[Piotr Michalak]

Aura was a big let down

Just got VE Aura and I can confirm that it may definitely be the "only one". I will measure them later.

After a quick listen: perfect tuning for me, neutral with a little bit of warmth but within a "reference" extent. Great technicalities, neutral spacious mids, fast textured satisfying bass, delicate highs (I was afraid of that, note I use Erl on setting 4 in CIEM format for life). I practically can't touch this.

Of course, if you're used to your FiR monitor as a daily driver, everything will sound bad

They are lighter than the Erlkonig and don't have such hi-end packaging and overall feel, but are also more comfortable thanks to that.

Shells are perfect shape for me as usual with VE, I love this. Nozzle is also superb, I can make it deeply fitting for increased isolation easily, they are carved so all the tips or foams will sit tightly and never fall off, which sometimes is a problem with other companies nozzle design.

 

[tfenton02]

Very thankful for honest and even if sometimes brutal posts like yours.
Especially from someone with so much gear under his belt! Not everything that shines must be gold.

I have auditioned VE EXT, Phönix even the Eve 20 Limited Edition (got out of my ears after 5 seconds listening), VE 5, 6, 7 and 8 and I didn’t like them more than my IE 900, U12t and Ragnar which latter is just on a whole other level. I enjoyed the EXT way more than Phönix though. Oh and I only had a Fiio BTR7 a few months back when this happened. But to be honest the BTR7 is not bad for what it costs.
On top of that I wasn’t in cologne specifically for this reason and to be fair they only had an A&K 1000 with battery charged.
I want to get in contact with VE this week (maybe today) and ask them if they have the VE X in their shop in cologne or even the Aura to audition them with my DAPs RS8/N8ii.
Very friendly and great customer service though for my spontaneous visit.

+1 on Ragnar. It wasn’t for me but it’s certainly a special IEM with an amazing soundstage and level of detail retrieval.

 

[Piotr Michalak]

Yes….don’t get me wrong, it’s a great IEM. Blind testing I would have pegged this in the 2k range, maybe 1.8k.

Reading you guys, WTB Ragnar at a sensible offer in EU region, PM me somebody.

 

[Kweebs]

Loving the kweebs in the picture

Another rabbit-hole I dove in as well.
(Added IEM in picture fir sex-appeal)

HAHAHA, now I'm just digging the hole deeper for myself. Prob never gonna recover financially from all these.

 

[Kweebs]

Hey guys, question. (I'm not buying, just curious) But anyone got any cable reccos? Gonna see if I can beg, borrow or steal some of the recommended cables here from my friend and test them out. I know I can audition cables from audio stores, but I don't like having someone staring at me when I listen to music, and I prefer testing them at the comfort of my home. Appreciate yall

 

[Piotr Michalak]

Hey guys, question. (I'm not buying, just curious) But anyone got any cable reccos? Gonna see if I can beg, borrow or steal some of the recommended cables here from my friend and test them out. I know I can audition cables from audio stores, but I don't like having someone staring at me when I listen to music, and I prefer testing them at the comfort of my home. Appreciate yall

Apart from Murakumo2 which I still can't unhear and which isn't even a real cable, the best cables I have heard and used so far (to the extent that I am still sometimes buying another one for my collection):
- EA Centurion // note that I haven't heard Chiron 8w yet but I have multiple Horus 8w to compare
- PWA First Times Shielding // note that I only heard the UM RedHalo version (would gladly buy another one), I would risk a normal version if I were you
- PWA Meet Agains Shielding // again only UM LeJardin, unfortunately the normal version is in a strange color
Note: after many trials I don't value Brise Yatono 8w as high as the above, but it's always a question of synergy and personal preferences. But I haven't heard their silver flagship and would love to try it out one day, sooner than later.
P.S. Synergy is most important, best to tell us what you have and some people here will tell you what they found synergistical with a particular IEM.

 

[MaxwellDemon]

HAHAHA, now I'm just digging the hole deeper for myself. Prob never gonna recover financially from all these.

Welcome to the family!! We may be broke, but at least the company is excellent. Also! Hello fellow kweeb family here

No regrets at all hahaha

 

[MaxwellDemon]

Hey guys, question. (I'm not buying, just curious) But anyone got any cable reccos? Gonna see if I can beg, borrow or steal some of the recommended cables here from my friend and test them out. I know I can audition cables from audio stores, but I don't like having someone staring at me when I listen to music, and I prefer testing them at the comfort of my home. Appreciate yall

If you have just done one substantial upgrade, as one wise audiophile (and also cable maker) once told me, enjoy your new purchase first and do the cable upgrade for maximum enjoyment. Especially since cables are often tweaks to the overall sound profile of an IEM. Once you have appreciated your new IEMs, finding how to improve your IEM with cables will far easier!

