Captain's log day 167: The crew grows weary. It has been months since we've heard Immanis' siren call and we all long for it again. We write pages upon pages of banter to pass the time but I fear that can only do so much and we may all just lose our minds if we don't arrive at the shores of Raal...

Probably perfectly fine to do that actually. I really don't think these will have durability issues.

Mine should be coming in 2-3 weeks and I'll be doing measurements with a miniDSP EARS and with in ear mics for both Immanis and Magna.

I've strangely never been amazed by Susvara like most of the people here and I think that's because I like the airy sound of estats and ribbons. Sounds like Susvara Unveiled might actually fix what held Susvara back for me.

SR-X9000 would like to have a word with you. Machined aluminum with gunmetal anodizing, exposed gold electrodes, polished screws on the grille... Beautiful. I would also like to give a shout out to DCA Expanse. The "organic" grill is extremely unique and quality and the metal folding hinges are...

Oh, I must be thinking of Resolve then, I know at least one of them critiqued it when it came out. Thanks for the correction.

If I recall correctly, they were both critical of the CA-1a too, and that's a headphone most of us here love. I think they just might not like the sound of ribbons. I find personally I have different tastes than GoldenSound. He loves Aperio, I wasn't wowed by it (think I like my X9000 more)...

If you look closely on the exposed driver, there's jagged edges. RAAL does this on their ribbon tweeters for speakers too, I think it has some kinda phase effect or waveguide effect or something like that. Old susvara didn't have this so I'm guessing this is another improvement they found or...

lol and if you modify it at all, you're banned from buying any more Hifiman headphones :smile:

Ok. My point was just that resonance/reflection was an issue with Susvara and that's something they've addressed by removing the grille, confirming my suspicions that was a potential area of improvement. Is it going to be perfect and 100% free of resonance? No.

They said it right in their marketing material they released today. Was posted a couple pages back. Edit: Found it, Roasty translated it here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-susvara.853031/page-1738#post-18157692 "The fully open back eliminates sound wave reflection"

Regarding Immanis vs Susvara price comparisons, I do think the Immanis is a bit less ridiculous than Susvara's price since RAAL is a small operation and they've also stated it takes an entire day just to make one. I can almost guarantee RAAL's costs are higher than HFM who mass produces...

No, they priced it at $7800 because that's exactly the same price as the Susvara was in 2017 when you adjust for inflation. $6k then is $7800 now. Whoops, I see now the post right before me said this too.

Wow so they fixed the one flaw I pointed out with Susvara, the odd resonance, by just completely removing the grill...

Yeah, I even recall him mentioning he designed the CA-1a to be technicals focused since frequency response can just be corrected later with EQ. I do not know if this philosophy carried over to Magna and Immanis too. From the sound of it, no, judging by how people have been perceiving the default...