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RAAL requisite CA-1a Headphone Review

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 172 81.5%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 26 12.3%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 7 3.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 6 2.8%

  • Total voters
    211

Endibol

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Every single headphone review here reinforces the fact that the more expensive headphones are the worse they perform.
Except for Amir's favorite Dan Clark Stealth..
 

SuicideSquid

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Except for Amir's favorite Dan Clark Stealth..
I think it's been shown pretty conclusively through tests of DACs, amps, preamps, CD players, headphones, and speakers that, with the exception of high-end studio monitor speakers, there's just no real correlation between price and performance.

There are cheap DACs that blow away some expensive DACs, but there are also some expensive DACs that perform really well. There are cheap DACs that suck. There are amazing expensive headphones, amazing cheap headphones, garbage expensive headphones, etc.

The adage "you get what you pay for" just doesn't seem to apply at all in the audio world, for anything except high-end studio monitors which pretty consistently blow away the cheap stuff.
 

AudioJester

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Absolutely, but you do get something meaningfully better if you step up to a KH310 or Genelec 8361.

The level of performance you can get on a budget these days if you're smart is pretty wild, though.

Completely agree. For even less money there is the Kali Audio line up. To me just as good as my equivalent Neumann and Genelecs for far less.

Are these Raal ribbon tweeters designed for speakers? Have they been measured in a speaker configuration?
 

Robbo99999

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tomchris

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The headphone market has been whacked for quite a while. I believe the ball started to roll around 2004ish. There has literally been no real progress made other than coming up with the next boutique "flagship", steampunk infested headphone. More outlandish styles and exorbitant prices hightens the appeal to audiophile trophy headphone crowd more than measurements.:facepalm:

Other than Sennheiser HD580/600/650, I see no reasonable performing headphone for a reasonable price out there.
 

poxymoron

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I voted poor. It doesn't matter how good it sounds after EQ, for $2500 it should sound exceptional straight out of the box.
 

SuicideSquid

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The headphone market has been whacked for quite a while. I believe the ball started to roll around 2004ish. There has literally been no real progress made other than coming up with the next boutique "flagship", steampunk infested headphone. More outlandish styles and exorbitant prices hightens the appeal to audiophile trophy headphone crowd more than measurements.:facepalm:

Other than Sennheiser HD580/600/650, I see no reasonable performing headphone for a reasonable price out there.
AKG K371 performs very well for a very reasonable price. There are several models of Hifiman that also perform well for reasonable prices.
 

Garrincha

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The headphone market has been whacked for quite a while. I believe the ball started to roll around 2004ish. There has literally been no real progress made other than coming up with the next boutique "flagship", steampunk infested headphone. More outlandish styles and exorbitant prices hightens the appeal to audiophile trophy headphone crowd more than measurements.:facepalm:

Other than Sennheiser HD580/600/650, I see no reasonable performing headphone for a reasonable price out there.
There are also several cheaper Hifiman models worth the money, like the HE400 or the Sundara, and then you can get a used HD800 (S), which with EQ is a marvel.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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On a plus note, at least now it bares a resemblance to a headphone or some other apparatus meant to be put onto ones head. Still the construction is just terrible... like something you would make with a 3D printer and a trip to Home Depot to get some hardware and foam window gasket strips.
 

PeteL

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Given the extra box, one would think that they could put in a passive equalizer in there to compensate but they have not.
If this transformer box is designed to be driven by a high power headphone amplifier, it's not trivial and it would be quite pricy.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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If this transformer box is designed to be driven by a high power headphone amplifier, it's not trivial and it would be quite pricy.
I was thinking the same thing, and it would probably be possible to put a network in there, albeit it would make the box bigger and the impedance more complex and potentially too difficult to drive by a headphone amp. But a speaker amp could probably make short work of it, and given the driver topology has more opportunities for interacting with the pinnae and actually giving something unique imaging-wise, it would be worthwhile. At least getting the response inline with actual headphones and giving good imaging could justify a high price. As it is, its really nothing more than a ribbon tweeter shoved into a 3D printed headphone cup with some foam gasket tape on it. Cheap, nasty, and wildly overpriced.
 
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