[shakur1996]

Look for the graph of such type for Custom Art Musice Two (I can't remember where exactly it was posted but as far as I remember this was either on Custom Art fanpage or was posted by tomscy2000 somewhere on headfi). The main impact of high impedance was on highs.
Ohh and I would forgot it piotrus-g posted in Custom Art appreciation thread the effect of high impedance on his pro330 (the effect was slightly different from Music Two).

 

[SilverEars]

I looked at Tyll's graphs of BA iems.  They seem to have significant distortion.  How come to my ears they sound tight and clear, and joker rates them so high? Does the fit have lot to do with it?  My CIEM sound very clear and tight.

 

[tomscy2000]

  I looked at Tyll's graphs of BA iems.  They seem to have significant distortion.  How come to my ears they sound tight and clear, and joker rates them so high? Does the fit have lot to do with it?  My CIEM sound very clear and tight.

 
BAs' time domain characteristics behave a bit differently from those of dynamic coils, so they sound crunchier. In general, with the exception of certain types such as Sony's proprietary BAs, balanced armatures exhibit higher levels of odd order distortion than do dynamic moving coils. Odd-order distortion is said to be "less pleasant" than even-order distortion. While multiple BA earphones squash down the distortion, distortion is fairly audible in many single driver models and some dual driver models. The rule of thumb is 1% THD at 100 dB is audible, but I find that I can hear 0.8% (when measured at 100 dB, but not necessarily listened to at that loudness) with no problem if it's in the most sensitive band of human hearing (~500 to 5000 Hz) --- I've heard a lot of BA earphones, though, and have honed myself to recognize the kind of distortion they exhibit. So you'll need to train yourself to recognize the distortion, though with enough training it shouldn't be a problem; it's not like I have golden ears, I just have more experience. Even so, I don't think it's a huge deal. It doesn't sound that bad, but some people may insist on a cleaner distortion profile. In that case, they'd want to go with a high-quality coil driver such as the liquid-crystal polymer diaphragm used in the Sony EX1000, or the Titanium-coated Mylar diaphragms used in HiFiMAN IEMs. Regular ol' Mylar works too, but the QC has to be done well, or else the distortion profile is no better than that of a BA.

 

[shakur1996]

Tom, how does this distortion sound? Is it like noise floor or something different?

 

[tomscy2000]

  Tom, how does this distortion sound? Is it like noise floor or something different?

 
Something different. Hard to explain. Have you taken the Philips Golden Ear Challenge before? You can hear subtle (and not so subtle) examples of simulated distortion there.
 

---

 
NOTE to all: Please PM me before requesting to be a contributor for the chart, or else I won't know who you are just by looking at your e-mail address.

 

[tranhieu]

  The hump in the high end is getting close to perceived neutral(Sean Olive), correct?  But, yeah, it extends.  I've seen the Sony XBA-H3 which extend good at the high end also.  But, these are dynamic.  Are there others besides ER4 that extend like the dynamics?
 
By the way, how are you extending the treble like this?

It's actually way brighter than Dr. Sean Olive's curve, I didn't design this with that curve in mind anyway. There's nothing much to it really, just a simple horn and that's it.
 
Pretty much any driver from the 2300 family and the twfk/wbfk can extend beyond 15khz. Whether they can reach 20khz without severely rolling off is another thing. 

 

[SilverEars]

I've noticed that even with the treble rolloff, BA sound more clear to my ears.  I wonder why that is.  Also, would BA be affected same as dynamic drivers when it comes to resonance?  BA has resonance at the crossovers from my understanding, and dynamic has little to none.

 

[SilverEars]

Wondering if there is quality difference between the BA drivers?  I notice that some BA iems sound better than others. For example, UERM obviously sound better than TF10 or UE900.  Even with CIEMs, I notice that my NT6 sound better than my other one.  
 
Are higher quality BA drivers used form flagship models?

 

[dhruvmeena96]

Did you check JH interview. He said all BA roll off at 10khz & thats true so it has limited range.

that happens in open space distance testing

eardrum is 28mm to 32mm from the ear entry point, which when you seal with earbuds can amplify high frequency which can go above 20kHz

 

[dhruvmeena96]

Sean Olive's compensation is more or less derived from adjustments to diffuse field equalization. Golden ears uses a different target in which their compensation is already built into the graphs. For example, the same JH16 presented earlier, now on an uncompensated graph.

golden ear targets are bad... i tried with viper on old phone and ruined as treble got harsh and bass went lifeless, making it unbearable
etymotic er4 profile was used on my ety's(ofcourse)

 

[dhruvmeena96]

NOTE: Please PM me before requesting to be a contributor for the chart, or else I won't know who you are just by looking at your e-mail address.