If that makes sense -- and also gives your wallet a break maybe.

 

[Kweebs]

Welcome to the family!! We may be broke, but at least the company is excellent. Also! Hello fellow kweeb family here



No regrets at all hahaha

HAHA, feels good to be here. And damn that's a clean-looking keeb

 

[Kweebs]

If you have just done one substantial upgrade, as one wise audiophile (and also cable maker) once told me, enjoy your new purchase first and do the cable upgrade for maximum enjoyment. Especially since cables are often tweaks to the overall sound profile of an IEM. Once you have appreciated your new IEMs, finding how to improve your IEM with cables will far easier!

If that makes sense -- and also gives your wallet a break maybe.

Ya, I actually just wanna see how much of a diff a cable can make, hands itchy (or I guess in this case is ears itchy). Prob not gonna buy until later on, once my wallet makes a healthy recovery you know

 

[MaxwellDemon]

Ya, I actually just wanna see how much of a diff a cable can make, hands itchy (or I guess in this case is ears itchy). Prob not gonna buy until later on, once my wallet makes a healthy recovery you know

Absolutely! The rabbithole goes deep and once you've seen the potential of improvement, you just want to keep going. That's where the fun is

 

[Piotr Michalak]

Just got VE Aura and I can confirm that it may definitely be the "only one". I will measure them later.

After a quick listen: perfect tuning for me, neutral with a little bit of warmth but within a "reference" extent. Great technicalities, neutral spacious mids, fast textured satisfying bass, delicate highs (I was afraid of that, note I use Erl on setting 4 in CIEM format for life). I practically can't touch this.

Of course, if you're used to your FiR monitor as a daily driver, everything will sound bad

They are lighter than the Erlkonig and don't have such hi-end packaging and overall feel, but are also more comfortable thanks to that.

Shells are perfect shape for me as usual with VE, I love this. Nozzle is also superb, I can make it deeply fitting for increased isolation easily, they are carved so all the tips or foams will sit tightly and never fall off, which sometimes is a problem with other companies nozzle design.

Measurements done on mandarine orange foams, as they resemble what I hear more than stock tip measurements. There's a treble peak at 8kHz that I don't perceive mostly because (I think) I get a CIEM-like fit and depth of insertion. This peak probably moves to somewhere around 11kHz in reality.



I also got a few dB of channel imbalance unfortunately, and I hate when I get this, but somehow with this earphone it doesn't bother me at all, I can hear symmetrically well.

Note the coherency and a rather V-shape bass, which in reality doesn't bother me, even though I'm a neutral-head.

Aura vs Erlkonig (setting 4) take one:



Erlkonig has no dip at 8kHz, it's just the insertion depth of CIEM, in reality some of the highs move there to fill this spot and the highs on Erlkonig are one of my all-time favorite. Still we can see Aura definitely brighter to compensate for the BASS.

Now Erlkonig comparison volume adjusted:



We see Erl definitely more mid-focused in reality. Both are great earphones.

Aura vs FiR Radon6. You have your red filter in the background and the gold as default. Not so much more bass than the Aura and I don't perceive it like that (!!!).

Still, RN6 has much less natural sound and more V-shaped to my ears, maybe also thanks to the treble peak (even though I probably can't hear as far as this goes), and a larger difference between middle-mids (1kHz dip) and upper mids (2.5kHz peak). So definitely more aggresive tuning.



Now against my favorite, MAD24:


Both are great, MAD24 has definitely less bass but is the most important neutral reference in my collection. Technicalities on MAD24 are untouchable, especially in the mids and highs. Aura will have a larger stomp, can't deny it. I would buy both again and MAD24 reigns supreme for me.

Last but not least, Oriolus Trailii:



What a beauty to look at. Two superbly coherent great tunings!

 

[ColdsnapBry]

Any recommendation for a non branded single color case they holds the iem like this. Thank you.

 

[fejnomit]

What you call empirical evidence are the claims of a bunch of people that also claim that the technology that can develop and manufacture chips made of billions of transistors that implement algorithms to deliver information using multiple GHz electromagnetic waves over the air to a mobile phone as it travels 120 km/h in a car is not able to assess what happens when we send a maximum 20 kHz signal over a maximum 2m cable. Doesn't sound very convincing to me.

