Raal 1995 Immanis

Haven’t seen much coverage about the Raal 1995 Immanis or Magna, so thought I would start a thread.
Here’s my recent review:

The world’s best headphone?

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I had a short listening session of these at Munich Hi End. I didn’t know what these are and how much they cost, so it was an important unbiasing factor. An important skewing factor was the noise in the area, so I had to listen at high volumes and there was no chance to hear microdynamics and finer details which were masked by the background noise.

The Immanis I listened to was plugged into Feliks Envy tube amp, which I assume should be “good enough” to say that I was not misguided by a bad amp. And, long story short, I didn’t like the sound of Raal. There were prominent peaks in the treble and it just sounded too bright for me overall, to an extent that I didn’t find the listening experience enjoyable after a few tracks. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear the bass goodness and the tremendous soundstage described in your review, I was too busy running away from the treble monster armed with a couple of sharp daggers.

There were both Susvara and Stax X9000 in the same (noisy) space at the show.

The Susvara was plugged into Zähl HM1. I’m not a fan of Susvara or House Hifiman sound in general, I find them slightly too bright for my taste. But Susvara sounded much more balanced in terms of frequency response to me than the Immanis.

Stax X9000 was another dark horse for me at the show. It was just some “unknown e-stat” to me, suspiciously plugged into an immense tube energizer put in a huge glass cabinet (no idea which amp it was, but it probably costs more than the Immanis and the Envy combined). This e-stat sounded nicer and smoother than both Immanis and Susvara to me. More similar to the Warwick systems in terms of sound signature. It’s a pity I didn’t listen to X9000 more, but I won’t be able to afford any of these headphones myself any time soon, so why bother. :person_shrugging:

Immanis is not the world’s best headphone for me, so the fact that I don’t need to spend $10k on it is reassuring :joy:

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Show listening is such a hit and miss affair. Sometimes one can build an opinion on a headphone that deters from further investigation, only to find down the track that it’s worth a longer demo.
Immanis like all ribbon headphones demonstrates speed, accuracy, resolution with a focussed and extensive treble response. Matching with amps and DACs is important, like all hifi components.
The beauty of our hobby is that all opinions are relevant and according to personal experience.
Thanks for sharing.

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Here’s a measurement of the RAAL Immanis on my clone 43AG (KB006x clone + clone 711 coupler), displayed against the DF HRTF of the fixture with Harman 2018 filters on it.

I’ll give brief impressions of this one. I didn’t really like it because, like many expensive/flagship headphones, it has weird mids to direct the listener’s attention in a new way than they may have experienced prior, and a bright spot in the treble that makes things sound “extra detailed” (but for me its just wonky, glassy, and a bit harsh).

I understand why people like it, it makes the music artificially engaging and fiery sounding. But neutral it is not, and its frankly way too expensive for the sound quality.

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Maybe this is a tuning which fits the ears of the potential customers? Which are mainly older folks who can afford such costly headphones?
They probably do not mind the treble peak or even welcome this, as they already have deficiencies in this frequency range?
Also the recessed 1-2 kHz range is maybe due to this age perception?, as this can be easily perceived as a “stressful” frequency area? (I am not sure if this is in general this way, it is how perceive it. I am quite sensitive to this area).

Asking in more general terms, maybe we need also a target curve for older listeners / older ears?

I do not know if Sean Olive as analysed his data with such a sub group in mind?