The 1995 models have well-perforated heavily wedged earpads, circular wood-finish frames and nattily bent curved steel for the bridge. The click-stop height sliders look classic Audeze. The wide nicely finished headband is another departure from Requisite's raw bands and their hole/post adjustments. The two-tone black/gold-bronze of Immanis plus wood styling and the very open grill's classy detailing are new and very different. Clearly Raal 1995 pursue a more classic buyer than established brand Raal-Requisite. "I didn't want flashy CNC detailing. I prefer understatement. For the soft-core headband there's a folded edge on both layers and diamond-patterned cushioning on the suede for better grip. Even though it's rarely seen, the stitch colour matches the wood. The headband's looped attachment around the click-stop buckle can be replaced without any tools. Weight reduction was important with the heaviest drivers to market. Immanis is still 610g. The stainless steel bridge coats in non-scratch ultra-hard titanium aluminium nitride like cutting tools. After laser cutting, it takes three hours to brush and smooth the edges, then an hour to bend it precisely before we coat it. Now there's no need to add weight and hide the bridge under wrap. The coating itself is a 450C°/8-hour process so far costlier than leather wrap. It's an even harder coating than the bodies of luxury watches undergo. With our surface being far larger, we pay a lot for this. You won't see it on any other headphone. It won't discolour either so look the same after many years of heavy use. In general I don't like hiding how things work. I hate wrapping. I like the natural appearance and fine finishing of materials. I prefer brushed to bead-blasted metal, hence our hard coating to protect the brush finish. I'm certainly aware that norms differ. However, those follow manufacturing ease, something we don't adhere to. In the olden days, people made beautiful telescopes, sextants, compasses, barometers with blueing on brushed spiral springs to proudly show off what they were made of and how they operate. After working so hard to get the ribbon drivers made and dropped in, I felt that the other details should exhibit the same care."

The exposed steel-spring bridge celebrates the same difference that exists between nude motorcycles and those fitted with fairings and plastic cladding.

"On headband comfort, the prongs self-adjust by ±6° to adapt to different skull shapes. Due to excellent ventilation, there's no trapped air to heat up and cause sweating. The default clamping force is mild. Users with narrow heads or those who prefer stronger side pressure can gently bend the spring steel inward. On driver reliability we've had a good track record and with greater efficiency for these new models and more surface area, there's less applied power and excursion so more relaxed drive. Should a ribbon need replacement, we'll have a nice dealer scheme to handle repairs or do it directly at the factory."

To address the elephant on the head, a Heddphone 2 weighs 550g, an Audeze LCD-4 put 690g on the scale before the LCD-5 successor shaved off 1/3rd. An ESS Marei AMT packed 621g, a current Abyss AB1266 Phi TC still hits 640g, a Kennerton Odin managed 680g. At 610g, Immanis sits below them, below the original 718g Heddphone and 760g Audeze carbon-fibre LCD-XC. A forum poster reports that his modified Monolith M1060c packs 826g. Far from topping this short list, Immanis remains a heavyweight regardless. It explains the extra-padded headband's bulge to distribute the load across more skull patch. On the weight score we still might call Immanis more of an earspeaker than classic headphone even though it now does look like a posh classic.

Again, ribbons differ radically from planars. "Unless it's long, narrow, between two lateral magnets, clamped only on top and bottom and regardless of Ω or percentage of plastic foil covered by a conductive layer, it won't be a true ribbon. The one exception are Apogee-style quasi ribbons which use a plastic substrate foil to carry conductive traces connected in series to increase Ω." Aside from large surface shadowing by magnets and their obvious airflow and related timing issues, planars face modal behaviour from tight surface clamping resembling a drum skin. Because their voice-coil traces must be glued/bonded to the plastic foil, they add dead weight. Only a ribbon turns each atom of its moving mass into an actively driven unobstructed conductor. Why aren't ribbons more widely produced? "A really good true ribbon cannot be mass produced and requires ancillary components."