Raven Audio Vs Decware

You will have to tell me that story... I am somewhat unfamiliar with Waco these days. But I do have some great memories of a nice little Baylor girl from the 70's....

Mainly though, what I do remember, and see online is the incredible potential that exists downtown due to all of the newly renovated loft areas, and the especially enticing current $.50 per square foot rental rates! That is a hard one not to at least consider.... I'll bet you can't rent a sidewalk space for that rate in NY! LOL

 

You kidding? Under-the-sidewalk space costs more than that here...

 

Congrats Dave! I saw your exhibit at AXPONA this year with the Legacy speakers, quite impressive. You had the Boardwalk and Park Place meeting room at the show!

 

You know guys & gals, after I settled down this evening and thought about it... this entire thread is not about me or my company. It was actually about a comparison to us vs. Decware. I wasn't completely unfamiliar with Decware before, but until this comparison I never looked as closely as I have today.

They seem to be another US based (not sure if he is FROM the US or not?) tube amplifier manufacturer that has designs that are completely different from our approach - and I didn't see any integrated amps.

After careful thought, I think you have to consider which amplifier works with YOUR speakers and in YOUR system the best. This is about system symbiotics primarily.

Their approach is different. 0% negative feedback, ours is about 3% and because we are not point to point and use a single motorized volume - we are NOT dual mono. Our Osprey (as with all of our Avian Series integrated amplifiers) are housed in 14 gauge automotive primered, painted and clear-coated steel chassis and therefore extremely rugged and should have great longevity as a result. They build their amplifiers inside a wooden chassis with a metal top and bottom.

I have no idea and cannot tell from their website, of the chassis thicknesses and their chassis construction methods, but ours are designed to attempt to fare well against rough handling during shipping, and to be beautiful, and user/consumer friendly, and with this approach we hope to mass produce these on a small scale.

To be completely honest, the shipping companies have still managed to defeat our best construction attempts. We have dealt with our fair share of shipping damage even with 2" of rigid shipping foam, and a thick layer of inner padding.... seemingly no matter what we do though, sometimes they still win~! We plan to not give up though....


I am not sure you can compare these amplifiers as they are so different and from a completely different approach. I do know I want to hear them~! But who wouldn't.

Bottom line, if you already have a preamplifier that you love, then maybe the Decware is a better choice. If you are looking for a single-chassis option, then, maybe the Osprey - or one of our other Avian Series amps will work for you.

 

Try printing a picture of a flat screen TV on the shipping box:
Company masks deliveries as fragile TVs, sees huge reduction in damages »
To reduce shipping damages, a Dutch bike company printed a television on their boxes »

 

Talk about shipping problems ... one of Decware's amps was being shipped back to Decware for a upgrade towards another product when a UPS train derailed and wrecked ... despite the poor packing done by the sender the amp survived!

You can read about it here: DECWARE - Audiophile tube amplifiers built to outlast you! »

 

Hi Dave, thanks for chiming in with the comparisons and good advice.

To answer a couple of your questions, yes Steve Deckert is an American, they've been in business since 1996 and all of his amps are (and always have been) made in the USA (East Peoria Illinois to be exact).

All of Deckert's amps and preamps are p2p wired (even his least expensive $995 Zen Triode). There is no need for a preamp with any Decware amps as they all have inputs for 2 sources and volume attenuators ~ though one would need a switchbox or preamp if they had more than 2 sources or wanted the use of a remote. So you can use a preamp if you want to, but not necessary unless as otherwise mentioned. They do have one integrated amp called SE34I.5 that can accommodate up to 4 sources. About half of his amps are dual mono and have dual volumes, but not all of them. All of them AFAIK use zero negative feedback and they range from SET, SEP, PushPull and Ultralinear.

They do not offer remotes with any of their amps, though they have recently released a new preamp called the ZTPRE and this is the first Deware product to have a remote (actually a dual mono with a remote).

They also have a transferrable lifetime warranty ... so if somebody bought a used Decware component they can send it back to the Decware mothership and (after a thorough checkup) the lifetime warranty can be transferred to the new owner for a couple hundred dollars + the cost of new tubes.

There are different designs and aspects between your 2 companies for sure, but your business ethics and goals of producing fine hi-fi components made in the USA seem to run parallel!
I wish you the best of luck with your business!

 

Oh believe me I know Steve Deckert is American.... I didn't mean that. The Oriental approach to their website is kind of distracting though, and I didn't understand that part... so I wondered why is all.

Bottom line.... I really would absolutely love to hear them. I am going to try to get away at RMAF and go to listen to their room. That whole design concept and approach is so friggin' cool and you can tell they are very very good at what they do.

It's completely obvious that there are some real engineers, designers, and just overall outright tube-head audio gurus living at that place for sure! Of course I would NEVER say our gear is better than everyone else's... because I would be outright lying if I did. Nobody can ever say that. One of the best.... maybe. But never THE BEST.

Selling tube audio products like the Avian Series Nighthawk MK2, Blackhawk LE, and Osprey - where the tubes alone (adding for the good NOS preamp and driver tubes we usually install) cost can be in the $260-340 range easily. Then you add a chassis that we have to order in (100) unit lots, and with the welding and filling, punching, grinding and smoothing prep, handles, faceplate and preamp bonnet plate - it all ends up costing us about $250-280 ea. Paint - $140-160, printing $50-60, PC boards - $40-48, parts such as transformers, capacitors, motor control boards, bias modules, resistors, wiring, and volume etc. - easily $500-600, then add labor to build each one at about $150 per hour (including insurances and training) - well you see where I am going.

