Raal Requisite Ribbon Headphones - The new Kings!
So I received my Raal Requisite SR1A's earlier this week, delivered personally by Danny the CEO of Raal Requisite, no less! He came to Manchester after attending CANJAM in London and I spent a very interesting evening with him talking about all sorts of things audio. He is clearly a very talented partner to Aleks of Raal and it is obvious that it is the interplay and mingling of ideas that has given us this novel headphone.
So I guess the question most people have (and the one I had before I got these) is " Is it all hype?". After all here on Headfi, every new headphone seems to be portrayed as the second coming?
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...41a14e8c_h.jpgfullsizeoutput_329 by themystical2012, on Flickr
I have only had a couple of hours with the headphone but it is immediately obvious that this is the best headphone I have ever heard and I have owned and heard many of TOTL's including electrostats, dynamic and planar. My headphone of choice over the last couple of decades has been the venerable AKG K1000 and properly amped, none of the modern competition such as the Utopias, HD800's, LCD's, Stax 007's, HE60's etc have the sheer palpability, resolution, speed and impact exceeding it - equal in some respects, yes, but none of these give real people and voices playing real instruments like the K1000's do. The SR1A is the real spiritual successor to the K1000's adding bass and even more palpability, tactility, resolution and impact. In fact I perceive the SR1A to exceed the performance of the K1000's in all respects using the same set up (source, DAC and Amp)
The design of the headphones is completely non-compromising in a "form follows function" industrial way and I love it for not trying to be bling and artificially beautiful and audio jewellery like!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f7569d77_h.jpgfullsizeoutput_32c by themystical2012, on Flickr
To get the level of performance that I am getting out of these phones, I believe that you have to get the source (DAC) and the amp right. I am an Electrical Engineer by profession and my personal experience has been that whilst measured performance of equipment becomes inaudible at a certain point, the improvement comes through not as purely what you hear but the placement and soundstage, the "concentration" of the sound so that all instruments and even voices have impact and you can "physically" feel the music. The DAC that I am using is a Sabre ES9038Pro DIY with around 132dB SNR. So as not to lose this hard earned SNR in the amp, I use again a DIY Ncore NC500 Class D design by Bruno Putzey (ex Hypex) which produces 500W into 4 Ohms and 350W into 8. The amp has a SNR of 124dB and the majority of the signal including spatial cues etc. is preserved. The low frequencies are all present with due impact - absolutely no need for EQ as some people seem to need.
So is this the best headphone in the world? Probably! I have not heard the classic Orpheus or the Sony R10's but I cannot imagine these will exceed the palpability and sheer presence of the SR1A's.
At USD3500 the headphones are quite expensive but I really baulk at having to pay and extra 20-25% in custom duties and VAT here in the UK/EU and fortunately with Danny carrying them into the country by hand, I didn't have to. That is the only way I have been able to afford them. Danny had a second pair of SR1A's with him when he came to deliver mine and I persuaded him not to take these back to the States and that I would ship these to somebody in the UK/EU, hence saving on customs/VAT for the lucky person! Danny is contactable by email
danny@requisiteaudio.com but I do know that he will not be back in the States until sometime next week and that he is currently having problems receiving emails. You can PM me too if you wish.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...61136910_h.jpgfullsizeoutput_324 by themystical2012, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f0292802_h.jpgfullsizeoutput_327 by themystical2012, on Flickr