WANTED: Assiduous individuals to help add to and perform maintenance on the database! I don't pay as much as Apple (in fact, I can't pay you at all!) but you'll contribute much to the community in the process!

A while ago, I was thinking about the major threads here in the portable forum, and what the next step might be. I thought about a project that anyone could contribute to, and thus went to the cloud and the wiki concept. Google Docs is a widely used web application that can allow cloud-based editing from multiple sources and be published on the web in real-time. I thought, "Why not create a chart that can give members all the major specifications of IEMs at the tip of their fingers?" and thus went about creating a chart that would possibly allow for such a concept. Currently, the chart is only designed for balanced armature IEMs and their technical details, but the project can easily expand to other parameters as well.

Below is the current, rudimentary version of the chart; as you can see, I don't have most models listed, but you all can get the idea of what the concept is. I'm in the process of recruiting various members that I know have significant knowledge to contribute, and have them on as collaborators/editors, but the goal is to make it so that anyone with the desire to contribute to this chart can do so. As this idea is in the very nascent phase of its conception, please let me know what types of improvements I can make to the workflow and format of such a chart!

Clarification: this chart is not merely about drivers. Although that category is a large part of the chart, it is mostly there to provide people who need/want that technical information to do remolds or DIY projects. It also displays a transparency of information, where people needing this type of data can go into a chart like this and compare the types of technology used by in-ear makers around the world. This chart is primarily an at-a-glance document for people who need to do multiple comparisons at once, and secondarily also a testbed for the crowd-sourced, cloud-connected method of mining information.

If anyone spots any errors (I know there are quite a few), inconsistencies, or omissions, please feel free to post in the thread!

Link: Downloadable, XLS Version
Link: Full-Sized, HTML Version

​

Japanese blogger 84 (http://84audio.blog.fc2.com/, http://www.twitter.com/90percentPA) also has a very similar chart, embedded here:

​

hmmm, i think Final Audio uses Molex armature in Heaven series and Sonion in F series

it was stated by Final audio representative on japan event about Molex custom armature

but now their ties have broken so, i think they are using sonion now, but old model had molex drivers that i am sure

 

[deepee]

NOTE: Please PM me before requesting to be a contributor for the chart, or else I won't know who you are just by looking at your e-mail address.

WANTED: Assiduous individuals to help add to and perform maintenance on the database! I don't pay as much as Apple (in fact, I can't pay you at all!) but you'll contribute much to the community in the process!

A while ago, I was thinking about the major threads here in the portable forum, and what the next step might be. I thought about a project that anyone could contribute to, and thus went to the cloud and the wiki concept. Google Docs is a widely used web application that can allow cloud-based editing from multiple sources and be published on the web in real-time. I thought, "Why not create a chart that can give members all the major specifications of IEMs at the tip of their fingers?" and thus went about creating a chart that would possibly allow for such a concept. Currently, the chart is only designed for balanced armature IEMs and their technical details, but the project can easily expand to other parameters as well.

Below is the current, rudimentary version of the chart; as you can see, I don't have most models listed, but you all can get the idea of what the concept is. I'm in the process of recruiting various members that I know have significant knowledge to contribute, and have them on as collaborators/editors, but the goal is to make it so that anyone with the desire to contribute to this chart can do so. As this idea is in the very nascent phase of its conception, please let me know what types of improvements I can make to the workflow and format of such a chart!

Clarification: this chart is not merely about drivers. Although that category is a large part of the chart, it is mostly there to provide people who need/want that technical information to do remolds or DIY projects. It also displays a transparency of information, where people needing this type of data can go into a chart like this and compare the types of technology used by in-ear makers around the world. This chart is primarily an at-a-glance document for people who need to do multiple comparisons at once, and secondarily also a testbed for the crowd-sourced, cloud-connected method of mining information.

If anyone spots any errors (I know there are quite a few), inconsistencies, or omissions, please feel free to post in the thread!

Link: Downloadable, XLS Version
Link: Full-Sized, HTML Version

​

Japanese blogger 84 (http://84audio.blog.fc2.com/, http://www.twitter.com/90percentPA) also has a very similar chart, embedded here:

​

Since my Etymotic HF5 died (well, it has been crippling for many years, and I tried somehow
to change the wires, to a limited success, I opened it and it looks like the BA in it is not what
you wrote in the table, but rather ER073S 0952.
I include a photo.