[gammi]

I was curious about this as well. Aleks has said all ribbons are in phase so it should not be possible to hear something coming from any individual one. Makes me wonder if he possibly heard a defective unit

Only thing I can think of is because it's vented in the front and not the back, maybe there's more residual sound energy in the back of the cup? Just guessing here. I could also see this being a benefit, making the soundstage wider because there's more to your side/back rather than just in front.

Interesting experiment for anyone with an Immanis: Flip it. Keep the right channel cable connected to the right cup and left to left but swap the right and left cups. So the vents are in the back. I don't expect it to sound better, I just think it would be insightful to hear how it changes.

 

[nfandi]

Only thing I can think of is because it's vented in the front and not the back, maybe there's more residual sound energy in the back of the cup? Just guessing here. I could also see this being a benefit, making the soundstage wider because there's more to your side/back rather than just in front.

Interesting experiment for anyone with an Immanis: Flip it. Keep the right channel cable connected to the right cup and left to left but swap the right and left cups. So the vents are in the back. I don't expect it to sound better, I just think it would be insightful to hear how it changes.

That can’t be possible, GoldenSound tells us that Immanis isn’t particularly stagey. And the other guy tells us that someone said Immanis is intimate. Are these guys for real or are they just making things up as they go along?

 

[moha97]

That can’t be possible, GoldenSound tells us that Immanis isn’t particularly stagey. And the other guy tells us that someone said Immanis is intimate. Are these guys for real or are they just making things up as they go along?

I get that people hear things differently, and I would not be bothered by an opinion that was largely negative. I wouldn’t agree, but everyone is allowed their own opinion. I do question their takes though simply because they are the polar opposite of what I have heard from everyone else, and what I heard myself at canjam. I cannot imagine how Immanis could be perceived as intimate. In the end we just need more of the headphone to ship so we can get a better view of what different people hear.

 

[XVampireX]

That can’t be possible, GoldenSound tells us that Immanis isn’t particularly stagey. And the other guy tells us that someone said Immanis is intimate. Are these guys for real or are they just making things up as they go along?

The other guy is probably full of himself not even sure they heard it, GoldenSound, well, he has his preferences and also gear that is mostly dedicated to his Susvara and how he likes listening to them (Zahl HM1 + May) he said that he had a chance to hear it before show and that he would like a unit for review, maybe he still needs the sound to break in on him
Break in is both mechanical and mental (It's both not one or another)

We also have people here who have heard it and own it and they say that it's better than either Susvara or X9000, of course it might be in terms of preference, and there's also musicians here who have it / heard it and know what a sound has to sound like.

I'm still keeping my impressions of the reviews that it is definitely worth the price and more if people are comparing it to Aperio and HE1 and Shangri La SR

 

[rlawry]

Usually transients are described and measured in speed. I read somewhere that the fastest transient sound is a drum rimshot. So accordingly, a fast transient means that its risetime is the shortest and that the component can respond the fastest to a demand for a transient sound and it will sound louder or sharper. A component with a slow risetime cannot respond as quickly to a demand for a transient so the transient sound will be rounded off and the sound will be softer.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In acoustics and audio, a transient is a high amplitude, short-duration sound at the beginning of a waveform that occurs in phenomena such as musical sounds, noises or speech.[1][2] Transients do not necessarily directly depend on the frequency of the tone they initiate. It contains a high degree of non-periodic components and a higher magnitude of high frequencies than the harmonic content of that sound.[3]

 

[jlbrach]

That can’t be possible, GoldenSound tells us that Immanis isn’t particularly stagey. And the other guy tells us that someone said Immanis is intimate. Are these guys for real or are they just making things up as they go along?

