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1964 Ears Adel IEMs
Apr 15, 2017 at 7:02 PM Post #8,657 of 9,124
hung031086 said:
Sony WM1A + 4.4mm EA Thor Silver II + U12 w/m15
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You decided to keep the U12? :)
 
Apr 17, 2017 at 3:05 PM Post #8,662 of 9,124
IIRC, around the first of the year they noted people's interest in an additional flagship upgrade opportunity, and said they would give it serious consideration.

I would imagine they will at least wait until they are caught up with the current backlog.
 
Apr 17, 2017 at 3:15 PM Post #8,663 of 9,124
bvng3540

Oh cool! A local who also owns the A12! Are you going to the Seattle meet next month?

I would be interested in trying out your portable gear that you feel works best with the A12. In addition it would be great to get your impression of the A12 on my Project Ember amp.

Hopefully I will have the Tia Fourte by then as well!

-Eric
 
Apr 19, 2017 at 12:06 PM Post #8,667 of 9,124
Interview with Vlad Belonozhko of 64 Audio​
 
I met Vlad at CanJam Singapore. Being a user of the ADEL technology, I was interested in seeing how the ADEL and apex technology differ from each other. After talking to Vlad for a while on the topic, I introduced myself and showed him my previous review, expressing interest in reviewing 64 Audio’s in-ear monitors, with interest in comparing the ADEL and apex technology in particular. I also expressed interest in interviewing him to talk to him about the functional differences between ADEL and apex, as well as talking about the new tia technology.
 
He agreed to the interview and very graciously provided me with a loaner of the U12s to review. I would like to thank Vlad and 64 Audio for giving me this opportunity and without any further ado, here is the interview with Vlad:
 
 
​
 
 
APEX
 
What happened to the partnership with Asius?
 
Well, I would say the major thing is that we came to a fork in the road in vision for the technology and the way we run our businesses. We, of course, enjoy working with the ADEL technology and the benefits that it brought to our product and as you know, we jumped all in and really put all of our weight behind it as a company.
 
However, there comes a time where even best friends can’t get over some differences, and it’s a sad thing to see. But our relationship, of course, was much more than a friendship; it was a business relationship and on multiple levels; however, we came to a fork in the road, so we had to part ways.
 
 
After the partnership with Asius, why didn't 64 just do away with the module system? Why go through the trouble with developing apex?
 
Apex is a technology where we were able to implement some of the things that we would’ve wanted to implement in the second generation of the module, and we wholeheartedly took the idea of keeping the module that is interchangeable for different isolation levels and different sound flavors.
 
Given our A-series and U-series in-ear monitors were built on that idea, we wanted to continue that and keep that option open for our users and also to bring something unique to the market as well, which has its own strengths and flexibilities.
 
 
What are the differences in concept between ADEL and apex? ADEL uses a membrane design while apex uses a special kind of foam; how does that work?
 
It's quite  different technology where ADEL technology uses a membrane that is able to absorb the impact of the air pressure with the membrane moving.
 
And apex is a pneumatically interactive vent; it’s a vent, a completely different type of system. We have a material that is pneumatically interactive, which means when pneumatic pressure is applied to the foam, the cells actually change and allow air pressure to pass through it while still providing good isolation acoustically. That’s really what’s special about the apex technology.
 
 
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using apex? Are there any health benefits to apex?
 
We are able to measure the leakage of the air pressure while using apex, and in our measurements, we were able to tune it to sound very similar to the original S1 module – the standard module – that we used to tune all of our A-series and U-series in-ear monitors to.
 
Because of how the technology works, we were measuring it by the low frequencies; when you have less of a seal, the low frequencies drop, and when you have more of a seal, the low frequencies go up and so using that as one of the reference points, we were able to measure how much venting of the air pressure we are able to achieve through our module.
 
One of the things that we would’ve liked to see in the next generation module system was to relocate the vent to the side, like what we did on the apex modules to reduce wind noise considerably, and to prevent that vent from getting clogged with anything – oils, dust, earwax, anything like that. So that’s one of the benefits of the apex technology, it will always work. Also, putting a mesh inside also helps the apex module to last longer and allows it to work more consistently.
 
