Heir Audio 4.Ai - Appreciation/Impression/Review Thread - Page 8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swimsonny 

I hope your basis of all of this post was done from A/Bing them separately and not with one in each ear. The whole magic of a sound signature is the complete thing and like that you would not be able to ear the presentation and imagery for example as well as the imbalance of frequencies in each ear would just be wrong. Anyway other than that, nice impressions.

 

However, you have said that the bass is better on the 3 and the details on the 4 so clearly the 4 is overall a quicker earphone. What about the mids, highs, soundstage, and the best thing about the 4 IMO, the imagery, how does the 3 compare. Keep up the good impressions.

I only did the one-of-each thing for about 5 minutes - The rest was a/b testing :)

I actually don't think the 4.Ai is faster. Slightly brigther mids, more detail-focused presentation and leaner bass. But faster? Not so sure about that yet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by putente 

 

 

Don't you mean the concha? See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_ear

=.= dang it...ok yes yes. the concha lol. obviously im not one familiar with his ear anatomy...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cotnijoe 

=.= dang it...ok yes yes. the concha lol. obviously im not one familiar with his ear anatomy...

That's why we all thank Wikipedia... 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swimsonny 

Oh good good!

 

Fair enough, so they have similar instrument separation and capabilities of handling fast passages of music! Do you agree iwth the 4.As amazing presentation though or is the 8.A still another beast there? ;)

The 4.Ai is extremely capable when it comes to details and seperation, better than the 3.Ai as well. Both handle fast passages very well, the 4.Ai just etches them out clearer than the 3.Ai. 

The 8.A is the best of both - and then just a tiny bit more. But not really that much, I have to tell you...

still got 3 more weeks to go.

DAMN!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sorensiim 

The 4.Ai is extremely capable when it comes to details and seperation, better than the 3.Ai as well. Both handle fast passages very well, the 4.Ai just etches them out clearer than the 3.Ai. 

 

The 8.A is the best of both - and then just a tiny bit more. But not really that much, I have to tell you...

This is the thing, the 3.a design offers fun, the 4.a design offers accuracy, the 8.a offers them both,and that is the beauty 8.a. The sad thing is, to get to that sonic state, it required a lot of drivers, and a tremedous amount of test and re-testing.

I still love the 8.a design and sonic signature, but for "on the go" style listening, the Ai's are more practical.  They are light weight, easy to remove and insert etc etc.

Also I need to add a disclaimer, the double flanged ear tips were not supplied with these test products. The double flanged ear tips allow the Ai to fit more flush or "nestled" down into the concha area (bowl area of he ear)

I use the double flanges myself, and they also feel as they sit less deep into the ear canal....   They will be supplied in the Sept 1+ shipments.

Wizard

Mr. Wizard, can you please detail the sonic differences in the mids and highs between the 4.Ai and the 3.Ai? You were great explaining the diferences between them in the low end... 

Copy and pasted from the Heir Appreciation thread. My first impressions of them out of the box.

Early Impressions:

Fit is nice. my ears are TINY and these manage to fit well. Isolates very well and insertion is deep.

Instrument separation and layering is really really well done. First thing i noticed on these. Soundstage pretty good, there are other options with bigger and more open sound, but key to these is accuracy. Particularly vertical. Listening to acapella, you can almost tell which guy is taller and which is shorter =)

The bass impacts pretty hard but very controlled. Definitely bass heavy but very fast and accurate (wont consider these bass head phones...but bass is definite significant). mids are nice. vocals come forward without being too in your face. highs seem a little bit lacking. Enough to keep the sound spacious but texture of things like the snare drum is a little lacking. Decay is also a little too fast for my taste. will see how that goes through some burning in.

sound signature took me a little time to get use to but these are sounding better and better! =) For the price point, there's no doubt these will be bringing a lot of competition to other iems.

And the accessories it comes with is definitely a big plus. Included the otterbox, some rubber bands (which was a really nice touch =D) , cleaning tool, and 6 sets of tips (3 red and 3 purple). Unfortunately i cant get the purple tips onto the iems to save my life... will keep trying though!

So far so good and congratz to Wizard and Heir Audio on another great product.

ps. dont think i need to say much else about how these things look? =)

Hard to say...

The speakers for the mids and highs are the same. But the capacitors are different, so they are tuned differently.  Beyond that there is something called "upward spread of masking."

Basically it means low freq have more energy, and can over ride high freq or mask over high freq = muddy signature.  To combat that,  did some impedance matching work etc, and used different capacitors in order to insure that the 3.A had enough bite in the mids and highs to compensate for te strength of the lows.

For the 4.A, a smaller bass driver so I was not too worried about a muddy sound signature, but more worried about a high freq driver being too screechy so that was mellowed out some in the tunning process.

The Heir Audio line up was built over a 5 year time period so there was a lot of testing are retesting and all tuned by the ears, at the time I designed them, I didn't have a testing machine.   I used my ears "Grado Style."

Wizard

I am not happy I discovered that these exist... I was already pretty set on Westone UM3X or Earsonics SM3, but these just look so pretty! I guess I'm gonna have to wait to see when they come out and more people have impressions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FullCircle 

Hard to say...

 

The speakers for the mids and highs are the same. But the capacitors are different, so they are tuned differently.  Beyond that there is something called "upward spread of masking."

 

Basically it means low freq have more energy, and can over ride high freq or mask over high freq = muddy signature.  To combat that,  did some impedance matching work etc, and used different capacitors in order to insure that the 3.A had enough bite in the mids and highs to compensate for te strength of the lows.

 

For the 4.A, a smaller bass driver so I was not too worried about a muddy sound signature, but more worried about a high freq driver being too screechy so that was mellowed out some in the tunning process.

 

The Heir Audio line up was built over a 5 year time period so there was a lot of testing are retesting and all tuned by the ears, at the time I designed them, I didn't have a testing machine.   I used my ears "Grado Style."

 

Wizard

Thank you very much! You have a wonderfull way of clearly explain these things!