Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I have about 245 hours on the IE8 now. They sound different that they did just 24 hours ago, after very loud electronic music blasting through them. The biggest changes have occurred in the first 24 hours and in the last 24 hours of a 10 day burn-in - very strange, but then so is the burn-in for an Ultrasone too!
In Summary - The mids are still a little recessed, but detailed. The highs are starting to sound more like what I have been expecting from them, and the bass is still powerful but not quite as overwhelming like it has been in the past. Although the sound is not completely fixed with burn-in, the IE8 are starting to sound a little more fun than the Phonak Audeo or Livewires with some music, but it's not as detailed or transparent as those two which are closer to a studio monitor in sound.
I still find the bass to be overboard at times, for instance with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss "Raising Sand" and Shelby Lynn "Just a little Lovin" or . But it is less intrusive into the lower mids of the vocals than it was before - it's like having a loudness control with some CDs and I have to listen at low volumes or the bass is just too much. Yet, the bass is just right with some other music like Diana Krall "Live in Paris" or BB King and Eric Clapton "Riding with the King". The bass is pretty delicious with music like Renaud Garcia-Fons and Gary Karr who play the bass fiddle, or even Yo-Yo Ma's Cello. And, of course it is nice to have the punch and power behind the bass line in electronic music as well.
The slightly recessed mids though do make it more difficult to appreciate the details imbedded in the music. In the song "Riding with the King" King and Clapton singing and the piano all sound like an afterthought hiding behind the sound of the drums and guitars. Boosting the 500-2K range by a couple of dB really brings out their voices. Most recordings get by with the stock IE8 mids and no EQ without as much problems, but I just wanted to bring this up.
The treble is still very picky about the recording, and listening to Jennifer Knapp "Live" really drills into my head and it isn't sounding pleasant at all. This is a new finding and if the treble increases any more it will be a bad thing. I do find I can tone down the treble some if I push the IEM deeper into my ears, at the expense of more bass. With Jennifer Knapp "Live", that happens to be a good solution in that case. Switching from the stock bi-flange to the eBay bi-flange help take some of that edge off the treble, and even "Live in Paris" is less sibilant with the eBay bi-flange tips.
On the other hand, listening to Nils Lofgren "Acoustic Live" or John H. Clarke "Acoustik Guitar" plus some other classical acoustic guitar recordings is sounding good enough to enjoy with either tips. Jazz at the Pawnshop, my old standard jazz nightclub music test for transparency is not bad sounding, but still not at the same level as the Westone 3. Then there are some CD that seem to be made just for the IE8, like Patricia Barber "Companion". They do also seem to excel with electronic music like Infected Mushroom, Kenji Williams, Karunesh or Aaron Spectre. But, going in the opposite direction I still put on some classical music, a Mozart 24/96 recording (4608 kbps) that I downloaded from High Resolution Music for free. I enjoyed the IE8 with this recording and the soundstage is much improved from the early days, being wider and more spacious than I recall. As I type this I had to go look at my EQ settings and twice, and also had to make sure that the SRS iWOW plug-in was not activated.
The isolation still sucks, but this could be the IEM that I use when I'm not in the mood for a full size can but I need to hear my wife or kids calling for me. As for sound quality, the Westone ES3X and Westone 3 still beat these for me. But like I said, these IE8 might have a roll in being the IEM I use when I don't want total isolation - that used to be the roll of my Denon C700 for so long (I've had those for almost 2 years now).
As I get through each phase of burn-in, the best tips and the best amps to use with them change, so I will be spending more time with my other amps (currently using iBasso D10 with LTC6241HV opamp) and the other tips again. It might be time to revisit the medium single flange and the Complys T400 again as well. I will probably give these up to 300 hours for burn-in as well. I'll try them with the headphone out of my 4G Nano and iPhone 3G too, and report back.
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! W3, Sennheiser IE8, UE10 pro, SE530, ER4P, Triple Fi, Sensaphonics 2XS etc. - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio
