Just received HiSoundAudio Crystal.. 6 KHz peak?

Hi,

I just received my HiSoundAudio Crystals earlier tonight. The first thing I noticed upon plugging them into my Sansa Clip+ was a severe ringing peakiness in the upper mids / lower treble. I found this to be very distracting, always drawing attention to itself and ruining every track. I tried several of the included silicone tips with the same result. So, I plugged them into my laptop and started some pink noise in Audacious (linux), and the peak was very clearly audible. So, I enabled the LADSPA host, along with a single band parametric plugin. At the moment, it's set for -12 dB @ 6200 KHz with a Q of 0.4. I haven't spent a lot of time dialing it in yet, but it's MUCH better, actually listenable now. Without EQ, I can't tolerate them. The sound is extremely shrill and sibilant. I'm really surprised no one else has mentioned such a severe flaw. Luckily, I have the Rockbox firmware on my Clip+, so I'll be messing with the parametric EQ on it later. However, I'm still very disappointed, as I'd hoped for better.

On top of this, I spent several weeks or more waiting for stock at frogbeats, as I was unable to find an online retailer in the US. Then I came across a rather messy looking website, AdvancedMP3Players.co.uk, and saw that they had them in stock for over $20 cheaper than frogbeats, so I placed an order with them. The payment was subtracted from my account and I received the usual email confirmations etc, including a notification of shipment from FedEx. All was going well. Then, I suddenly receive another notification that they were out of stock. I emailed them back, asking them to cancel my order if they were indeed out of stock, but didn't get a reply until several days later. Finally, after at least another week, I receive the refund in my account, and used the 10% discount code from frogbeats that they'd sent me when they got the Crystals back in stock (I'd previously sent them an email, inquiring about stock). They were shipped out promptly, and received within just a few days. If only I'd ordered from fogbeats in the first place. I guess that's what I get for trying to pay a cheaper price tag. Thumbs up for frogbeats.

Seal is fine. Yeah, I searched as much as I could before buying them (and had plenty of time to do it, since stock was a problem). I'm surprised I never came across anyone else mentioning it, as it's very apparent. I don't see how anyone could possibly miss it. I've found similar problems to be very common with cheap earphones that come with portable players (I usually throw them in the trash), but for $100, I think it's unacceptable. No complys around here to try, or I would. I suspect that it wouldn't help though.

I'll take $100 shipped to US and Canada. Otherwise, I'll be returning them. :(

Hmmm.. it seems that many IEM's with measurements available on the Headroom site indeed have a peak centered around this frequency, while others that are described as being very balanced, such as the Etymotic MC5, have a large dip here. I suppose the Hisound Crystal is one of the former. This really throws me for a loop, as I was so set on them, and don't know what else to get. Ety MC5 is said to be inefficient, Sunrise Xcape breaks, RE-ZERO has a silly "balanced" plug that requires a lame adapter, and so on..

Shipped the Crystals back to Frogbeats the other day, and received Etymotic HF5 from J&R yesterday for the same price..

MUCH better! An entirely different league. The Crystals were on par with that of stock earphones that come with portable players.

These HF5's, on the other hand, are more along the lines of what I was expecting. Now, I'm just trying to figure out which tips to use.