespassers William (Different Stars - love it!), Giant Drag (This Isn't It).

Anything instrumental from Nathan Larson - who did the original movie tracks on this movie and several others.

Hard to pick one.....

;^b
Dave Thomson

Tubes, tubes, and more tubes

We received the tubes for the new Silhouette Monoblocks. We are installing New Old Stock, known throughout the industry as "NOS" tubes. These tubes will normally sell for well over $200 apiece if purchased separately. I found a guy in Indiana that had 16 TungSol power tubes from the 1950s and 18 from the 60s in his barn.



It was a huge investment, but nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, no other amplifier manufacturer has ever sold their amplifiers with 100% NOS tubes in them. The first ten amplifiers will each have between $1,500 and $3,000 NOS tubes apiece in them, plus the normal sets that they can purchase from New Sensor made now. The ones that are manufactured these days are copies of the old ones, but they are nowhere near the same. The older steel and tungsten from the Korean and WWII era was just better quality. One box arrived about an hour ago!

I am EXCITED about this. We have invested in and stockpiled in tubes for our new amplifiers. Purchasing that many tubes at one time from three different suppliers was such an incredible find and will more than likely never be duplicated again.

We made a conscious decision to go ahead with installing the best tubes in the world in our first ten amps - no matter the cost. It is something that we might never again be able to do. These tubes are almost gone from the world, hence their prices.

Dave

Raven Audio - Wine Label

Just spoke with Michael Brousard at Messina Hof Winery about the new membership, wine labels, resort
package with meals, and other advertising plans with our two companies.

Thanks for your time so far Michael. Fantastic customer relations Sir!

Sincerely,
Dave & Gabrielle Thomson
Raven Audio

Getting Started

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