At this point we just cannot order enough parts to meet the minimum order on a lot of them, a minimum that would give us the large discounts that the big guys get. Well, except for the proprietary RavenCap capacitors - which in order to get our own design that easily and completely exceeds the sound of the V-Cap, Mundorf, and the holy grail Dualland - we absolutely had to make their minimum order requirement of $48,800.00. Yeah, they gave us a $2,200 break.... big whoopie.

Gabrielle and I hocked everything we had to make that order. Had we had the $150K where the price breaks to their minimum, we could have saved a HUGE amount of money per unit. But we couldn't. McIntosh we ain't~!

But it was absolutely worth it - and this is also why you can purchase them on our website. You think the V-Caps are good? Try a pair of RavenCaps. You will NEVER buy another V-Cap I guarantee that. The silver plated copper jacketing with the proprietary Teflon/Poly blend that only WE now have - during the manufacturing process the pressure now forces all of the bubbles out of the matrix, and when they are jacketed there is no tiny tears at the bubbles, and this vastly increases the capacitance and really extends the capacitor's ability to immediately and superbly compensate and dampen the signal with such speed and accuracy that this Ladies and Gentlemen is exactly what you are hearing when you listen to our products.

That huge open accurate and punchy sound has a lot to do with the RavenCap. But it is still hugely expensive, even at the order we had to make. OK, enough of that.... sorry.... got carried away.

Add the store and distribution profit and you are already within 8-18% what the Nighthawk MK2 retails for even without the RavenCap.... depending on which store it goes into and how much they take.

So the Nighthawk MK2 doesn't have RavenCaps because that would force that model to go to $2,995 to compensate, and people would hate me for that. The Blackhawk LE's higher grade volume, transformers and upgraded parts are... well, you see where I'm going. Add any of the annual overhead cost like shows, advertising, shipping containers.... yeah. It's gone. So the store thing... risky, scary, nightmarish... you bet.

We have to make 100 at a time and sell them all within a year to get anywhere near breaking even - which of course we have not done yet. So I have to give it to the Decware team. They are doing a fabulous job of keeping their prices down compared to their quality. I get it~!

For now we have 15 products on the website - 5 Avian Series, and 10 Elite Series products. Then there is the Goldfinch Tabletop Series which is a 4 chassis system (preamp, DAC, power amp, power supply) - with two spin-off products in the same chassis, the Cirrus Preamplifier and Stratus Phono Stage - which share a common separate power supply.

So I think we are done for now.... at least for a while. But SET low watt output amps have been on our drawing board for well over a year now, and with all the requests we get for them it's bound to eventually happen. Comparing us to Decware in the price catagory is challenging to say the least. Stores gobble so much out of the profit margin that it is really a difficult decision to put our amps into them. We have to completely restructure our pricing to cover what they want out of it. Decware looks as if they still are standing by their factory direct approach, and it seems to work for them. Maybe we will back off and eventually be able to do the same. But for how we plan to send amps to 8 stores and see what happens.

S0 many of our interested potential customers just flat out want to go and listen to the amps somewhere before pulling the trigger. I guess they don't understand that this is going to take a lot more out of their wallet AND ours. Believe me I do not want to go through retail... it just takes to much away from the bottom line. I'm not sure how it's going to work. We tried so hard to promote the "in your own home demo idea" to save our customers some real money. But in the end people just want to go and look at them somewhere first. And I guess I get that. In the end we will just see what happens.

Of course we want Raven Audio to flourish... so I am not about to lose money on this retail push either. We will try it for a while and if we sell enough of them to cover the friggin' store cut then we will keep doing it. Bottom line truth about this though is that they will make a LOT more than I will doing this. So we shall see~!

And more power to Decware for sticking to their guns and keeping costs down. They have a LOT of people in that business. They have been doing it for 20 years, and you don't stay in this business that long unless you are damn good at what you are doing. I think they are DAMN GOOD at what they are doing... so I will go and find out, try to meet them, and possibly talk to them if they have the time.

RMAF is a daunting task overall though. Being in the 2,400 sq. ft. "Evergreen Room A" on the main floor with Legacy, Electrocompaniet, and Douglas Connection cables is going to probably keep me with very little time to leave the room... but if I only see that one other room, I think I will be more than happy. I'm on a mission~!!! So thanks everyone.

Hope we see you at RMAF~!!!!!!~!!!!!!~

 

RavenDave: don't sleep on San Antonio I am not in the market for a new integrated but the Osprey looks fantastic, I will definitely keep you in mind when it's time for upgrades!

 

Dave, it would be great to see you down here in South Florida. Good luck, I know you'll have great success!

 

I would love to know more about your caps and who's winding your transformers. I definitely will be adding a stop to hear your amps as soon as they're in NYC.

You mentioned SET amps might be in your future. Any chance you guys are thinking about a DHT?

 

I have looked at Decware stuff but no offense (sincerely) I cannot get passed their appearance. They remind me of caskets.

 

Thanks for sharing the news Dave. Interesting and exciting times for Raven Audio.. looking forward to the future! The opportunity for more audio enthusiast to see and hear your amazing products are on the horizon. Congrats!

 

Not offended, but don't really agree. I don't like that 'modern figured black' casing, that may be what looks like a casket to you. But the walnut look nice. I have three walnut case units on my rack and they look great next to the Rega also on the top shelf, and the PS Audio units below.

I've used Decware components for twenty years. If Raven had been around earlier I might have checked them out but I've heirloom items right now and I've never been more "audiophile"-happy.

 

Yeah, their "molded" chassis is kinda like that. The natural wood veneers are much nicer.

 

Did you ever pull the trigger on a Deware or Raven? Very curious because when the time comes these two brands are at the top of my list.