[Aleksandar R.]

Am also curious at what's causing the perception of sexier bass with the Magna.

To me, the bass on Immanis, being bigger at the bottom-end makes a sexier bass.
Plus, a greater SPL capability down there due to a larger surface area, nails it (for me).

Like in a room with a large speaker, vs. smaller speaker, that's about the difference that I was aiming for and pretty much got it.

I very much like the presentation of small floorstanders, all good. Really. All sits well and I have no complaints...But...There's something about sitting in front of big floorstanders with 12" or 15" woofers...the liberty of bass and effortlessness is special. Lifelike and almost visceral when you tune that into headphones...

But neither is wrong. Go for what you prefer.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

To me, Magna is the natural continuation of SR1, regarding tone balance, adding bits that were missing with SR1.
At least, that's what it was supposed to be when I tuned/voiced it.

Immanis is breaking away from SR1 sound and goes "big". Intended to add more of everything and not follow the character of SR1.

I'm quite surprised that many view the Immanis as SR1's continuation.
OK, maybe with a sense of space, but definitely not with tone balance. The "richness" of the whole spectrum is much better than in SR1 and a good measure above Magna.

 

[KaiSc]

Based on measurements Immanis has actually more Bass.
I don't recall the impact to be softer but I might check next week at high end again

Where are these measurements?

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Where are these measurements?

I said that to ThanatosVI in PM.
Not going to publish.
Earbuds are measuring better when it comes to frequency response, so it's pointless. They tell nothing very significant, unless we start to measure dynamic behavior, decay, distortion decay, ear fatigue...
We're still talking what Ohms do to amps here, so I could have conversations about measurements and their utility during development process with transducer engineers, but I don't have the time to discuss all that with public in an open forum.

Because, almost everything we will measure is borrowed from measurements of electronics. Pretty pointless when trying to find what makes some driver sound better as electronics doesn't suffer from energy storage.

Add on top of that the fact that we are trying to recreate the feeling of listening in a room, without some dingies that cover your ears, so how you skew things to get there is what this "art" is all about, so not for public discussion.

 

[ARCXENOS]

Its not gonna affect me too much as I use a drybox to store my headphones, but I wonder how big is a factor of dust causing troubles for the Immanis?

 

[rlawry]

I am glad Aleksander does not put complete stock into frequency response measurements. On another forum there is a guy who is determined to denigrate a particular brand of headphones and uses FR graphs solely in an attempt to prove his point. Aleksander points out the folly of using such graphs as the only measure of a headphone's sonic character. A good tool, yes, but not completely definitive. After all, we do not call up our friends and say "you must come over and see my new headphones. You cannot believe how well they measure!"

 

[XVampireX]

To me, the bass on Immanis, being bigger at the bottom-end makes a sexier bass.
Plus, a greater SPL capability down there due to a larger surface area, nails it (for me).

Like in a room with a large speaker, vs. smaller speaker, that's about the difference that I was aiming for and pretty much got it.

I very much like the presentation of small floorstanders, all good. Really. All sits well and I have no complaints...But...There's something about sitting in front of big floorstanders with 12" or 15" woofers...the liberty of bass and effortlessness is special. Lifelike and almost visceral when you tune that into headphones...

But neither is wrong. Go for what you prefer.

As long as it's a natural bass that hits hard when called for, I'm all for it.
My current setup while good, and many times I get a good smack of bass, still has some space for improvement

What do you guys think is gonna be a good cost efficient setup for the Immanis to bring them to 100%?

 

[Doug2507]

To me, the bass on Immanis, being bigger at the bottom-end makes a sexier bass.
Plus, a greater SPL capability down there due to a larger surface area, nails it (for me).

Like in a room with a large speaker, vs. smaller speaker, that's about the difference that I was aiming for and pretty much got it.

I very much like the presentation of small floorstanders, all good. Really. All sits well and I have no complaints...But...There's something about sitting in front of big floorstanders with 12" or 15" woofers...the liberty of bass and effortlessness is special. Lifelike and almost visceral when you tune that into headphones...

But neither is wrong. Go for what you prefer.

Thanks for the insight Aleks, this I get.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

I am glad Aleksander does not put complete stock into frequency response measurements. On another forum there is a guy who is determined to denigrate a particular brand of headphones and uses FR graphs solely in an attempt to prove his point. Aleksander points out the folly of using such graphs as the only measure of a headphone's sonic character. A good tool, yes, but not completely definitive. After all, we do not call up our friends and say "you must come over and see my new headphones. You cannot believe how well they measure!"

As a tool for proving the product quality, FR is pretty much useless, until you engage other measurements that explain what FR shows and why it shows it like that.
Simply, you can have a ruler-flat FR response that sounds utterly dead. Yeah, great tone balance, but dead, so now what? Good for playing music?

Simply, there are headphones that will probably measure better FR (not many, I think) and many more that will measure worse, but in the end, it's not about that.

