Welcome to Requisite Audio
We are the exclusive North and South American distributor of RAAL 1995 True-Ribbon headphones, and a premier vendor of luxury personal-audio equipment.
We established a legendary name in the professional recording sector, earning an elite reputation manufacturing hand-built tube electronics, high-end professional monitoring equipment, and specialized studio outboard processors.
Building on our expertise in how music is made, we shifted our focus towards how music is heard, and now cater to customers across the world seeking perfection in their home audio experience.
Meet the Founder
Danny “Sage” McKinney’s journey in sound began as a fourth-generation musician. With deep musical roots tracing back to Nashville pedal steel, banjo, and violin players, Danny spent his early career in Los Angeles playing double bass and cello in renowned film and session orchestras. He first visited the coastal town of Ventura, California in 1968 at age eleven—the very place that now serves as the home base for Requisite Audio’s daily operations. Self-taught in electronics, Danny built his first tube amplifiers at just ten years old and eventually went on to lead legendary pro-audio manufacturers Standel (which he owned for 28 years) and Quad 8, crafting world-class mixing consoles for elite clients like Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, and Ray Charles. He also served on the development team for the Alesis ADAT, the historic multi-track digital recorder that democratized the modern recording industry.
To bridge the divide between “the creator” in the studio and “the connoisseur” at home, Danny founded Requisite Audio to produce hand-built vacuum tube electronics, microphones, and mastering processors. Frustrated by the flat, "foreign" listening experience of traditional headphones, Danny set out to engineer personal audio equipment that could replicate the physical tonality and spatial awareness of room speakers. This pursuit sparked a twenty-year partnership with master Serbian ribbon-tweeter designer Aleksandar Radisavljevic, culminating in the development of the world's first true full-range ribbon headphone in 2018, the SR1a. Today, Requisite Audio serves as the exclusive North American distributor for RAAL 1995, continuing to champion the absolute pinnacle of high-fidelity listening through next-generation True-Ribbon™ masterworks: MAGNA and IMMANIS.
“The art and science of High-Fidelity is our discipline.
Blending both into balance, whether capturing musical magic in the studio or finding it, upon playback in your home.
This is our purpose, the timeless joy of music.”