Reviews by amanieux
TL;DR : if you prefer snappy anlaytical well separated sound with sharp imaging get hexa but if you prefer smoother, more organic and musical sound with punchier bass get olina that is often on sale for $84
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non audio related :
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-great fit that comes from it's low weight+small size (nozzle at bit larger than usual but ok for me)
-grown up minimalist black matt design aesthetics (no funky disco look or childish faceplate like dioko and pandamon
)
-comfortable small and lighweight 3d printed plastic shell ( you can see the complex 3d sonic paths of the DD and the BA in the photo below )
-good sound isolation
-ok cable for the price (on par with olina cable but not as good as s12 cable)
-average selection eartips wide+narrow only in 3 sizes + 1 size foam (come on iem makers why can't we have at lease 5 sizes to get a better fit ?) but at least i got a good seal in both ears with these silicon tips ( usually not the case i have to use differents tips on my left and right ears)
-useless leather like pouch that only protects from dust
comparisons with olina (front vent moded) ($100) and s12 ($140):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-both hexa and olina have a bright signature as opposed to s12 bassier signature but olina has more punch and noteweight (especially if you mod olina or use the most recent olina SE version, you can not mod hexa to add bass because the is no front vent hole to boost DD bass )
-most natural sounding of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
human voice sounds truer to life on hexa
-worst bass of the 3 (the order is s12>olina>hexa)
bass is fast (the fastest of these 3 iems) but is low in excitement, olina has a nice separated bass that sounds far away and below giving it a sense of 3d and s12 has the most bass quanity of the 3 with a round envelopping bass that can be boosted 6-8db without bleeding in the mids and affecting tuning, hexa on the other hand gets boomy and changes the tuning in a wrong way if you boost it past 2db.
-most details in buisier tracks ( the order is hexa>s12>olina) not sure if it is hexa tuning or the hybrid setup that gives out so much details (especially when i apply a V shape EQ profile, it gets alive ,dynamic and exciting but of course this eq is fatiguing for long listening sessions)
-worst trebble extension of the 3 ( the order is s12>olina>hexa)
both olina and s12 have more spice in their trebble, on s12 cymbals are in another category
-hexa is more anlytical with sharp separation ( the order is hexa>s12>olina) as a consequence hexa is less musical and organic the s12 and olina
-best imaging of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
agnes obel red virgin soil song has a drum on the left that hits every 3 to 4 seconds, hexa that made me believe it was coming from my room the kind of imaging i only got from my grado open back and never get in s12 or olina
-best sound isolation of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
may come from the fact that it does not have a front vent for it's DD ? there is a vent hole near the plug that look like a back DD, taping it did not change the bass level
for my use case sound isolation is important because i use my iems 90% of time from my laptop that has annoying fan noise, this is also one of the reason i switchhed from full size open back can to iems a few years ago and never looked back
the other 3 reasons i left full size can are :
* iems have amazing subwoofer like bass
* iems don't require a powerfull amp to sound good (7hz 71 with 70mW is only $30 and is enough for any iem)
* iems have a much smaller footprint and are 100% protected in a small hard case, great if you travel a lot like me
-does not hum like my s12 when i plug my source in a plug that does not have a ground pin thanks to it's plastic shell isolating current from the shell to ear skin ( all metal shelled iem should have a non conducting layer over the part of the shell that touches the ear skin because in old europe, there are still many 2 pin ac plugs without ground pin)
- hexa has agressive upper mids tuning that gives a lot of texture and details but that is a bit too much for my taste (hexa was supposed to use good quality knowles dampers but i don't hear velvely upper mids they are on the harsh side). this harshness is my biggesst sound quality complain with hexa, this extra enegy in upper mids is more fatiguing than olina and s12, i have a "classical" eq preset that corrects that on hexa but i'd rather not use eq at all. (the order for fatigue free long music sessions is olina>s12>hexa)
source pairing :
-----------------
hexa required the most power out of these 3 iem the power requirement is hexa>s12>olina.
i tried apple dongle and es100 with a 2db bass boost, even without eq i get slightly more bass from my ess100 90mw bal output than from the apple dongle or the es100 SE output so i'd rec a source with at least 50mW/32 ohms for hexa
conclusion :
--------------
-good price performance ratio, it an easy recommendation at $80 because it is a sidegrade and not a downgrade (except maybe in smoothness) over the pricier olina and s12 ( if you have already olina or s12, hexa is still a good buy because it has a different tuning that let you rediscover your music library hearing new things you were not hearing with olina or s12, my general position is that as no iem is a perfect all rounder, it's better to invest in 2 or more iems with different tunings that add variety to your listening experience over a more expensive slightly better sounding iem ( for example i'd rather buy hexa+s12 for a total price of $210 over aful performer 5 at $220)
-if you can strech your budget to $100 i'd rec olina (or better olina SE) over hexa because it has more note weight, while being less aggressive so easier to listen after 4 or 5 hours and more trebble extension (but beware of the condensation problem that olina has, if you are in a hot climate pick the hexa instead)
-if you listen mostly to techno and action movies with earthshaking bass i'd rec s12(or better z12) over hexa and olina
-if you prefer a snapier (coming from faster BA ?) more anaytical sound with good separation pick hexa over olina or s12 that are more on the musical and organic sound side
-don't trust graphs because hexa/olina/s12 graph did not show that s12 has much more bass than hexa and olina nor that hexa has this extra aggresive energy in the upper mids, only trust you ear !
peace and music !
