robervaul
500+ Head-Fier
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Wo9w
ranking?
ranking?
Earbuds Round-Up
- Thread starter ClieOS
- Start date
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- akg akg-k-319-in-ear-bud-headphone-dark-charcoal audio-technica-ath-cm707 baldoor-earbell-e100 bang-olufsen-a8-earphones blox-anv3 blox-m2c blox-tm7 blue-ever-blue-328r creative-aurvana-air-headphones-over-the-ear crossroads-hr1 dunu-alpha-1-hybrid-earbuds-dynamic-balanced-armature-high-fidelity-headphones earbuds hifiman-electronics-es100-vintage-style-earbud-with-15mm-driver-blue rose sennheiser sennheiser-mx-580-stereo-headphones-with-intergrated-volume-control sennheiser-mx-581-stereo-stereo-headphones-with-intergrated-volume-control sennheiser-mx-760 sennheiser-mx-90-style-series-in-ear-headphone-with-volume-control sunrise-audio sunrise-audio-charm venture-electronics-ve-zen yuin-pk1-earphones yuin-pk3-earphones
ctaxxxx
1000+ Head-Fier
Woow
A Kizumonogatari earbud?
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golov17
Headphoneus Supremus
@robervaul , ATH CM700Ti, Mojito. Not have CM7 unfortunately.. IMHO
one1speed
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Thank you!
ctaxxxx
1000+ Head-Fier
Finished writing up my CAX Black impressions. Did a lot of rewrites, cause I couldn't decide how I felt about them... Been updating my Earbuds Comparison List into a new format as well. Would really like to add more buds on there though.
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Hi. Do you keep Bass and Treble 100% in PowerAmp?Turning Green!
I took out my Nicehck DIY PK2 today for a spin, and the cable is most defintitely turning green - just like the Shozy Cygnus, which it ....umm.. resembles! Not only do they have the same driver (thanks @golov17 for provding the driver images!!!) , but the cable also oxidizes in a similar way.
The black version of the DIY PK2 which I also own has no such issues, and sound identical to the white version.
Also, the "L" and "R" wore off the shell. It was printed in grey.
Edit - added photo
silverfishla
Headphoneus Supremus
How do these sound? And in comparison to the PMVthat sort of look like this one?Woow
rkw
Headphoneus Supremus
Did you get it directly from Japan? Really pricey. Are these different versions, or just different colors?Woow
https://www.amazon.com/nine-wave-NW-STUDIO-Original-Installed/dp/B01N6SZTDY
https://www.amazon.com/ninewave-Inear-earphone-NW-STUDIO-NEO/dp/B01J9FJLMY
https://www.amazon.com/ninewave-Inear-earphone-NW-STUDIO-NEO/dp/B01J9FG2PI
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golov17
Headphoneus Supremus
golov17
Headphoneus Supremus
If you are willing to accept the shy amount of bass, and love high-resolution mids and treble, this is very good, not universal, but, in a way, uniquely sounding earbuds. 34 ohm impendence, easy to drive, love with dark sources
slappypete
100+ Head-Fier
I received my Zen 1 in the mail today. As promised, I opened up the TY Hi-Z HP320M, Seahf 320 Smart 1, and Zen and attempted to turn the TY and Seahf into a Zen 1. The results were fantastic, and I can say that in my opinion these all use the same drivers, and can indeed all be configured to be a Zen 1.
Before I go into detail on how this is done, I want to clear something up. My past measurements showed a significant enough difference in bass response between the HP320M and Smart 1 that I had concluded they must be using different drivers. I believe I made an error with those measurements and I appologize to anyone who may have been mislead. In todays measurements I noticed that one of the HP320M drivers measured quite a bit differently than the other, and while I thought in past measurements I had averaged both L and R measurements, I figure I must have messed up here and only measured one side. I measured many earbuds that day so I can see this being the case.
In todays measurements there was much less of a difference between the TY and Seahf after properly averaging the results. After tinkering around for a while I now believe the tuning foam on the TY was sealing better on one side than the other and resulted in the difference in measurements. I also should mention that about a week ago I made a modification to my coupler on my measurement mic, which allows me to get a more consistent seal for measurements. This change causes my graphs to look slightly different than the original ones I posted. If you were wondering why things seem to have changed, thats why. So please only compare these measurements and anything I posted this week to each other and not to the big first batch of measurements I shared. That first batch is likely still good too, just should only be compared to others within that batch. I don’t plan to make any more changes to the measurement rig so we should be good to go from now on.
Ok so on to the modification. The only difference between the Zen 1 and the others is in how the tuning foam was applied. On the TY and Seahf the foam was applied to the shell. On the Zen the foam is applied to the back of the driver with glue, and one hole is left completely open. Here is a photo showing the difference:
I used a pair of tweezers to remove the original foam from the TY and Seahf and set them aside. The foam doesn’t have much glue on it so I needed to figure out what type of glue to use. My best guess was spray on craft glue, as from experience removing driver foam, it seems very similar to the type used. Here is a photo of the stuff I used:
To glue the foam I first put the foam down on cardboard, then lightly sprayed the foam, and applied with tweezers to the back of the driver. It turns out spraying the foam directly was a bad idea. When spraying the foam you also spray the sides of the foam. I was working on the Seahf first and on the second driver I closed the shell up pretty soon after gluing the foam on. When I tried to open the shell again, the shell had stuck to the foam well enough that it pulled the driver out of the front plastic cover, and broke the voicecoil wire, thus destroying the driver.
