Raal Ribbon Headphones - SRH1A
Jul 7, 2019 at 9:04 AM Post #1,336 of 7,746
My old hifi dealer made a speaker selector himself because the ones on the market was degrading the sound to much. The one he made was good, but according to him expansive to make and it made the sound a bit smother and fuller than without. Many, me including, liked this faint smoothing effect with most speakers :smile:.

Any specifics on the parts used? Im keen to build one.
 
Jul 7, 2019 at 9:10 AM Post #1,337 of 7,746
Jul 7, 2019 at 9:56 AM Post #1,338 of 7,746
Sorry may I know any aic10 user that tried with sr1a?
 
Jul 7, 2019 at 10:19 AM Post #1,339 of 7,746
Hi guys,
I'm pretty baffled, my Riviera Aic10 which is only 10 watts drives the Sr1a very well, the comparison with Ahb2 is all open, at this point we need to review some things ...
wow!May I have a detailed review? I am thinking to buy sr1a as well; if aic10 can do the job, I’m going for it!!!
 
Jul 7, 2019 at 12:51 PM Post #1,340 of 7,746
Sorry may I know any aic10 user that tried with sr1a?

I recognize that 10 watts may seem few, but aic10 has a special way of handling high peaks and it seems that on a direct comparison Ahb2, 100 watts and Aic10, 10 watts, you can get very high listening volumes with sr1a with both amps and I can't explain the reason, I'm just waiting for your ears to tune in to this combo ...
 
Jul 7, 2019 at 12:57 PM Post #1,341 of 7,746
I recognize that 10 watts may seem few, but aic10 has a special way of handling high peaks and it seems that on a direct comparison Ahb2, 100 watts and Aic10, 10 watts, you can get very high listening volumes with sr1a with both amps and I can't explain the reason, I'm just waiting for your ears to tune in to this combo ...
Thank you for replying!!!
I am going to have a chance to listen the sr1a in next Saturday, can’t wait to try it!
Cause I’m always going to regret i didn’t purchase a speaker amp to drive all my headphones including sr1a as it needs 100watts but aic10 only has 10watt

Will reply once I tried it! I still think it is because of the damping factor of the aic10. From what I have heard from the dealer , riviera handle the damping factor in a special way which it has a low damping factor even with its 50w or higher watt amp. So it can drives small speaker without damping the sound and make it lively speaking

Because my friend is using goebel speaker which has a very special design that is using a lot of small speakers to form the whole sound. He uses another amp before which has high damping factor and the sound doesn’t come out good.
For now, he uses riviera audio amp which has low damping factor but high watt as well to drive it. And the sound comes out very lively

I hope my riviera aic10 works with sr1a as I heard form all of you guys that it’s a great headphone even over the abyss and susvara. Will report back ASAP when I get the chance to try it!

Thanks!!
 
Jul 8, 2019 at 8:09 AM Post #1,343 of 7,746
raal4.jpg


The dark side is complete. It's the first time I felt I needed to bump 2 x bridged monos from low gain to medium gain, with any speakers or headphones.
 
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Jul 8, 2019 at 10:11 AM Post #1,344 of 7,746
Some first thoughts:

I remember reading someone noticed the vocals are withdrawn/lacking a bit. I think this is a sign of under driving these headphones. Using 2x bridged mono AHB2s on low gain as I use them with speakers/other HPs, when I first plugged the SR1a in, I was not impressed with the dynamics and noticed vocals are a bit withdrawn and there was some slight softness to the sound. That's coming from my L700/Carbon or HE-6/AHB2x2.

As soon as I switched to medium gain, everything fell into place with the SR1a. Vibrant, beautifully dynamic sound, with captivating full body present midrange. The midrange timbre is particularly good.

High gain did nothing more. It sounds a bit worse as I have to attenuate further. I guess they won't need 2x380 watts after all. :)

I am still soaking in the sound of this technology. It is a slightly different sound signature than both Stax and planars I am used to. But very good so far.
 
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Jul 8, 2019 at 10:38 AM Post #1,345 of 7,746
At the moment I believe it’s at the shop for some development work. It should be there sooner or later.
Did you guys check if the Rag2 can power these suckers? "SR1a".
 
Jul 8, 2019 at 11:27 AM Post #1,346 of 7,746
Some first thoughts:

As soon as I switched to medium gain, everything fell into place with the SR1a. Vibrant, beautifully dynamic sound, with captivating full body present midrange. The midrange timbre is particularly good.

High gain did nothing more. It sounds a bit worse as I have to attenuate further. I guess they won't need 2x380 watts after all. :)

I am still soaking in the sound of this technology. It is a slightly different sound signature than both Stax and planars I am used to. But very good so far.

I use only one ahb2 with medium gain and a new balanced cable not particularly expensive, and the voices are alive and intense, I haven't heard better even with my 2 stax 009s and Black Edition with Carbon kgss.
I can probably get almost full volume with my Merging Nadac with some low volume incisions, but I don't think that for the sr1a there is still need for more watts than those provided by the Benchmark, indeed, probably with the switch on average gain and the dac near the 0 decibel everything works to the maximum of the potential.
 
Jul 8, 2019 at 6:49 PM Post #1,348 of 7,746
I personally really like the pairing, even compared to two Vidars I came back to the Rag2 with Gungnir MultiBit.
Nice! What did you like more about the pairing compared to two Vidar's? That's not bad either because the new price point on the Rag2 is very nice.
 
Jul 9, 2019 at 1:29 AM Post #1,349 of 7,746
Nice! What did you like more about the pairing compared to two Vidar's? That's not bad either because the new price point on the Rag2 is very nice.
The low end of the Rag 2 to me is something special, exceptionally clean, reaches deep with power on speakers and the SR1a. Nothing muddy about it which is something I loathe and that has always turned me off of quite a few headphones that are renowned for their low end.

It also does a great job with mids and highs, nothing is congested.

Personally, the Rag 2 with Nexus topology is the most impressive thing to come from Jason yet. I expect it to be a great topology that can impress measurement geeks and those who only use their own ears alike.
 
Jul 9, 2019 at 5:49 AM Post #1,350 of 7,746
I have quickly compared 2x AHB2 vs 1x AHB2 with the SR1a this morning. The source is my MSB DAC V stack, balanced, with Diamond preamp option. Audioquest SKY XLR interconnects.

In my system:
- With 1x AHB2 the only good option for getting nice dynamics and energy out of the SR1a is high gain imo. The other two settings were not that great.
- With the 2x AHB2 the best option in my rig is medium gain. Low gain falls in the same scenario with reduced dynamics/softness/flatter sound that 1x AHB2 has on the two lower gains. And high gain also has a slight detrimental effect, but it is preferrable to low gain.

With a different source gains may fare diffferently I suppose. I would suggest to try individually see what works best.

This situation with the gain modes only applies to the SR1a in my experience. My speakers which are very efficient and HE-6 rock on low gain with either 1x and 2x AHB2 and it's the first time I felt I needed to increase the AHB2 gain. In principle I'd prefer to always use the lowest gain possible.

Sound wise the first observation was that 2xAHB2 improve dynamics, transient articulation, edge precision and focus further. It is quite significant. There is noticeably more pop and improved holography/imaging precision and possibly a bit more resolving. Given the choice, I found no reason to use a single AHB2 over two, with the SR1a. On high gain single AHB2 gets a similarly transparent high quality sound as with bridged monos, and most of the performance less the points mentioned.
 
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