[ruofeng]

The XP-Pen Deco01 is the best drawing tablet I have ever used https://www.amazon.com/10x6-25-Graphics-Battery-free-shortcut-pressure/dp/B077P6BQP7

 

[Gallatin]

So, my third pair of 9927's stopped working at the base plug (left channel went out, jsut like the other two).

Frustrated,I ordered a pair of HiFiMan RE-400's, on sale for $49 normally $99. I'm noticing that the sound is meatier, but also slightly harsher than the 9927's.

Is there a way around the 9927 plug issue?

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

Normally I would have said to try one of the versions with a rubberized cable (9960 or 9963) as they were my go-to, but as I just mentioned previously they've been discontinued (probably because the black and fabric cable of the 9927 got all the ladies).

 

[MarkdotT]

First I apologise if this is too overtly commercial.

Inspired solely by this thread (hat tip to Dsnuts), I became (as far as I know) the only official reseller of Monoprice 8320/9927 etc type earphones outside the US and I shifted over 1800 pairs of them on eBay and Amazon in 2012 - 2015. The market got crowded and I got busy with other things so I stopped selling in Jan 2016.

All this to say that I still have a small stock of these beasts. I have mostly Black with a few Pink and a HUGE number of Comply S400 foam ear tips.

Any suggestions?

Mark

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

a few Pink

If you seriously have some of the pink ones, then that could actually be a bit valuable since they have the rubberized cord which Monoprice has since discontinued.

And like I just mentioned in my previous reply, assuming that "Gallatin" isn't allergic to the color pink, maybe they would be at least interested in a pair?

Alternatively, if you're handy with paint, maybe you could paint the pink IEMs black and try to sell them that way. I know that there were members on here that wanted the rubberized cable of the white & pink models but didn't want those colors and therefore settled for the black versions anyway. Heck I myself would possibly even be interested in a few pairs.

BTW, do you include the stock tips? That's another thing going for the pink versions - I felt that the clear-colored stock tips included with the white & pink models are more more comfortable than the those bundled with the black model.

 

[Gallatin]

I'm reposting this comparison here since it's on-topic:

So my 9927's died at the plug again (left channel) and I was fed up, so I ordered new headphones. I have a pair of AKG 240's, and a uber-warm pair of Samsung headphones as backup (gulp).

First, I found it difficult to work out with the HiFiMan's. They just didn't stay still in my ear. In terms of sound, I was disappointed. While the RE-400's do have a better sound-stage, more "meat" and better instrument separation compared to the 9927's, I found them to have a "blanket" effect on the vocals. The singers felt far away compared to the 9927's. I also noticed a very artificial "hyped" sound to the RE-400's that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It's not the Bose V-Hype, but rather an amplified artificiality in the mids and highs. Having the earbuds in my ears with no music did nothing. But after ten minutes of play, my ears would ache and I'd get a headache from the RE-400's.

So back they go. I've ordered a new pair of 9927's. As far as these earbuds, I know their weakness. Instrument separation is not great, and the sound can be so neutral it veers towards cold and brittle. BUT, the bass is much more fun than the RE-400's, which seems non-existent. The coldness of the 9927's is addressed by the comply foam tips, which I will be ordering as well. I love how truly neutral the 9927's sound.

If anyone has any recommendations for earbuds in the HiFiMan's range, I'm all ears. Until then, I'll have to stick with my 9927's, which cause no fatigue of any kind, and never fall out while working out. The big negative is the plug going out (third pair).

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

If anyone has any recommendations for earbuds in the HiFiMan's range, I'm all ears. Until then, I'll have to stick with my 9927's, which cause no fatigue of any kind, and never fall out while working out. The big negative is the plug going out (third pair).

Inspired solely by this thread (hat tip to Dsnuts), I became (as far as I know) the only official reseller of Monoprice 8320/9927 etc type earphones outside the US and I shifted over 1800 pairs of them on eBay and Amazon in 2012 - 2015. The market got crowded and I got busy with other things so I stopped selling in Jan 2016.