==============================================================================================
non audio related :
---------------------
-great fit that comes from it's low weight+small size (nozzle at bit larger than usual but ok for me)
-grown up minimalist black matt design aesthetics (no funky disco look or childish faceplate like dioko and pandamon
)-comfortable small and lighweight 3d printed plastic shell ( you can see the complex 3d sonic paths of the DD and the BA in the photo below )
-good sound isolation
-ok cable for the price (on par with olina cable but not as good as s12 cable)
-average selection eartips wide+narrow only in 3 sizes + 1 size foam (come on iem makers why can't we have at lease 5 sizes to get a better fit ?) but at least i got a good seal in both ears with these silicon tips ( usually not the case i have to use differents tips on my left and right ears)
-useless leather like pouch that only protects from dust
comparisons with olina (front vent moded) ($100) and s12 ($140):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-both hexa and olina have a bright signature as opposed to s12 bassier signature but olina has more punch and noteweight (especially if you mod olina or use the most recent olina SE version, you can not mod hexa to add bass because the is no front vent hole to boost DD bass )
-most natural sounding of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
human voice sounds truer to life on hexa
-worst bass of the 3 (the order is s12>olina>hexa)
bass is fast (the fastest of these 3 iems) but is low in excitement, olina has a nice separated bass that sounds far away and below giving it a sense of 3d and s12 has the most bass quanity of the 3 with a round envelopping bass that can be boosted 6-8db without bleeding in the mids and affecting tuning, hexa on the other hand gets boomy and changes the tuning in a wrong way if you boost it past 2db.
-most details in buisier tracks ( the order is hexa>s12>olina) not sure if it is hexa tuning or the hybrid setup that gives out so much details (especially when i apply a V shape EQ profile, it gets alive ,dynamic and exciting but of course this eq is fatiguing for long listening sessions)
-worst trebble extension of the 3 ( the order is s12>olina>hexa)
both olina and s12 have more spice in their trebble, on s12 cymbals are in another category
-hexa is more anlytical with sharp separation ( the order is hexa>s12>olina) as a consequence hexa is less musical and organic the s12 and olina
-best imaging of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
agnes obel red virgin soil song has a drum on the left that hits every 3 to 4 seconds, hexa that made me believe it was coming from my room the kind of imaging i only got from my grado open back and never get in s12 or olina
-best sound isolation of the 3 ( the order is hexa>olina>s12)
may come from the fact that it does not have a front vent for it's DD ? there is a vent hole near the plug that look like a back DD, taping it did not change the bass level
for my use case sound isolation is important because i use my iems 90% of time from my laptop that has annoying fan noise, this is also one of the reason i switchhed from full size open back can to iems a few years ago and never looked back
the other 3 reasons i left full size can are :
* iems have amazing subwoofer like bass
* iems don't require a powerfull amp to sound good (7hz 71 with 70mW is only $30 and is enough for any iem)
* iems have a much smaller footprint and are 100% protected in a small hard case, great if you travel a lot like me
-does not hum like my s12 when i plug my source in a plug that does not have a ground pin thanks to it's plastic shell isolating current from the shell to ear skin ( all metal shelled iem should have a non conducting layer over the part of the shell that touches the ear skin because in old europe, there are still many 2 pin ac plugs without ground pin)
- hexa has agressive upper mids tuning that gives a lot of texture and details but that is a bit too much for my taste (hexa was supposed to use good quality knowles dampers but i don't hear velvely upper mids they are on the harsh side). this harshness is my biggesst sound quality complain with hexa, this extra enegy in upper mids is more fatiguing than olina and s12, i have a "classical" eq preset that corrects that on hexa but i'd rather not use eq at all. (the order for fatigue free long music sessions is olina>s12>hexa)
source pairing :
-----------------
hexa required the most power out of these 3 iem the power requirement is hexa>s12>olina.
i tried apple dongle and es100 with a 2db bass boost, even without eq i get slightly more bass from my ess100 90mw bal output than from the apple dongle or the es100 SE output so i'd rec a source with at least 50mW/32 ohms for hexa
conclusion :
--------------
-good price performance ratio, it an easy recommendation at $80 because it is a sidegrade and not a downgrade (except maybe in smoothness) over the pricier olina and s12 ( if you have already olina or s12, hexa is still a good buy because it has a different tuning that let you rediscover your music library hearing new things you were not hearing with olina or s12, my general position is that as no iem is a perfect all rounder, it's better to invest in 2 or more iems with different tunings that add variety to your listening experience over a more expensive slightly better sounding iem ( for example i'd rather buy hexa+s12 for a total price of $210 over aful performer 5 at $220)
-if you can strech your budget to $100 i'd rec olina (or better olina SE) over hexa because it has more note weight, while being less aggressive so easier to listen after 4 or 5 hours and more trebble extension (but beware of the condensation problem that olina has, if you are in a hot climate pick the hexa instead)
-if you listen mostly to techno and action movies with earthshaking bass i'd rec s12(or better z12) over hexa and olina
-if you prefer a snapier (coming from faster BA ?) more anaytical sound with good separation pick hexa over olina or s12 that are more on the musical and organic sound side
-don't trust graphs because hexa/olina/s12 graph did not show that s12 has much more bass than hexa and olina nor that hexa has this extra aggresive energy in the upper mids, only trust you ear !
peace and music !
