[kingice10]

Hi guys, im auditioning right now jh13 jh16 pro with my iphone cryo lod meier corda xxs with jason mraz's live lossless music files, and i feel my sm3s are on par with the jhpro headphones.)

Although in terms of clarity, jhpros hpones are still on upper hand, with the highs but sm3 is still my preference because of the lush mids, better seperation,more 3D. For me its more musical.what do you guys think?

 

[average_joe]

I take it you are listening to the universal versions of the JH13/JH16?  From my experience, when you have more lush mids you give up some clarity.  There is a EM3 Pro vs. JH13 comparison thread on head-fi where they both seem to hold their own, but present the music in a different way.  Although the SM3 does recreate Beautiful Mess - Live on Earth quite well!

 

[kingice10]

Thanks Joe! You've also guess the album right.
 
So far, I ordered my first customs today but I'm still impressed that SM3s are great phones given the SQ they present with their price range compared to the JH prices. Maybe I'll try the EM3Pro in the future.

 

[average_joe]

What custom did you order?

 

[kingice10]

JH16 Pro. I want to have them as my custom iem reference before going to other customs, like EM3Pro or ES5. They are like Big Speakers for me but different representation than my SM3s. But It'll take 3 weeks before I get them. So far, I'm enjoying my SM3s before my customs.

 

[Anouk]

Hi Joe, I am quite interested in either ep10plus acs t1 or em3pro. Since they are made in Europe. I guess the 10plus would give me too little isolation and have too much of a mid-bass hump htough. I wonder why the em3pro has only two crossovers though since it has one driver for mid low and high. Also is it dual or triple bore? Greetings, Anouk,

 

[average_joe]

The EP-10 Plus does have little isolation, which is good or bad depending on the use.  I told Sergio I thought the EP-10 Plus had too much mid-bass and he offered that I send them back and he would retune them.  I asked him what else would change and he responded that he needed some time to work on it.  I have not heard back in quite a while.  Combine that with the language barrier and I am not sure if he will ever respond, which is not a good thing and even though they have some great qualities, the service isn't what the others offer.  Now, maybe if you speak Italian, that might help.
 
EM3 Pro is a 3 driver (dual low, single high) 2 way design like many others out there, so it is a matter of sound signature, not sound quality IMO.  And it uses a dual bore.
 
And don't forget the Fabs-fabulous earphones, which are not in this review, but here.  There is one other owner on head-fi that I know of, UAndy who wrote this review.  PM him for his thoughts.  The reason I am bringing these up is I do really like them, think they are worth more than their cost, and they are made in EU. Oh, and Claus has great customer service!

 

[average_joe]

Update: I sent Sergio from Earpower an email about an update (translated to Italian) and received an almost immediate response as follows:
"It takes a lot of work and patience, we are trying the best compromise, as there will be news'll let you know."
 
Good to know he is still working on it because the EP-10 Plus could be really great without so much mid-bass, IMO.

 

[Kunlun]

Quote:

Update: I sent Sergio from Earpower an email about an update (translated to Italian) and received an almost immediate response as follows:
"It takes a lot of work and patience, we are trying the best compromise, as there will be news'll let you know."
 
Good to know he is still working on it because the EP-10 Plus could be really great without so much mid-bass, IMO.

I mean this in the most polite way possible, but would using a decent transducer that isn't stolen from a cheap earbud an option here?
 

 

[average_joe]

Quote:

Quote:

Update: I sent Sergio from Earpower an email about an update (translated to Italian) and received an almost immediate response as follows:
"It takes a lot of work and patience, we are trying the best compromise, as there will be news'll let you know."
 
Good to know he is still working on it because the EP-10 Plus could be really great without so much mid-bass, IMO.

I mean this in the most polite way possible, but would using a decent transducer that isn't stolen from a cheap earbud an option here?
 

Lol, I know what you mean.  But, from a sound quality perspective, the driver does quite a good job as the performance in the bass region is top notch in the configuration, it is the amount of mid-bass that is the killer for me.  Just because we
know where the driver came from doesn't change this performance.  And Sergio claims the material used for the custom enhances the sound quality, which I can't dispute. 
 
Oh, and I do have vested interest since I own these and would like to not have to EQ them, and Sergio would redo mine.  It is your call if you would want to spend the money on them regardless of sound just because you know the cost of the bass driver.

 

[Anouk]

Still, I would love to know what these would sound like with the ie8 driver.... Just curious, not going to buy these, they have too little isolation for me.

 

[kingice10]

Hi @average_joe, does the em3pro also has the 3d soundstage from the sm3?

 

[average_joe]

Quote:

Hi @average_joe, does the em3pro also has the 3d soundstage from the sm3?

 
 
The SM3 does have a slightly different presentation than the EM3 Pro, as it seems to have better top-to-bottom space on some recordings.  Comparing the two, the EM3 Pro has a more fixed sound stage size than the SM3, so when a track is playing that has average spatial information, there is little difference in the shape of the sound stage, but the EM3 Pro is bigger.  Tracks with less spatial information cause the SM3 to recess more than the EM3 Pro, but when there are tracks with a lot of spatial information, which are fairly few that I have encountered, the SM3 shows the better top-to bottom sound staging.  But that said, I have never wanted to switch back to the SM3 when I was using the EM3 Pro.
 
I also wanted to throw in that while I think the SM3 and EM3 Pro are great with most genres, I prefer other presentations with the recordings of most classical music, as the stage monitor sound with classical seems a little closed in to me.  Others, such as the Fabs, EP-10 Plus, and Tesla T1 have presentations that are more suited to that music for my taste, and even the LCD-2 wasn’t my favorite with classical, although I did like it better than with the SM3/EM3 Pro.
 
The SM3 is also very tip dependent and while it always has a nice sized and well proportioned space compared with the other universals I have used, it does chance a good deal with tips.  For example, the Monster triple flange tips had a smaller sound stage than the Sensorcomm tips and my custom sleeves has the biggest sound stage.

 

[kingice10]

Thanks @average_joe, I really like the presentation of SM3s so I'd like to find a similar custom iem of its presentation. But, if there are none yet maybe I'll try those not "in your face" iems, like rows back what I heard from Grado SR80i with some Live Recorded Songs. And I hope Earsonics could provide a demo for their customs.

 

[average_joe]

The EM3 Pro is pretty close in presentation to the SM3 and you probably won't find a custom that is closer.  I will be reviewing several customs in my custom resource thread in the next several months so I will have a better idea of sound signatures of many of the customs out there.  Check out my EM3 Pro summary as well; it is better in every way than the SM3 except top-to-bottom sound stage with a few of my tracks.