Again you're forgetting the end point of this signal playback chain. Once it's gone through everything you describe, where it follows all the laws we know of, it reaches... your ears. And then your brain. And only at the point can you, the individual, be said to have 'heard' the music. On then does the music exist, to us. It's that last few inches that makes all the difference. It's also where things go off track. And create the wonderful variation in the way we hear things and hence the wonderful discussions in this forum.

Also very quotable.

The counter argument is, that DAPs with outdated and buggy software, inferior silicon hardware and otherwise overpriced and overkill electrical parts in them, manufactured by small size en vogue audio design companies will surely beat the phone made by companies owning (or being one of) the most prestigious audio firms of the last 100 years or so and having access to their research and staff, including their own ridiculous budgets to invest into more of it


YMMV and mine does as well. It's not a question with a definite answer

Okay but don't they have totally different goals? Surely you're not saying a mobile phone is optimized for audio? While TOTL DAPs are. Especially the amp section. And something being 'buggy' or having 'inferior' hardware or 'overpriced' parts doesn't mean it can't sound GREAT! Sorry but my RS8 sounds objectively better by all measures than my iPhone. My iPhone outperforms the RS8 on every other level besides audio, as it should.

After some time of absence due to the fact, that I didn't feel I have to contribute anything valuable here, I stumbled upon a link, that I would like to share.

In the past, I struggled to describe a term that is used here pretty often, but seems to be very subjective. Musicality. I know that some people will stop reading at this point. That is fine. But for all others, IMO there's a perfect description of the way to perceive musicality. It is the way I have been comparing Hifi equipment of any type. But not only that. I use it to compare different publications of the same digital track, different versions of LP pressings and even different versions of a classical piece played by classical soloists or conductor/orchestra.

The method is extremely simple if you manage to be relaxed enough and open enough for it.

Once you're used to it, comparing doesn't take longer than a few seconds - as described in the article. I am doing this for decades now. A side effect being, that comparisons are an easy and relaxed task. No need for big concentration. Like most people, sometimes get lost in technicalities. But it tends to make me unsatisfied after a while so I've always returned to the musicality way of comparing.

It says saw in the paper, but I would like to confirm. To put musicality on the top of your criteria for comparing is the long-term way to keep your devices.
The method is called "Tune Method" in the article. I have heard that expression before, but I don't think that is a general term. For me it describes what I would call "Musicality Check"

Link --> Tune Method

Interesting. Sure to drive the objectivists absolutely mad!

 

[davidmolliere]

So I have received the famed and praised PW Orpheus (w. shielding).

I must say this was a bit of a nuts purchase that I wouldn't have considered if I hadn't read and fully trusted @gLer and @Tokpakorlo reviews and if I hadn't had the opportunity to purchase it from @mbirand second hand...

I was a bit afraid to get a case of buyer's regret as I have broken my own limit on cables with this one (by a very long stretch, my most expensive cable was Cleo II Octa). But there is a pattern here after breaking my DAP ceiling with N30 LE (and not regretting it one bit!). Note that the ergonomics is excellent given the footprint.

So expectations were high given the reviews and I must confess I prepared myself for at least a certain level of disappointment, but this is real... Peter Wong magic is working no matter if the cable is made of unicorn hair or some exotic copper he has the secret of... I have fond memories a few years back of the PW 1960s 4 wire but it's another league alright...

The result is here and everything has been said about this cable qualities in @gLer and @Tokpakorlo reviews is true (It's great to have such reliable reviewers when you dive in blind into such a product). Indeed the Orpheus has this analog quality that is right up my alley without any compromise on technicalities and I don't feel I am missing out in terms of resolution and detail (at all). The midrange is both fuller and more open and articulate with that cable it's a bit eerie... I also was surprised at the bite that this cable brings with RN6 on electric guitar it's quite a treat, never sounded better in fact... only similar experience was with Jolene so I can't imagine what they would sound like but 7pin socket means I can't pair it. Right now I switched to the Elysium and it's a beautiful pairing alright and the midrange is something to behold, instruments timbre are to die for...

The stage is also simply the best I have heard the few IEMs I ran it with at this point.
N30 was already mind blowing, with Orpheus and flagships CIEMs it's simply bliss and I can see hundreds of hours of eargasmic pleasure

Eye watering price but also eye watering emotions from the cable upgrade .

I must say all my cables are going to take quite a bit of dust now...