RAAL-requisite SR1a Has Landed

[lambdastorm]

On 2/27/2020 at 4:39 AM, Energy said:

I heard from reviews that some find the RAAL SR1a's a little bright. To me it feels like many ribbons and electrostatics do not punch as hard dynamic headphones or even planar's like Abyss, Audeze, or HiFiMAN and emphasizes the high frequencies. Is this true? I do know the new HEDDphone is more balanced but still has somewhat of a fixture on treble qualities that I don't find to be good sounding.

I don't think any headphone is going to out-punch Abyss any time soon. I own the OG 1266 and it's hands down the punchiest headphone I've ever heard, and that's including my HE6 driven by B22. Heddphone on the other hand, I heard the prototype at AES last year, the bass is monstrous. But it looks like they went with a different tuning with the final product. 

[lambdastorm]

For those who are curious about heddphone vs RAAL, here are my 2 cents. I heard the Heddphone prototype at AES, at the time there were 3 tunings. One bass heavy, one bass light, and the last one near-field (I think?). My favorite was the bass heavy one. The bass is carnivorous, and the extension is really good. I heard the RAAL at a friends house a few months back. Dunno what his driving them with but it has to be the most resolving headphone there ever is on this planet. The details are presented in a very brutal fashion. It's not even like electrostatics. Electrostatics offer a ton of detail but they at least do it somewhat naturally. These things just outright highlight detail and punishes any recording with bad mastering. I don't really agree with its tonality, as its way too bright sounding for me, but damn the resolution of these ear-speakers is just unparalleled.