Palma d'or? Though we're not in Cannes for the fab film festival, going up against thrice-priced Susvara off the same leash—both take 2.5mm plugs—was a red-carpet affair. Comparable on inner resolution, the core difference was micro textural. The thin-film membranes with their notoriously inefficient golden voice-coil traces were softer not for lower articulation or precision but for being silkier and more light-filled. That illumination is its electrostatic aspect. Our dynamic proposition countered that very resolved smoothness with a slightly edgier more robust or muscular gestalt whose flavour in terms of THD would be called small odd-order remnants. Having juxtaposed 2nd-harmonic dominant gain circuits with 3rd-harmonic variants, I've an admitted fondness for the latter if the percentage is low enough to register as minor freshness not overt bite. Many listeners instead prefer a subtle triode aroma over this pentode flavour. Either way, to my ears the DHS-1 now had met its equal. On sound I'd predict a 50:50 shopper's spread. Once price and build quality intrude, it should escalate to 90:10 or better for the Spaniard though on long-term wear comfort, the Chinese wins. Once we enter portable joy off smartphone power, it's an utter wipe-out for Susvara. Though it reads wrong when it blows up beliefs around exclusivity, I'm bullish that the DHS-1 doesn't really play second fiddle on performance. In this context which looks at price from the top down, this Palma did behave gold-plated like that famous Cannes award. By basic triangulation from having compared the Raal 1995 Immanis to Susvara at great lengths, I already knew that the triple ribbons occupy a yet higher tier on raw resolution, speed, dynamics and spaciousness. That far up the ladder the DHS-1 couldn't climb. But frolicking about on Susvara's rung for linearity and detail magnification was a big most unexpected achievement already.
The 'l' word linearity begs for just a few more words. As demonstrated by Meze for example, it's popular today to tune headphones for a distinctive 'designer' voicing. If a brand's signature overlaps our own ideals, happy days. If we're into maximal distinctiveness between recordings to have them sound more different from each other than similar, a linear tonal balance is more helpful. On that score the DHS-1 is far closer to a truthsayer than special effect. What if we don't own costly headfi amplification and front ends? What if our primary even exclusive mode of transportation is far more pedestrian? Does it still make sense to pursue the Palma or should we stop at a €799 Meze 109 Pro and call it a day? We'd ask that question on the assumption that ever dearer ancillaries scale up any given component's full potential. Even on my €469 Shanling M3 Ultra, Meze's 'exciting aka fun' voicing showed up a brighter upper midrange of minor splashiness, glint and grit on high massed strings, female vocals, muted trumpets and oscillating metal in cymbals and tambourines. The DHS-1's more even tuning lacked those hotspots with their more insistent edge. But it was also true that dumbing down the source/drive electronics shrunk the true distance between these loads. If your music consumption restricts itself to on the go off a handy or budget DAP, the DHS-1 is the overkill its disproportionate pricing predicts for that context. So I can't help but view Palma's approach of covering all angles from budget portable and bespoke stationary to sealed and open-backed as a slightly misleading achievement. True, you can drive these €2'190 cans off a €450 DAP; but who'd really do just that? This is a very serious stationary headphone which will happily accompany us outdoors on those few occasions where wearing an expensive headphone with solid wood warrants such exposure.
How about twiddling the perforated end plates until the sun sets and rises again? You could but would barely hear a difference. Again, I think that's because even in 'open' mode those backs remain 60% solid so reflective. They're never as open as an acoustically transparent mesh or filigreed grill. In my mind Palma could have gone fully sealed. Converting to 'open' is more a display of just how well executed their sealed loading is than being a performance boost. Of course who'd believe that without this unusual ability to compare the two? So the convertible aspect which gave the DHS-1 its name strikes me as more proof of concept and party trick. At first it's whoa and wicked but I wouldn't be put out one bit if it were permanently sealed. That's not just in hindsight. Compare sealed Palma to Susvara and you'll know where the DHS-1 stands. Having sketched out the basics against my relevant residents, let's now consider the Palma purely on its own merit. To start, let's handle my main niggle: hot sweaty ears. I suspect that those came from Palma's non-perforated plastic leather. It doesn't breathe, period. The 2nd-gen cloth-covered pads I obtained for my D8000 don't trigger the same response. Though Palma's synth pads look lovely, their wear isn't as nice half an hour in. It's the one design aspect that could get revisited. Even Meze's velour pads on the 109 Pro out-comfort the DHS-1's. Whilst other skull shapes might disagree, I didn't mind the lack of fore/aft swivel. For my head it wasn't at all necessary. The DHS-1 isn't a light headphone. Neither are the Raal Magna and Immanis nor my Final. I don't mind their weight class but people who listen for many hours nonstop could want something lighter. They could wait on Final's new X8000 planars rumoured to come in at just 220g. And that's all I've got on the Palma's physical aspects. Back onto sonics.
If gear gets judged by the company it keeps, naming my favourite DHS-1 running mate at that juncture LTA's Velo could be telling. Being closer to premium solid-state than tubes due to the lack of typical output iron, David Berning's patented valve circuits inject just a small but decisive dose of textural elasticity. This suited the Palma to perfection, be it on Mayte Martín's superbly modulated vocal dynamics from her Tempo Rubato album with string quartet and guitar; or Diega el Cigala's and Argentina's mostly red-lined Obras Maestras and Mi Idilio con la Habana as three Flamenco vocalists which to my mind most successfully cross over into Cuban son, boleros and salsa. Exposing the Palma to a quite faint thermionic injection didn't undermine its percussive gifts but gave tone textures just a bit more decay action. The very steely nearly glassy flamenco guitar tone which Rafael Cortés adopts on a number of tracks on his latest Espada de Fuego album benefitted the most. Here it's important to stress that the DHS-1 lacks the modern treble boost which in many tunings is supposed to give extra 'detail' or 'excitement'. It's simply quick on the transient uptake and dynamically astute. But it doesn't produce gloss, sheen or extra air as some of those lit-up designs do. It doesn't play those games.
On Mayte's newest Tatuajes album, a powerfully soloing upright managed to produce what sounded like the occasional small chamber resonance. But this was likely recorded as numerous electronica and drum'n'bass-reminiscent techno with lower content came off without any incidents. Just as this headphone doesn't turn up the treble for effect, so it doesn't pile on extra bass or thicken its feel. It's simply capable of keeping up with rather beastly down beats. Yet its focus is clearly on a neutral tonal balance, not a popular smiley-face response with elevated extremes.
