[simorag]

Tonight I'm listening to this masterpiece:


And it's as if I'm in the concert hall listening to it live. The ability of these headphones to cast both an expansive sound stage and maintain the upmost in transparency has me really, really impressed! The Jotunheim R drives them brilliantly as well with my Chord DAVE as the DAC. Audio bliss!

Nice one, thanks for the recommendation!

I just listened the whole triple concerto with the SR1a and with the Abyss TC and enjoyed it very much with both.

To my ears, the SR1a win for transparency, detail retrieval, instrument localization, clarity (esp. piano) while the TC provide a more immersive experience (more 3D, better feeling of a concert hall reverberations), more body of violin and cello, more satisfying rendering of double bass section.

Different routes to audio bliss !

 

[FLTWS]

I agree. Two very different approaches to providing a sound experience but tough for me to say I like one more than the other.

 

[FLTWS]

Tonight I'm listening to this masterpiece:


And it's as if I'm in the concert hall listening to it live. The ability of these headphones to cast both an expansive sound stage and maintain the upmost in transparency has me really, really impressed! The Jotunheim R drives them brilliantly as well with my Chord DAVE as the DAC. Audio bliss!

Looks interesting, not familiar with this orchestra, but just ordered from Archiv and notice of late with the resurgence of vinyl

 

[jlbrach]

I love both the TC and the raal but right now the raal is getting more listening time.....could change for sure..in general I find myself disappointed with hyped products so when I ordered the raal I was prepared to be disappointed. I had tried them briefly at canjam but it is so hard to really hear things there that I didnt place much credence in what I heard,when I received them right out of the box I was startled as to how good they were and also how finicky. I have worked real hard to find the holy grail in terms of the set up and I guard it to make sure nobody changes them lol...I do wonder how much better they would sound with the new raal amp rather than the Jotr but hey, isnt that to be expected?.....it never ends

 

[MacedonianHero]

Nice one, thanks for the recommendation!

I just listened the whole triple concerto with the SR1a and with the Abyss TC and enjoyed it very much with both.

To my ears, the SR1a win for transparency, detail retrieval, instrument localization, clarity (esp. piano) while the TC provide a more immersive experience (more 3D, better feeling of a concert hall reverberations), more body of violin and cello, more satisfying rendering of double bass section.

Different routes to audio bliss !

I thin the detail retrieval is ever so slightly better with my Phi TC personally, but surprisingly they aren't that far apart. It's a brilliant recording to help you test gear (along with some fantastic music) with regards to soundstaging, transparency and detail extraction. My Susvara is right there with them as well.

 

[MacedonianHero]

So tonight, I've changed things up a bit and went with S&M2 by Metallica...fantastic live album and with the SR1a's, I'm there in the crowd! With COVID killing live concerts, its so nice to be able to sit back and enjoy one of my favourite bands as if I'm in attendance! Lars' drumming has never sounded more alive!

 

[jlbrach]

I do not often do this but I want to recount for everyone here thinking about about Raal and purchasing an SR1A and Jotr of my experience .....I received the tandem about a month ago and have been praising it on here quite a bit even going so far as to suggest that I have been reaching for the SR1a ahead of my abyss TC and my Susvara recently....anyway, 2 nights ago I all of a sudden started to hear a rather disturbing distortion in the right channel that was loud and harsh and obviously a problem..my first reaction was to be very disappointed and to be concerned about how I would be able to go about getting it taken care of and fixed.....I immediately sent an e-mail to Danny at requisite and received a reply the next morning...I called Danny and he couldnt have been more pleasant and more of a gentleman...I described the problem to Danny and he told me to reverse the L and R on my cable to the SR1a which I didnt understand but he explained he wanted to see if the problem was from the Jotr or the SR1a.....he quickly determined it was the Jotr and told me he would send out a new unit to me immediately and a return label for me to send back my damaged unit....true to his word I received the new unit today and all seems proper....I am about to ship back the broken unit and couldnt be happier....service like this is rare and I want people to know about it......when you buy expensive gear customer service is extremely important and in this case it was A+++++

 

[JLoud]

Spent some time comparing the SR1A to Dan Clark Voce, Abyss TC, Stax L700. The sound stage and speed is simply better on the Raal. IMO. A friend of mine came over and brought his L700. Had five amps going at the same time for quick swapping. Maybe not scientific, but sure was fun.

 

[JLoud]

On excellent recordings, provided bass below 40hz isn't prominent, the Raal is simply fantastic. With deep bass tracks however the TC reigns supreme. The Voce was kind of a compromise of the TC and Raal.

 

[dieslemat]

I do not often do this but I want to recount for everyone here thinking about about Raal and purchasing an SR1A and Jotr of my experience .....I received the tandem about a month ago and have been praising it on here quite a bit even going so far as to suggest that I have been reaching for the SR1a ahead of my abyss TC and my Susvara recently....anyway, 2 nights ago I all of a sudden started to hear a rather disturbing distortion in the right channel that was loud and harsh and obviously a problem..my first reaction was to be very disappointed and to be concerned about how I would be able to go about getting it taken care of and fixed.....I immediately sent an e-mail to Danny at requisite and received a reply the next morning...I called Danny and he couldnt have been more pleasant and more of a gentleman...I described the problem to Danny and he told me to reverse the L and R on my cable to the SR1a which I didnt understand but he explained he wanted to see if the problem was from the Jotr or the SR1a.....he quickly determined it was the Jotr and told me he would send out a new unit to me immediately and a return label for me to send back my damaged unit....true to his word I received the new unit today and all seems proper....I am about to ship back the broken unit and couldnt be happier....service like this is rare and I want people to know about it......when you buy expensive gear customer service is extremely important and in this case it was A+++++

Hello, just to dig in further.

1. How did the distortion sound like? Like some sort of electric crackling sound?

2. did the distortion happen randomly or always at a specific time in a specific track? If so can you share the name of the track and time

3. when you reverse the connection did the distortion followed the chanel?

 

[jlbrach]

I first noticed it listening to several songs from the rolling stones mono boxset and then I noticed it on a richard thompson album mock tudor and then I noticed on pretty much everything if I turned the volume up,the distortion was such that it couldn't be ignored or tolerated....when I reversed the cable connection the distortion switched to the left side which made it clear it was the amp not the SR1a....and today I received the new amp and the problem no longer exists so Danny clearly diagnosed the problem...he told me he has had almost no problems with ribbons thus far...if the distortion problem had remained on the right he would have known it was a blown ribbon and replaced that instead

 

[EndGameSearch]

Does anyone have any new info / ETA etc on the HSA 1b?

 

[number1sixerfan]

On excellent recordings, provided bass below 40hz isn't prominent, the Raal is simply fantastic. With deep bass tracks however the TC reigns supreme. The Voce was kind of a compromise of the TC and Raal.

Have you happened to have heard the AKG K1000 before? I have a vintage pair and from what it sounds like (not just this post either), the Raal is pretty similar? I'm sure they're better, just not sure if I need to grab a pair if they are.

 

[JLoud]

I have not heard the AKG K1000. Kinda rare in the wild I would imagine. Pretty cool that you have one. Hopefully someone else on this thread can chime in who has.

 

[Sherwood]

I owned a set of K1000 for a few years and loved them. I powered them with a FirstWatt F1 I had modified with a 4-pin XLR, which was somewhat rare 10 years ago. My Raals are en route to me, and obviously my K1000 memory is far from perfect, but I’ll be happy to give you impressions @number1sixerfan