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REVIEW: Lear LCM-2B dual driver custom IEMs - a new custom company out of Hong Kong - Page 2

post #16 of 53
4/13/12 at 10:39am
Thread Starter 
First off - I do appreciate you coming here and posting your thoughts. I don't care if they are positive or not. But I can see where the Lear folks would find it strange since by now half of your HeadFi posts are negative ones about their gear. Especially if you are known to them on their own forum from posting negative stuff there as well. Maybe it has more to do with your presentation.

As to your comparison to the TF10 - I personally find the TF10 inferior to the 2B, by a rather significant margin. It has nice bass impact but the mids are sucked out too much and the sparkle up top becomes overdone after a short period of time. No doubt they set the standard for a while but I think we have moved passed that by now. In my review, I did mention how the U shaped sond signature is hard to do right, because we all have different interpretations of how it should go. Sounds like the 2B didn't fit your ideal as much as it does for me. And that's ok!

As far as reselling and adding drivers as a better alternative.... That's a very hit or miss proposition. I notice how many of those custom upgraded models I see for sale in this forum. People spend big money on the upgrades and then move on to something else because they aren't satisfied. I'm not saying they can never sound good, but the success is by no means guaranteed. I'd much rather buy a purposely designed product myself.
Edited by project86 - 4/13/12 at 10:43am
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post #17 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by project86 View Post

First off - I do appreciate you coming here and posting your thoughts. I don't care if they are positive or not. But I can see where the Lear folks would find it strange since by now half of your HeadFi posts are negative ones about their gear. Especially if you are known to them on their own forum from posting negative stuff there as well. Maybe it has more to do with your presentation.

As to your comparison to the TF10 - I personally find the TF10 inferior to the 2B, by a rather significant margin. It has nice bass impact but the mids are sucked out too much and the sparkle up top becomes overdone after a short period of time. No doubt they set the standard for a while but I think we have moved passed that by now. In my review, I did mention how the U shaped sond signature is hard to do right, because we all have different interpretations of how it should go. Sounds like the 2B didn't fit your ideal as much as it does for me. And that's ok!

As far as reselling and adding drivers as a better alternative.... That's a very hit or miss proposition. I notice how many of those custom upgraded models I see for sale in this forum. People spend big money on the upgrades and then move on to something else because they aren't satisfied. I'm not saying they can never sound good, but the success is by no means guaranteed. I'd much rather buy a purposely designed product myself.

I understand that tf10 is not a really good standard. I also take copper (a well balanced iem) and my cm 11pro (tf10+1 unit upgrade by thousand sound in mainland) as my standard.
the feeling about lear cms is not only my own opinion, that is also aggreed by most of my head-fi friends in HK. So, its indeed quite objective.
Please forgive me for the little number of post in head-fi. I usually just read stuffs here. I am here this time telling the truth and my feeling, if you think I am here causing you trouble, please ignore me. thats fine.
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post #18 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:11am

Nice review, I'm going to dig into it later on today, but it's exciting the number of CIEM companies there are out there now.  The shells look great, I wonder what Heir, UM, and others are doing to make them so clear compared to other reshellers.

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post #19 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:21am

Swarovski adds mercury to make their crystals extra shiny

...and no I'm not saying they add mercury, just stating an interesting fact.

 

Also jackjack

Though I'm not fond of Lear's exaggeration in their advertisements, you're right now writing post after post bad mouthing them. Can you write some impressions on the details of sound quality between the LCM and your universals. I also believe that your China made UE11 would not be in the same price range as this CM.

If you tried the demo versions of the CM, then I don't think you should be commenting on their sound, since demos often fail in sound quality. If you do own a model of the LCM, please post some comparisons so you can have some evidence to convince everybody of your listening. 

 

Anyways...they do look really nice on the photos. When I got my China CM reshelled by them a year or two ago...they came back with pretty shabby quality unfortunately. I do hope that their quality did improve over the 2 years.

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post #20 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:32am

I'm not a fan of overcriticism but for the sake we have a freedom of speach. If the guy doesn't like the sound I mean It's ok to share his thoughs that maybe just saved somone's few hundreds bucks. On the other hand jackjack's critic is really strong, but apply only to demo unit. It's commonly known that demo units dont sound like final versions of cIEMs.

I refrain form commenting on anything else than the looks. Which is really eye-chatching


Edited by piotrus-g - 4/13/12 at 11:43am
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post #21 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xymordos View Post

Swarovski adds mercury to make their crystals extra shiny

...and no I'm not saying they add mercury, just stating an interesting fact.

 

Also jackjack

Though I'm not fond of Lear's exaggeration in their advertisements, you're right now writing post after post bad mouthing them. Can you write some impressions on the details of sound quality between the LCM and your universals. I also believe that your China made UE11 would not be in the same price range as this CM.

If you tried the demo versions of the CM, then I don't think you should be commenting on their sound, since demos often fail in sound quality. If you do own a model of the LCM, please post some comparisons so you can have some evidence to convince everybody of your listening. 

 

Anyways...they do look really nice on the photos. When I got my China CM reshelled by them a year or two ago...they came back with pretty shabby quality unfortunately. I do hope that their quality did improve over the 2 years.

Hi! Another guest from HK

(please do not try to google translate the following passage, it cannot be done since its written in cantonese)
我就用中文同你講. 小弟對11pro共造左3千幾, 我橫睇掂睇都within price range, 真係非常之抱歉!

demos often fail in sound quality? 我就用我聽朋友對11pro demo時候既聲黎講, 點都仲係嬴, 如果真係差咁遠, 冇必要造demo, 好似某人只出圖表就得了! 

你要我講comparison? thats easy, 就用最平衡嘅copper比:

F系: 不比copper平衡, 2F, 3F比copper多bass, 1F range最窄聲最正常(1st day demo), 2F整體最flat, 但濛!

