Heir Audio - The Appreciation Thread - Page 394

An exclusive club ;)....

Thanks for the info lightningfarron. I'm going to keep that website in mind and maybe have a chat later on down the road involving a balanced setup.

On the second day I had my 8.A i had quite an extensive listening session of 4-5 hours IIRC. That without the 8.A ever getting uncomfortable. I just put them in and forgot about wearing earphones. Fit like a glove. Noise cancellation is awesome (I can't hear my wife talk any more.;)) and the bass is very well refined too.

Drums kick in better/faster and sound a tad more lively/realistic/in the foreground than on my speakers, e.g on Blind Melon's "New Life" (Tom Tom sounds at the end).

 

In some well known songs I've heard many times before on my speaker system I could even discover more details/instrument layers, e.g. on Badly Drawn Boy's "The Shining", the opener of his very first album "The Hour of Bewilderbeast".

In the beginning cello and trumpet part I could hear the clicking of the trumpet valves.:) Later during the song there were very restrained synth layers in the background which I never heard before either.

 

On Travis' "The Last Laughter" from "The Man Who" there's a thump at 0:58 as if someone dropped something heavy in the recording studio.:) Also I couldn't remember hearing a sitar here.

 

Of course when compared to a speaker setup, with CIEMs you're much more focused on the music as you don't hear anything else and the music is literally happening inside your head, whereas on speakers I really enjoy the true 3D image you get when sitting in the sweet spot with the music coming from the front. If you listen to a very good recording/mix, close your eyes It's really like the artist is sitting in your living room, performing in front of you. That's what I would define as "soundstage". I never experienced that with any headphone yet, it's all happening inside your head.

Maybe I'll try experimenting with crossfeed or try some binaural recordings.

 

I left my 8.A playing music for approx. 7 hours over the last nights to "burn them in" so will see how the sound changes/improves over time.

 

So far I greatly enjoy ma 8.As for rediscovering music I know well.

 

My chain is PC (FLAC 16 bit 44.1khz, Foobar - standard Win7 sound, no ASIO/Wasapi) > M-Audio Transformer USB DAC > Magnus 1-IC > Electric Avenues PA2V2 > Magnus 1 > 8.A

And sorry for being dry about it, I was in a bad mood :( And I totally understand where you are coming from. When I had my first customs made, the courrier with my impressions found no one at the UM so brought them back to me...lost two weeks and very pissed. Hope you get them soon...and I still habe NO news of my 5.0. Cheers

 

I don't think a balanced amp is inherently better, especially for portable audio, but some of the better amps you can use are balanced. I really like the 4.A through my RSA SR-71B (I think I've mentioned that before), and the difference between using the balanced and the unbalanced outputs is noticeable.

 

You'll want a cable terminated to an Auto-IRIS plug, not an XLR, to use with the ALO or RSA balanced amps. If you tell a cable builder what equipment you plan to use it with, they should be able to figure out what hardware the cable will need.

 

Or, has anyone tried an Heir CIEM plugged into a Schiit Mjolnir, with either a 4-pin XLR or or two 3-pin XLRs?  Don't know if I'd go that route, just curious...

Haven't tried the SR71B but I can't recommend the Alo RX mk IIIb with the 4.Ai or 8.A - it's a total noise fest and even on low gain you can hardly get past the channel imbalance before everything gets too loud. 

I feel like the best would be the Schiit Asgard 2 with switchable gain is probably the best schiit amp for IEM's in general... 

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of portable amps that are tailored for balanced armature iems, why are you guys talking about Schiit amps that are designed to drive full size cans? Just because you can doesn't mean that you should. 

At the same time: Just because we can sometimes means it's worth trying.

The usual problem with desktop amps is too much gain (and, correspondingly, too much noise on many amps). A good match can occur when you don't expect it, though. I like listening to the 4.A on the Violectric HPA/V100, an amp I've also used to drive the HD 800 and HE-6.

What the Violectric has that Schiit amps don't (at least, the Schiit amps I'm aware of) is switchable gain; without that, it becomes much harder to pair a relatively high-powered amp with relatively high-sensitivity IEMs.

I've been running my Tzar 350 out of the Heir Rendition 1 amp all day... Beautiful match!

So I just put my CIEMs on for the first time. Should I be able to hear my fingers snapping? If I rub my fingers together I can't hear it but if I snap my fingers, I definitely hear it. 

Hey There,

 

I can hear the 50 Hz tone. But it isn't as loud and pronounced than the 500 Hz tone. Is it supposed to be just as loud? In terms of isolation, if I'm not playing any music and just wearing my IEMs, I can hear myself hit the space board key on my laptop but I cant really hear when I press the other keys on my keyboard. I can hear myself snapping my finger really clearly. I can also very slightly hear background noise if I leave my jaws in an open mouth position. However, if I close my jaws, I can hear less of background noise. If I open my mouth completely wide, then I can hear a lot of background noise. 

 

When I open my jaw completely, I can tell the bass is being diminished. When I close my mouth, the bass gets more and more pronounced. 

 

Based on everything I said here, what do you guys think? Bad seal or improper insertion?

 

I think they are quite comfortable. I only had them for about an hour now. These are my first IEMs. 

 

When I got my impressions done, the audiologist said no bite block. He said to leave my jaw in an open jaw position and just relax. Even when I showed him my instruction sheet, he insisted that open jaw position is best without a bite block.

 

Please advise. 

Edited by serious7 - 3/11/13 at 1:31pm

 

Choose the tip that has the 50 Hz tone closes in loudness to the 500 Hz.  The 500 Hz is just an arbitrary reference tone if I'm not mistaken using the Sensaphonics test (takes the variable of insertion depth away).  So whichever tip gives you the loudest 50 Hz tone in reference to the 500 Hz is the one you look for.  The majority of the time, it'll be just the 50 Hz vs 50 Hz.  Although they exist, IEMs that produce perfectly flat accross the 50-500 Hz spectrum are still pretty rare.  The majority of the time, the 50 Hz is not as loud as the 500.

None of the tips for 50 Hz is as loud as 500 Hz. Could you explain what you mean by "whichever tip gives you loudest 50 Hz tone is the one you look for"?