[nfandi]

But the new series is not user replaceable anymore from what I understand, you'll have to give them to your point of sale for a fix apparently...
I'm definitely not saying that they will fail on me and I hope they don't but if they do, was it because it was too thin or what? Susvara has a problem with failed drivers, way too often, I was shocked that it was definitely the truth when I was going to demo the Caldera, someone was there with their broken driver Susvara, haha... Yeah I don't really want a Susvara in my life for that reason, had it enough with my LCD-3's


Pretty much what they call Diminishing Returns I guess, but if you had these impressions when it was loud... just think about it, the difference it makes on open backs

Alex has been building ribbon drivers for use in speakers for something like 30 years, he knows how to build ribbon drivers. The SR-1a was launched in 2018 and apart from 1 or 2 early users over-enthusiastic application of enormous bass boost we’ve had zero reports of failures in any of the threads I’ve read. Raal build very reliable transducers but they look after their customers if any issues are encountered. I suppose the naked ribbons themselves can be considered to be extremely fragile…..but when folded and shaped and built into the structure of the headphones they become extremely reliable transducers. I don’t think you need have any concerns about the ‘fragility’ of the Raal drivers.

 

[cfisher]

Yup, diminishing returns. I just mentioned because people think at those much higher prices that these cans are otherworldly and they are not.

I had some quality time with the Aperio at the Florida Audio Show and that was the feeling that I walked away with as well. I am a teacher, so it is moot, but I remain very happy with my SR1a. Still thinking about what I can hock to get a pair of Immanis, though.

 

[townes]

@Aleksandar R.
While waiting on the Immanis, I am not yet sure which interface I should select: one with 32 or one with 8 Ohm resistance.
I will use the Immanis connected to a Pass Labs XA25 power amplifier. An amp which is rather similar to the Firstwatt J2. The J2 was also used during the development of Immanis and Magna. That's what I learned reading your post from a few weeks ago: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/raal-1995-headphones-magna-and-immanis.971610/post-18008000
My understanding is, that with a 32 Ohm interface I am on the safe side, as long as I take care of the preamp's volume knob position. Using the 8 Ohm interface instead, would mean to pay significantly more attention to the volume control postion.
On the other hand, reading the above post, the XA25 might sound better, when it sees an 8 Ohm load. While with the 32 Ohm interface the Pass XA25 amp might sound more generic - like any average amp (?)

Maybe it would be helpful to have a sticky post, which collects amp types (tubes, solid state, low power speaker amps, high power speaker amps) and some specific amps and recommends either a 32 or an 8 Ohm interface. For most headphone amps or DAC/headphone amps it would be 32 Ohm anyway.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

After two years, a "Lunar Eclipse 2024" for Immanis!
Thank you, Srajan!

 

[rlawry]

@Aleksandar R.
While waiting on the Immanis, I am not yet sure which interface I should select: one with 32 or one with 8 Ohm resistance.
I will use the Immanis connected to a Pass Labs XA25 power amplifier. An amp which is rather similar to the Firstwatt J2. The J2 was also used during the development of Immanis and Magna. That's what I learned reading your post from a few weeks ago: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/raal-1995-headphones-magna-and-immanis.971610/post-18008000
My understanding is, that with a 32 Ohm interface I am on the safe side, as long as I take care of the preamp's volume knob position. Using the 8 Ohm interface instead, would mean to pay significantly more attention to the volume control postion.
On the other hand, reading the above post, the XA25 might sound better, when it sees an 8 Ohm load. While with the 32 Ohm interface the Pass XA25 amp might sound more generic - like any average amp (?)

Maybe it would be helpful to have a sticky post, which collects amp types (tubes, solid state, low power speaker amps, high power speaker amps) and some specific amps and recommends either a 32 or an 8 Ohm interface. For most headphone amps or DAC/headphone amps it would be 32 Ohm anyway.

My Benchmark HPA4 headphone amp outputs 6W into 16 ohms and 3.5W into 32 ohms. I have a Ti-1b transformer interface and the 16 ohm tap sounds better to me in terms of bass and dynamics, so since your PL XA25 probably maximizes its power output into either 4 or 8 ohms, my guess is that your headphones will sound better on the Ti-1c at either 4 or 8 ohms.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

@Aleksandar R.
While waiting on the Immanis, I am not yet sure which interface I should select: one with 32 or one with 8 Ohm resistance.
I will use the Immanis connected to a Pass Labs XA25 power amplifier. An amp which is rather similar to the Firstwatt J2. The J2 was also used during the development of Immanis and Magna. That's what I learned reading your post from a few weeks ago: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/raal-1995-headphones-magna-and-immanis.971610/post-18008000
My understanding is, that with a 32 Ohm interface I am on the safe side, as long as I take care of the preamp's volume knob position. Using the 8 Ohm interface instead, would mean to pay significantly more attention to the volume control postion.
On the other hand, reading the above post, the XA25 might sound better, when it sees an 8 Ohm load. While with the 32 Ohm interface the Pass XA25 amp might sound more generic - like any average amp (?)

