[GuyForkes]

You have to understand that the SR1A is just a different beast than Susvara. They are so different, but both are technically excellent in their own. Susvara is very analogue sounding with greatness across the spectrum. It's thick and impactful with mids to kill for. The SR1A is the fastest set of ear speakers I have heard. It is so fast it can make bass sound lacking, but in fact, the bass is very present but it decays so quickly, it doesn't hang around. This is purely a matter of preference. The treble also extends forever in the SR1A. You may love that or may feel a little fatigue

Great review, why Kylo though? lol

It mirrors my own experience with both these headphones. The SR1a is the fastest most impressive "Ear speakers" I've heard and is what I let my friends hear when they come over just because of how impressive it is. It does get fatiguing after about 2-3hrs of listening for me. The Susvara on the other hand is "analogue" and holographic (esp on my 300b amp), it's the headphone I use most after a long day at work. It also helps that the Susvara is by far the most comfortable TOTL I've experienced.

 

[bluesaint]

What amps did you use for the comparison on the Susvara and 1266 phi? Because putting all three on the Nagra INT, the imaging on the SR1a's is a country mile better than the 1266 phi's and the Susvara's. It's not really even a contest in terms of raw precision. Keep in mind that this is an amp that I would rate as being far better than the Formula S and competitive with the Mass Kobo 406 for the 1266 phi's, yet somewhat underpowered with the SR1a's.

From reading the description, the NAD is an Ncore amp? I wonder if the amp is struggling to keep up with power demands of the SR1a's. Unfortunately there are very few speaker amps that perform extraordinarily from about 1w of output to 100w+. The Jade II is also IMO a warm and extremely soft system and not what I would rate as "great imaging", and to my ears the Susvara is far more precise than the Jade 2 on the right amp.

Echoing Alex's sentiments a few dozen pages back, I guess I am still a bit skeptical that you can get the proper amount of the control with the SR1a's using both class D and an SMPS. Even Esoteric, who makes some of the best class D amps on the planet, stick with LPS over their entire product line. With the SR1a's you have huge amounts of variation and rapid fluctuations in power demand, and presumably control suffers if the amp can't rise to the challenge.

I can't disagree more, even the 6 moon review is using off the shelf ncore. The m22 V2 has way more continuous power (300wpc @8ohm) and dynamic power (400wpc @8ohm) than the nagara.

Even the old V1 version there were folks preferring that over the AHB2 and that's what Raal used to design the SR1a.

The speaker attenuator box even says dont feed it more than 150w on it.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Assuming that the 91db/W figure is that of the headphones only, sounds like you really need 10 watts of pure class A per channel into .2 ohms.
My uberamp2 running on 24V rails with the bias turned up to 5 amps will certainly do that. Main benefit would be a much higher damping factor.

@kevin gilmore
With the cable that we're using now, and will use in the future, the cable + headphones are ~0.6 Ohms.
We rated them at 100w/8Ohms amp on interface box, which makes 5Arms.
To do the same at 0.6 Ohms, 15W will be needed.
Damping factor is irrelevant for SR1a. The amp could easily be a current source without any change in ribbon behavior.

As for the de-emphasis curve for SR1a, it must be done with RC filter somewhere in the amp.
I can provide support for that if you're interested in making the amp for SR1a.

 

[llamaluv]

If you can only have 1, it comes down to signature preference. Ideally you have both.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Seth Warshavsky]

I actually almost tried the NAD M22 today, but my experience with all of the other class D amps including the Lyngdorf and a few others is that they don't really sound as good as the class A/B amps with the SR1A.

Has anyone else actually compared the two and found a class D the prefer?

Thanks

S

 

[HoloSpice]

I can't disagree more, even the 6 moon review is using off the shelf ncore. The m22 V2 has way more continuous power (300wpc @8ohm) and dynamic power (400wpc @8ohm) than the nagara.

Even the old V1 version there were folks preferring that over the AHB2 and that's what Raal used to design the SR1a.

The speaker attenuator box even says dont feed it more than 150w on it.

I don't like his ipro DSD

 

[Tekunda]

Yo

Dear Kylo Ren, I would be very grateful for a short comparison between the S1RA and the Abyss 1266 phi.
Thanks in advance.

 

[gordec]

What amps did you use for the comparison on the Susvara and 1266 phi? Because putting all three on the Nagra INT, the imaging on the SR1a's is a country mile better than the 1266 phi's and the Susvara's. It's not really even a contest in terms of raw precision. Keep in mind that this is an amp that I would rate as being far better than the Formula S and competitive with the Mass Kobo 406 for the 1266 phi's, yet somewhat underpowered with the SR1a's.

