Cosmic Ears - new CIEM company with crazy low prices (including Hybrid designs!) - Page 68

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q Mass 

What kind of sound sig' do you favour davidcotton?

I don't like "bright" if that means anything, nor did I particularly like the bass of something like the monster turbine range.  Bass would dominate everything so you'd end up turning the volume up to hear the vocals better and wind up with a headache not long after.

Of the iems I've heard (not that many compared to some here, sennheiser ie7 Monster Turbine Triple fi 10 x10i) in retrospect I would say a westone 2 with a "little" more bass would have been perfect.  I got the 3's for a laugh and didn't really like that bass hump.

Hope that helps.

Ah, good point Project.

Hopefully Cosmic will get hold of their long awaited cables soon and start taking orders.

I feel that the sound/quality/price benefits are worth the wait ( judging by my Flex, and all the other comments here ).
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidcotton 

I don't like "bright" if that means anything, nor did I particularly like the bass of something like the monster turbine range.  Bass would dominate everything so you'd end up turning the volume up to hear the vocals better and wind up with a headache not long after.

 

Of the iems I've heard (not that many compared to some here, sennheiser ie7 Monster Turbine Triple fi 10 x10i) in retrospect I would say a westone 2 with a "little" more bass would have been perfect.  I got the 3's for a laugh and didn't really like that bass hump.

 

Hope that helps.

Well I certainly wouldn't characterize the Flex I had as bright.

I'm not too keen on bright sig's myself, and feel that the TF10s verged on this at the top end.

I haven't heard the others you mention but have a similar/opposite issue with the TF10s to your Monster Turbine.

By that I mean that to hear satisfying bass and mids I find myself turning the volume up to the point where the upper mids and treble become 'shouty' and tiresome.

It's hard to offer worthwhile comments on the Flex as I hadn't had it long enough, it definitely didn't seem bright to me though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q Mass 

Surely a quad with twin bass BAs will be moar bassy than a triple?

 I'm not sure about that, since the triple also has dual lows.

It's a shame the cable issue is still holding up new orders. My long time girlfriend struggles finding me gifts for the Holidays, and I would have loved to point her in the Direction of the HY3...

Could always ask for impressions instead (either from cosmic or audiologist)send them in then you won't have to wait so long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q Mass 

My Flex (just HY3s with a recessed socket basically) had pretty damn good highs.

They didn't quite have the high end clarity of my UE TF10s, but, more importantly to me they also didn't suffer from the slightly 'honky' and strident top end that I find irritating sometimes on the TFs.

This was definitely a bonus for me,  YMMV.

I found the mids a little recessed, but no more so than the TFs, and no sibilance to speak of.

Please bear in mind that my Flex's hadn't fully broken in before dying a violent death at the hands of the animal kingdom.

Plashbios describes the mid's coming forward and bass tightening up post break in. (post 997)

 

There is some speculation that the BA4's bass may not extend as deep as the HY3, I hope this doesn't turn out to be the case myself as I liked my Flex's bass a lot (even more prominent bass wouldn't go amiss though )

Phil at Cosmic told me the BA4 will have tighter bass than the HY3, which I like the sound of, but I want moar!

Like you I'm torn between the two models, also like you I love vocals, and mid's, so I'm not considering the HY3XB which supposedly swamp the mids somewhat (although the bass described by Swimsonny is very attractive).

I don't quite consider myself a proper basshead, as my tastes range far and wide, but I do listen to quite a lot of bass/sub bass heavy music and get the impression from years of lurking Head-Fi that I'm pretty common in that regard.

 

Sorry that I can only compare to my UE TF10, but that's the only 'high end' IEM I own or have heard.

I liked the Flex better than the TF, but it was a fairly close race sonically (pre break-in remember).

Except for comfort that is, the Flex was light years ahead in that category.

 

My mind is definitely not made up, hope that helps :-)
 

Thanks for your input, it's fine that you compared it to TF10 since I do own those too. From reading what you said, it seems like we like the same kind of sound. Seems like it'll be worth it for me to wait for the BA4 and get some impressions on them before I make my final decision. I don't really listen to bass heavy songs. I listen to mostly K-POP, sorry if that's frowned upon here. Haha!

By the way, I remember that Cosmic has laser scanned copies of people's impressions? I thought what if we can get our impressions scanned and emailed to Cosmic, seems like it would be so much quicker than sending our actual impressions.

I wouldn't know K-Pop if it bit me on the ass, how about posting a link to a good example?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q Mass 

I wouldn't know K-Pop if it bit me on the ass, how about posting a link to a good example?

Some examples of what I listen to. I guess nothing too bassy, second song would have the most bass out of the three songs. Mostly looking for something that will let everything shine, I don't particularly want something that is bass heavy but wouldn't mind something that had some good bass if that makes sense. Haha.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidcotton 

Could always ask for impressions instead (either from cosmic or audiologist)send them in then you won't have to wait so long.

Has anyone actually done this yet? 

I was hoping to purchase an impressions kit from Cosmic Ears while deciding what to purchase and waiting for everything to come back into stock. I emailed Phil and he said this would be possible, but I had to promise to use the impressions only to buy Cosmic Ears earphones. Well of course that's not a problem, there are no other comparable CIEMs in my budget and I've been very impressed by the impressions so far in this thread and by the look of the products on their website. Phil said he would send me an invoice the next day and ship the impression kit out after I paid. 

I don't know what happened after this, because after 3 follow up emails from me and more than a month later I haven't heard from Phil again. I know that he's busy and travelling, but this is really not very good. If they couldn't send out impression kits by themselves I would have understood their situation, as obviously Cosmic Ears don't want to waste their kits and not actually get the sale, but Phil indicated that this could be done so I assumed that he would make it happen. 

So basically, has anyone else successfully purchased just an impression kit, so that they will have less waiting time once their chosen product comes back into stock? For all this time I've been surviving with only the stock IEMs that came with my Samsung Galaxy S3, so you can imagine I'm getting desperate to speed this up wherever possible (although to be fair, the stock IEMs are better than I expected).

Quote:

Originally Posted by infam0ussteven 

I just remembered that some CIEM companies have demo units and it would be cool if Cosmic had demos too so we can see what we like. That way some of us won't make a few hundred dollar mistake.

How does that work ? How can you have demo units of custom IEM's, or are you saying that that some companies have universal versions of custom IEM's ? If the latter, how are you expected to gauge isolation, fit and comfort, from a universal version of a custom ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by phlashbios 

 

How does that work ? How can you have demo units of custom IEM's, or are you saying that that some companies have universal versions of custom IEM's ? If the latter, how are you expected to gauge isolation, fit and comfort, from a universal version of a custom ?

I will take 1964 ears for example. In the US if someone wants one of there CIEMs but cant work out which one they want sound wise. They will send the demo units over, the person chooses which ones sound is for them and they get a CIEM version. They dont tend to sound as good but you get a feel!