The RAAL-requisite HSA-1b headphone and speaker amplifier
THIS ISSUE: Herb reviews an unusually powerful headphone amplifier that’s also intended for driving speakers.
Today is Monday. Since Saturday, I have changed the amplifier driving my Falcon Gold Badge LS3/5a speakers three times—from the Parasound Halo A21+ (250Wpc into 8 ohms) to the Pass Labs XA25 (>25Wpc into 8 ohms) to the Elekit TU-8600S (9Wpc into 8 ohms). Now I am listening to the Falcons via the just-arrived RAAL-requisite HSA-1b headphone and speaker amp. This unusual, made-in-Serbia amplifier is priced at $4500. It’s specified to produce 10Wpc into 8 ohms, 20Wpc into 4 ohms, 40Wpc into 2 ohms, and 55Wpc into 1 ohm, these values from the loudspeaker output.
Just before I installed the RAAL HSA-1b, I was playing an unusual EMI LP called Renaissance Suite featuring music for Joël Santoni’s 1974 film La Course en Tête (HQS 1415). This film chronicles, in a strange and wonderfully artistic way, the career of Belgian cycling star Eddy Merckx. What’s most strange is that the score is composed and arranged by British early-music specialist David Munrow and played with great vitality by the Early Music Consort of London. Imagine a sports documentary featuring the sounds of droning bagpipes, tromba marina (“nun’s fiddle”), and rauschpfeiffen accompanying guys in tight shorts and bright-colored shirts pumping skinny bikes up European hills.
Using the 300B Elekit TU-8600 to drive the LS3/5as, Renaissance Suite displayed a wood-and–gut-strings tone that made Munrow’s early music feel authentic, medieval, and trés exotique. Its temper was fresh and celebratory, but the sound was soft-focused.
When I connected the Gold Badges to the RAAL HSA-1b amplifier, the sound became noticeably firmer and better defined. With the HSA-1b, the score’s flow and momentum dominated my awareness. The music had more energy. David Munrow’s compositions made more sense when the music pumped harder.
When I switched from the woodbox Falcons to RAAL’s SR1a wideopen full-range ribbon Earfield Monitors—loudspeakers to ear speakers—I experienced a clearer, more focused “view” of this
