[Audeze]

The closeup pictures kinda make them look bigger than in real life. When designing these, we wanted to make the best sounding in-ears and designed them from the ground up. The units come with both the earhooks or the concha rings and users can easily swap them. Concha rings come in two sizes.
Due to the nature of the driver design and the damping material there is little leakage outward.  The geometry of driver housing along with the ear tip and damping material blocks a lot of ambient sound and provides reasonable passive isolation.
 

 

[acia]

The closeup pictures kinda make them look bigger than in real life. When designing these, we wanted to make the best sounding in-ears and designed them from the ground up. The units come with both the earhooks or the concha rings and users can easily swap them. Concha rings come in two sizes.
Due to the nature of the driver design and the damping material there is little leakage outward.  The geometry of driver housing along with the ear tip and damping material blocks a lot of ambient sound and provides reasonable passive isolation.

how about noise isolation from outside? if it got poor noise isolation, pretty moot to have such iem.

 

[Saoshyant]

Well, for safety reasons, an open IEM so you can hear traffic might save your life one day. Or at work so you can hear a watch out if something is falling or your boss talking to you.

 

[Raketen]

how about noise isolation from outside? if it got poor noise isolation, pretty moot to have such iem.

Personally use mostly IEMs, glad to have open designs available. There've are a number of heavily ported and open backed IEMs that are very good (for instance JVC's fx woodies), not to mention earbuds which are still quite popular.

The combo of ear-hook & cable down & inear design has me a little dubious about comfort, hopefully the Concha fins work well- I really liked the fins Dunu use with some of their IEM.

 

[kernel8888]

Seriously people! Any way you slice it, this is a groundbreaking release for the iem world! Like- a planar iem? Seriously?? And we're here complaining about the design, size, and open design on EVERY PAGE!?

Why are you even on head-fi then?

Yea, I guess audeze should have bagged the whole idea. Just stick 20 ba's and 6 dds in there and call it a day.

Reminds me of the first few pages of the he-6 thread, straight bagging and complaining, instead of realizing what an incredible thing audeze has done, specifically for THIS community. And this is how we respond? With 3 negative posts to every 1 positive post?

Go to Reddit with that crap.

 

[kernel8888]

Sorry... Was listening to RATM when I wrote this ^. Might have got carried away...

 

[Raketen]

Seriously people! Any way you slice it, this is a groundbreaking release for the iem world! Like- a planar iem? Seriously?? And we're here complaining about the design, size, and open design on EVERY PAGE!? .

Think it looks not that bad myself but those are legitimate concerns- IMO as important as sound quality. After all, what's the point of breaking ground if you can't use it comfortably?

I can see why people would be afraid this design will not work for their ears & it can be productive to express that - for instance it gave Audeze opportunity to address those concerns just a couple posts up, saying that it offers a couple fit options and also offers some passive isolation.

 

[kernel8888]

idk, think it looks not that bad myself but those are legitimate concerns, imo as important as sound quality. what's the point of breaking ground if you can't use it comfortably? I can see why people would be hugely disappointed if they're afraid this design will not work for their ears & it can be productive to express that - for instance it gave Audeze opportunity to address those concerns just a couple posts up, saying that it offers a couple fit options and also offers some passive isolation.

That's a big part of what's annoying to me. Many of the posts aren't constructive expressions and concerns, but simply criticisms and borderline trolling.

But I'm ok with breaking ground at the expense of aesthetics and comfort. We have to start somewhere, and give the industry a baseline to work off of and improve upon?

If the attitude reflected "what's the point of breaking ground" if it's not perfect, or even close, where would the headphone world be right now?

Audeze, hifiman and the planar revolution in particular have advanced this hobby in a HUGE way over the last 6 years, by throwing out conventional wisdom and giving us innovative products to improve upon.

It's not posting our wishes of what we want the iem to be or would prefer that bugs, but the frequency and negative tone that sends the message "what's the point of breaking new ground." It would be a shame if they stopped breaking new ground, or had not started. Where would we be without audeze right now? Would mr. Speakers even exist? Would hifiman have taken off?

 

[Raketen]

Audeze, hifiman and the planar revolution in particular have advanced this hobby in a HUGE way over the last 6 years, by throwing out conventional wisdom and giving us innovative products to improve upon.

It's not posting our wishes of what we want the iem to be or would prefer that bugs, but the frequency and negative tone that sends the message "what's the point of breaking new ground." It would be a shame if they stopped breaking new ground, or had not started. Where would we be without audeze right now? Would mr. Speakers even exist? Would hifiman have taken off?

I don't see this question as a negative question, more like an interrogative- it can be productive to pick something apart, either for the maker or for consumers who might share that perspective but not have thought through it yet

 

[kernel8888]

Yea I might be overreacting, I just feel like overall this thread has been overwhelmingly negative given what were being offered

 

[Raketen]

Yea I might be overreacting, I just feel like overall this thread has been overwhelmingly negative given what were being offered

Welcome to the internet h34r: I think a lot of that negative commentary evaporates once widespread people actually start buying it and sharing more impressions, even if impressions aren't wholly positive. After all, it is pretty frickin cool... and more affordable than those Obravo IEMs (I think it was planar/dynamic hybrid or some kind of elektret thing, some discussion earlier on).

 

[Saoshyant]

Once impressions arrive, I assume there will be a decent amount of either quite positive or negative comments depending on mood & taste, and a littlr after that we'll start getting the more objective analysis and get a real feel for the IEM. I'm really hoping it's an impressive product that will result in me getting myself a present.

 

[Lorspeaker]

KEEP IT UP AUDEZE... keep stretching the sonic web, ...or shield !I


i see custom fit on the horizon....

 

[Yugo]

For all those who are still questioning open IEMs. Just a reminder that there is the thing called Earpods, and they also don't isolate at all. And I don't think Apple is ever going to make it fully isolated.

I still use it frequently just because full isolation outdoor is never really a good thing. IMHO It is dangerous during daily commute, and is exceptionally rude if somebody is trying to talk to you.

I just don't find the problem with the iSine being an open IEM. If Audeze can make sonic leaps compare to the Earpods, then I am surely happy.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

For all those who are still questioning open IEMs. Just a reminder that there is the thing called Earpods, and they also don't isolate at all. And I don't think Apple is ever going to make it fully isolated.

I still use it frequently just because full isolation outdoor is never really a good thing. IMHO It is dangerous during daily commute, and is exceptionally rude if somebody is trying to talk to you.

I just don't find the problem with the iSine being an open IEM. If Audeze can make sonic leaps compare to the Earpods, then I am surely happy.

Let's not forget Final Audio and VE have been making high-end "open" in-ears for a while now.