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I think rawrster's method of using a bit of electrical tape wound around so that the sticky side is fully concealed worked very well. The end result is quite similar (in form and function) to the sliders on the Ck10 and Ck100.

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Have you tried Sony Hybrids? They work very well with the ADDIEMs and you shouldn't have a problem with getting a seal.

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Ah yes, when your IEMs start sounding better than your home rig, it's time to upgrade your home rig . Or at least that's the slippery slope I went down.

Hi IJokerI, i want to tell you about JVC FXC80, it's new but looks higher model than FXC50, FXC70.

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Trying not to slide down that slope. Trying very hard. Problem is, I'm already starting to scope out other 'phones [Sennheiser HD 555, AKG K240, Audio Technica ATH-AD700, and actually, quasi-considering the AKG K181DJs you currently have FS, though I'm trying to gravitate towards an open 'phone], though I'm at least trying to keep it around $100.

Funny thing is, about five years ago, I purchased first the HD 497s, then the HD 280 Pros. I stopped there, and was pretty fine. A year or two later, I wound up purchasing the Koss KSC 75, but I was able to curb my headphone-upgradeitis. Fast forward to the present day. My search for an IEM led me to the Panasonic RP-HJE900, whose sound quality has so impressed me that I'm now finding myself wanting to at least upgrade the 497s, though I'm considering mixing in usage of the 280s and the HJE900s more at home to compensate - the 497 is still fine for activities like movie-watching. Not like that's going to stop me from looking, though.

well that's better than starting with iem's and then beginning the process of the headphone setup and getting something under 100 and then seeing that your iem's can outperform them. then you know you have to spend much more money to match the level of your iem's.

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Ugh Joker, don't remind me of these things! My beloved RX700s are starting to feel a bit outclassed... XD

My AD700 didn't take very long to get outclassed by my CK10 in treble detail

joker: would you say the e-Q7 is a more refined PFE like dfkt or james mentioned a while ago? I'm not going to buy the PFE obviously but just wondering

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Since I got my Ortos I can feel myself sliding a bit, right on my wallet, which is going to burst into flames soon

But since my HE-5s are still holding up well, I may have to torture myself with MDs and/or customs before I get back to the desktop treadmill, if ever

Joker was right, to make a graph of that whole chart was pretty crazy. So much data! To get around this I've only included the better value of the lower cost 'phones, and I've excluded some I didn't think most people would be able to get their hands on anyway. Here goes!



By the way, the values on the Y-axis are simply the average score, although maybe some people would rather just see sound quality vs. price. We'll see.

why the re0 decreased to 9.0?

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The graph displays the re0's 8.1 average score, not it's sound score of 9.

I'm sure you know it, but this thread is an amazing piece of work.

Out of curiosity, is the scoring system linear or an inverse log function? (i.e. is the gap between headphones that score 0 and 1 bigger than headphones that score 9 and 10?)

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I wasnt reffering to the graph. I meant the SQ score

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Oh ok, well joker's the man to answer that then!

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How does it sound? I'm waiting for a few impressions to surface plus better availability. I like the other JVC carbon-series stuff (namely the HA-M750) but the FXC80s are currently ~$60, which is 4x more than I paid for the FXC50.

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I think I've found a good balance with my AKG K601 + Alessandro MS2i + JVC HA-DX3 trio. The AKGs for mids, the MS2i for energy, and the DX3 for pure power. The top-tier IEMs I've tried do come very close to them. I think the age-old myth of greater bang/buck with headphones vs IEMs needs to be laid to rest because it really depends on what you're after. Yes, there will likely never be an IEM that can even come close to the K601 for soundstaging, but the high end IEMs I've tried really outclass the headphones in speed and detail. Sure the e-Q7 is pricier than the K601, but that's without factoring in the cost of my amp+dac+interconnects, which is like $700. I should have my hands on a DT770/250 tomorrow and will see where it stands, but I'm not expecting miracles. With that said, portable headphones are making less and less sense as IEMs get better and better .

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Eh, I'm not so sure. The e-Q7 has significantly better bass texture and a more natural low end while the PFE doesn't roll off as early at the top (but isn't as smooth, either). The main difference though is that presentation of the e-Q7 has 'weight'. This is partly a side effect of the texturing, but you 'feel' the sound. The PFE is more armature-like in that it always sounds light and sprightly. Might be just me, though. Also, the PFE is slightly on the cool side in terms of tonality while the e-Q7 is slightly warm. I guess in the grand scheme of things they are close enough to each other, since the pfe sounds like a dynamic-esque armature and the e-Q7 sounds like an armature-esque dynamic-driver.

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That's great, it looks a lot more readable than the one I've got. I'm thinking of following your example and taking out a lot of the boring ones and just leaving stuff that's somehow noteworthy. It should be noted that what we are all looking for is something as close to the top left corner of the graph as possible . It's funny but I think the Meelec M9, M6, and M11 are collectively closest to that ideal in terms of absolute distance. Shows that Meelec is certainly doing something right.

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That was an artifact of my changing the scaling method to accommodate the e-Q7. I use a second chart to calculate SQ score. All of the scores fell a tiny bit since the e-Q7 textures better than any IEM I've heard but that was enough to pull the RE0 down enough for me to round it down to a 9.0 instead of a 9.5 like before.

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Thanks. The system is more or less linear although it is intended to be more of a comparative scale, i.e. seeing where things fall in relation to each rather than being based on some unattainable absolute (which I have not heard). And of course I can't stress enough the importance of personal preferences.

|joker|, when are we going to see a Multi-Portable Amp Review thread?