C系: demo係用膠試, 比copper濛, 其他不值一提, 運最基本清晰都未做到!

B系: bass overwhelming, 已經比"Bass" 再多bass得好緊要, 1B係123Bbass最少一對, ipod直推可接受

整體上係濛聲, 冇高低延伸, 係冇535, xba4 啲斷頻, 但有westone濛嘅影子

有冇心踩佢定講緊真聽感, 明眼人一睇就知! 個個話我踩佢, 有幾多個跟風? 有幾多個冇聽過? 

馬老闆, 我知你睇到, 你覺得我係"利益分子" 你即管ban我. 同你講真心話又比你話, 唔出聲又唔好意思, 奉承嘅說話, sorry我真係講唔出口!

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post #22 of 53
4/13/12 at 11:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by piotrus-g View Post

I'm not a fan of overcriticism but for the sake we have a freedom of speach. If the guy don't like the sound I mean It's ok to share his thoughs that maybe just saved somone's few hundreds bucks. On the other hand jackjack's critic is really strong, but apply only to demo unit. It's commonly known that demo units dont sound like final versions of cIEMs.

I refrain form commenting on anything else than the looks. Which is really eye-chatching


thats true. We like freedom of speech and we want it. but as ive mentioned, the owner is just like a dictator and whenever we criticise his products, he gets angry! thats why Im here telling what everyone should have the right to know

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post #23 of 53
4/13/12 at 12:17pm

Sorry but I'm really bad at typing Chinese so I'll reply you in English

To be fair, 11pro, even a demon, is around 2x the price of a LCM. But I can't disagree to the fact that there ARE quite some negative comments from my own friends who tried them. 

I respect your impressions and do believe that they're real. But I do want to know, other than these negative points, are there anything they did well, or even just average?

Sound clarity is really important to me, and after hearing your reviews I'm concerned that they will sound really bad to my ears, so I will go try the demos out soon and compare them with other demo IEMs.  (even though the EM6 demo was nothing spectacular...)

 

It would be nice if you actually owned a pair of LCM and used them to review yourself though, haha

 

 

On another note...XBA4 sounds really weird to me...each driver seems to be doing its own thing, and have piercing and harsh highs.

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post #24 of 53
4/13/12 at 12:39pm

I have to admit the look and build quality of lear cms are really nice. much better than my cm, i mean the choice of colour and the finishing of the shell. however, I think sound quality is also an important factor when choosing a suitable cm for ourselves

Ive similar feeling with u on xba4. I think sony is still new to the ba market...they should learn more from westone, jh, ue and ath, and take it step by step. 

 

btw, my 11pro do cost only HKD 3 thousand and sth .around 1 thousand for a 2nd hand 10pro and a total of about 2thousand for ear impression and upgrading


Edited by jackjack2011 - 4/13/12 at 12:42pm
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post #25 of 53
4/13/12 at 12:43pm
Thread Starter 

As I always say - we are each entitled to our individual opinions. And we should not be scared to post those, even if they are unpopular compared to what everyone else thinks. There is no perfect headphone.... even the Sony R10, LCD-2, HE6, L3000, Qualia 010, and many other top level models have issues of their own. And each one will have people out there who really dislike them!

 

At the same time it is helpful to post exactly why you like or dislike something, rather than just saying it doesn't sound good to you. I didn't like the Qualia 010 when I had it. I explained why - didn't like the thin feel to it. I understand why others do enjoy them, as they are extremely fast and detailed. They just aren't for me. But I did like the Audio Technica L3000, and a lot of people found those "weird" sounding. So I do think there is plenty of room for different opinions.

 

So. Having established that, we can move on, keeping this thread a friendly discussion rather than an argument. I'm not concerned with what happens on the Lear forum - that's between them and you JackJack. 

 

I do enjoy the Monester Turbine Copper Edition as well. I think it is one of the best universal IEMs out there as long as you can get a good fit. But I wouldn't really call it a well balanced sound. See the FR chart:

 

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/MonsterTurbineProCopper.pdf

 

It's up roughly 15 dB in the low bass compared to the 1kHz point. and it drops off steadily i the highs. I still enjoy it of course, but wouldn't use it as an example of balance. 

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post #26 of 53
4/13/12 at 1:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackjack2011 View Post

Hi, Im from HK and I've heard all 9 of them. If possible, u should really try them out b4 u make a purchase.

Build qualities are really great. but for the sound, to me, they do not really worth that much, getting a pair of ue / jh could be a better choicewink.gif



I'm from Hong Kong also ...... and totally agree with that ...i prefer JH ...more .

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post #27 of 53
4/13/12 at 1:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DM323 View Post



I'm from Hong Kong also ...... and totally agree with that ...i prefer JH ...more .



yes...after hearing those demo... i prefer any CM other than lear...some may argue that we cant judge from the demos, but who would spend $400+ on CM when there're some better choices e.g Heir 4A which receive many positive comments. 

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post #28 of 53
4/13/12 at 2:19pm

Wow, what happened to this thread? And here I was just a few hours ago, thinking that I was going to have a two-way conversation with project86! tongue_smile.gif

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post #29 of 53
4/13/12 at 2:25pm

I thought the observation about the serial/part numbers being sanded off of the drivers was very telling.

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post #30 of 53
4/13/12 at 4:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomscy2000 View Post

Wow, what happened to this thread?
Now I'm starting to wonder about the same thing as with help of few more posts we could be able to safely rename the thread to "Lear misappreciaton thread"
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Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Portable Headphones, Earphones and In-Ear Monitors › REVIEW: Lear LCM-2B dual driver custom IEMs - a new custom company out of Hong Kong