[Jerseyboy]

Thanks Jerseyboy. how much is that YFS speaker cable for SR1a?

Hi, USD325 + postage.

 

[cladane]

P.Car,

Yes sounds good but I think that reading the thread I kept in mind those 300w reference amps spoken about.
Waiting for a set of SR1a and it will be another personal point of vue.

 

[yates7592]

Are the stock cables the same wire spec for both the adapter box and headphone runs?

 

[WilliamWykeham]

Cladane,

Read through the thread a little bit.

All of your questions have been answered and amplification has been discussed previously in this thread...

The SR1a sound great with lower powered amps as well as high powered reference amps. If you hit the target that RAAL has laid out for you concerning minimum power requirements, you should be all set.

You don't need to spend big money to get great sound. It's all in this thread if you care to do some digging...

Not sure it’s quite this clear cut. The person who introduced me to the sr1a, @Zhanming057 says that a high powered amp will get you the best sound, whereas Alex is using a 100W amp. And Cladane’s question was about the best possible sound for audiophiles, not just a great sound.

 

[P.Car]

Good call.

Fair enough... I apologize.

The best possible sound requires the best possible amp.

Is that a fair assessment?

I assumed this was obvious but maybe not?

There's plenty in this thread describing what is stated above. Use a super audiophile-grade expensive amp and you get really good results.

The SR1a scale up really nicely with reference gear in the chain.

I guess what I'm saying is a lot of questions being asked have been addressed previously.

No harm meant by my post at all...

 

[P.Car]

Are the stock cables the same wire spec for both the adapter box and headphone runs?

I believe Zanming057 covered this a few pages back. Alex pointed out that the speaker cables need to be fairly thick.

Using a 14 AWG speaker cable is probably your best bet.

The headphone cable needs to be 20 AWG for long runs to deliver proper current.

Hopefully that helps you.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

As far as the designer is concerned it looks that amplification isn’t so expansive or huge W amps demanding. Good news.

Benchmark is renowned in the professional field and I have understood that SR1a was conceived for that purpose. Does it mean that listening at those headphones for audiophile pleasure requires another kind of amplification ? Much more $$$$ ?

Well, that depends on the audiophile in question.
I don't really know what other audiophiles consider being pleasurable, as I consider most of fellow audiophiles' systems out there - wrong in one way or another, being products of misconceptions laced with voodoo, empty spaces being filled with propaganda and as a final touch, seasoned with snake oil...But for me it's the clearest music possible, with flat tone balance and without harshness of any kind or flavor of any kind.
To get there, you don't need none of the things mentioned above that always cost a lot of $$$, especially after a properly done feed-forward-error-correction came out for $3k, to make the foundation of a superb sounding system.

 

[Zhanming057]

@yates7592 @P.Car

Paraphrasing Alex's comment, no more than 0.9 ohms for the headphone cable, preferably 0.2 ohms. Speaker wire needs to be 18 awg or thicker especially for longer runs.

 

[Zhanming057]

P.Car,

Yes sounds good but I think that reading the thread I kept in mind those 300w reference amps spoken about.
Waiting for a set of SR1a and it will be another personal point of vue.

There are two questions here:

• Can the SR1a's sound great on a $3k amp? Yes, absolutely. I would point to something like an 2.5b3 or Chord 2650 as a concrete example that I have listened to. The AHB2 I assume is also very good with the Sr1a's, if not even better than these since the headphones were developed on the AHB2's. But I wouldn't go much cheaper than that, there are good options at $2k new or a bit cheaper, but not many amps that don't have obvious issues below the $1,000 mark.
• Do they scale upwards in many aspects on (some) more expensive amps? Also yes. If you want to get really good tube sound with the SR1a's, for example, I can't think of a really good option for short of $10k new. Maybe some of the hybrids out there will work really well, though. And I doubt that the AHB2 is as good as a really, really high end system that also has good synergy with the SR1a's. And one might subjectively prefer a particular tuning. From my experience with the AHB2 (before I bought the SR1a's, this was with the 1266 phi) it's an entirely neutral amp, and the SR1a's are neutral headphones, and to me it's reasonable to prefer some coloration to the overall presentation. The Bryston's are probably going to be a bit more restrained with more bass presence, and if you use a KT150 amp you get slower bass and treble rolloff.

Personally, I feel like the amount of improvement I get from the headphones by upgrading my two setups (replacing the Nagra INT with two Classic AMP's, or more likely, moving to the DMC 30SV as a preamp) is still worth the price. Neither setup is as neutral as the AHB2 but they are exciting in different ways. To me, the scaling is still there, but you will need to find your own balance of how deeply to invest in the system.

 

[P.Car]

^ Good points here reiterating that the sky is basically the limit with these cans.

The SR1a has got me excited about audio again.

It's crazy what they can do with both a budget system AND a reference system.

IMPRESSIVE!

 

[koven]

Isn't it paired with a Vidar at many shows? That seems contradictory to the statement that anything under $1K has issues? Would a subpar pairing be used to showcase? Maybe, I don't know but seems strange.

 

[cladane]

Yes @koven, question.

Clearly different point of vues : Flat tone balance / Some coloration to the overall presentation. Prices following.
Without any doubt very neutral headphones.

At some price level, why would someone invest a large amount of money in an headphone system and not into a speaker one ? Assuming that this person has no system at all.
Would it be that the SR1a can challenge a very good speaker system ? (It is the Abyss advertisement but words for me).

 

[BreadMaster]

Just got my SR1A last week, the condition on my pair is not good. It smelled like Danny was wearing this while smoking... Yuck! The bottom of the headband appears to be flaking, overall it looks like a dirty looking pair that i got. Looks like a heavily used pair, instead of selling me a brand new unit.Besides the headphone, the pelican case too looks dirty, with the sticker label ripped off leaving the glue residue on it. felt like i got the short end of the stick here...

Not the kind of quality you would expect for a 3.5K headphone.

 

[Zhanming057]

Just got my SR1A last week, the condition on my pair is not good. It smelled like Danny was wearing this while smoking... Yuck! The bottom of the headband appears to be flaking, overall it looks like a dirty looking pair that i got. Looks like a heavily used pair, instead of selling me a brand new unit.Besides the headphone, the pelican case too looks dirty, with the sticker label ripped off leaving the glue residue on it. felt like i got the short end of the stick here...

Not the kind of quality you would expect for a 3.5K headphone.

The smoke is probably from the laser cut foam, they have a rig that burns out the shapes in the Pelican foam for the headphones and box. I don't know anyone who ordered a new pair and received a used Pelican, though. Did you buy one of the reviewer pairs?

 

[Jerseyboy]

Does anyone know how many SR1a's are out in the wild now ?