RAAL requisite audio SR1a Review: HOLY MOLY! Buy this now!

I'm also positive about eqing this headphone for at least three reasons -- indeed comfortably been doing so for months.

1. The way SR1a constructed (ribbons extremely close to the ears + free space) inherently needs electrical compensation somewhere in the chain. Largely because (1) ribbon FR has a little uprising character and (2) acoustic treatments around the drivers are more limited than traditional headphones. Raal's black box already does this (link). Why not adjusting from our sides to dial in further.

2. This headphone has pretty smooth responses as measurements suggest. No tricky peaks and dips caused by interactions and reflections -- such ones vary across persons, situations, positioning, etc in less predictable ways. No need to apply complicated (lots of high Qs) setting.

3. Very low resonance frequency (30-40hz; much lower than most headphone and speaker drivers) ensures more linear relationship (input power -> output amplitude) over the (nearly) entire frequency. I personally don't need bass boosting but it can be done with much less unwanted side effects unless it approaches to excursion limits (110 db spl as claimed by Raal). Not to mention the longer excursion distance the higher nonlinear distortion.

Just don't get me wrong: eq is eq.. It doesn't change how sr1a sounds fundamentally. But I don't think I could enjoy it as much without the aid of loki.

To be honest, uneqed sr1a isn't for general purposes to me either. It still works great for some tracks though.

 

Also worth mentioning is that not all EQs are built equal. Also² in general, taking away is better than adding, but ymmv blah blah.

 

Just buy a sub for them...

 

We got the SR1a in yesterday. Vidar arriving this morning. Sooooo excited.

 

I've managed to listen to SR1a during the Audio Show in Warsaw. Sadly, I believe the unit was damaged or faulty, because instead of producing sub-bass, it simply rattled. Or something might've been wrong in the setup, can't say I'm an expert. That being said, the SR1a were impressive in every other respect, obviously most notably in the soundstage and imaging department.
Still, just like in the case of K1000, they are basically a pair of speakers mounted to the head. Can't get used to it, especially when it comes to longer listening sessions.

 

@Mystic and I saw this headphone at the St. Louis meet six months ago. I had no idea what it was, and the guy who owned it...literally put a tiny tag on everything with a dollar amount. So I didn't touch them.

That said, I hate RAAL/Ribbon tweeters, so I may have dodged a headphone that's several times my mortgage payment.

 

Stereophile has a review of the SR1a in the Jan 2020 issue that used one of my pictures. I gave them the rights and all that, although I have to say this is my least favorite among the photos I provided...still pretty nice. It's a fine read.

 

The urge to buy one of these just to compare to my prototype and maybe implement some of my advancements is overwhelming.

 

I was just about to pull a trigger on Stax 009s when I stumbled upon this thread. I have noticed many comparisons of sr1a to 009 but not to 009s which i found to be significant improvement over the predecessor. If anyone could put down the key differences between the sound of these two (sr1a and 009s), it would help me tremendously. There is no way for me to listen to them as the closest vendor is 1200km and 4 countries away

 

1. That would be fine, I don't listen in bed.
4. PEACE is installed and running.
5. The "Icelandic" stuff is really mainstream compared to what I have - an OTL amp made by a guy locally who makes them as a hobby for decades www.konka.ee . I recall being told in some forums that that think should have killed my L300LE's by hasn't happened yet - I guess the amp is waiting for my 009s... I would say sound wise its closest to T8000 from factory line-up.

Pragmatically - it seems SR1a + Jotunheim R could be about the same money as 009s (as i don't need the amp for 009s).

Tough questions last:
2-3. Sorry, I'm not so good with terminology, but i'll try to answer best I can via comparisons. I liked the sound of L700 (which is basically L300 LE with better wire and half price) and 009s, while 009 felt too bright and bass-shy and 007 felt constrained (don't know what the fuss is about, maybe Icelandic amps have some magic synergy with it). I found Stax (haven't heard other brands) electrostatics to be superior to dynamic headphones, mainly due to detail (I didn't like HD800 - sounded artificial to me, I haven't heard Utopias ZMFs, Abyss ). I like accurate bass of electrostatics and I feel bass is plenty. Why i wanted to upgrade to 009s is that they sounded more revealing and natural than L300s while having comparable bass signature. I though 009s will be my end-game but now I'm hesitant. Given its the sound i remember, I would appreciate if we could compare 009s to SR1a sound wise.

 

Hi @purr1n , did you try the Raal with any tube amp? These are one fascinating ‘phones that I kept reading but still haven’t pulled the trigger yet. I’m in the process off finalizing a deal on a 833 SE amp that can pull 135W at 8-ohm. Would love to hear your impression.

 

These things weigh 150 kgs net, I guess shipping cost back and forth to the States could buy me a pair of Raal already.

 

Try earlier in this thread. I thought that I read some more detailed impressions of this pairing too, but couldn't find it.

 

Thanks, I must have missed that.

 

Someone also tested it with a Rogue Audio Stereo 100 which has 4x KT120 & run at 100wpc & they said it equaled any of the higher wattage SS amps as well.
135W would probably more than enough.