Sad how this comment section has turned into more banter about the boring ass gl2000. These headphones are the worlds first sealed true unplated ribbon design, so their not even comparable to the raals, and yet its going to take an eternity to see even one other person opinion on it. Litraly nothing else could sound like this, so Iām hoping more reviews can be made about this sooner than later. A least zeos sending dms would be a nice start.
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I hope you at least didnāt use the affiliate link
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Nah, I almost never do
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Very much looking forward to hearing some thoughts on these once some people get them. I would love to try them but there is quite a massive entry fee between the headphone itself and getting a whole new speaker amp just to power them.
Well my bitching just got answered. You people are as crazy as those that bought the original lcd 2 back in 2009, though those were a third less and at least came with a warranty. I salute you.
Yep, the trick is to only let the crazy out in small doses. I usually research products I buy very heavily before buying. But for some reason I decided this is the one time Iāll be the guinea pig.
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what are you using to power these? The only headphone amp in the world that was designed to run ribbon headphones is the jotunheim r. That thing is only designed to accept loads between 0.1 and 0.2 ohms and at harmonic distortion 0.01 which is unheard of outputs that absurdly low. My worry is that another commentator on the YouTube video said his pair lost all dynamics and body once plunged into his class d emotiva bass x and other cheaper class d speaker amps. They sounded ārightā when he plugged them into a jotunheim r or his much larger and more expensive class a amps. Not that im asking after you already spent $1400 on this to buy some krell mono blocks or something, but it does look to be the same situation as the raals, were the source you use can drastically alter the way they sound. I guess the best outcome would be for you to use them on a less than ideal setup and still think they are the best things ever.
I read that the Raals really shined on the more expensive and powerful speaker amps. I live in an apartment so donāt have any of those. Iāll be picking up a Jot R to power these with an adapter. There is one guy on Drop that claims this works. I do have some low powered desktop speaker amps, and a friend of mine has a vintage 100W amp that Iām also going to try out with them just out of curiosity.
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Damn you are really dedicated to this. Yes the raals use a femal xlr cable so the r has a male socket. So you just need a female to female adapter.
Part of why Iām still intrigued by these despite the cost is that I do have numerous receivers and power amps floating around in storage to be able to test this, from mid-to-upper tier Denon HT receivers from the early 2000s, to some classic power amps like a Phase Linear 400 and Carver M-1.0T and M-4.0T. Iād be curious if any have the oomph to drive these and what the differences might be.
Of all the things out there that I could want to buy if I had modestly fat stacks ā THIS is the one thing that has really captured my attention. This excites me.
Wow I didnāt know you were on here. Someone over at head fi noted that there are two different ribbon models being used. This was confirmed when someone pulled theirs out to reveal it was a different model than another users. There is a āsilverā one and a āgoldā one. John Massaria had practically the same conclusion as zeos with his set, and he is a man a trust a lot to evaluate headphones. Maybe you got the other model which was worse?
In other words, for the low price of 1500ā¬ you get a chance for a good headphone, or you get the āFriday couldnāt be arsed specialā.
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In other words - itās a GoldPlanar 
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For reference, the one I got was from Linsoul as well. I expect that to be the same. I actually like itā¦ sort of. Surprisingly, the velour pads have the better tuning by a mile - even though it still sounds a bit muffled and congested in the upper mids due to an imbalance for treble harmonics. But, with EQ the presentation here is interesting. Thereās a hint of microdynamic blunting going on in the lower regions, but the mids and treble have an interesting way of representing details and textures in the music - almost in like a āsofterā way. Also, the staging is really quite unique.
So, bottom line for me is that this is hard no without EQ, but with EQ thereās some potential (I like it better than the GL2k for example)
So how much power is actually needed to do these justice? Looking at what I have lying around unused at the moment, I have the following:
Denon AVR-3200 (1998). 80 watts/channel x 3 @ 8 ohms
Denon AVR-2807 (2006). 110 watts/channel x 7 @ 8 ohms
Or I could use the preamp outs from either and bolt on an ancient Phase Linear 400. 210 watts/channel @ 8 ohms.
If none of those options will suffice, Iāll probably pass as I donāt want to have to invest gobs of money also into an amp.
Based on the review on Headfi and Zās video, I would say 100W into 4 ohms is the minimum. I just got the package with the headphones today, and the back of the interface box says 150W max 6 ohm load.