All this to say that I still have a small stock of these beasts. I have mostly Black with a few Pink and a HUGE number of Comply S400 foam ear tips.

As someone with two pairs of white 9963's which use the same rubberized cable as the pink versions, you two totally should get in touch. Much like I said in my previous comment, perhaps the cable-woes that Gallatin is facing would be solved with a rubberized cable rather than the fabric one.

If the color pink is that big of an issue, then perhaps the IEM housing could be swapped with the black? Presumably Gallatin still has the pair that just died on him which could work as a donor, and spray-painting the pink cable or covering/sleeveing it shouldn't be particularly difficult either.

 

[thamasha69]

I'm reposting this comparison here since it's on-topic:

So my 9927's died at the plug again (left channel) and I was fed up, so I ordered new headphones. I have a pair of AKG 240's, and a uber-warm pair of Samsung headphones as backup (gulp).

First, I found it difficult to work out with the HiFiMan's. They just didn't stay still in my ear. In terms of sound, I was disappointed. While the RE-400's do have a better sound-stage, more "meat" and better instrument separation compared to the 9927's, I found them to have a "blanket" effect on the voc useals. The singers felt far away compared to the 9927's. I also noticed a very artificial "hyped" sound to the RE-400's that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It's not the Bose V-Hype, but rather an amplified artificiality in the mids and highs. Having the earbuds in my ears with no music did nothing. But after ten minutes of play, my ears would ache and I'd get a headache from the RE-400's.

So back they go. I've ordered a new pair of 9927's. As far as these earbuds, I know their weakness. Instrument separation is not great, and the sound can be so neutral it veers towards cold and brittle. BUT, the bass is much more fun than the RE-400's, which seems non-existent. The coldness of the 9927's is addressed by the comply foam tips, which I will be ordering as well. I love how truly neutral the 9927's sound.

If anyone has any recommendations for earbuds in the HiFiMan's range, I'm all ears. Until then, I'll have to stick with my 9927's, which cause no fatigue of any kind, and never fall out while working out. The big negative is the plug going out (third pair).

I enjoyed the Monoprice 8320's and 9963's for a long time, but have since devoted most of my listening to other headphones. My current favorite IEM is the Sony MH1C - warm sound, great bass (some say too much, but I mostly disagree), the smoothest treble, yet still provide great separation and extension, zero fatigue. I love the way they present all of my music- everything sounds natural and right - every genre.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/review-sony-mh1-–-the-best-kept-secret.632892/

It is a phenomenal headphone to my ears, probably my favorite.

 

[Joe Average]

Hope I'm not too late to the party and this post won't be so necromantic it's a big hassle but... after years of reading about the 8320 and the variants I finally got two pairs of the 9927 IEMs yesterday and I have to admit I was fairly disappointed in the audio quality from the gitgo. No, didn't do burn in, still not 100% convinced of the science behind that and I have to admit it could just be a placebo thing because of that aspect, I don't want to start a brouhaha about it so that's that.

Upon my first listen using an LG V20 I was disappointed in the fairly shrill (can't think of a better term to use) high end. One of my go-to things to look for with audio playback and the hardware I'm using to listen, most notably with headphones or earbuds or IEMs, is the punch of bass with a lot of the music I listen to. Disclaimer: I am not a "bass head" and I don't use EQ, ever - yeah, I know I'm weird but that's just me and my ears I suppose. For source material I'm using some content I've purchased over the years from HDTracks (yeah, I know, some of their stuff just isn't nearly as "HD" as it should be, sadly) all in 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC format: Rush (Sector One, Two, and Three, a big collection of their albums up from their first self-titled album to "A Show of Hands" from 1988), Robert Cray - Strong Persuader, Joe Satriani - Flying In A Blue Dream, INXS - Listen Like Thieves, a few of the HDTracks sampler albums from 2014/2015/2016/2017/2018, and Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show which is a pretty cool thing to use for demo material and of course the test tracks and tones come in handy as well.

