[midnightwalker]

Quote:

I believe Rin's concern is that anyone paying a premium for an IEM deserves high end, full range performance, especially when the items are marketed as such (FAD is very different, as they are purposefully trying to recreate a horn speaker sound with their odd but loved Forte series).  Can everyone hear the scoops and suckouts on various IEMs like ES, Heir, Frogbeats and even Westone?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no, especially if they aren't comparing to them to other products.  And even when they do hear it, it might not bother them and still fully enjoy it, as the appreciation threads show.  However it cannot hurt to be better educated on what you buying, especially when you are paying a premium for it.
 
I won't get a chance to hear these again, as they are going back and I'm using the funds for a HD600 instead.  But I can say that even with how deep the suck out on the SM64 is, because it was somewhat narrow in width, it still sounded clearer and better, IMO, than the Heir universals, previous Earsonics models and rivaled my favorite offerings from Westone.  On some of those, their suck out or scoop may be shallower but is much wider.  My question that will remain unanswered is, I wonder how good these would have been if Earsonics would have designed them to be technically more proficient and not contain such a deep suck out?  I guess we'll never know.

 
Totally agree  with that. It good to learn more about the SM64 even about its faulty (may be / may be not). The thing that is bothering me now is that someone never try or just put couple mins on the SM64 trying to use the graph to mislead the audience. By the way, I am looking forward ES reaction on this article. 

 

[DigitalFreak]

I never could understand why some people feel threatened by measurements and why others treat measurements like it's the hi-fi version of the Holy Bible.
 
Listen guys, lets all please calm down and try and keep things in perspective. Inks has a valid point and has all the right to post his view as he see's it just like the rest of us do. The last time I saw this kind of commotion was on the Heir thread when people got worked up over anything negative. The end result was the thread began to slow down and anything productive that could be learned became few and far between because of infighting. When someone chooses to critique a earphone you like their critiquing the earphone not your family so lets please keep whats said on here in perspective. We can all debate the validity of graphs until the end of time in the end it's our personal taste that will decide whether an earphone works for us. I don't pretend to understand everything those graphs mean but I can read them well enough to get a ballpark idea whether or not a piece of gear might appeal to me. This thread has been a great source of information for potential buyers and personally, I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm also quite positive other people on here who are potential buyers would agree with me so lets all try and act like gentlemen.
 
@ShotgunShane
 
Are you going to replace your SM64 to finish the review for Mr T's blog or have you already finished it? Not to be nosy, I'm a little curious over whats going on now that your pair is defective considering I'm working on my own writeup which still hasn't begun due to my order for tips not arriving yet. Also, does Rin want another SM64 to measure or is he satisfied and done as far as the SM64 is concerned?

 

[Mimouille]

I think issue here is neither Rin nor graph measurements. Of course listening and measurements may be complementary. Although in my view, ears should prevail...is that not the whole point?

I think the issue is when someone goes to ALL the threads and tells the people in an all knowing attitude that their iems suck because it does not measure flat. I think this certain someone is just seaking attention and is ALWAYS causing the thread to deteriorate. And not only because people are defensive. Who has the right to tell you you are stupid in liking an iem because it measures wrong?.Should this kind of attitude not be contained ? I am honestly REVOLTED with this attitude and the fact that graphs are becoming more important than musical pleasure.

 

[SoundFreaq]

I agree. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly too. But saying this earphone is trash is not ok. It may have serious flaws that compromise performance - and that might be factoring in to the end-result sound. But the fact is, this is a top-performing earphone. And no graph can just make it all-of-a-sudden, an acoustic abomination. 
 
Whether we like it or not, our clout on the boards is taken very seriously by newcomers. It is our responsibility to represent the truth. The graph is the truth, the suckout exists. But that doesn't mean this earphone is trash. In fact, it's very popular, for a reason, and should be considered by anyone shopping in this price range. Suckout and all. 
 
Knowing the suckout exists is good. Labeling the earphone because of a graph is not good. There's much more to it than that!

 

[SoundFreaq]

Quote:

 

 I am honestly REVOLTED with this attitude and the fact that graphs are becoming more important than musical pleasure.

x2

 

[Oof Oink]

I think issue here is neither Rin nor graph measurements. Of course listening and measurements may be complementary. Although in my view, ears should prevail...is that not the whole point?

I think the issue is when someone goes to ALL the threads and tells the people in an all knowing attitude that their iems suck because it does not measure flat. I think this certain someone is just seaking attention and is ALWAYS causing the thread to deteriorate. And not only because people are defensive. Who has the right to tell you you are stupid in liking an iem because it measures wrong?.Should this kind of attitude not be contained ? I am honestly REVOLTED with this attitude and the fact that graphs are becoming more important than musical pleasure.

^ Exactly!

 

[Inks]

Quote:

Also, does Rin want another SM64 to measure or is he satisfied and done as far as the SM64 is concerned?

PM me and we can set up a loaner, as a gift he will provide knowles dampers for your W4 [grey are nice on them] and SM64. 
 

