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Anybody got any thoughts on synergy with the IE80's and Sandisk Clip+ or Zip.
Also been looking at the Dark Lord (Teflon) upgrade cable on ebay, any thoughts?
I do as that is one of my portable setups
Is yours rockboxed ? I hope so otherwise you will never access the advanced equalizing capabilities of this little devil
Also I don´t really like the results of the tape mod thingy. Disadvantages are way higher than advantages.
I would rather eq them together properly. So,
Considering that a proper ear tip fit is already in place my best settings for the clip+ and the IE80 are:
LS: 4.0db at 60Hz 0.7 slope
PK1: -3.0db at 110Hz 1.0 slope
PK2: -1.0db at 2500 1.0 slope
PK3: 4.0db at 12000Hz 1.0 slope
HS: 10.0db at 16000Hz 1.0 slope
This way you will extend the bass a bit with a wide slope to compensate for the mid bass cut at 110Hz these drivers need so it won´t steal the low-mid-bass at about 80-90Hz peak
Some vocal range ringing is corrected with a slight cut at about 2500 (some prefer 4000 depending on the vocals) and then my personal preference some addition to the high freqs to give life at about 12000 and finally a good chunk way up on the 16khz as I quite like the dish/cymbals very high freq for colorfulness
And the IE80 responds very well to this. just shows its hidden capabilities that many never get to experience (mainly because of bad fitting, fortunately I never had these problems both with comply ts and some JVC generic ones)
Now regarding the cable that´s also a hit and miss. Many people on blind tests never get to differenciate between one or other sets of cables generally speaking. Incidentally I would never go the full silver route, these will even lower the resist. On these 16ohm to avoid falling into a too much clinical sound I´d much rather keep to the semi copper/silver cables or just plain copper for a warmer sound, both can be had cheaper. Also the original IE8 cable should not be too bad since its more flexible than the default IE80 one (which I don´t like, the stiffness makes it jump out of the ear eventually)
Whatever you do try to avoid very thick avg cables and if you do get some get them with the ear pre bended. Otherwise will be a nightmare to manage and you´ll probably be disappointed.