I didnt have enough time with immanis to do a detailed review but the first thing that struck me was its fantastic soundstage...so pen and airy which is what I look for in HP's..a HP that sounds closed in doesnt do it for me...that is one of the reasons I fell for the sr1a immediately

 

[nfandi]

I didnt have enough time with immanis to do a detailed review but the first thing that struck me was its fantastic soundstage...so pen and airy which is what I look for in HP's..a HP that sounds closed in doesnt do it for me...that is one of the reasons I fell for the sr1a immediately

And don’t forget the other guy who said that timbre is bad. Either he doesn’t actually know what timbre is or as has been said before he must be deaf. Timbre is without doubt one of the aces in the pack for ribbon drivers.

 

[gammi]

Usually transients are described and measured in speed. I read somewhere that the fastest transient sound is a drum rimshot. So accordingly, a fast transient means that its risetime is the shortest and that the component can respond the fastest to a demand for a transient sound and it will sound louder or sharper. A component with a slow risetime cannot respond as quickly to a demand for a transient so the transient sound will be rounded off and the sound will be softer.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In acoustics and audio, a transient is a high amplitude, short-duration sound at the beginning of a waveform that occurs in phenomena such as musical sounds, noises or speech.[1][2] Transients do not necessarily directly depend on the frequency of the tone they initiate. It contains a high degree of non-periodic components and a higher magnitude of high frequencies than the harmonic content of that sound.[3]

Right, so how can a transient be "thin" lol.
If anything it sounds like he's saying the transients are sharp/fast, which is a good thing.

 

[XVampireX]

And don’t forget the other guy who said that timbre is bad. Either he doesn’t actually know what timbre is or as has been said before he must be deaf. Timbre is without doubt one of the aces in the pack for ribbon drivers.

Or maybe they just didn't like the wood, lol

 

[SolarCetacean]

Right, so how can a transient be "thin" lol.
If anything it sounds like he's saying the transients are sharp/fast, which is a good thing.

"Thin" transients would probably be interpreted as transients that lack the subsequent body and/or a transient that has too much of a high treble emphasis. A transient where you hear the zap of the attack, but you don't feel the impact and heft of the attack. That would result in a thinner sound overall. Another possibility is that the transient is truncated, like the trailing end is too short or missing.

On intimate/wide staging, I suspect this could be an area where the test tracks will affect perception a lot. For me, I thought that the SR-X9000 was very upfront and forward, while most other impressions I saw were that it was laid back. Eventually, I found that if a track has a centrally-mixed vocal or main instrument, the X9000 brings that element forward vs the rest of the sound. I'm sensitive to forward vocals, so having that specific type of vocal brought forward triggered my "vocal proximity alarm" and I thought the sound was forward. If the track didn't have such a forward-mixed element, then the X9000 would sound laid-back. Perhaps the Immanis also has this sensitivity to the spatial elements of the mix.

 

[nwavesailor]

We are 105 pages in with a generally positive take from owners, reviewers, and show attendees of both Raal offerings.
Frankly if it were 100%, with no differing opinions, this would be unhealthy and a red flag.
We have the Munich show then more hp will be out in the wild so stay tuned and buckle up!!!

 

[Aleksandar R.]

We're at Shows. Every important show in the western hemisphere, we're there, so you don't need to listen through someone else's ears.
Taking a jab here and there was always a part of the game, so doing shows is the best way to defend the product.
Sending product to reviews is good.
It filters credibility.
If your impressions align with reviewer's impressions, then you know the product is good and the reviewer isn't BSing.
If it's the opposite, the reviewer looses credibility so whatever they say in the future will not have the same weight.

 

[Kiats]

There is an update to this, but I'll start from the beginning.

I did the voicing of the headphones on several amps:

SAEQ Hyperion Ge (at 32 Ohms),
Firstwatt J2 (at 32 Ohms) and
VM-1a in Triode Mode,
representing a group with very similar "organic" sound, where J2 is a bit "bigger" sounding that the other two (which are very, very similar, almost identical sounding amps).

Then,
RAAL-requisite HSA-1b, VM-1a in Pentode Mode and Benchmark AHB2 (at 32 Ohms), serving as a "control" amp.