Maybe it would be helpful to have a sticky post, which collects amp types (tubes, solid state, low power speaker amps, high power speaker amps) and some specific amps and recommends either a 32 or an 8 Ohm interface. For most headphone amps or DAC/headphone amps it would be 32 Ohm anyway.

Yes, the 32 Ohms load will lean the sound somewhat, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Most of the time, for me, J2 on 8 Ohms is too bloomy. Unnaturally "large" vocals and general midrage thickness.
If you are going to take care of the volume and not overdrive the ribbons, you're good with either 8 or 32.

The original intent of 8 Ohm Interface was to be able to utilize low power SET speaker amps, like 2A3's, even 45's, etc....
I don't recommend it if it's unnecessary to yield power.
Special cases are if you're having a Class-D amp that has to see 4-8 Ohms load for its output filter to work properly, or if you want to chase the intended sound of the amps as it would be on 8 ohm speakers.
Because of different intentions, it's hard to make recommendations, as they may be interpreted literally or misinterpreted, taken out of context.

If in doubt. get in touch with me and together we'll get to the best usage scenario, just like you did now.
I am confident that you're aware that overload is a serious matter with ribbons, so I say go for 8 ohms even with XA25.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

My Benchmark HPA4 headphone amp outputs 6W into 16 ohms and 3.5W into 32 ohms. I have a Ti-1b transformer interface and the 16 ohm tap sounds better to me in terms of bass and dynamics, so since your PL XA25 probably maximizes its power output into either 4 or 8 ohms, my guess is that your headphones will sound better on the Ti-1c at either 4 or 8 ohms.

Sure, but the problem is that the headphones don't need all that power that is available at 8 Ohms. That much power is simply dangerous to headphones by a wide margin.
Using one 10th of the power on tap requires restraint and self-control.

In a way, I'm cutting the branch that I'm sitting on by offering the 8 Ohms in the first place, as I'm risking failure that I may be fixing for free later, but I'm always willing to see how this goes first and then take self-protection steps later. If it goes awry, I'll discontinue 8 Ohms interface with a heavy hart.
There is no choice of choosing impedance in other headphones and chase down the sound.
By offering a choice, we are all using the unique advantage that transformer interface offers, but we'll see later if giving a choice brought more good than bad.

 

[fredfung28]

The immanis for me still need time to break in, it turns better after 20-30hrs, less constraints, smoother and more musical.

I want to wait till it stable before doing the review, also as my system tuned to solitaire p, the sound to me Immanis is quite neutral and cooler than Solitaire P, maybe similar to abyss 1266tc in the warmth but I haven’t directly compare the 1266tc as I don’t have enough time.

The presentation of vocal is very raw, which in the other meaning, very realistic, it’s more easy to listen the singers how they change their voice to falsetto.

The bass quantity in solitaire p is more and the holographic presentation is better in solitaire p

But the bass quality and resolution is tremendous in Immanis.

To what I remember when it compare to sr1b, the speaker imaging is still better with sr1b(given by the physical design) but with lacking of bass and too thin sound right now in my system if I turn the sr1b too open in the angle. I can only do 30 degree in my system to get a correct sound, as it becomes too thin when I open too much. Immanis definitely has more details than sr1b.

I’m an orchestral player and which I’m very impressed with the timbre of Immanis playing the classical music, it has a very delicate, detailed and real sound on the texture of instrument which I love it soooo much.

Will report back when the Immanis is stable and maybe I need to try tuning the sound by changing the nordost Odin speaker tap to other stuff

Just to add one thing, I’m using 8 ohm interface, the volume is quite similar to solitaire p in high gain.

 

[nwavesailor]

@fredfung28 I appreciate that you are a classical musician and you certainly know, more than most, how instruments should sound.

Having owned the Sol P for 2 years I do hope that that the Immanis is a far better hp.

Looking forward to your updates!

 

[fredfung28]

@fredfung28 I appreciate that you are a classical musician and you certainly know, more than most, how instruments should sound.

Having owned the Sol P for 2 years I do hope that that the Immanis is a far better hp.

