Ideally, my post would have been in the “My recent experience with Revelation Audio Labs” thread; however, that thread was recently closed. As my recent purchase from RAL was much more positive than I was expecting, I wanted to share my experience with others who may still be on the fence. I hope the Mods will let this one through.
Like many of you with a DirectStream DAC, I’ve been looking for a great I2S cable. After thoroughly reading the relevant threads, I came away with two basic understandings: 1.) RAL makes a great I2S (HDMI) cable and 2.) expect to wait a long time to receive it once ordered. In my case, the wait wasn’t going to be an issue as I hadn’t yet ordered a PST; the anticipated lead time would just give me more time to save. On 7/26/21 I placed an order from the RAL web site using PayPal. The order was promptly acknowledged via email. On 7/27/21, I received a notification that a Shipping Label with Tracking Number had been created. Normally, this would be cause for excitement but, as I’ve learned from the experiences of others, creating a Shipping Label and actually shipping an item are distinctly different events. Much to my surprise, on 7/29/21, I received another notice that the shipment had been “accepted” by the Palm Coast, FL Origin post office. Wow – this was really happening! The good news was I was going to be receiving my RAL cable much sooner than expected. The bad news was I was going to need to order the PST much sooner than expected (Kevin at PSA made this relatively painless).
The cable was originally scheduled to be delivered Friday 7/30/21 but USPS felt I didn’t need it until today (8/2/21). Even so - 6 days from order to receipt. My PST won’t be in until Wednesday so I can’t offer any commentary on the sonics of the RAL yet but my expectations are high based on the experiences of others. Some folks have reported questionable quality but the cable I received appears to have very good workmanship.
I don’t know if my experience is going to be the norm going forward for RAL purchases. I may have been lucky and Brad had my cable already in inventory. I suppose it could have been a return but there was no evidence of prior use that I could detect.
One last point… some folks have mentioned using the PayPal claim technique to get an accelerated delivery. I didn’t do that; however, Brad requested that I advise PayPal that I received my cable and was satisfied. Only then would PayPal release my funds to RAL.
Based on my experience, I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase from RAL again.