RAAL 1995 Immanis

[normie610]

Late Saturday night session with Eiji Oue's Reveries, fibre optic, twelve tubes and Immanis. Sublime.

 

[Aetherhole]

Late Saturday night session with Eiji Oue's Reveries, fibre optic, twelve tubes and Immanis. Sublime.

Lovely setup and lovely photo! Obviously taken with a Hasselblad…

I’ll add Eiji Oue’s Reveries to the list to check out!

 

[normie610]

Lovely setup and lovely photo! Obviously taken with a Hasselblad…

I’ll add Eiji Oue’s Reveries to the list to check out!

Thanks buddy!

The album is good to listen to before going to sleep

 

[gammi]

There are a few exceptions to this, and that includes Primavera. It’s a SET amp, but it’s far from being too tubey. Perfectly balanced and clean sounding but still retains that euphonic tube sound and “roundness” to the notes. A perfect pairing with Immanis.

Definitely, I was very much generalizing and didn't mean to speak in absolutes that SET is never good with Immanis. My Willsenton 300B/805 speaker amp sounds great with Immanis for example and that's SET. I think just because it's so overkill on power, it's sharper than a lot of smaller SET amps.

At the other end of the spectrum I love how Immanis sounds on my retro Sansui amps which are 100% solid state. They use vintage MOSFETs which provide a pleasant richness.

so, this morning I made the change of the 4 el34, 4 mullard xf4 of Blackburn took the place of the 4 Psvane el34 ph Replica.
This weekend I will deepen their sound.
The other 2 el34 are always Mullard, but xf4 of Brussels with double square getter.

Please do report on how everything compares to the PH replicas. Those are the tubes I'm currently using.

Over the last 300+ pages of this thread there has been plenty of valuable feedback about how users feel their gear pair with the Immanis, and a pattern has now taken shape very clearly. The vast majority of owners, myself included, believe that the best sonic results are obtained within systems (source + amp) having some degree of warmth and densifying coloration w.r.t. a dead center neutral ideal.

And, while in most cases we speak about synergy but we actually mean to fix shortcomings in certain components of our systems by acting on others, with the Immanis there is close to nothing to really 'fix', and synergy is mostly an exercise towards making them sound from great to spectacular, or closer to our subjective sonic balance preferences.

I see we're in total agreement. This is what I was trying to get at with my last post.
Basically I think the best chains for Immanis are anything that A) doesn't hold it back in terms of speed/resolution and B) adds some tonal richness

There's nothing to fix with Immanis, the chain can only add to what's already right or hold it back/get in the way.

 

[domi]

I received my silver pair about a month ago and I'm still going through brain burn-in. I have the CA-1a so I'm familiar with the ribbon sound, but Immanis required me some getting used to. I mostly listen to metal, so the recording quality is usually not great. Immanis is very ruthless with poorly recorded albums Using the SC2 cable instead of Star-8 provided some taming/mellowing and so far I like it better. I'll gradually try switching to the Star-8.

With the AIC-10, my favorite tubes currently are the Mullard 10M and M8136.

 

[Aetherhole]

I received my silver pair about a month ago and I'm still going through brain burn-in. I have the CA-1a so I'm familiar with the ribbon sound, but Immanis required me some getting used to. I mostly listen to metal, so the recording quality is usually not great. Immanis is very ruthless with poorly recorded albums Using the SC2 cable instead of Star-8 provided some taming/mellowing and so far I like it better. I'll gradually try switching to the Star-8.

With the AIC-10, my favorite tubes currently are the Mullard 10M and M8136.

The Immanis isn’t very forgiving, but to me it doesn’t automatically make things sound bad if it’s poor quality. It’s just… revealing. I’d be curious to compare the SC2 cable to the Star-8. Care to share more impressions of it?