So the way I would recommed to glue the foam is to first spray your glue on some cardboard, then place your foam on the glue, then lift if up with tweezers and apply to the driver. When you apply the foam to the driver use very light pressure when applying it. The reason I had to open up that second Seahf driver was because I used firm pressure on that piece of foam and it really changed the FR compared to the first. Here is the result of firm pressure gluing the foam:
The TY went easy breezy after I figured that out. It might seem daunting to do this after hearing all that but to be honest I don’t think it will be too hard for most people to do and as long as you use light pressure on the foam I think your results will be good. The TY measured perfectly to my liking with one attempt gluing the foam on.
Since I destroyed the Seahf, and the Zen I bought had a pretty badly oxidized cable, I decided to recable my Zen 1 with the pristine cable from the Seahf. The Zen 1 is now in mint stock condition.
Here is the resulting FR of the modded TY and one side of the modded Seahf:
Here are some measurements comparing the Zen 1 to my other buds:
As far as subjective impressions go… I can’t tell the difference between the modded HP320M and the real Zen 1. The drivers also have identical impedance and sensitivity so a direct comparison with both running out of the dual TRS outputs on the Chord Mojo was easy.
Before I go into detail on how this is done, I want to clear something up. My past measurements showed a significant enough difference in bass response between the HP320M and Smart 1 that I had concluded they must be using different drivers. I believe I made an error with those measurements and I appologize to anyone who may have been mislead. In todays measurements I noticed that one of the HP320M drivers measured quite a bit differently than the other, and while I thought in past measurements I had averaged both L and R measurements, I figure I must have messed up here and only measured one side. I measured many earbuds that day so I can see this being the case.
In todays measurements there was much less of a difference between the TY and Seahf after properly averaging the results. After tinkering around for a while I now believe the tuning foam on the TY was sealing better on one side than the other and resulted in the difference in measurements. I also should mention that about a week ago I made a modification to my coupler on my measurement mic, which allows me to get a more consistent seal for measurements. This change causes my graphs to look slightly different than the original ones I posted. If you were wondering why things seem to have changed, thats why. So please only compare these measurements and anything I posted this week to each other and not to the big first batch of measurements I shared. That first batch is likely still good too, just should only be compared to others within that batch. I don’t plan to make any more changes to the measurement rig so we should be good to go from now on.
Ok so on to the modification. The only difference between the Zen 1 and the others is in how the tuning foam was applied. On the TY and Seahf the foam was applied to the shell. On the Zen the foam is applied to the back of the driver with glue, and one hole is left completely open. Here is a photo showing the difference:
I used a pair of tweezers to remove the original foam from the TY and Seahf and set them aside. The foam doesn’t have much glue on it so I needed to figure out what type of glue to use. My best guess was spray on craft glue, as from experience removing driver foam, it seems very similar to the type used. Here is a photo of the stuff I used:
To glue the foam I first put the foam down on cardboard, then lightly sprayed the foam, and applied with tweezers to the back of the driver. It turns out spraying the foam directly was a bad idea. When spraying the foam you also spray the sides of the foam. I was working on the Seahf first and on the second driver I closed the shell up pretty soon after gluing the foam on. When I tried to open the shell again, the shell had stuck to the foam well enough that it pulled the driver out of the front plastic cover, and broke the voicecoil wire, thus destroying the driver.
So the way I would recommed to glue the foam is to first spray your glue on some cardboard, then place your foam on the glue, then lift if up with tweezers and apply to the driver. When you apply the foam to the driver use very light pressure when applying it. The reason I had to open up that second Seahf driver was because I used firm pressure on that piece of foam and it really changed the FR compared to the first. Here is the result of firm pressure gluing the foam:
The TY went easy breezy after I figured that out. It might seem daunting to do this after hearing all that but to be honest I don’t think it will be too hard for most people to do and as long as you use light pressure on the foam I think your results will be good. The TY measured perfectly to my liking with one attempt gluing the foam on.
Since I destroyed the Seahf, and the Zen I bought had a pretty badly oxidized cable, I decided to recable my Zen 1 with the pristine cable from the Seahf. The Zen 1 is now in mint stock condition.
Here is the resulting FR of the modded TY and one side of the modded Seahf:
Here are some measurements comparing the Zen 1 to my other buds:
As far as subjective impressions go… I can’t tell the difference between the modded HP320M and the real Zen 1. The drivers also have identical impedance and sensitivity so a direct comparison with both running out of the dual TRS outputs on the Chord Mojo was easy.
nhlean96
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Do you guys have any suggestion for $15 budget ? I'm considering the boarseman mx98, I listen to metal genres (thrash, death, ...), hard rock, .. most of the time. A post in this thread said the mx98 is the best for metal.
I suggest increasing it a couple bucks and getting the RX1, probably the best earbud under $50 imo.
slappypete
100+ Head-Fier
The Vido and Edifier H180 get my vote.
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