REVIEW: Ultimate Ears UE-10 Pro & Sensaphonics ProPhonic 2X-Soft - Page 2

Mr Welly Wu, Lindrone must have started reviewing his UE-10s as soon as he got them while you waited a good week for burn-in before you started reviewing them. This has been an important lynchpin in your philosophy on the UE-10. Surely you are concerned about this ?

Penbat:

I did not even think to hold that against Mr. Lindrone.

I am finally coming to a point in my life as a audiophile headphone enthusiast whereby I have a definite beliefs system with regard to the pursuit of Audio Nirvana. My beliefs system are centered around two dominant philosophies: 1. source first: first and foremost, sound quality is determined by the quality of the source component especially in an audiophile headphone system, 2. system synergy: second, the sound quality of any audio system is determined by how well each audio component works in relation to one another (I find this is a much underrated and unspoken philosophy within this discussion board). Hence, those are my reasons as to why I ask Mr. Lindrone those questions for the future benefit of his readers should they have the inclination and capital to make an investment in either custom IEMs.

You have funny looking ears

Yes but my point about burn-in is an important one and you haven't answered it. Are you now saying that you were wrong to insist on a strict burn-in regime for about a week for the UE-10s ? I note that Lindrone's review has already gone up as an official Head-Fi review which i think is a big mistake until this issue is resolved and i may insist that the mods remove it until Lindrone does another review after a decent burn-in period.

Penbat:

You will have to ask Lindrone how many hours of burn in time he has accumulated for both of his custom IEMs. Only he can answer your question directly and you may make of it what you wish.

I already told my readers how many hours of burn in period I accumulated with my Ue-10 PRO earphones and my opinions of the necessity of the process have already been clearly stated.

If you wish to remove Lindrone's fine review from the full featured review archive of headphones, then you may do so on your own accord by taking the matter up with both the moderators and Mr. Lindrone himself.

lol, Thats exactly how I feel. Theres no way I'm going to buy either of these at least untill I graduate from college, and yet I couldn't stand waiting for this review because I was so interested in it. The Sensa vs. UE battles for the last month or so has got me so interested in a comparison between these products that I've been checking every hour since lindrone received the UEs for the review to be posted. (and lucky me is out eating supper while it finaly gets posted )
I think if I were to perhaps win enough money I would probably get the Sensas because I really like that slimmer profile, and I'm one of those people who cannot stand sibilance. Overall I think that was a great review and lindrone really demonstrated that wether you like him on a personal level or not he is very valuable to the community.

That unfortunately is really not up to you or how you feel. I am sure you will be overruled significantly if there was a voting on this matter so dont even tread those waters. Do yourself a favour and write a review on your UE-10 when you get them. Until then - speaking about something you dont have is just nonsense and will be received with utmost incredulity and cynicism. I value nothing of what you have said because you dont have the product in your hands...

It is up there because, regardless of your opinions of Lindrone or his reviewing methods, the review is by far one of the best out there. It is unique because it covers two very interesting pieces of hardware.

Before you criticize someone and look really foolish doing so I recommend you spend the money and go one up on them. Do a better review, cover more products.

Until such time someone can come up with something better I think it is perfectly correct that this review goes upstairs.

Anyone who feels otherwise please use private means of communication (Telephone, email, PM, Fax, snail mail, telegram etc.) to get your messages across to Lindrone.

Perhaps Lindrone feels UE's dont need burn in...perhaps he did burn them in rigorously - what do you and I know of what went on behind the scenes. Dont speak without facts...silly really

The arrival of Lindrone's UE-10s have been documented in immense detail in another thread. I think they arrived around 36 hours ago. Obviously his review is well crafted and his comments about fittings etc are valuable but while there is any doubt about burn-in it seems a big mistake to set this up as a serious definitive review of a product on Head-Fi when he might find things are rather different in a week or so. It seems strange that Lindrone who is aware of many subtle attributes of the products he has reviewed has overlooked this fundamental point. I would suspect that in a weeks time his review wouldn't be much different than it is now but there would still be important differences. Unless Lindrone explains convincingly about this i will ask the mods to withdraw his review.