My V20 running Android 8.0 Oreo is rooted and modified to force the high impedance mode into constant operation - the 9927 have 32 Ohms so that's not enough to trigger the DAC into proper operation as it requires ~50 Ohms). I can enable or disable the HiFi DAC at will and when it's enabled it is fully functional when the 24/96 material is played back using the stock Music app. I know there's a few other music players that do make use of the DAC in the V20 but my primary playback app is GoneMAD which unfortunately (so far) doesn't directly support using the DAC during playback which is a let down but maybe someday it will.

I'll be honest: my previous earbuds were some that always sounded fantastic to me and since that's what matters more than specs or response curves and graphs and anything else, and they were an older pair of Koss KEB24 "Steel" earbuds that I got back around 2008 or so and lasted me a good long while - I modded them from their original cable long ago to a Samsung one so the inline remote would function with my smartphones but recently one of the drivers finally gave up the ghost so, I had to get something new hence the 9927 purchase. I'm also a huge fan of Porta Pros and I have a 1st gen pair purchased in 1986 still in excellent working condition. I have a 1st gen pair of Sony V6 as well purchased at roughly the same time, also in excellent condition with no issues - only had to replace the pads twice in all these years on both of those. And of course I love the Koss KSC-75 earclips as so many many other people do and I have a few of those as well.

Mind you I'm not a major massive spender of cash for audio hardware and some of the stuff I've demoed in my lifetime that some folks absolutely rave about ended up sounding pretty terrible to my ears, but that's how audio is: subjective and based on our own hearing apparatus.

The shrillness became pretty aggravating pretty fast and I started wondering what to do about it. With the 24/96 playback using the DAC in the V20, the EQ circuit is disabled - you can't mod the audio when those files are in use with the DAC, and while GoneMAD could play them just fine and allow me to EQ them obviously the loss of the DAC would not be optimal, I suppose. At max volume the 9927 were still not as loud as I might prefer but that's just my personal issue with the playback. They're not super sensitive of course (the specs say 96 dB +/- 3dB (1mw @ 1 kHz) so not the greatest things ever. Engaging the DAC of course covers that and when I push it all the way up to 75 (the DAC's volume is 1-step control and I typically leave it around 40-50 depending on the source material) the 9927 handle it without any issues since it's a solid clean signal.

But the shrillness and "lack of bass" was bugging me so I started reading this thread, all 288 pages of it (with some skipping depending), over the past day or so and taking note of mentions of mods, etc. I prefer the cloth cable this time as every other pair of headphones or earbuds I've ever owned and the microphonics become irrelevant to me when I loop the cord over the ear - that's what they're supposed to do with this design, that much I'm fairly confident of. Fit is no issue for me, the medium tips work just fine and I knew I was getting a good seal but even so that "lack of bass" - OK, to clarify it's basically my inability to perceive it to the levels I'm used to with the 9927 in their native unmodded form.

So I saw mention of the tiny port next to the nozzle and figured there's gotta be something that can be done there and then I noted references to just covering it with a piece of tape of some kind of material, whether it's Scotch tape, masking tape, Duct tape, medical tape, whatever. I figured it can't hurt to try so I grabbed some Scotch tape, cut two tiny 1/8" square sections and covered the port holes.

Fired up the Music player, chose "The Manhattan Project" by Rush and voila, exactly what I was hoping for: bass that I can hear, with the punch of Neil Peart's kick drum that I can practically feel in my chest, in 24/96 glory.

It's amazing that such a small thing, literally a piece of Scotch tape only 1/8" square, can have such a tremendous effect on the overall audio quality of these already quite awesome IEMs. And yes, for the $16 and change I paid for the two pairs (price + shipping) they are so very much worth it so, I'm glad to finally be on the 8320/9927/etc bandwagon.

