GordonFreeman
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2008
- Posts
- 438
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- 10
I recently purchased a Raptor amplifier from Ray and wanted to tell everyone about my experience. I have been agonizing over what amp to buy for some time now and I can tell you there is no doubt whatsoever that I made the right choice. I E-mailed Ray when he was at the show in Fla and heard back from him a few days later even though he had a tremendous amount of E-mail piled up as he was in Fla attending the show. He had two Raptors burning in and ready to go. I mailed him a check on a Thursday and he cashed it about Wednesday of the following week and my amp arrived Monday the following week. I called him before the weekend to get an ETA expecting to hear your atypical "Maybe I can Ship it tomorrow" and to my astonishment it had been shipped and he gave me a tracking number and there it was on Monday. It was not Over packed but it was packed very well, plenty of bubble wrap and tubes marked well as to where to put them. Talking to Ray on the phone was a real pleasure as I expected to be bothering him, you know how most people are about that stuff. A few things shown through during our conversation. He really loves what he does and is very concerned about his customers being happy with his product. He volunteered info on Tubes and power cords and how to start my initial setup. Very genuine person Ray is and it was a real pleasure. The weakest point of most products like this seems to be accurate or realistic reproduction of the lows. I can tell you this is surely not a problem with this amp. The bass is full of impact and is very smooth at the same time. Probably for the first time in my life I can say I fully understand what people mean when they talk about "Decay", this is much different than any other solid state product I have listened to. Notes seem to dissipate as they do in real life. For once the midrange does not over power the highs and lows like a 200 dollar receiver would. The sound is very balanced and realistic. I wanna say the sound is powerful and relaxed at the same time. Fit and Finish is top quality. The volume pot is very tight and smooth and a tremendous amount of time went into physical design that is not available in similar products. Justins stuff is beautiful but there is alot of three dimensional thinking designed into this amp for cooling purposes that is just fantastic. I always was fascinated with build quality as I grew up with a soldering iron in the house because of my father and the things his company builds (much similar to Rays stuff) and I give the Raptor an A+ on all counts. Im not going to do any comparisons as I don't have that many to tell about but if your riding the fence over an RSA product then I highly recommend you go for it based on my experience.
