Sunday, March 29, 2015

Raven Nighthawk review is live

I thoroughly enjoyed a few months listening to the Raven Nighthawk integrated amp and the review is now live at HiFi'Zine. I've enjoyed tube amps in the past but this little 20w design reminded me why, it had that great midrange we all love but amazingly it also had decent bass that belies its power rating. Watch out for Raven -- they offer a range of tube amps and are cooking up some neat smaller set ups as well as powerful monoblock designs.

I've been using the Audience B2 bluetooth speaker with my various Macs around the house and will add some listening comments in due course to my colleague, Oliver Masciarotte's solid review on 'Zine. Fair to say, it makes hearing music outdoors quite an experience.


Saturday, March 7, 2015

Audeze Headphones suffer major theft

Sadly, Audeze, makers of what some consider the best headphones in the world, were victims of a major theft this week, with almost $250,000 worth of product stolen from their factory.  If you see an amazing deal somewhere on these, be warned, and warn others.  From their site:

“Yesterday morning we learned there was the break-in at the Audeze factory. It looks like a well-planned coordinated job. The thieves crawled under and behind the racks to defeat our security system. Our finished goods inventory is wiped out and there is damage to our property. The thieves went through some of the raw materials and boxes and we are not sure of the full extent of the damage. The Costa Mesa police department is going through the factory collecting information and they’re being very helpful.
We’re a small company and all our employees are like family. As news of the break-in spread many of our employees came to the office. A lot of them were worried about the consequences and what’s next if something of this magnitude happens to a small company like ours. Everyone was milling around the assembly line talking about how to get back on our feet. 
The new EL8s were supposed to ship and were in a separate area of the facility. Luckily this area was left untouched. In an impromptu act of solidarity, Ivan who handles our shipping started packing EL8s. Marco our assembly lead started working on organizing the space. Justin and Dave joined and started working as well. Nearly every one turned out and started working, picking up the pieces. Our sales team got in, getting the word out on social media and sending emails to our dealers. We’ve had calls from customers and friends. People are posting leads for us on Facebook and other social media. The outpouring of support is really tremendous. 
We have announced a reward for anyone helping us arrest and convict the culprits. If you find any information or leads, please contact us at support@audeze.com or the Costa Mesa Police department at, 99 Fair Dr, Costa Mesa, CA, (714) 754-5280. Meanwhile security is being beefed up at the warehouse. 
While this may be a big hit for a small company like Audeze in the short-term, we will actually grow stronger from all this. We will be back in business on Monday building headphones with the same love, care and craftsmanship. 
On behalf of the entire team at Audeze we thank you for the overwhelming support over the last few days. 
Team Audeze”

Thursday, March 5, 2015