Very nicely done review -- thank you!

Regarding the nature of the fit, did you notice an appreciable difference between the two? For example, is the UE product somewhat tighter given their preference for a full-open mouth impression? If so, might that account for some of the differences in perceived comfort or sensation in the canal?

Oh and a comment -- one of my concerns about the UE10Pro was its relative size given the triple driver design. Although you point out that the size differential is in part because of the detachable cable design, I wanted to point out that judging from your photos, my UE5c looks to be much smaller and flatter in the ear -- especially head on-- than the UE10Pro, and much closer in appearance (apart from the cable housing) to the Sensaphonics product. So it would appear that the triple driver does add to the bulk of these 'phones -- this may matter to people out there with smallish ears.

Also it does sound like the UE people spoke the truth when they described the differences between the UE10Pro and the UE5c and talked about tuning the UE5c more for recorded music. They described the UE10Pro as more analytic and more accurate; the UE5c as warmer, slightly more bassy. And there are other models too, so within the product line of UE alone there is a lot to choose from.

Regardless of what anyone chooses to buy and for whatever reasons, it is fantastic that there are so many custom choices now available -- and at at such a wide price range. A mind-boggling array!

Penbat -- Based on past reviews I have read here ... in particular Lindrones ... I have noticed he has a habit of finding his own reviews and updating them over time and adding in additional details as they are warranted. Additionally it seems like he makes the edit to the original review itself ... but also make sure he posts in the review thread a new post that outlines the new changes he made so people are aware of a historical perspective in some sort of way.

NOTE: I have purchased items based on Lindrones reviews in the past and liked some and didn't like some and got rid of them. Liked E3 .. didn't love the E5.

I would recomend as relatively newbies to this place we don't insist on anything but instead read and comment on items as we each see fit or add our two cents in. We have no place yet to insist on any such thing except for ourselves.

Remember there are people who believe burn in makes a huge difference there are those who don't beleive in it. There are people who believe cables / inteconnects play a huge role in the quality of sound and there are those who believe that just isn't the case. We need to take the reviewers perspectives to hold what they believe and read the reviews based on that and adjust our own opinions accordingly based on our own philosphies of what matters.

Lindrones review on it's own is just fine ... though I take everything with a bit of salt based on his comments prior to obtaining the UE10 Pros. Of course he and HRA are the only two who have both units and Lindrone has posted the only detailed comparison between the two that I know off. To me that is valuable because I am trying to decide which one to "waste" my $$$ on.

Regards,

- rajs

I don't have any firsthand expertise yet myself on the UE-10s and i am not depending on my knowledge. My point is that Lindrone has ignored an important belief of Welly Wu who is something of a UE-10 guru and has heard them over a period of weeks and not 36 hours and is aware of changes in the sound over that period.

Are you serious?
Until you explain convincingly where you get your information that IEM drivers HAVE to be burned in, I will ask the mods to withdraw your request for a withdrawal.

Seriously, though, there is more than enough discussion on this board to show that some people believe in burn-in while others don't. As such, everyone has the right to ignore burn-in for their own opinion.

Welly Wu certainly thinks so and he is a UE-10 guru.

I believe there's room for more than one guru on this forum...

Penbat -- Welly Wu isn't an UE10Pro guru ... and nor is Lindrone a Sensaphonic 2XS guru. They are just end users who have spend some extended time with those products and documented their own opionions based on their beliefs / listening habits and preferences.

The gurus are the people who architected / engineered these products and know the details of what they have done and why they made certain choices. We only get some of that information from others (marketing, word of mouth, etc) not all of it. I haven't heard of a person here who has totally disassembled their unit (cracked it open) and really played with it and it's base line components.