More impressions on the RAAL as heard at
@cradon's on his Pass integrated amp. Nothing very different to add really, but...
- Resolution pretty much blew me away. Easily one level above anything I've heard from a headphone. Loved this aspect above all other things. Full of nuance, air, all of it. After two days now since hearing them, it's still nagging me how detailed they sounded.
- Imaging was really interesting and easy to appreciate. In the one vocal track I tried, the vocals in the 'center channel' literally floated in front of my face, and sounded very convincing and lifelike. Easily the most compelling out-of-head headphone moment I've ever experienced.
- Bass was fast and tightly controlled, and definitely has a different kind of presentational style that what I'm used to, but in a good way. On two bass-heavy tracks though, I felt they gave out too quickly (listening at about 80dB). I'd want to verify this with more headtime though. But even if my initial impressions remained intact, I could see living with one or two important shortcomings due to what they do so well.
- The tonal balance of the mids to me remain an open question, as they sounded recessed in the lower half of the mids, a little like when you hold headphone drivers away from your ear (which I guess makes sense since that's what these are). However, after a couple minutes, I didn't notice it as much as my brain made adjustments. I imagine that EQ could mitigate this somewhat, and that there's probably a sweet-spot in the "yaw" adjustment that could minimize this. Would definitely want more head time to be able to form a better opinion on it.
My one take-away, echoing what
@bozebuttons mentioned earlier, was that at the very least, they would make for a very, very interesting secondary headphone (Whether they could pass muster as a "primary" headphone, I don't have an opinion on yet).