Yeah, I even recall him mentioning he designed the CA-1a to be technicals focused since frequency response can just be corrected later with EQ. I do not know if this philosophy carried over to Magna and Immanis too. From the sound of it, no, judging by how people have been perceiving the default...

For me it's a great summer headphone. I have air conditioner noise in my room unfortunately.

Just picked up a DCA E3. I'm someone who loves the Expanse (it can be a bit divisive) and I'm still breaking in the E3 but initial impressions are positive. More lively than Expanse but I feel at the cost of some slight harshness, Expanse is just so smooth to my ears. But it's amazing they made...

Yup, I've been looking at those too but they don't have a center channel with a RAAL ribbon like Ascend does. (this is going in my home theater) Sorry about going off topic into speakers hah.

Second that. I think anyone who likes estats should also like ribbons. I love that airy open sound estats have and ribbons have that too, especially since RAAL ribbon headphones are designed with very open housings, with the SR1a even being completely open lol CA-1a had the cut outs in the pad...

I'm excited to see that he ranks SR-X9000 second on his list (third now). I love my X9000 which is a headphone people seem to be torn on, so the fact he likes it so much as well bodes very well for me, since it seems we have similar taste.

New Immanis review. https://musicalhead.de/2024/05/31/test-raal-1995-immanis/

Just to share on the note of pad rolling, I run ZMF Auteur hybrid pads on my Susvara and it's a nice combo. Recommend trying it.

I 3D printed mine, there's a free file for it on thingiverse if you or someone you know has a 3D printer.

Amazing write up, thank you. Impressive to see the Immanis sweep the wins. As you summarized, it really just seems to come down to cost and if people prefer more intimate staging for the Magna. More excited than ever to get mine.

Fyi it doesn't have to be a speaker amp. Any powerful headphone amp is fine too. I use the transformers with my Holo Bliss just fine. Actually, I have my transformers set up with an XLR plug so it's technically setup to use it with headphone amps, not speaker amps. I need to use a banana to XLR...

This was a very interesting read on the quirks of the X9000 btw. It's long, you may want to grab a cup of coffee first. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/stax-omega4-compared-to-omega1-omega2-omega3.971637/

This one: https://www.audiodesignguide.com/my/stax_transf.html Note: that circuit should have a 4.7Kohm resistor at the 580V output for current protection. That wasn't put in the original design. It's a simple circuit, you literally just have the audio signal go in one end of the transformer and...

True, but I would add that they're also oddly picky, sometimes sounding better on amps that others sound worse on. I personally prefer X9000 on the cheaper Novem amp than even the holy grail T2 amp. Meanwhile I preferred SR-Omega on the T2 so it wasn't that I just didn't like the way T2...

I actually started my headphone journey many years ago same way Zach did, modding a Fostex T50rp. He took it a lot farther than me though, that's for sure!

Blasphemy! (I hope I get to compare it to Immanis at CanJam London)

You should consider building a transformer box. There's a handful of us rogue transformer estat users on here who love it. About $500 to do it right with good Lundahl transformers and then you can use it on any decently powerful amp.

130 pages and we all finally ran out of things to bs about while we wait :smile:

The question was what is capturing your heart or mindshare. It's not revealed or released yet but Susvara 2 has certainly been on my mind a lot, wondering what it will be. I'm excited for it, as are many others.

Hah, funny to see you here, Solar. Popped over to this thread cause I'm considering getting rid of my Expanse and Liric and replacing both with just E3. We seem to frequent the same places on here. Anyway, what's the general consensus on E3 vs Expanse now that E3 has been out for a bit? Will I...

Yeah, I think show conditions probably benefit Aperio more than Immanis for multiple reasons. -Aperio blocks more outside noise than Immanis which is extremely open. Obviously not good having an extremely open headphone at a show -Immanis' strength is in things like soundstage/resolution which...

Whoooo boy, nice pick up. You're on the Immanis wait list too, right? Would very much like to hear your thoughts comparing these two.

I sure hope they don't handicap it because of this. Can imagine upper management at Hifiman somewhere saying "We need to make it sound worse, it can't outperform Shangri-La Sr for only $8k" A better Susvara should trade blows with Shang Sr after all, considering how close OG Susvara already is.

$6000 in 2017 is $7800 now adjusting for inflation. In other words, it's the same price Susvara was when it came out, and Susvara has gotten cheaper. On most DACs there's a sweet spot for DSD and above that performance actually gets worse FYI. On Holo Cyan 2 that sweet spot is DSD256. I think...

Only 9 more days until we know...