Hi there everyone, wanted to give an update with 1 week of ownership having passed, it will be unremarkably positive so be prepared.
I love the SR1a, whatever expectation I had coming from the HEDDphone one, Utopia, Stellia, Susvara and Abyss TC have been exceeded. I will sound like a broken record with how much praise I can give RAAL for what I am hearing. I have been listening to these on average of 12-15 hours a day for the last 7 days with only one minor quibble.
Quibble: The inside metal mesh between the ear and driver appears to be laser-cut steel. At first this felt like a cheese-grater on my upper ear but I’m sure as with other owners I have my adjustment and alignment sequence dialed in now where it only takes about 15-20 seconds to get comfortable with no contact on metal but getting the listening position dialed in.
Bass: I have played with eq a little, have a +5db bass shelf if I need it for a specific genre and +8db when Gaming and when playing Destiny 2 I can make my skull rattle from explosions without going to extreme listening levels, no bass shortage from my experience if that is a concern.
To help with finding ideal positions for bass response I used an interactive tone generator and played with 40-200hz test tones to find my “sweet spot” where bass/mid-bass was meaty and the overall sound-stage was where I wanted.
I ordered the ZMF co-pilot headband after @MrCypruz feedback, should be here in a few days.
Overall I am more pleased with the SR1a than any other piece of hifi related gear purchased in the last 10 years, I feel like if I could have skipped everything else to save time and get these right away I would but being able to compare them to other TOTL headphones removes any doubt or choice anxiety on my part.
As a sidenote:
My girlfriend did call me “Darth panini press” within seconds of putting them on and we laughed at the difference in the unboxing of the Stellia vs the RAAL and I’m worried about the future RAAL thinks this case will be needed for. I have tons of pelican cases with custom cutout foam for various musical eq and firearms stuff so it was pretty cool to have such a utilitarian approach to packaging.
Listening to them right now and still have not stopped smiling for a week.
The SR1a is the anti-headphone, a true dipole like a dipole speaker, but the sound is like neither, it’s unique unto itself.
I installed my co-pilot this morning. Tip; completely remove the stock headband to apply the co-pilot, I found this a lot easier than fiddling with installing it in place. Also, I had the stock headband in the 3rd set of notches but moved to the first set of notches to allow for the thickness the co-pilot adds.
Two things I would liked to have; a better connector at the HP end and some way of locking the wings in place once I’ve settled on the right positioning for my large ears.
Ok, you’ve mentioned what I’m most interested in: gaming! I haven’t played Destiny 2, but I watched some gameplay videos and the positional audio seems fine. But, how does that work out with these? Being able to tell if a sound is behind or in front of you is obviously incredibly important in a first person shooter (especially Escape from Tarkov, where a single shot can mean instant death). But, considering how these sit in front of your ears, I’m wondering if that works out still. So, how are your first-person experiences with it?
Everyone else wondering who’s ridiculous enough to spend the kind of money we’re spending on headphones, just so they can play dumb games need look no further than me! Seriously, I bought these Focal Clear almost entirely so I could have better gaming sound, and their wonderful musical abilities are just a happy secondary for me. I know the price-is-no-object gaming headphone recommend is almost always the HD800/S because of it’s exceptional staging and imaging, but I can not live without my bass; with it’s pin-sized sounds, the immersion factor (which is just as important as accuracy to me) simply isn’t there when guns and especially grenades are going off and they sound less-than-large. But, it turns out these Clear don’t have great stage width/depth; they’re just middle of the road in that regard. But, now that I’ve experienced how wonderful a headphone can sound with music and gaming immersion, I’m unwilling to downgrade in detail, separation and dynamics capabilities… which is why I’m looking at the ZMF VO and RAAL SR1a.
So far from what time I have spent with them they are very good for gaming, although as you mentioned I also feel a bit absurd recommending $3500 headphones for playing video games. Directional cues are easy to pick up and sound effects come through as natural but will probably vary on the game engine. Guns have the sharp crack and echo/reverb like in real life and zombie space creatures sound like the way they probably should, haven’t met one yet in real life but just making the assumption.
I have started playing through the Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC in anticipation of Halo Infinite coming out in a few months and I’m sure anyone who has played the Original Halo is familiar with how important the soundtrack and sound effects play into creating the games atmosphere. The SR1a accomplish the task of simply “disappearing” to the point where I still reflexively reach to turn down my desktop “Speakers” because some explosion was far too loud for a late-night gaming session in an apartment with a sleeping girlfriend before realizing this sound is coming out of headphones and not my near-field desktop speakers.
I was mainly hoping the SR1a would be great with Music as their primary purpose and anything else would be a bonus and so far to me they have excelled in gaming and general use.
Oh man. Crap. Ok. Fine. After I get my Jotunheim for my Clears, I’ll skip the ZMF VO and save up for these. I’m sold, even though that wasn’t your intent. What Torq/Ian had to say combined with this information about games, and I can’t not get them.
2 hours later: Oh wow, you can see if someone is actively replying. I just happened to check this thread, and see that @Anhedonius is currently typing. I saw something changing out of the corner of my eye (it was on my other monitor) and noticed it. Cool feature.
Wanted to give an update, I am in that phase after you get the meat and potatoes of a setup and start finding ways to tweak everything.
