About Raven Audio
Raven Audio began more than 20 years ago with Dave Thomson’s dream of creating finest sound amplifiers in the world.
Our Story
Dave did not want to build ordinary amplifiers. He wanted amplifiers that could reproduce music with realism, beauty, dimensionality, and emotional impact. To achieve that sound, he worked with experienced electronics and circuit designers through years of listening, testing, and refinement.
During the early development of Raven amplifiers, special experimental units were built with numerous switches and external connection points. These allowed Dave and the design team to test different circuit values, component types, and component brands. It was a long and tedious process, but it helped create the Raven sound we believe is among the finest in the world, at any price.
Over the years, several world-renowned electronics and amplifier designers have helped Raven Audio refine and develop the amplifiers we build today. Their expertise, combined with Dave’s exacting ears, helped shape the powerful, quiet, open, and emotionally engaging sound Raven amplifiers are known for.
For the last nine years, James Connell has also been deeply involved with Raven Audio, bringing speaker designs, production experience, and more than 35 years as a professional classical recording producer and engineer. His work recording world-class musicians has given him a deep reference for the sound of live acoustic instruments and voices in real spaces, which has helped guide Raven’s speaker development and complete system approach.
Raven Audio introduced its amplifiers to the global high-end audio market by exhibiting at major United States Hi-Fi shows, where reviewers, industry leaders, and serious audiophiles could hear them firsthand. The response was remarkable, and many of those results can be seen on our Media page.
Today, after more than two decades in business, Raven Audio continues its original mission: to build beautiful, emotionally involving tube amplifiers, speakers, and complete music systems that bring listeners closer to the experience of live music.
Want to try a Raven Audio integrated tube amplifier, speaker, or other Raven component in your own audiophile system? It is easy. Read about our 45-Day In-Home Trial.
Raven Designers
Chief Executive Officer
James Connell
James Connell is the CEO of Raven Audio and the driving force behind the company’s renewed commitment to American-made high-end audio, musical realism, and direct-to-consumer value.
For more than thirty-five years, James has worked as a classical music producer and recording engineer, capturing world-class musicians in concert halls, churches, studios, and performance spaces across the country. In many ways, he has spent more time listening to live acoustic music at close range than many people have spent listening to music reproduced through stereo systems. By live acoustic music, he means music heard before microphones, before speakers, and before electronics, with the sound traveling directly from the instrument or the singer’s voice to his ears. That experience has created a lasting imprint in his mind of what real instruments, real voices, and real acoustic spaces actually sound like.
That imprint guides the way James evaluates every Raven Audio product. He does not listen only for impressive bass, sparkling treble, or technical detail. He listens for the things he has heard thousands of times in live performance: the body of a violin, the weight of a piano, the breath and humanity of a voice, the bloom of a hall, the natural decay of a note, and the emotional energy that makes music feel alive.
At Raven Audio, James is guided by a simple belief: great audio equipment should make recorded music feel alive. It should create depth, space, color, texture, and emotional involvement, not merely impressive numbers on a specification sheet. His approach to audio is rooted in the sound of real performances, where tone, timing, dynamics, and musical expression matter more than marketing trends or abstract technical claims.
As CEO, James oversees Raven Audio’s product direction, customer experience, manufacturing priorities, and long-term vision. He is deeply involved in how Raven products are voiced, presented, matched with speakers and sources, and supported after the sale. His goal is to help customers build systems that are not only accurate, but beautiful, engaging, and satisfying to live with for years.
Raven Audio sells directly to its customers, without dealers, so James believes every interaction should be personal, honest, and practical. Whether someone is choosing a first serious tube amplifier or building a complete reference system, Raven’s purpose is to help them get closer to the music.
For James, Raven Audio is not simply an equipment company. It is an extension of a lifetime spent listening to great musicians and pursuing the sound, energy, and emotional truth of live music.
Founder
Dave Thomson
Dave Thomson is the founder of Raven Audio and the original creative force behind the company’s distinctive sound, design philosophy, and musical identity.
Long before Raven Audio became known for American-made tube amplifiers, Dave had already spent much of his life immersed in music. As a singer, musician, and charted country artist, he opened for legendary performers including George Jones, Willie Nelson, George Strait, and many others. He also recorded a number of albums in Nashville with his close friend and Raven Audio Board of Advisors Director, the late Bill Vorndick, a highly respected recording engineer and producer whose work earned numerous Grammy Awards.
That background gave Dave a rare musical foundation for designing and voicing high-end audio equipment. He was not merely listening for technical performance. He was listening as someone who had stood on stage, worked in studios, heard great musicians up close, and understood the emotional power of a real performance.
In addition to his career in music, Dave built a parallel career in marine construction engineering, where precision, structure, materials, durability, and design all matter. That combination of musical instinct and engineering discipline helped shape Raven Audio from the beginning.
Dave has always had a deep love for design, beauty, sound, and craftsmanship. He also has some of the most exacting ears in the audio industry. Every Raven Audio amplifier carries the imprint of his listening standards, because Dave personally voiced the Raven amplifiers that established the company’s reputation for musicality, dimensionality, warmth, clarity, and emotional realism.
For Dave, Raven Audio has never been about building ordinary audio equipment. It has been about creating amplifiers that connect people more deeply to music, with the tone, presence, beauty, and life that make a recording feel like a performance.
45-Day Risk-Free In-Home Trial
Hear it in your own room. Risk-free for 45 days.
We build every amplifier by hand and stand behind it completely. Audition a Raven in your own system — if it isn't the most musical thing you've ever heard, send it back.