I think issue here is neither Rin nor graph measurements. Of course listening and measurements may be complementary. Although in my view, ears should prevail...is that not the whole point?

I think the issue is when someone goes to ALL the threads and tells the people in an all knowing attitude that their iems suck because it does not measure flat. I think this certain someone is just seaking attention and is ALWAYS causing the thread to deteriorate. And not only because people are defensive. Who has the right to tell you you are stupid in liking an iem because it measures wrong?.Should this kind of attitude not be contained ? I am honestly REVOLTED with this attitude and the fact that graphs are becoming more important than musical pleasure.

First off, too many assumptions. It's fine if there is curves in the graph, it's all the uniqueness of the IEM, but when something is blatanly horrid, poorly engineered, it should be put forth. The subjective exprience can make ANY IEM sound much better than it actually is, but it's good to put forth, unbisased, cold hard facts, Earsonics dropped the ball in a technical aspect. The problem I see is that many can't simply accept this, DigitalFreak is a prime exception, he understand what's wrong and that performance from an objective viewpoint is lacking, but it's a referene point to what he initially though now, he doesn't write it off like it's simply not there.... Nobody is calling anyone names and one shouldn't take things to a personal matter, it's immature and will degrade the matter in hand. 
 
That last sentence makes no sense lol, obviously missed the point of objective data, musical pleasure can result from anything, simply not related and one doesn't displace another. 
 
Originally Posted by SoundFreaq /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I agree. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly too. But saying this earphone is trash is not ok. It may have serious flaws that compromise performance - and that might be factoring in to the end-result sound. But the fact is, this is a top-performing earphone. And no graph can just make it all-of-a-sudden, an acoustic abomination. 
 
Whether we like it or not, our clout on the boards is taken very seriously by newcomers. It is our responsibility to represent the truth. The graph is the truth, the suckout exists. But that doesn't mean this earphone is trash. In fact, it's very popular, for a reason, and should be considered by anyone shopping in this price range. Suckout and all. 
 
Knowing the suckout exists is good. Labeling the earphone because of a graph is not good. There's much more to it than that!

So you accept it has serious flaws but then say it's top performing? The truth is exaclty that, the objective data, whatever one's personal preference is more of a truth to oneself than to the general outcome of what actually the product achieves. Let's separate preference and accept it's a technically poor product, nobody would want such a notch in a IEM, you don't see Westone, UE, Sony or Sennheiser with such a abomination for a reason. 

 

[Mimouille]

We are listening to music here. It is about the subjective experience.

 

[Inks]

Quote:

We are listening to music here. It is about the subjective experience.

But that's not the matter in hand, the matter is the performance of the product. MANY people think their Beats sound better than anything that is recommened on headfi and will say it's more musical, this is an example of why the subjetive can be problematic on rating performance. "Musical" is useless in a general sense as it's a very personal thing. 

 

[Mimouille]

So If something sounds good to your ears but does not measure well you will not allow yourself to like it ?

 

[midnightwalker]

Quote:

So you accept it has serious flaws but then say it's top performing? The truth is exaclty that, the objective data, whatever one's personal preference is more of a truth to oneself than to the general outcome of what actually the product achieves. Let's separate preference and accept it's a technically poor product, nobody would want such a notch in a IEM, you don't see Westone, UE, Sony or Sennheiser with such a abomination for a reason. 

 
So...you will buy a headphone that fit your taste or you will buy a headphone that has flat freq response? When you consider a headphone, you just can not put aside the preference because that is the main reason why we have different brands and different sound signs.

 

[Inks]

Quote:

So...you will buy a headphone that fit your taste or you will buy a headphone that has flat freq response? When you consider a headphone, you just can not put aside the preference because that is the main reason why we have different brands and different sound signs.

We are assesing the performance of the IEM, not choosing the IEM for oneself [I'm not looking to buy any iem at the moment]. Personally if I wanted v-shaped I'll go v-shaped but it has to be refined, nothing like what's going on here with a messed up frequency, distortion, poor matching, etc. 
 
 

So If something sounds good to your ears but does not measure well you will not allow yourself to like it ?

 
Where are these assumptions coming from? lol. I think the SS is pretty cool, does not measure well, but see the difference is that I won't lie to myself or others saying it's a top performing product, it's not, it's a boutique IEM, just strives to be different that's it

 

[Oof Oink]

Where are these assumptions coming from?lol. I think the SS is pretty cool, does not measure well, but see the difference is that I won't lie to myself or others saying it's a top performing product, it's not, it's a boutique IEM, just strives to be different that's it

Oh, so you've heard the SM64 then? If not, then I suppose that's where you outta start if you want to talk of assumptions...

 

[Inks]

No because what I mention is there, not assumed lol...

 

[Oof Oink]

Then you're only fooling yourself. Other than an apparent dip, everything else you've said is merely assumption, as you've yet to spend a single second actually hearing them, lol. Seriously, that's quite laughable...