2nd or 3rd base? The main Magna/Susvara base flavour resembled 2nd vs 3rd-order dominant THD. Single-ended amps often represent the even-order flavour, push/pull amps the odd. That's because push/pull cancels even harmonics. Triode vs pentode tends to mirror the same distinction. In practice with my chosen ancillaries, Susvara had more upper-mid/lower-treble forwardness or bluish bite. It's why my 300B are usual Susvara mates. Magna didn't need their triode injection so I omitted them. Whilst as basic as cow manure, it's critical to remember that such characterizations need context. That's particularly so when transducers magnify circuit tunings like these two. It's academic whether phrasing this difference in harmonic terms was really down to measurable distortion. The difference sounded like it even if actual cause lay elsewhere. Susvara was a bit crisper in the presence region, Magna more relaxed. Wherever particularly bowed strings show up en masse, be it in classical Western repertoire or contemporary Middle-Eastern music, 1-3kHz briskness triggers like a barometer. Some listeners refer to it as feeling slightly acidic or etched. I call it rust because it sounds both metallic and dirty so oxidized. It won't matter whether we spin up a Baroque period ensemble or the Istanbul Strings accompanying the Ayoub Sisters. Massed violins, violas and celli put a cruel jeweller's loupe on the presence region. How well a system renders it on such material can become a make-it/break-it deal to certain hyper-critical listeners. In their terms of most organic string tone, Magna passed, Susvara not quite.

Maxed-out headband proved just right for my head.

The second difference circled dynamics. Particularly on the mule kicks of bass drums which in real life energize considerable air volume, Magna rendered impact and shove with more enthusiasm. Let's assume this was due to the ribbons' greater excursion potential. As previewed already, their bass quality is exceptionally adroit and fast stopping. It shines a light into the lower octaves' textural nuance and pitch differentiation. Those elude more primitive bass makers which merely go loud and low but apply far less enunciation and distinction. Once we cue up complex tracks like "Gold Dust Bacchanalia" from the Mychael Danna soundtrack to Mira Nair's Kamasutra movie, we come across real drums and synthesized bass beneath them. Click the album cover to hear a YouTube version. Applying the same kind of separation across the first octave which most hifi does quite easily in the midrange is a gnarly task. I like the otherwise contentious word apartheid. It keeps neighbouring, front/back or octave-doubled images apart to not clump together like cat litter. In the bass, few headphones are fully equal to that. Both Susvara and Magna are but the Serbian added to shared separation powers more wallop without the usual cheat of resonances. In the treble both headphones tracked triangle hits and cymbal crashes with alacrity. Susvara leaned more into platinum hues, Magna was more golden. This tracked with my earlier THD comments. What tracked as well was Magna's greater dynamic welly. What I call the firefly mist which explodes for a fractional microsecond around hard-struck oscillating metal blitzed higher and farther with the ribbons, too. With full-range transducers, that made sense in hindsight. If they're more dynamic in the bass, why wouldn't they be in the treble?

I believe that some listeners conflate dynamics with frequency response. I certainly was guilty of this when first encountering AMT-fitted Mark & Daniel speakers very many moons ago. Initially they sounded top heavy and bright to me not because their response was hot. It's because their dynamic envelope outshone what the conventional mid/woofers could do. This discrepancy wouldn't factor until I spun up fare with real presence/treble peaks. Suddenly those rose higher so got louder than usual to suggest HF forwardness when in fact they simply showed up the dynamic compression of lesser dome tweeters. Like pleated foil tweeters, ribbons pack treble dynamics which eclipse what planar and dynamic headphones of my acquaintance can do. The SR1a really drove that point into my noggin with an ice pick. It soon enforced a reset of perception. Once that overwrote my prior status quo, I began to systematically eliminate heavier darker less 'live' headphones from my collection. I'd heard the light so the shadow brigade had to go. I already mentioned how the SR1a encounter even overhauled my speaker systems. Those now sport AMT tweeters exclusively across all three systems. So it's important to restate that my gender change to ribbons dates back. I've fully transitioned. From that perspective neither Magna nor Susvara strike me as treble forward. Au contraire. Susvara became my favourite precisely because its immediacy and speed eclipsed all others in my collection. Then the SR1a levelled me up again. Back on bass impact, two cover-linked tracks are "How low can you go" from Antonio Ramos Maca's Hotel Groove; and "Oriental Bass" from the Patrick Chartol album Istanbul. For still lower synth bass, Mercan Dede is my go-to techno magician.

Today I can't predict how a ribbon newbie particularly of young out-to-20kHz ears might react to Magna. My 1962 ears heard nothing to suggest any HF briskness. That's back at Alex's new tuning. For my tastes which developed and changed over 20+ years of intensely regular exposure to many different sound signatures, Magna matches Susvara on overall transparency, quickness and immediacy then adds greater dynamic range and a subtle but obviously effective infusion of tone mass. Of course dropping a new toy into a hardware context that was carefully curated around what came before rarely nets full potential. Subsequent adjustments are nearly always called for. That said and having trialled different configurations, my ears preferred Magna.

Wearing my judging cap, I view both as head-on competitors including relative efficiency. Preference should depend on build quality, cosmetics, comfort and whether on the harmonic balance one is a triode or pentode fancier so prefers a slightly richer or somewhat fresher undertone. Magna sounds warmer if for a change we translate that to mean harmonic weighting, not the time blur from overhang, resonance and resultant bloat; or overdone fat bass. Speed is still the deed but there's nothing haggard or desiccated. Picking up Alex's earlier racetrack comment, Magna adds leather seats, trunk space and street-legal mirrors to a nude dragstrip machine. It still goes fast but no longer feels it. On that score Susvara felt racier to me if by the same token also leaner and subtly edgier.

Both designs seem inherently neutral and technically advanced. In practice they are so resolved or responsive that strategic changes in their electronics can create quite different personality profiles. Dislike the slightly bluish undertone of Susvara? Add some 2nd-order triode THD. Prefer Magna slightly leaner and twitchier? Pick a wide-bandwidth transistor amp. That paints in broad strokes but makes the point. If you know your beans and have the needed hardware, Susvara and Magna can be made to sound more alike than not. The 'not' should come down to dynamics and how that shifts us a bit closer to nearfield 'live' sound. In my estimation here these ribbons have an undeniable technical advantage. Immanis will presumably still expand upon that by adding surface area? But first, some brotherly discord between Magna and the SR1a off my Jotunheim R direct-drive amp. With its baffle-step correction selectable by frontal toggle, both headphones drove correctly. And yes, snobs could view this Schiit amp as too low rent for flagship cans. After my good results with FiiO's R7, that didn't worry me.