Reviews by Lamim Rashid
Intro
This is a bit of a polarizing set and has taught me some lessons about riding the hype train. Back when these came out everyone was saying these are better than the ISN H40 and worth the extra cost, but I beg to differ. Either way, let's break down my impressions of these. I will provide my opinion on how I think others might like this, as well as how I feel about these personally. My personal rating will differ from my actual rating because I take into account how others will probably like this set when trying to give it a fair rating. Hopefully my hundreds of hours of reading reviews and other people's opinions help here. Also I don't really understand why so many ppl rate almost every iem 4 or 5 out of 5 lol, if a 2.5 is considered average iem ratings should vary a lot more to help people actually differentiate what's good and what's bad.
Bass
Great bass for a bass focused set, normally I find bassy iems too fatiguing but these aren’t at all. It’s very nice textured bass. It does bleed into the mids and make them a bit warm but it doesn’t make things sound as bloated or muddy as badly as the graphs indicate so I bet these would have sounded great if they were tuned better. But let me expand on that, if you look at the graphs these DO look like they bleed into the mids a ton, so I'm of mind if they actually tuned these any decently they wouldnt bleed into the mids at all. There's definitely too much bass quantity for all but bass heads, depending on the type of bass head you are.
Mids
Mids on these are great, easily some of the best I heard. While warm, they are very smooth and have a lot of nice note weight, but it is a bit overemphasized by the copious amounts of bass bleeding into the mids. This makes this set sound amazing on some tracks, where there isnt a lot of bass already (think about vocal focused tracks, especially with male vocals, like tracks by Keshi, and Jeremy Zucker).
Treble
The upper treble is terribly done, it’s super tame which I’d like if it didn’t have a very big peak somewhere, and if it didn’t roll off so hard. At least that’s what I suspected and the graph I've found posted pretty much confirms that. The mele has this same issue but the mele is 6 times cheaper.
Comfort
Super comfortable feeling against skin/to the touch, as it should be at this price point, having medical grade resin and what not. Super comfortable shape too, for me at least. By far one of the lightest iems I've owned. 5/5 for comfort, one of the most comfortable iems I've ever worn.
Everything Else and Conclusion
These are the smoothest sounding iems I’ve ever heard, they sound so sweet and musical but the short comings it has make it terrible as an all rounder. Like I mentioned it’s better for vocal focused tracks, like keshi, etc. I didn’t even realize these had a ba driver for a year now lol so it doesn’t suffer from ba timbre at least. I'm pretty sensitive to ba and metallic timbre (which is why I dont like the dusk or fdx1 much), but I didn't notice much or any in this set. Tonality is decent and natural sounding. If they fixed that peak, added some extension, toned down the bass, these would be perfect. In pop tracks these sound too sharp and the bass overwhelms everything, not sure how so many ppl ended up culting over these lmao. They’re amazing for tracks with very little going on other than vocals but that’s it. This is a good set if you like rotating iems for different genres but still a bit over priced, especially when you can just filter mod a dq6 and have a better all rounder iem in that.
Personal Rating 3.5/5
On a personal level, I rate these a 3.5/5, and that's just as a rotation piece for listening to tracks its more suited for, not accounting for it's overpriced cost either. I like these a lot for the tracks theyre good for, but that's it, and that's where my personal rating comes from.
Actual Rating 2.5/5
If you listen to a lot of male vocal tracks without bass or are a bass loving nut, and are just looking for a very smooth sounding rotation piece to throw in your collection maybe consider picking these up from the used market if you see a good deal. Otherwise I can't recc these at all. There are better sets out there, especially at this price point. These just make for a terrible all rounder and are expensive. I think these would compete okay in a lower price bracket like $100-$150 but definitely not above $200.
Here's a badly taken picture of my orbs on a xinhs cable cause that's the best this set deserves.
This is a bit of a polarizing set and has taught me some lessons about riding the hype train. Back when these came out everyone was saying these are better than the ISN H40 and worth the extra cost, but I beg to differ. Either way, let's break down my impressions of these. I will provide my opinion on how I think others might like this, as well as how I feel about these personally. My personal rating will differ from my actual rating because I take into account how others will probably like this set when trying to give it a fair rating. Hopefully my hundreds of hours of reading reviews and other people's opinions help here. Also I don't really understand why so many ppl rate almost every iem 4 or 5 out of 5 lol, if a 2.5 is considered average iem ratings should vary a lot more to help people actually differentiate what's good and what's bad.
Bass
Great bass for a bass focused set, normally I find bassy iems too fatiguing but these aren’t at all. It’s very nice textured bass. It does bleed into the mids and make them a bit warm but it doesn’t make things sound as bloated or muddy as badly as the graphs indicate so I bet these would have sounded great if they were tuned better. But let me expand on that, if you look at the graphs these DO look like they bleed into the mids a ton, so I'm of mind if they actually tuned these any decently they wouldnt bleed into the mids at all. There's definitely too much bass quantity for all but bass heads, depending on the type of bass head you are.
Mids
Mids on these are great, easily some of the best I heard. While warm, they are very smooth and have a lot of nice note weight, but it is a bit overemphasized by the copious amounts of bass bleeding into the mids. This makes this set sound amazing on some tracks, where there isnt a lot of bass already (think about vocal focused tracks, especially with male vocals, like tracks by Keshi, and Jeremy Zucker).
Treble
The upper treble is terribly done, it’s super tame which I’d like if it didn’t have a very big peak somewhere, and if it didn’t roll off so hard. At least that’s what I suspected and the graph I've found posted pretty much confirms that. The mele has this same issue but the mele is 6 times cheaper.
Comfort
Super comfortable feeling against skin/to the touch, as it should be at this price point, having medical grade resin and what not. Super comfortable shape too, for me at least. By far one of the lightest iems I've owned. 5/5 for comfort, one of the most comfortable iems I've ever worn.
Everything Else and Conclusion
These are the smoothest sounding iems I’ve ever heard, they sound so sweet and musical but the short comings it has make it terrible as an all rounder. Like I mentioned it’s better for vocal focused tracks, like keshi, etc. I didn’t even realize these had a ba driver for a year now lol so it doesn’t suffer from ba timbre at least. I'm pretty sensitive to ba and metallic timbre (which is why I dont like the dusk or fdx1 much), but I didn't notice much or any in this set. Tonality is decent and natural sounding. If they fixed that peak, added some extension, toned down the bass, these would be perfect. In pop tracks these sound too sharp and the bass overwhelms everything, not sure how so many ppl ended up culting over these lmao. They’re amazing for tracks with very little going on other than vocals but that’s it. This is a good set if you like rotating iems for different genres but still a bit over priced, especially when you can just filter mod a dq6 and have a better all rounder iem in that.
Personal Rating 3.5/5
On a personal level, I rate these a 3.5/5, and that's just as a rotation piece for listening to tracks its more suited for, not accounting for it's overpriced cost either. I like these a lot for the tracks theyre good for, but that's it, and that's where my personal rating comes from.
Actual Rating 2.5/5
If you listen to a lot of male vocal tracks without bass or are a bass loving nut, and are just looking for a very smooth sounding rotation piece to throw in your collection maybe consider picking these up from the used market if you see a good deal. Otherwise I can't recc these at all. There are better sets out there, especially at this price point. These just make for a terrible all rounder and are expensive. I think these would compete okay in a lower price bracket like $100-$150 but definitely not above $200.
Here's a badly taken picture of my orbs on a xinhs cable cause that's the best this set deserves.
