Full specs. Magna weighs 530g with composite glass-fibre/aluminium 10cm Ø shells finished in hard-waxed American walnut veneer and anodizing. The grille is 3-phase etched stainless steel, the bridge titanium aluminium nitride hard-coated brushed stainless steel. The soft-cushion headband's skin side is suede. The click-stop height adjuster has five steps. The ear pads are memory foam faced in lamb suede, textile on the inside, perf leather on the outside. The circular ear-pad opening is 64mm. The input connectors are 3.5mm female TRRS. The twin ribbons are corrugated aluminium with a 'silent metal' viscous damper skin. The combined surface area is 16.8cm². Max SPL are 115dB. Impedance is 0.038Ω which rises to 0.27Ω with the dedicated 1.8m S2 headphone cable terminated in a female XLR4. The amp-to-interface cable is 1.5m. The three ribbons of Immanis increase the surface area to 25.2cm², shell diameter to 11cm and impedance to 0.057Ω which the 1.8m Star-8 MkII headphone cable raises to 0.29Ω. Max SPL add 3dB. The circular ear-pad opening increases to 74mm, weight to 610g. The grill adds gold plating. Other than size, weight and colour, the two differ also in the detailing of their bridge, headband stitching and included cable. The Magna ribbons have almost 29% more surface than the CA-1 driver to equal the SR1. The Immanis ribbons nearly double the CA-1's surface and outsize the SR1 x 1.45. Between each other, Immanis brings 50% more surface area to bear than Magna and incorporates a larger front chamber. Xmax for these ribbons is ±4mm."

The interface doubling as stand contains a toroidal step-up transformer which converts a voltage-drive amplifier output to a current-drive signal for the ribbons. Suitable amplifiers on the interface will have low output impedance, less than 10mV of DC offset and see 32Ω (8Ω/16Ω on request). "The reason for a single-Ω interface is simple. We no longer chase max power but compatibility with all decent headfi amps. For reference, where the SR-1 needed six watts for a given high broadband SPL and the CA-1a 3.8W, Magna gets equally loud on just 2.4 watts, Immanis is down to 1.5 watts. Immanis only needs 25% of the SR-1's power."

Raal 1995's presence at the 2024 CanJam Singapore event.

On sound. "I basically wanted an experience where nothing bothers us but we still hear everything in the right proportions. I've kept the SR1's midrange transparency but made it smoother. I extended the highs but removed the information-overload sensation that some people had with the open-baffle ribbons. There's no information loss but more refinement to maintain presence. Magna refines the SR1's mid/high presentation and continues it linearly all the way down. It's a very neutral sound right up the alley of SR1 aficionados but with more textured and extended bass than the CA-1a. With Immanis I used its extra surface area to tune the sub 1kHz bandwidth for a fuller richer sound with bass to match so extra weight and punch. I wanted more gravitas in the lower-mid/upper-bass transition for just the right amount of orchestral or choral body without overdoing anything. As with Magna, the CA-1a's low end merely resembles it but it's not a good comparison. The SR1's signature 'edge' feels softer now though isn't really. The shift in perception comes from the sub 1kHz region now having more body. If in this new tonal balance the original transient bite were really softened, we'd sacrifice its life-like energy and presence. A choir shouldn't sound dull or muted. We want to hear deep into individual rows yet the basses, baritones and altos should all have proper weight. The difference between Magna and Immanis is perhaps like two high-end speakers with 15-inch woofers but one with larger cubic volume. They're both correct but the larger one will sound bigger.

"Soundstaging for circumaurals exceeds usual limits because of a large leakage zone right in front of the ear canal. The wide-open front of the ribbons sees the room to clean up the usual chamber reverb and compression of conventional circumaurals. It also creates far superior sound leakage to the other ear than if the vent zone sat behind the ear. This deliberate openness creates a sense of spaciousness that's more pronounced with Immanis. Now I can enjoy big symphonic music for two hours without any fatigue yet no information loss to make it so. It's simply a different perspective than the SR1. With modern music it depends on SPL and how much compression was applied during mastering. For example, I can listen to the Florence & The Machine Dance Fever album twice in a row or my Mark Knopfler playlist for hours on end. It's the red-lined constant dense banging of heavily compressed metal or rock which never lets up that has me seek out other genres after one album. Poor recordings still clearly signal that they're poor but don't become unlistenable. We can listen to them to the end because now there are fewer problematic playback areas in the headphones. Now inherent headfi issues don't compound with recorded issues. It's simply not because I obscure any information. It just presents better I think."

A square or rectangle inside a circle leaves obvious gaps. Here we see the large 'leakage zones' Alex mentioned earlier on either side of the central ribbon cluster. One gets closed, the other remains open.

Assuring a user of a 40wpc speaker amp with 16Ω output taps, "you won't have any problems with our 32Ω interface. You'll develop 20wpc at lower distortion. The problem with tube amps arises when you go below the load impedance which their output transformer expects. Within reason so up to 4 x, there's never an issue going above. If you have a SET that does 6 watts into 8Ω, it will produce 1½ watts into 32Ω. Here Immanis generates the same SPL as the SR1 through the TI-1c's 8Ω input. Our new 32Ω loading is compatible with all decent headphone amps because that's the low end of possible load impedances which they've been designed for, high impedance being 300-600Ω. For a headfi amp, 8Ω would be out of bounds." This emphasizes again how via its 32Ω default loading, the new interface is groomed for standard headphone amps of sufficient power. It's only users of speaker amps which will order the interface at 8Ω.

A nice 6SN7 upgrade option for the VM-1a's input is Psvane's CV-181T. So is Sophia Electric's Full Music Premium 6SN7.

On suitable amplifiers. "It's not as clear-cut as with the SR1. Magna and Immanis don't need a big warm amp to complement their tone balance. Now the choices are far greater. It's more about personal preference, not about what the headphones may need. As control amps during R&D, I used our HSA-1b, the VM-1a in pentode and at 32Ω my Benchmark AHB2. For voicing I used the SAEQ Hyperion Ge and FirstWatt J2 both at 32Ω and the VM-1a in triode. Those latter three represented a group with very similar organic sound in which the J2 sounded a bit bigger than the other two which are almost identical. We also had an SAEQ HSA-1c which wasn't strictly developed to sound best with ribbon headphones like our Raal-Requisite HSA-1b but to inject more life into planars in general and be more versatile. I listened to its XLR inputs and it was a bit too open for me like the Benchmark which is no longer my favourite amp. I next wanted to explore our C version at greater length so tried its RCA inputs and things settled down nicely. Then I used a smoother cable and that was it. Next my control group of four local speaker-based audiophiles commented on the Hyperion Ge vs. HSA-1c at pretty high SPL. The result was 50:50. My vote didn't count but I'm in the Hyperion Ge camp. So it broke out as you'd expect. Good low-distortion amplifiers can still have 2nd-harmonic or 3rd-harmonic dominant THD where it's well known that a general audience tends to split quite evenly in their preference. The HSA-1c is not a typical representative of the odd-order 3rd harmonic group but close enough, the Ge a typical representative of the even-order 2nd harmonic with an almost logarithmic envelope of the other harmonics up to the 5th and practically nothing beyond that. If you listen at low SPL, you won't hear much difference. It takes loudspeakers to really load beefy amps like these. At headfi levels particularly if you listen softly, it's more likely that an amp's general tonal balance influenced by its choice of capacitors, wiring type and layout dominates."