Hot wings. Despite AKG's K-1000 serving as conceptual precursors later resurrected as Mysphere 3 by original designers Renner and Ryback, Raal's revolutionary SR-1a open-baffle ribbon headphones still were very spicy wings when they first bowed. Whilst cognoscenti had long known of Raal's transformer-coupled ribbon tweeters in choice loudspeakers, nobody had seriously considered their fitness as full-range transducers on the head—except for Serbia's Aleksandar Radisavljević. Already in 2008 he showed me a prototype ribbon headphone during my RoadTour Serbia visit. 10 years later his winged mad-scientist Raal-Requisite SR-1a project had single-handedly opened up headfi's 4th category after its dynamic, planarmagnetic and electrostatic establishment. HEDD subsequently added the 5th category of wideband AMT. Pioneering the ribbon class presented designer Alex with many challenges nobody yet had tackled. Two of the most obvious ones were what to do about the transformers necessary to step up the 0.2Ω input impedance otherwise behaving as virtual dead short; and how to source the 7A his loads could draw on current peaks. His first solution was the above-right interface box filled with impedance-multiplying load resistors. With that we sourced the requisite voltage/current drive from our 100wpc speaker amp's binding posts. Later SAEQ/solid-state and Solaja/tubes authored direct-drive amplifiers to eliminate the interface box. Schiit's Jotunheim R followed suit. Alex's next generation of ribbon headfi birthed the Raal 1995 brand and its triple-ribbon Immanis and twin-ribbon Magna. Unlike the winged original which required baffle-step compensation, this new breed used well-vented cups to exploit strategic chamber loading for lower/louder LF. The original resistor-based Ω adapter became a barrel with an inner step-up transformer which could be topped by a mushroom riser to double as headphone stand. This trafo presented the driving amp with a benign 32Ω impedance. It blew open the doors to standard headphone amps capable of ~3W/32Ω output. Meanwhile SAEQ continued to work on direct-drive transistor-based amplifiers. Tube designers at Allnic, Solaja and Woo added extra windings to their output transformers to generate special direct-drive taps. Woo's transistorized WA12 Zircon bypasses its tubed stablemates' output iron. Either way, by 2026 ribbon headphones were not only here to stay. They'd set up shop at headfi's summit and prompted upscale headamp makers to accommodate them. When at the August Shanghai fair SAEQ premiered their €13K flagship Hypnos amp with ribbon-direct male XLR4 port and switchable baffle-step compensation, eagle eyes knew. New nude ribbons from Raal 1995 were around the bend.
At right we see the custom step-up silver-wired magnetics inside the ribbon current-drive interface.
Picking up the scent, I sent this cheeky email to Alex: "It appears that I'm signed up to do Dragan's new Hypnos amp once he has worked his way through a bigger Chinese opening order. It's how I learnt that you're working on successors for your original winged SR-1a/b. Is it too early for you to get into anything more specific?" Line cast. Would even the tiniest critter bite?
Looking at this Jecklin Float from the mid 80s, 'bite me' should be the normal reaction. How not to end up with a silly hifi helmet was the reductionist challenge which the Mysphere 3 whittled away at. Above we saw how Alex ticked that box with the SR-1a/b models.
We might rightly conclude that never mind the serious tech challenges of making on-head ribbons work in the first place, it's even more of a ball breaker to make openly baffled variants wearable. After all, they can't attach like a deer's antlers which won't slip no matter the head angle. With different head sizes to accommodate and the words comfort and low weight flashing like a Las Vegas billboard in the designer's mind, we might think of the industrial design cum build aspects as just as difficult to ace; if not more so. So I was just as curious to see what team Raal 1995 were up to as I was keen to lay ears on it—eventually.
Was I expecting actual nibbles on my cast hook? Asking any designer to pop the cork before the inaugural party isn't fair. Hello Covid to Brexit, Ukraine to Gaza, Iraq to Trumpian tariffs to the AI race gobbling up parts resources. Making any announcement ahead of time is virtually guaranteed to run into unforeseen delays and their many side effects. A designer could well conclude that keeping shtum is far preferable until there's actual inventory to ship. With its right-most toggle switch, this next Hypnos shot is simply a dead giveaway. Whether by mid August 2026 Alex could say any more about them or not… nudie Raal 1995 ribbons were coming!
Incidentally, the only non-Raal ribbon headphones I ever heard of were the 0.1Ω GL1200 from China's Gold Planar. According to Google AI, "production stopped shortly after their initial 2021 release". Hence team Raal 1995 remain the exclusive player in the ribbon headfi sector. They cannot stand on the shoulders of anyone who came before. Like pioneers in other sectors, they must bootstrap all-original R&D themselves. That nobody else has answered this particular siren call in the intervening years rather suggests how demanding it must be to realize ribbon headfi as a commercially viable product. For now all progress and permutations in this league come from Aleksandar Radisavljević and team.
What will their 3rd generation look like? Hot wings, baby? Let's calm our appetite. "I asked Dragan to add the OB EQ feature not because there's some concrete plan behind it yet but because he's not planning to make any more flagship models in the next two years. During that time, I might want to revisit OB. If I do, it would be nice to have an existing flagship SAEQ amp ready. We just want to keep the options open for both of us. In the meantime, SR-1 owners can already make use of the feature. Speaking of direct ribbon outputs and baffle-step EQ, the next one with that feature will be a new Trafomatic 300B amp. Aside from the three you mentioned already and the upcoming Trafomatic, there's also the Auris Audio Headonia 300B II with ribbon-direct output. It is very nice to see all of this being accepted and incorporated in excellent amps."