 

[Hiker816]

I received my silver pair about a month ago and I'm still going through brain burn-in. I have the CA-1a so I'm familiar with the ribbon sound, but Immanis required me some getting used to. I mostly listen to metal, so the recording quality is usually not great. Immanis is very ruthless with poorly recorded albums Using the SC2 cable instead of Star-8 provided some taming/mellowing and so far I like it better. I'll gradually try switching to the Star-8.

With the AIC-10, my favorite tubes currently are the Mullard 10M and M8136.

Speaking as someone who also listens to a lot of metal, that's true--the Immanis is very transparent, so imperfect recordings will stand out like a sore thumb unless you mitigate it with something else upstream. A tube DAC, preamp, or a full tube amp may be in your future--my guess is that a cable alone won't be enough. (AIC is awesome, but if you need to smooth out bad recordings, something that adds more softness than a single tube can provide might be in order).

 

[domi]

The Immanis isn’t very forgiving, but to me it doesn’t automatically make things sound bad if it’s poor quality. It’s just… revealing. I’d be curious to compare the SC2 cable to the Star-8. Care to share more impressions of it?

The difference between Star-8 and SC2 is not huge, but I guess SC2 is maybe less resolving and that makes it sound like mellower? Not a great example, but if you've ever tried the 1266 TC with a silver cable and then the stock/Superconductor, it's similar to that. I’m also still testing some EQ and that seems to be helping even with a simple low shelf.

Speaking as someone who also listens to a lot of metal, that's true--the Immanis is very transparent, so imperfect recordings will stand out like a sore thumb unless you mitigate it with something else upstream. A tube DAC, preamp, or a full tube amp may be in your future--my guess is that a cable alone won't be enough. (AIC is awesome, but if you need to smooth out bad recordings, something that adds more softness than a single tube can provide might be in ordered).

I should join the next Denver meetup when Danny brings the Viva 2A3 for sure

I have a 10 month old in the house, so one thing I like about the AIC is there’s no tubes to touch

 

[Hiyono]

If I remember correctly, you are from the inland empire, maybe riverside? If you make your way out my way, to Orange, you can check out the Mola Mola. You can also check out the Cayin Soul while you’re here, too!

@chrisyak i was going to recommend trying mola mola with streamer built in or other high end dac connect to your eversolo. I think your money is better spent on a DAC than a streamer/dac combo.

I might be meeting up with aetherhole next week. @theveterans when do you want to hangout? Or come to our LA meet next month and try some stuff.

 

[Aetherhole]

The difference between Star-8 and SC2 is not huge, but I guess SC2 is maybe less resolving and that makes it sound like mellower? Not a great example, but if you've ever tried the 1266 TC with a silver cable and then the stock/Superconductor, it's similar to that. I’m also still testing some EQ and that seems to be helping even with a simple low shelf.


I should join the next Denver meetup when Danny brings the Viva 2A3 for sure

I have a 10 month old in the house, so one thing I like about the AIC is there’s no tubes to touch

That makes sense to me. A cable can certainly smooth over some micro details, making it more forgiving, for sure. Also, good call on the “no-tubes” and a 10-month old! Curious hands will gravitate to the glowing/hot tubes!

@chrisyak i was going to recommend trying mola mola. I think your money is better spent on a DAC than a streamer/dac combo.

I might be meeting up with aetherhole next week. @theveterans when do you want to hangout? Or come to our LA meet next month and try some stuff.

Definitely! Gotta get @theveterans over here, too, to hang out at some point. Of course there’s always next month’s get together, which I’m looking forward to!

 

[ChJL]

Just trying to get a better understanding for myself

Is the Immanis better suited for power amps then other HPs because using the transformer eliminates those impeadence mismatches one would otherwise have? Meaning if one uses speaker taps with way higher let´s say 60 Ohm HPs diminishes the power provided by the amp making the amp potentially "too weak"?

In other words if the XA30.8 provides 30W @ 8 Ohm (disregarding preamp or Bricasti power setting) then with the correct Immanis transformer you are able to use all of it and instead with a mismatched HP you loose power?

Or does it not work like that?

