True, I don’t have direct experience with it, but am curious and bullish on it potentially pairing well with a RAD-0.
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I just sold my Rebel, but it paired well with the RAD-0s.
Bigger Ben is still the king though!
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You want tubes, or not sure?
Order Schiit direct from Schiit, ends up a bunch cheaper than from A2A.
If you’re on SNA, keep an eye out for the Auralic Taurus MK2. Comes up for around 800-1000. Is sublime.
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I have a Schiit Audio BiFrost 2 in for review that sounds amazing paired with the HeadAmp GSX Mini and the RAD-0.
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I would love to get HeadAmp GS-X Mini however right now its out of my price range, considering I just dropped 4.5k on RAD-0
I would like to get something with tubes, and I agree getting it directly and with this exchange rate still cheaper then from A2A. What is SNA?
Stereonet Australia.
Basically our only hifi/headphone forums.
Go register, you’ll find me there in the headphone section.
I have had good luck with the Quicksilver Headphone amp. Very neutral with a little warmth driving my Rad-0.
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Understandable. I look forward to seeing what you pair with it.
Look at my profile and you might notice something new was added!
Excited to be able to officially support the community here from a Rosson capacity.
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No these are not power-hungry, these are pretty efficient. You see In other threads power requirments.
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They aren’t! You could run them off a smartphone if you want to.
That said, I think they excel most when given an amp with a little more headroom.
No need to blow your ears out, but driving them to get the most out of them is recommended!
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Rad 0 - Shortish Impression (at least for me)
Someone was very generous and I was fortunate enough to get some ear time with a standard tuned version of the Rad 0. This was the first planar I have had a chance to hear and it was a favourable experience.
I have two cans: Utopia and VO, just for reference sake.
Listening to it I can see why there seem to be 2 camps with this headphone, either a ho hum its alright or its just tremendous. I’m more in the latter group but understand the former.
Basically it does very little wrong, is easy to drive, has a nice, potentially customizable aesthetic and even though heavy I got used to it quick and didnt really have an issue with comfort.
On the other hand, it does nothing particularly outstanding to draw positive attention to itself, so it may not wow anyone, but bloody hell is it just a nice easy listen and thats worth a lot.
Presentation was of an inoffensive tonality with thoroughly decent clarity, speed and dynamics. Bass texture was just lovely and well defined. Midrange was full and nicely forward, treble, while noticeably recessed for my tastes was still within decent balance tolerances for me.
Even though I found the treble to ultimately be lacking it still had a nice sweet lightness to it even if it some shimmer, air and sparkle was absent. I was able to adjust to this shift from preference relatively easily and it wasnt bothersome for background listening; although, I did miss it with recordings I was familiar with on the Utopia.
I was happy it was as clear as it was, made my VO sound a little veiled by comparison. I was also surprised it wasnt as bassy as I expected. I was thinking I would get more boom, not necessarily a positive with me, but I really appreciated the defined low end I did get. Bass seemed on par with the Utopia for quantity (less than VO with certain pads) but the Rad bass texture was more apparent.
Speed and dynamics were behind the Utopia but still good. Any large dynamic shifts were slightly slurred as I felt there was a lead in to any dramatic elements in comparison the U’s lightning striking out of nowhere ability. Same issue with speed, a little soft on the leading edge. Keep in mind this is in comparison to the Utopia - speed and dynamics is its thing so its not a flaw to be a little behind it in these areas.
Staging was a bit of an odd ball. From my brief period of listening to it I felt like elements were being thrust laterally. What I mean is that I would get a very focused central image but not much depth or separation within that domain until things were placed laterally, where separation became obvious.
With the Utopia, separation within the foreground image is distinct. Rad didnt seem to do much here. Unfortunately I didnt have time to really explore further staging/imaging tendencies.
Some other peculiarities were noted. At times I found string instruments like guitars to be out of balance with the rest of the instruments, suggesting a FR bump reflective of that, as they frequently stood out in the mix. For certain genres like rock and pop and maybe acoustic this might not be bad; however, for classical music I felt it took away from the overall balance of the presentation.
I also felt the timbre for some string instruments seemed off. Not sure if this is reflective of “planar” timbre? It was a slight deviation from within the range of what I would expect the sound to be like after having experience listening to the U and VO. It was mild but something that would occasionally flag while I was listening. If these instrument presentations werent brought as forward as they were I may not have even noted it. Outside of that, nothing else seemed off.
Now dont get me wrong, even though I spent more time noting faults rather than strengths of the Rad, its important to keep in mind its either in comparison to something like the Utopia or thats its just little things that I noted that are not deal breakers at all.
The Rad 0 is a very solid sounding can that does a lot things really well if not maybe anything at a TOTL level. Maybe thats boring for some people. I’m someone who likes the pop and sizzle of the Utopia and I still appreciated the Rad for what it is, so there. And I would take it over the VO if I were to do things over again.
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Excellent review @perogie. The aesthetic individuality of the Rad 0’s make them a truly special headphone.
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Taking it over the VO is high praise enough! Thanks for the read.
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I’ll add to @perogie’s point there by saying that I kept my Rad-0 over my VC for similar reasons. They honestly sounded very similar to my ear, but the Rad-0 had a little extra fun to it’s sound that had it win for me too.
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Good to know! I am hoping to add the VC today as my closed but have been looking at a high-end planar and had been considering this or a HFM.
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Good writeup! I’m not sure if I personally would take it over the VO but I agree basically 100% of what you said. It’s a very enjoyable headphone but there are enough flaws in it that left me wanting more if it were to replace any of my other headphones. I’m hoping they improve the headband and give it a bit more air and separation in the next revision.
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Thank you for the impressions, they made for a great read, and I very much appreciate the comparisons with the Utopia and Vérité open. I particularly liked your turn of phrase with “the U’s lightning striking out of nowhere ability,” which is nicely evocative.
I’m sorry for the brief off-topic question - did you post impressions of your Vérité after they’d burned in? I ask because I read your impressions here soon after getting the headphones and because I was struck by your recent comment here that “The so called natural sounding ZMF Verite has made me cringe with treble issues that the Utopia has never approached.” The measurements of the Vérité on another forum showed a treble spike, which the poster said was audible but not a problem, for him. Concerned that this might be an issue for me, too, I’ve been keeping an eye out for others’ impressions about the treble. Yours is one of the few to comment about issues with the treble presentation. I’d be very grateful for an elaboration on this, if you wouldn’t mind, please, in the Vérité thread, if it’s not too much trouble! (I’m sorry, I realize I’m asking for more effort on your part right after you’ve just taken the time to post these great impressions of the RAD-0 above).
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Not to further derail, but I have always found the used market in other hobbies to be quite telling. If you see the same things coming up for sale constantly, logic would suggest they may be overhyped. That might not be the case here, but worth considering. Haven’t seen many RAD-0 on that page.
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