I may look into some other mods, the filter ones might help tone down the high end just a tad as it still has a very slightly shrill quality to my aging ears. My traditional material that I use with GoneMAD is actually Opus 128 Kbps encoded files I did myself from a 2300+ CD collection and those still sound pretty damned awesome to my aging ears too. But at least for a change I can say that even I can actually hear a difference when I'm listening to the 24/96 files through the V20's rather nice DAC into the 9927's.

So, if you're one that notices the "lack of bass" from the 8320/9927 and other variants and you have not done "the tape mod" or some variation of it to cover or seal that tiny port I'd say it's worth it. A free mod at no cost that provides big huge benefits, at least in my opinion based on my experience.

Just for the record: I have a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate - the original Galaxy smartphone - with that still-to-this-day amazing Wolfson DAC in it and I have VoodooSound on it as well and it can power these 9927's rather surprisingly well and it sounds awesome. Paid $5 for it at a pawn shop 'cause they couldn't get to power on and I use it for a DAP basically nowadays. I have a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone from 2012 which has a Wolfson DAC in it as well and it too can power the 9927's just fine.

These are pretty wicked IEMs, so even though it took me ~7 years to finally get some, I wish to thank Dsnuts for bringing them into the consciousness of the community long ago and for all the posters that shared info and mods and everything else about these little wonders.

 

[Gallatin]

Hey everyone, I found a new headphone for $10 that beats the 8320's. After the left channel went out again on my 12th pair, within five months, every pair did this (yes I'm a sucker for punishment), I finally got mad enough to try a new brand. And I got very lucky in discovering the KZ ED special edition classics.

MUCH better build quality, bass, and clarity than the 8320's for $8.99 on Amazon right now. Also the soundstage is a big improvement. My last pair of 8320's is now backup duty. I put a lot of effort into the 8320's with comply eartips and custom mods to try and stop the left channel defect. But it was time to move on.

I LOVE the KZ ED special editions. A big step up in all contexts. Note that in order to get a proper seal with the KZ ED's, and used the biggest eartips that came with the 8329's.

 

[Ruben123]

I've been away a few years, with good reason (in-ears often don't stay that long fit -so I got a Sennheiser Momentum on-ear for my 2h commute), and just recently digging up my old earphones and looking (for the sake of it) for something new. New and balanced, perhaps slightly warm. I just dug up my Monoprices and just wow... I know I have a perfect seal and perhaps my ears close the small venting hole on the side, but listening to Dire Straits really is a treat. Warm-neutral sound, rumbling bass when needed, slightly recessed mids and the resolution isn't up to much more expensive sets I tried, though the overall sound is so...nice. I might just stop my search of Having B3 twins and enjoy my MP's (have several spares). I really love these IEMs. I think only the Urbanfuns really came close (and have a slightly higher resolution and much easier fit,but those fall out of my ears after 15m), though other Chinese IEMs I tried are really worse (many KZs of the time). How are former owners enjoying them, or have most died now?

 

[Ruben123]

Hey everyone, I found a new headphone for $10 that beats the 8320's. After the left channel went out again on my 12th pair, within five months, every pair did this (yes I'm a sucker for punishment), I finally got mad enough to try a new brand. And I got very lucky in discovering the KZ ED special edition classics.

MUCH better build quality, bass, and clarity than the 8320's for $8.99 on Amazon right now. Also the soundstage is a big improvement. My last pair of 8320's is now backup duty. I put a lot of effort into the 8320's with comply eartips and custom mods to try and stop the left channel defect. But it was time to move on.

I LOVE the KZ ED special editions. A big step up in all contexts. Note that in order to get a proper seal with the KZ ED's, and used the biggest eartips that came with the 8329's.

I actually liked the MP far more. Though nowadays both might not be for sale anymore.