[nishan99]

I have bitten the bullet and placed my order for an upgrade to SE. I wonder if anyone here ever used a speaker amp to drive their SE? Over at the Abyss thread a few have connected their AB1266 to a Moon 600i amp and reported excellent imaging and much better bass quality. I am asking this because I have been offered a Moon 700i at a very tempting price. It is quite powerful at 175 watts @ 8ohms.

I don't think their experience will translate to the SE because they are simply vastly different in power requirements, very vastly different.

 

[tunes]

I don't think their experience will translate to the SE because they are simply vastly different in power requirements, very vastly different.

I don't think their experience will translate to the SE because they are simply vastly different in power requirements, very vastly different.

I would love to know how the HEKse compares to the RAAL SR1a.

 

[SilverEars]

I am 72 yrs old my hearing is totally different now then when I was younger
I need some extra highs to compensate. I find that my he 1000se produce these with great staging
EQing is very personal there is no right to sound.

Thank you for pointing this out. Try out the HD800 or S if you haven't done so already.

 

[franz12]

Let me know what you think! As a previous HEKse owner who upgraded to Susvara, and recently spent 3 weeks with SR1a at home... I have to say the wow factor of the Raal immediately blew me away - but after a week - its lack of visceral deep bass kinda soured my love for it. This being flawlessy driven by a modified McIntosh MC225 with essentially a completely redone modern topology.

I know what you mean, but I recently got Jotunheim R and this amp seem to provide enough bass quantity/texture for me. Bass is not boosted, but it is flat and ultra fast... sounds really addictive. But hekse has more bass quantity (its bass is slightly boosted according to sonarwork measurements). SR1a is also bright leaning like hekse. But if you find hekse is not bright, you are likely to find SR1a is not bright at all, as SR1a is not as much bright IMO.
I thought it was impossible to improve resolution from hekse, but SR1a turned out to have better resolution than anything I've tried.
Previously, I enjoyed hekse much with the individual calibration by sonarworks put in place. My hekse had very sweet sound. I still miss it sometimes. Both are very good headphones at the end.

 

[mixman]

I know what you mean, but I recently got Jotunheim R and this amp seem to provide enough bass quantity/texture for me. Bass is not boosted, but it is flat and ultra fast... sounds really addictive. But hekse has more bass quantity (its bass is slightly boosted according to sonarwork measurements). SR1a is also bright leaning like hekse. But if you find hekse is not bright, you are likely to find SR1a is not bright at all, as SR1a is not as much bright IMO.
I thought it was impossible to improve resolution from hekse, but SR1a turned out to have better resolution than anything I've tried.
Previously, I enjoyed hekse much with the individual calibration by sonarworks put in place. My hekse had very sweet sound. I still miss it sometimes. Both are very good headphones at the end.

Gotta admit I just can't get into the SR1a at all. They just sound too lean to me. In any configuration I just found the bass too lacking I also think they are brighter sounding than the HEK SE, especially since they do not have the bass output to offset the upper mids and treble.

 

[tunes]

I found that bringing the transducers closer to and almost touching my ears that the bass was improved. Perhaps at the expense of losing some of the wide sound stage. I would need a longer listening session in a quiet place before buying these.

 

[franz12]

Gotta admit I just can't get into the SR1a at all. They just sound too lean to me. In any configuration I just found the bass too lacking I also think they are brighter sounding than the HEK SE, especially since they do not have the bass output to offset the upper mids and treble.

it depends on ear and head positions. Enter sandman and master of puppets just sound right and not thin at all, of course to my ears.

Initially, I also tried to boost bass by adding 2-3 dbs via EQ, but now I am backing off from bass EQ, as I think it is too much.
All in all, it requires definitely less EQing to make them serve my taste.

 

[nishan99]

I know what you mean, but I recently got Jotunheim R and this amp seem to provide enough bass quantity/texture for me. Bass is not boosted, but it is flat and ultra fast... sounds really addictive. But hekse has more bass quantity (its bass is slightly boosted according to sonarwork measurements). SR1a is also bright leaning like hekse. But if you find hekse is not bright, you are likely to find SR1a is not bright at all, as SR1a is not as much bright IMO.
I thought it was impossible to improve resolution from hekse, but SR1a turned out to have better resolution than anything I've tried.
Previously, I enjoyed hekse much with the individual calibration by sonarworks put in place. My hekse had very sweet sound. I still miss it sometimes. Both are very good headphones at the end.