Looking forward to your updates!

Sol p after changing cables and having upgrade a lot in my system, it sounds tremendously good. The sol p to me has crazy potential which I think many didn’t really notice

I think Sol p still has its own strength and I prefer it over susvara and abyss

I think Sol p is a good companion with Immanis as their presentation is quite different, Sol P has more warmth and musical interpretation while Immanis is very real and feel like it doesn’t add much to the recording, to me it’s more raw and natural. But the musical presentation that Sol p did is quite tempting and lovely too. So I think both of them are very good one, and can do as a pair

Immanis has larger soundstage, less bass quantity than Sol p with the Vertere double run hb cable

For now, I think the quality of sound that immanis produce is the best overall, its detailed, having good density of sound and instrument sounds very real, you can really hear different timbre of the instruments rather than just the tone colour, it’s the texture. The texture is reallllyyy good

 

[gghirardi]

In case someone is interested, I am selling on ebay my HSA-1B amp. https://www.ebay.it/itm/226121604751

Works perfectly. The reason i am selling it is that I upgraded to the VM-1A

 

[nfandi]

Thanks a ton, greatly appreciated!! I'll try to force myself to read the review part and see if I can get the same impressions or others that were not talked about.



Man, you're comparing to much more expensive systems, this sounds either too good to be true, or how they say, a jackpot.

On the other hand, if it's the least massive, wouldn't that also mean it's more fragile?
But definitely interesting to understand how speed affects sound, people say that Caldera are slower than Utopia for example and that Utopia are very good at that speed thing, But for me for example, I can definitely hear a difference in soundstage for example, and imaging is also slightly better on the Caldera it feels like. Are we talking about less muddied sound for example in terms of speed that it is great vs compressed music?

I’ve been through Srajan’s review again and I suggest you go in around page 10. To qualify the earlier summary I made Srajan states that Magna and Susvara have ‘parity’ except for superior dynamics and resolution of the Magna when using the standard SATIS cable. Magna is elevated above the Susvara and takes a step more towards Immanis when used with the STAR8mkII cable. That’s something to consider for those people who have decided to purchase Magna. Most of what Srajan says about Immanis shouldn’t need ‘translating’, you can mostly skip through the occasional slip into bouts of poetic verbosity but don’t let those get in the way of the message. Immanis simply is technically on a par with the Aperio and with the right ancillary equipment to suit your tastes in terms of pleasure and enjoyment, at the same reference level as the HE1…….or possibly above?
Maybe the main message here is that Alex has continued the tradition of Raal-Requisite and Raal 1995 are making for us headphones of exceptional value relative to their sound quality?

 

[XVampireX]

I’ve been through Srajan’s review again and I suggest you go in around page 10. To qualify the earlier summary I made Srajan states that Magna and Susvara have ‘parity’ except for superior dynamics and resolution of the Magna when using the standard SATIS cable. Magna is elevated above the Susvara and takes a step more towards Immanis when used with the STAR8mkII cable. That’s something to consider for those people who have decided to purchase Magna. Most of what Srajan says about Immanis shouldn’t need ‘translating’, you can mostly skip through the occasional slip into bouts of poetic verbosity but don’t let those get in the way of the message. Immanis simply is technically on a par with the Aperio and with the right ancillary equipment to suit your tastes in terms of pleasure and enjoyment, at the same reference level as the HE1…….or possibly above?
Maybe the main message here is that Alex has continued the tradition of Raal-Requisite and Raal 1995 are making for us headphones of exceptional value relative to their sound quality?

Yeah, lots of great reviews and they all have the same lines of it being the very best money can offer pretty much .

It seems that GoldenSound wasn't a fan, he said it's definitely good but it's not worth the money apparently, huh...

btw, showed my colleagues at work what I've bought from one of the pics here with the black Riviera and so on, they were all wowed by the looks, and the price of course lol

 

[ApertureSilence]

It seems that GoldenSound wasn't a fan, he said it's definitely good but it's not worth the money apparently, huh...

Could you point me to GoldenSound's comments? Not that I put much stake in them, I'm just really curious.

 

[nfandi]

Yeah, lots of great reviews and they all have the same lines of it being the very best money can offer pretty much .

It seems that GoldenSound wasn't a fan, he said it's definitely good but it's not worth the money apparently, huh...

btw, showed my colleagues at work what I've bought from one of the pics here with the black Riviera and so on, they were all wowed by the looks, and the price of course lol

Nobody who doesn’t listen to music like we do will ever understand; and GoldenSound is just one person with his own tastes, he just needs someone to give him a good slap to put him right.