[Fidelity King]

I think an interesting comparison would be between the im02 and the etymotic er4s or pt

 

[Blumenkind]

Are the IM 50 and IM 70 smartphone friendly? I'm worried about hissing due to the low impedance.

 

[wateryakcat]

Are the IM 50 and IM 70 smartphone friendly? I'm worried about hissing due to the low impedance.

As far i remerber, no hiss. And You can also buy cables with buttons .

 

[omastic]

   
What source did you test it with?  External amp?
 
I had IM02 and IM03, ended up keeping only IM03.  I found IM02 to be too analytical, bright, borderline sibilant.  IM03 is more bassy, warmer, smoother, musical, having the best delivery of vocals among all IEMs I have in my collection (well B&W C5 series 2 is amazing too), beating hands down UE900 and W40.  As a matter of fact, I actually had to upgrade stock cable with lunashops silver-plated ofc cable to make it brighter!  Btw, using IM03 with UE900 tips and my source is either X5 or X1 or AP100.
 
So, just my personal opinion since I'm relying on my ears (and do have to admit, we all have a different perception of the sound), but I would take these graphs with some grain of salt in terms of real life sound performance.  Don't recall @earfonia drawing any conclusion about IM03 being more sibilant than IM02 either

My findings are completely opposite of yours! Its interesting to see how we all hear things differently. I found the IM03 harsh and sibilant with an unbearable amount of cymbal ringing. Its like everytime there was a cymbal crash it fired a gun in my ear drums. Same with IM04. Any track with lots of cymbal crashes and hi-hat rhythms was painful.
 
I find the IM02 a  rather forgiving iem when it comes to sibilance, simply because it lacks the peaks in the sibilance inducing frequency region. They can get bright with high impedance source though, as mentioned by @earfonia. 

 

[wmedrz]

I'm a little confused. Does high impedance = low out Z? Because earfonia said the IM03 may sound bright with low out Z, and sound best with high out Z...\\
 
Edit: I re read review and see IM02 may sound bright with low out Z, and IM03 with high out Z. So out Z is impedance. Confusion over. 

 

[Malevolent]

  Are the IM 50 and IM 70 smartphone friendly? I'm worried about hissing due to the low impedance.

 
My IM70s work fine with my HTC Butterfly. No issues with the sound there.

 

[earfonia]

  My findings are completely opposite of yours! Its interesting to see how we all hear things differently. I found the IM03 harsh and sibilant with an unbearable amount of cymbal ringing. Its like everytime there was a cymbal crash it fired a gun in my ear drums. Same with IM04. Any track with lots of cymbal crashes and hi-hat rhythms was painful.

 
Could it be some leak on the isolation? Do you feel deep or shallow insertion with the IM03 and IM04?
 
 

  I'm a little confused. Does high impedance = low out Z? Because earfonia said the IM03 may sound bright with low out Z, and sound best with high out Z...\\
 
Edit: I re read review and see IM02 may sound bright with low out Z, and IM03 with high out Z. So out Z is impedance. Confusion over. 

 
High Amplifier Output Impedance = High Out Z
IM02 gets brighter with High Out Z. While on IM03 the Out Impedance effect is not as drastic as on IM02. 
 

  Are the IM 50 and IM 70 smartphone friendly? I'm worried about hissing due to the low impedance.

 
Yes, IM50 and IM70 are smartphone friendly and not much effected by high variation of output impedance of smartphone.  Hissing has nothing to do with impedance, more on the audio circuitry of the player, and from the recording.

 

[Gandasaputra]

   
What source did you test it with?  External amp?
 
IM03 is more bassy, warmer, smoother, musical, having the best delivery of vocals among all IEMs 
 
So, just my personal opinion since I'm relying on my ears (and do have to admit, we all have a different perception of the sound), but I would take these graphs with some grain of salt in terms of real life sound performance.  Don't recall @earfonia drawing any conclusion about IM03 being more sibilant than IM02 either

I agree too, I've had IM03 since May and I haven't noticed any flaw in the treble. I think the shimmery part of the sound is equal to W4. I use Sony's hybrid tips and recently just changed the stock cable to Lunashop's cloth cable for better ergonomic. Overall, I find IM03 is a perfect IEM with no flaw. 

 

[wateryakcat]

I agree too, I've had IM03 since May and I haven't noticed any flaw in the treble. I think the shimmery part of the sound is equal to W4. I use Sony's hybrid tips and recently just changed the stock cable to Lunashop's cloth cable for better ergonomic. Overall, I find IM03 is a perfect IEM with no flaw. 

I think that is music file problems, not IM03. Rubbish in, rubbish out.

 

[Gandasaputra]

I agree that as well; I've taken out any songs that has nasty repeated cymbal crashes. It's recording problem

 

[omastic]

I agree that as well; I've taken out any songs that has nasty repeated cymbal crashes. It's recording problem

Not a recording problem. The tracks with which I experiences this on the IM03/04 are pretty well recorded tracks that sounds wonderful with bright iems like the DBA 02 MKII or ER4S, No sibilance or ringning, just wonderful cymbal sounds replete with micro details and resolution. IM03/IM04 cant achieve this, atleast to my ears. They come out as plasticky and tizzy sounding. There is no denying the fact that IM03/IM04 has nasty peaks in the lower treble. Frequency graphs confirms this fact.
 
 

   
Could it be some leak on the isolation? Do you feel deep or shallow insertion with the IM03 and IM04?
 

 
Fit was perfect. No leaks. Fit was as deep as the housing will allow, which is slightly more than the IM02. At one point I owned the IM04 and IM02 at the same time and IM04 fit better than IM02. 

 

[audionewbi]

Same drivers doesn't mean equal sound and it's just a rumor unless you have the model for both drivers

Rin did you ever got the chance to measure the ck100pro?

 

[Inks]

I'm not Rin...lol, he is a friend of mine though.
 
He didn't, Sonove did and it didn't look that good, but looked to maybe have potential by adding impedance to it. 

 

[audionewbi]

  I'm not Rin...lol, he is a friend of mine though.
 
He didn't, Sonove did and it didn't look that good, but looked to maybe have potential by adding impedance to it. 

I hope he is well, his blog is death. We need more people like him, I tend to go crazy time to time in this subjective world and let the placebo do the talking but yea I am human after all.

 

[Malevolent]

  Not a recording problem. The tracks with which I experiences this on the IM03/04 are pretty well recorded tracks that sounds wonderful with bright iems like the DBA 02 MKII or ER4S, No sibilance or ringning, just wonderful cymbal sounds replete with micro details and resolution. IM03/IM04 cant achieve this, atleast to my ears. They come out as plasticky and tizzy sounding. There is no denying the fact that IM03/IM04 has nasty peaks in the lower treble. Frequency graphs confirms this fact.
 

 
I didn't hear any issues with treble when I auditioned the IM03. Granted, it was a short listening session (~15 minutes), but the highs on the IM03 were never harsh on the handful of tracks that I tested. I'm actually very sensitive to sibilance, so if it's there, it'll be noticeable. In fact, I came out feeling impressed with them, actually.