The ZMF copilot lambskin headband is working perfectly, took a whole 10 seconds to attach and the RAAL simply float with their weight evenly across the top of my head vs just the center and temples.
I have bent the top headband and swivel arms so that the baffles hinge from the ideal spot right in front of my ear where a seal from the memory foam feels solid but my skull isn’t too clamped.
This has made incremental adjustments much easier and I am learning how to change how enclosed the baffles are to accommodate what I am listening to with fully closed having the strongest bass response and 35-45 degrees open having the largest soundstage before bass/mids start to diminish too much.
Using EqualizerAPO I brought everything down by about 4db but left a 50hz bass shelf and it sounds better than leaving things at 0db and performing the 50hz boost. From what I “understand” this has to do with a form of digital clipping and putting the bass too far past a given threshold will eventually cause distortion coming from what is being sent from the DAC to pre-amp.
So far no clipping with the JOT R and I would need to really crank things past an unhealthy level to start getting distortion in the bass.
For fun, I added a small 6" subwoofer under my desk crossed over at 50hz to replace my EQ boost and the results are really impressive. Having the details of the SR1a and the chest punch from the sub is pretty magical.
Was listening to some Stevie Wonder, Massive Attack and Muse last night with some Tallisker 10 yr. Single-malt and was having a blast.
Yes, if you just boost frequencies in software EQ you’ll get digital clipping (which is the most obnoxious sounding form and entirely unmissable). You can get around that by doing what you describe. A more common approach, assuming your EQ solution supports it, is to reduce the pre-gain and then just boost the frequencies you care about. The net result is the same, it’s just less fiddly to do if you’re only boosting one or two frequencies … especially with parametric systems.
Wow. I never thought of doing that, and haven’t seen anyone else recommend it (though I’m sure they have; I just haven’t seen it). That sounds like a fantastic idea, and I’m definitely adding that to my to-do list. Obviously, that wouldn’t be ideal in an apartment setting, but in a house without roommates?
That’s what I do; not sure where I came across the idea originally, but doing so has allowed me to shove way more bass through my Clears than I thought possible, without distorting or muffling the other frequencies (that I can tell, anyways), and without clipping.
you can also just add a chair thumper gaming thing or one of those immersive body thumper straps lol… I intend to add a sub to my SR1a setup at some point… but I need to find a smaller sub that isn’t too overwhelming… as right now the only sub I have is for my surround sound system in my movie room lol… and that thing hits like a locomotive … hmmm…maybe I should anyways…
I would agree. With my AKG K1000s + BHSE, I used a 12" sub-woofer and it was very “magical” indeed. I will have to give it a try with my SR1a’s! Thanks for the reminder.
I just read on another forum, a comment about wearing the SR1a backwards…might give a try when I get home. For the SR1a owners currently at home, give it a go to see/hear what happens…please be extra careful to avoid dropping them.
but why? this is very confusing to me… but I’ll give it a go…
seems wider… more stage… less impact… but, not as offputting as I thought it would be? I know @taronlissimore tried it this way the first time he tried it
I thought the same thing but decided to share what I read anyways…I can’t see why anyone would actually do it intentionally (meaning, to actually listen to them backwards all the time) other than just trying it…
That’s interesting, I haven’t had the chance to try it, will do this evening.
Hahahaha that’s funny, my wife did the same thing when she was trying them out.
This felt a bit silly but sounds kind of awesome tbh. I don’t necessarily think it sounds worse than in the traditional way and I’m getting a different sound stage than normal. I can only do this with the memory foam pinning back the edge of my ears or they get too clamped by the metal but definitely interesting.
EDIT:
Thought I would also mention, as a continued evolution of using the SR1a for gaming after getting success with the subwoofer I ordered 6 Tactile Transducer/Bass Shakers off partsexpress to use with an existing pair of 400w sub amps with built in crossovers. Have an extra computer chair I was about to get rid of to use as a test-bed with 2 on the bottom, 2 at lower back and 2 at mid back with each amp powering the left and right separately in series for L/R directional cues.
Yes it did feel silly for me as well but I was also positively surprised by how good it sounded, a lot better than I expected and to me the soundstage seemed slightly better presented than when wearing them correctly. This just proves how critical it is for the SR1a to get the right position for best comfort and sound. I realized that I need to go back to fiddling with positioning them, I might find another position that gives me a better sound than I’m currently getting.
onboard with these sentiments! I love my SR1A! Glad to see another Gamer using them lol
Seriously, I bought these Focal Clear almost entirely so I could have better gaming sound, and their wonderful musical abilities are just a happy secondary for me. I know the price-is-no-object gaming headphone recommend is almost always the HD800/S because of it’s exceptional staging and imaging, but I can not live without my bass; with it’s pin-sized sounds, the immersion factor (which is just as important as accuracy to me) simply isn’t there when guns and especially grenades are going off and they sound less-than-large. But, it turns out these Clear don’t have great stage width/depth; they’re just middle of the road in that regard. But, now that I’ve experienced how wonderful a headphone can sound with music and gaming immersion, I’m unwilling to downgrade in detail, separation and dynamics capabilities… which is why I’m looking at the ZMF VO and RAAL SR1a.