Here's a very recent example:
Simone's Immanis measures the same before and after he got the new Lampizator DAC.
And I'm pretty sure that Lampi DAC does not have tilted up low-end or dropped down HF, or anything like that in it's FR.
However, now he doesn't need to engage EQ to get what he's looking for.
And we're talking 3-6 dB both up and down that he had to use in EQ to get what he needed.

So, the fact that Immanis' FR has small enough variations doesn't really matter for him. It wasn't until the whole character of the sound was changed by the DAC, before he could accept a pretty flat response.

What I did with FR was a certain manipulation, but within a tasteful measure. Nothing overdone or undercooked, I don't want to ruin things, just to get to point where inherently flawed kind of listening, with ears surrounded with donut-on-a-cup-like contraptions, starts to sound more realistic than usual for such contraptions.
The rest of the SQ, which is much more, is within the inherent SQ of the drivers that don't show on FR.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Its not gonna affect me too much as I use a drybox to store my headphones, but I wonder how big is a factor of dust causing troubles for the Immanis?

Not a functional concern.
E-stats attract dust by virtue of their high polarization voltage while they're on. Ribbons are neutral when it comes to that, but it's always nice to keep dust out of headphones. You just don't need to be stressed about it.

 

[gammi]

To me, Magna is the natural continuation of SR1, regarding tone balance, adding bits that were missing with SR1.
At least, that's what it was supposed to be when I tuned/voiced it.

Immanis is breaking away from SR1 sound and goes "big". Intended to add more of everything and not follow the character of SR1.

I'm quite surprised that many view the Immanis as SR1's continuation.
OK, maybe with a sense of space, but definitely not with tone balance. The "richness" of the whole spectrum is much better than in SR1 and a good measure above Magna.

Interesting. If Magna adds bits that SR1 was missing, that seems to me that it's not like SR1. If it added more of what was already there, that's what I would personally call a continuation of the SR1. Like if I take a headphone that lacks bass and add a lot of bass, I wouldn't say it's a continuation of the original headphone, it's now different, it has what the previous lacks.

Just giving my $0.02 on why so many might see Immanis as the SR1 continuation. Also Immanis being the more spacious of the two, as you already alluded to.
I'm one of the people in the camp that Immanis seemed more in line with SR1 and Magna seemed more in line with CA-1a, to my ears. Not particularly in tone or FR, but in character, with Immanis being spacious like SR1 and Magna being punchy and dynamic like CA-1a.

 

[yyzSB]

OK, maybe with a sense of space, but definitely not with tone balance. The "richness" of the whole spectrum is much better than in SR1 and a good measure above Magna.

It is the sense of space that I am attributing the Immanis as being similar to the SR1a. Most of us have not really heard the 2 new phones for a long time so the focus on the obvious makes sense.

BTW - with regards to the Magna and Immanis for hard rock. I have been on a classic metal bender for a while now and I am looking forward to using the Immanis for that type of music. My CA-1a is my current hard rock headphone and what I heard in my demo with the Immanis (and Magna) was a lot better than the CA-1a. I preferred the CA-1a over the SR1a on hard rock, not so with the Immanis. I liked the Immanis over the Magna immediately, if money were not an issue, I would get both.

 

[gammi]

It is the sense of space that I am attributing the Immanis as being similar to the SR1a. Most of us have not really heard the 2 new phones for a long time so the focus on the obvious makes sense.

BTW - with regards to the Magna and Immanis for hard rock. I have been on a classic metal bender for a while now and I am looking forward to using the Immanis for that type of music. My CA-1a is my current hard rock headphone and what I heard in my demo with the Immanis (and Magna) was a lot better than the CA-1a. I preferred the CA-1a over the SR1a on hard rock, not so with the Immanis. I liked the Immanis over the Magna immediately, if money were not an issue, I would get both.

Just to be clear, you're saying you like Magna more than Immanis for rock/metal?
I'm a little confused reading that second paragraph.

 

[yyzSB]

Just to be clear, you're saying you like Magna more than Immanis for rock/metal?
I'm a little confused reading that second paragraph.

I liked the Immanis for everything. I got a bit of a fatigue with the Magna, but I am quick to get fatigue. I sometimes get that fatigue with the CA-1a. I never have any issue with the SR1a, and I think the same will apply to the Immanis. I do not need throbbing bass near my ear, but proper bass is welcome. One of my problems with the CA=1a and the VM-1a is that I turn up the volume when it gets good.

I demoed the song When the Levee Breaks with the Immanis and that was incredible. That has some incredible pounding drumming, and I really heard the separation of the bass guitar for the first time. I wrote a few years ago how amazing the same some was on the CA-1a and the VM-1a. I listened to it on repeat abut 10x since it was so good. The Immanis and the VM-1a is at another level.

 

[jlbrach]

Based on measurements Immanis has actually more Bass.
I don't recall the impact to be softer but I might check next week at high end again

I think the wider soundstage tends to disperse the impact of the bass somewhat...at least that was the way I heard it but both have very impactful bass