And recently, Solaja dropped by with 300B² prototype (used with 32 Ohms Interface), which was very interesting and Dragan from SAEQ with his new uber-amp prototype
which (used with 32 Ohms Interface) sounded really accurate, smooth yet lively...I liked both a lot.
Dragan from SAEQ also brought the SAEQ HSA-1c that was not strictly developed to sound best only on ribbon headphones, like RAAL-requisite HSA-1b, but to inject more life into planars, for more versatility, and I listened to it on XLR inputs and it was a bit too open for me, like Benchmark, which is not my favorite amp any more.

I wanted to explore more about this C version, so I tried it on RCA inputs and things settled down nicely. Plugged in a smoother sounding cable and that was it.
Then, I've had a panel of 4 listeners, my control group of local audiophiles, speaker listening guys, to see what they say about Hyperion Ge vs. HSA-1c.
The listening was at pretty high SPL.
The result was 50/50. Half preferred SAEQ HSA-1c and half preferred Hyperion Ge. My vote didn't count, but I'm in Hyperion Ge camp.

So, it was just like what you could expect.
I'll explain...
Amps can have even-order, 2nd harmonic-dominant or odd order, 3rd harmonic-dominant distortion characteristics.
It is known that people's preference in distortion characteristics of amplifiers are about 50/50 in preference to even/odd distribution of generated harmonics.
The HSA-1c is not a typical representative of odd order group, it has a good amount of 2nd, but it is close enough to be sorted in that group and Hyperion Ge is typical representative of even order 2nd harmonic-dominant distortion content with almost logarithmic envelope of all other harmonics up to 5th and practically no higher harmonics than that.

Now, if you listen to headphones softly, you will likely not hear much of a difference.
It takes speakers to really load beefy amps like these, but at power levels for headphones, especially with people that listen softly, it is more likely that you will rather hear the general tone balance of the amps, more influenced by the choice of caps and wiring type and wire layout inside...

So, to show that I'm serious, we will do the WOH Heidelberg with SAEQ HSA-1c, properly driven at RCA input with the right cable for the job.
There will also be other amps to test, of course, it's a show...

Good to know that HSA-1C and Hyperon Ge are both great for the Immanis.

 

[Kiats]

Jotunheim R

I am a big fan of Schiit’s little amplifier. In fact, I recently bought another one as a backup. It drives all the ribbon headphones very well. However, with the SR1a in particular, it can sound comparatively strident vs the VM1a. The Magna and Immanis are not as picky. They sound exceptional off the Jotunheim R. I don’t care what anyone else says, the Jot R is a worthy amplifier for these new headphones. I compared directly to the VM1a as objectively as I could, and with the Magna and Immanis, the VM1a simply does not show the same level of improvement as it does for the SR1a. That may be a controversial statement, but it’s what my ears are telling me today. One of my favorite combos was the Sonic Frontiers DAC balanced into the Jot R (Siemens tubes).

Thanks for this impression of the use case for the Jot R. Have dusted it off (had put it away when I picked up the HSA-1c and the Hyperion Ge, purely for space considerations) and plugged it back into the audio chain. I am fortunate to still have the 8 foot Deluxe cable (copper/silver) which was designed for use wth the Jot R (iirc). While I await the arrival of the Immanis.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

As for Srajan, you can like or dislike his unique style, but rest assured, he will never write things that he didn't experience and he always weighs products as accurately as possible in the wider picture of audio.

He knows speakers, big systems, small systems, he wasn't raised on earbuds on his iPhone, but on playing classical music.

Sending him stuff, I know that if he has high expectations, there will be extreme scrutiny.
Frankly, I was a bit scared. Especially after so many pages of enthusiastic "live-feed" of developing story that I got from him due to mutual respect, but that's as far as it goes.
The part of the story after he got the products is the consequence of the products alone and their own merit in the eyes of someone of his experience.