 
So the difference between the M20 and M15 is basically a difference in venting?
 
Yes, and that’s why you have slightly less bass on the M15 module.
 
 
Why did 64 Audio remove backward compatibility with ADEL once apex was announced?
 
The reason that it’s not backward compatible is because we had adjusted the size of the module to accommodate the O-rings to not be over-stretched. As you’ve seen maybe on the forums, some people that we shipped the product with the ADEL modules couldn’t get the modules out very easily. We found out about this issue later so it’s something that we wanted to fix on the second-generation module.
 
We look at this issue and said “what can we do about that?” and what we came up with was we shrunk down the size of the module so the O-rings were able to be in the correct specifications where they actually work like they were supposed to. Later we realized that there was no backward compatibility for ADEL modules, but that was not something that was a concern of ours.
 
When we developed apex technology, we knew going forward we’re shipping apex with every new in-ear monitor. The priority for us was to make sure that every customer that purchased the product had forwards compatibility; they could upgrade to the apex technology at any time. We were happy to find a solution to this problem and provide a better experience for our customers.
 
 
TIA
 
What inspired 64 Audio to develop the tia technology?
 
We as a company are always looking for new ways to push in-ear monitor technology forward, and one of the things that we were looking at and experimenting with, was opening up a balanced armature driver and seeing how it behaves. And we found that the sound was very beautiful; it is a much better sound, it's more like a direct radiating type of speaker like in a studio control room rather than talking through a pipe; which warps the sound, which is what the sound tubes are doing with the balanced armature drivers.
 
That’s how tia came about and how we stumbled upon the idea. But of course, there was a lot more experimentation and development needed for it to actually be usable in an in-ear monitor application; just having a full-range open balanced armature won’t cut it because you need to tune it. And that’s where the tia acoustic chambers come into place, and consequently, the tia single-bore design where we were able to put the tia high driver inside and use that tia-single bore to tune the high-driver.
 
It was a chain reaction of opening up a balanced armature driver and experimenting with it.
 
 
I understand the tia technology uses something like an acoustic chamber to tune the sound, is this why we haven’t seen a tia Fourte custom yet?
 
Yes, that is correct. Because the drivers are very dependent on the acoustic chambers for tuning, and as you can imagine every custom in-ear monitor shape is different.
 
We’re still working on this one, to be able to find a way to make a system that works within a custom ear mold and gives a consistent sound no matter the shape of the ear.
 
 
I understand that the A18 has tia drivers as well, so how does it work? How come there is an A18 custom and not a Fourte custom?
 
The A18 features 2 major elements of the tia system. It has the tia high drivers and the tia singe-bore. The low and the mid drivers are the conventional type of balanced armature drivers. However, the low and mid drivers have a manifold that funnels all of the drivers into the tia single-bore without using sound tubes to tune the drivers. During tia development, we learned that sound tubes create unwanted resonances and so we don’t use sound tubes to tune the mid and low drivers. The sound is delivered straight into the tia single-bore, which results in a much more pure and natural sound. 
 
Will we see tia in other products other than the A18 and Fourte? How will 64 audio move on from here?
 
Well, any brand new technology is expensive because of the research that goes into it and producing the new technology requires new tooling and with tia, a whole new production process.
 
But, as time goes on, the cost of the technology will go down and I think tia will find it’s way into the lower-priced products.
 
 
It took longer than expected to prepare but I hoped you guys enjoyed reading the interview! Thanks to Vlad for taking the time out of his busy schedule midst the A18 Tzar and tia Fourte launch and making this happen and for providing the U12 loaner for review.
 
Apr 19, 2017 at 12:59 PM Post #8,668 of 9,124
Awesome! Thanks for sharing PokerFaze!
 
Apr 19, 2017 at 1:13 PM Post #8,669 of 9,124
pokerfaze said:
 
Interview with Vlad Belonozhko of 64 Audio​
 
 
It took longer than expected to prepare but I hoped you guys enjoyed reading the interview! Thanks to Vlad for taking the time out of his busy schedule midst the A18 Tzar and tia Fourte launch and making this happen and for providing the U12 loaner for review.
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Wow!  You waded right into the deep end with those questions, and came up with a great interview!  Great job!
 
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