Can you justify owning both? do you think it's worth it to get the raals if someone already have the hekse?

 

[Slim1970]

Can you justify owning both? do you think it's worth it to get the raals if someone already have the hekse?

There’s always a way to justify owning more than one TOTL headphone. Especially when they have completely different sound signatures. In this case, these two headphones sound nothing alike. Furthermore, the SR1a’s are tough to drive and hard to get to sound good. The HEKse‘s are the opposite of that.

 

[franz12]

Can you justify owning both? do you think it's worth it to get the raals if someone already have the hekse?

As I run this hobby with somewhat limited budget, I had to sell the hekse before i bought the sr1a. As I never had both at the same time, it is hard to say whether that is justifiable on behalf of other person.

Still you might want to hear the sr1a at some point, as I think there are reasons why reviewers crave about them. But a few concerns I can think of them are

1. Unlike the hekse, power requirements are demanding and you cannot carry around them. An amp choice also should be careful. My cheapo speaker amp didn't do any justice for them at all. Jotunheim R works very well. Even though the sr1a is bright leaning, I can listen to them without any EQ (well, somehow this sounds hilarious as Jot R has its own integrated EQ specialized to the sr1a inside). Combining the headphone and amp, you are looking at an at least 4k setup, which isn't cheap at all.

2. dynamics are vicious, relentless, and forceful. They keep demanding my attention. This may be good or bad things depending on your use. especially if you want to focus on your own work while listening to music, sr1a may not be a good choice. Hek has somewhat softer presentation which would work better for that purpose. Sometimes I switch from the sr1a to airpods pro to get my jon done.

 

[mixman]

As I run this hobby with somewhat limited budget, I had to sell the hekse before i bought the sr1a. As I never had both at the same time, it is hard to say whether that is justifiable on behalf of other person.

Still you might want to hear the sr1a at some point, as I think there are reasons why reviewers crave about them. But a few concerns I can think of them are

1. Unlike the hekse, power requirements are demanding and you cannot carry around them. An amp choice also should be careful. My cheapo speaker amp didn't do any justice for them at all. Jotunheim R works very well. Even though the sr1a is bright leaning, I can listen to them without any EQ (well, somehow this sounds hilarious as Jot R has its own integrated EQ specialized to the sr1a inside). Combining the headphone and amp, you are looking at an at least 4k setup, which isn't cheap at all.

2. dynamics are vicious, relentless, and forceful. They keep demanding my attention. This may be good or bad things depending on your use. especially if you want to focus on your own work while listening to music, sr1a may not be a good choice. Hek has somewhat softer presentation which would work better for that purpose. Sometimes I switch from the sr1a to airpods pro to get my jon done.

Just to tell you how far away the SR1a's are from my sound from my sound. I went to CanJam and totally forgot to listen to them there. While I would say they have many positive attributes, I know because of their lean nature they are just not for me.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

Just to tell you how far away the SR1a's are from my sound from my sound. I went to CanJam and totally forgot to listen to them there. While I would say they have many positive attributes, I know because of their lean nature they are just not for me.

I heard them for the very first time and I liked the sound. Hated the fit. And if they pressed on my head on that short demo I can’t imagine how bad they would be owning them. I went back to the hekse multiple times. The Susvara and the TC multiple times.

 

[joseph69]

I went back to the hekse multiple times. The Susvara and the TC multiple times.

I read your post about enjoying the TC/WA33 the most, so I'm assuming you're going to purchase the TC, correct?
How do you feel about the HEKse & Susvara in comparison to each other?

 

[mixman]

I heard them for the very first time and I liked the sound. Hated the fit. And if they pressed on my head on that short demo I can’t imagine how bad they would be owning them. I went back to the hekse multiple times. The Susvara and the TC multiple times.

Yes which setup/HP did you like the most? Was in the Woo room listening to the Stax and then listened to the 1266/WA33 combo.......Holy crap that was good. DMS said that they hooked Woo up with those WA33 tubes because they are such a great match with the 1266.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

Yes which setup/HP did you like the most? Was in the Woo room listening to the Stax and then listened to the 1266/WA33 combo.......Holy crap that was good. DMS said that they hooked Woo up with those WA33 tubes because they are such a great match with the 1266.

Jack told me that only the middle big tube was replaced. The rest of the wa33 was standard.