 

[normie610]

At the other end of the spectrum I love how Immanis sounds on my retro Sansui amps which are 100% solid state. They use vintage MOSFETs which provide a pleasant richness.

I wish I can find Sansui amps here but it’s just impossible to find one. Are you using the TI-1b or the RCD 32 ohm interface with Sansui?

 

[KaiSc]

Is the Immanis better suited for power amps then other HPs because using the transformer eliminates those impeadence mismatches one would otherwise have? Meaning if one uses speaker taps with way higher let´s say 60 Ohm HPs diminishes the power provided by the amp making the amp potentially "too weak"?

In other words if the XA30.8 provides 30W @ 8 Ohm (disregarding preamp or Bricasti power setting) then with the correct Immanis transformer you are able to use all of it and instead with a mismatched HP you loose power?

Or does it not work like that?

It does.

Most speaker amps have an almost constant maximum output voltage that doesn’t vary much except for the lowest load impedances the amp is made for - be it speakers or headphones.
There‘s only a little more voltage (< 2-3 dB) on higher impedances with some amps.

Let’s take your example without making assumptions, as it doesn’t make a big difference anyway.

30 W into 8 Ohm = 15.5 V RMS ca. maximum Voltage, (limiting max. Current = 1.936 mA) - our basic info.

Now we calculate the max. power for each impedance - all Ohms Law:
15.5 V RMS into 16 Ohm = 15 W (Current = 969 mA)
15.5 V RMS into 32 Ohm = 7.5 W (Current = 484 mA)
15.5 V RMS into 48 Ohm = 5 W (Current = 323 mA)
15.5 V RMS into 60 Ohm = 4 W (Current = 258 mA)

What mostly taxes an amp is the current, usually it’s the more important limiting factor.
Voltage is a factor too, at close to the limits, but less so for the sound.
Typically less current even means better amp linearity / less distortions and better frequency and phase response.
This is specially true for amps with low negative feedback / NFB.
The other way round, more current means more amp colors, sometimes welcome in tube amps e.g.


But now let’s look at the thing the other way round:

We don’t need 30 W on Immanis, it would break at that power level.
4 W is just about what Immanis can take (in fact Raal says 3 W, but the difference is a negligible 1.3 dB).
Raal offers interfaces with 8, 16 and 32 Ohm.

So let’s calculate based on these figures:
5.66 V RMS into 8 Ohm = 4 W (Current = 1415 mA)
8.00 V RMS into 16 Ohm = 4 W (Current = 500 mA)
11.31 V RMS into 32 Ohm = 4 W (Current = 354 mA)

As one can see, neither voltage nor current exceeds the amp’s full scale on either interface.
It can drive Immanis to it’s technical limits, somewhere around 115 to 120 dB SPL.

The 8 Ohm interface taxes the amp’s current capabilities (if you hear loud), so probably the most “amp sound”, for the better or worse.

For those who like it loud, the amp’s headroom might be of interest:
The 16 Ohm Immanis interface keeps best clear from the amp’s max. current AND voltage, resulting in ca. 6 dB headroom that could be used for VERY SHORT peaks in the midrange and treble, or just for the amp working more linear, neutral.
If you do use this extra power for the bass, Immanis likely gets damaged.
As you can’t control where it happens, headbangers be aware: better a little amp clipping than a broken 10 k-bucks headphones.


Keep in mind, this rough calculation is for this specific amp only, and doesn’t tell much about the sound results.
If you want me calculate your amp, just ask.
With the model‘s factory spec‘s at hand I could even calculate more precise.

 

[Hiker816]

I should join the next Denver meetup when Danny brings the Viva 2A3 for sure

Yes, you absolutely should!!

 

[gammi]

I wish I can find Sansui amps here but it’s just impossible to find one. Are you using the TI-1b or the RCD 32 ohm interface with Sansui?

I imported all of mine from Japan. I use the TI-1b's 16ohm input. Speaker amps generally expect lower impedance, typically 4 to 16 ohms.