From reading the description, the NAD is an Ncore amp? I wonder if the amp is struggling to keep up with power demands of the SR1a's. Unfortunately there are very few speaker amps that perform extraordinarily from about 1w of output to 100w+. The Jade II is also IMO a warm and extremely soft system and not what I would rate as "great imaging", and to my ears the Susvara is far more precise than the Jade 2 on the right amp.

Echoing Alex's sentiments a few dozen pages back, I guess I am still a bit skeptical that you can get the proper amount of the control with the SR1a's using both class D and an SMPS. Even Esoteric, who makes some of the best class D amps on the planet, stick with LPS over their entire product line. With the SR1a's you have huge amounts of variation and rapid fluctuations in power demand, and presumably control suffers if the amp can't rise to the challenge.

I don't have much experience with speaker amps. M22 V2 is a class D, so you think even with good power and design, class D may not play well with SR1A? You think a good class A can improve upon imaging and make SR1A fuller sounding?

 

[P.Car]

Gordec,

It comes down to synergy. Some gear just doesn't work well with certain speakers (and headphones in our case).

I don't think it's the SR1a's fault.

I have run into the same issues with certain speaker and equipment combos. It made me change my system or sell the speakers / gear.

Anytime I introduce new gear in my system, I have to make accommodations to get the best results.

Just plugging a new headphone into gear that works for other headphones may not give you the results you're looking for, etc.

A good example is feeding B&W speakers with Class D amplification. It's most likely going to be too bright of a presentation which is why most B&W users power them with more laid back gear such as tube amps or more laid back Class A amps.

This is just my experience...

 

[lambdastorm]

I actually almost tried the NAD M22 today, but my experience with all of the other class D amps including the Lyngdorf and a few others is that they don't really sound as good as the class A/B amps with the SR1A.

Has anyone else actually compared the two and found a class D the prefer?

Thanks

S

Don't let the Class D tag fool you. It might be a class D but it sounds anything but Class D. I can't speak for nCore since M22 was the only nCore amp I owned, but when I still had them they're hands down the best amp I've tried with the HE6. It's pricey but the sound puts all my Class A amps to shame.

 

[HoloSpice]

What RAAL

"Due to unexpected sales volume, orders placed today will be shipped May 1st."

Website.

 

[bluesaint]

Don't let the Class D tag fool you. It might be a class D but it sounds anything but Class D. I can't speak for nCore since M22 was the only nCore amp I owned, but when I still had them they're hands down the best amp I've tried with the HE6. It's pricey but the sound puts all my Class A amps to shame.

More importantly Raal used Benchmark AHB2 to design the SR1a and that only has 100wpc... and even the older NAD M22 V1 had more power, and even had folks prefer that over the AHB2.

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.p...2pi1e1mrm1&topic=128950.msg1420218#msg1420218

 

[bluesaint]

Also not sure why folks can't believe some find sr1 less full sounding than susvara or other cans. Its actually a strength of thr sr1a. Raal's target audience for sr1a was for pro use where accuracy of their creations and recordings are of most importance, not audio euphoric, which usually comes in the form of coloring/distortion.

 

[lambdastorm]

More importantly Raal used Benchmark AHB2 to design the SR1a and that only has 100wpc... and even the older NAD M22 V1 had more power, and even had folks prefer that over the AHB2.

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.p...2pi1e1mrm1&topic=128950.msg1420218#msg1420218

No wonder. The best part is you can pickup a V1 for around $1500 these days, half the price of a brand new V2 and the only thing your missing out is a phono stage and some very incremental bump in power.

 

[Zhanming057]

I can't disagree more, even the 6 moon review is using off the shelf ncore. The m22 V2 has way more continuous power (300wpc @8ohm) and dynamic power (400wpc @8ohm) than the nagara.

Even the old V1 version there were folks preferring that over the AHB2 and that's what Raal used to design the SR1a.

The speaker attenuator box even says dont feed it more than 150w on it.

Well, Srajan used a number of amps including an Ncore.

Continuous power doesn't say anything about power delivery. For example, a car could get to 300km/h and that would say nothing about it's acceleration ability. And with the SR1a's, if you hit 150wpc, the "acceleration" of the amp is a lot more important that max wattage. I'm not saying that the Nagra is great in this regard - my current-heavy DMA150s2 is quite a bit better at delivering dynamics than the Nagra - but my experience has been that LPS+ Class A/B is usually a lot better than Class D + SMPS in this regard. I suspect it's mostly the power supply, as the fundamental design of SMPS does not lend itself to rapid increases in power draw. Speakers may be power hungry but they rarely demand the instant 1w to 50w leap that the SR1a's need as a part of its design.

The AHB2 is an interesting product and I'm not sure about the best way to characterize that particular power supply design. But I would be surprised if it can't at least outperform the NAD in terms of rapid output ramp-up.