[aminus]

Fearless Roland:
And people ask me why I hate Chifi FOTM hypetrains...

Fearless’ tribrid (again? really?) Roland has been massively hyped up by certain individuals to absolutely demolish legendary IEMs like the qdc Anole VX and the 64 audio U12t. Such hypetrainery has become standard at this point in this community but people don’t seem to learn from their mistakes. Barely anyone remembers the **** **** and the BGVP DM6 and DMG, and the cycle repeats itself in the form of the likes of the Roland and the BL03. It’s all so tiring.

When I first heard the Roland my first question was if this actually had a DD for the woofer. I proceeded to check the specs online to make sure I wasn’t losing my marbles, and sure enough it has one. Well congratulations to Fearless for succeeding in making their woofer sound like a literal BA. And no, I don’t mean it’s like the Solaris where the bass has that yucky plastic BA timbre to it but it still slams and rumbles, this literally sounds like a BA in every way. Subbass extension is awful, decay is trash, timbre sounds like the usual BA crap. What on earth am I listening to?

The midrange on the Roland sounds wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Vocals sound like they’re covered by a blanket. Guitars have this strange honky horn-ish tonality to them that sounds absolutely terrible. Anything presenting itself in the upper midrange has the least amount of texture for that area that I’ve ever heard on any IEM. Notes sound like sine waves with a preprogrammed ADSR ratio. It takes a special kind of bad to pull this off but god damn dude, god damn.

And then... nothing. This void represents the void that is the Roland’s treble. It has absolutely none. It surpasses even the Wraith in this regard. Now we shall take a moment of silence in memory of my innocence and sanity for having heard this absolute burning garbagefire.



























Amen.

Score: 2/10

In all seriousness, the Roland really is terrible. It sounds tonally incorrect, has some of the worst timbre on any IEM I’ve heard, barely passes in basic technicalities... I don’t know what to say. This thing is an affront to god, an affront to human decency, a living insult. Stay away.

Note: This review was written during my week long holiday in Shanghai, back around the period of Canjam Shanghai 2019. Originally, this was supposed to be a semi-humorous “review” commemorating the Roland as my first 1/10. However, a week after I returned to Singapore I was... ahem, tortur- I mean graced by the presence of oBravo’s Cupid, which far exceeded the Roland in absolute horribleness. As such, I am forced to concede the Roland’s score up to a 2/10. Blame oBravo for making score defining-ly bad IEMs.

 

[mvvRAZ]

Dita Dream XLS:
Dita is a company I haven’t really touched on, probably for good reason. Nothing they make appeals to me. That and their rather unsightly channel matching has me apprehensive about their products. However such apprehension will not prevent me from hearing the latest and greatest and telling you how bad or (probably not) good it is.

The Dream XLS is the marked sequel to their previous Dream flagship, and supposedly sounds completely different. I may or may not have heard the Dream before, but whatever it is I cannot recall how it sounds. Needless to say such information is irrelevant as I shall judge the Dream XLS based on it alone.

And judgement has arrived. The Dream XLS’ bass is flat, light and boring. Extension exists but slam is fairly weak and lacking in texture. Technical ability is not on the strong side either, and decay is a little short for my tastes. I’m not impressed, and don’t really have much to rave about here. Texture is lacking on every track I try and spatial cues like reverb aren’t properly expressed. For a dynamic driver this is pretty appalling.

Midrange continues this uninspiring trend with a strange honkiness to it. Woodwinds and strings all sound tonally incorrect, with there being some sort of lower harmonic suppression leading to bumped upper mids with a weird tonality. There’s also a veil or haze to it that makes it sound rather low in resolution and smoothed over. It just doesn’t sound right. My orchestral tracks sound like they’re playing in advance before the curtains fall.

Treble response is characterized by a slightly piercing mid treble peak and not particular amounts of upper or lower treble. This lends a sharp effect to the already low resolution sound of the Dream XLS, which is absolutely a winning combination in unpleasantries. Decay is short and nothing of note, and general resolution is no better than with the midrange. General sound on any track with cymbals is marked by an annoying and obnoxious shimmering in front of a haze of undefined unknowables.

There’s no point talking about specific tracks used or anything of the ilk. The resolution is poor, tonality is marred, and the XLS is all around not very pleasant to listen to. I struggled to pay attention to it during the eartime I had with it, mostly because of just how uninteresting and dull it was. Perhaps you go could go into the realms of intangibles like dynamics or whatsoever, but really I’ll suffice with “it’s just not worth my time”. There is much better stuff out there than poorly tuned, dull and untechnical DDs.

All listening was done out of the WM1A’s 4.4mm jack.

Sometimes I wonder if these companies even try.

Score: 3/10

Hahaha when an IEM gets such a bad review, the reviewer has to actually go back and say it again to confirm he isn’t joking

Also love how the Wraith, an IEM with 4 estats has become the reference for an IEM without a treble extension

 

[Redcarmoose]

@https://www.head-fi.org/members/aminus.516215/

I’m surprised you haven’t reviewed the qdc Anole VX?

 

[aminus]

@https://www.head-fi.org/members/aminus.516215/

I’m surprised you haven’t reviewed the qdc Anole VX?

I have not visited the local store that carries qdc in quite a while. I may have to do so sometime.

 

[Redcarmoose]

I have not visited the local store that carries qdc in quite a while. I may have to do so sometime.

Yes, Music Sanctuary!
They will have a Pentaconn 4.4mm qdc cable to fit your 1A too. Also a pretty great selection of tips. I have an idea of how your review will go, but I’ll keep that to myself...........to help with objectivity.

 

[Raketen]

Hahaha when an IEM gets such a bad review, the reviewer has to actually go back and say it again to confirm he isn’t joking

Also love how the Wraith, an IEM with 4 estats has become the reference for an IEM without a treble extension

I wonder if this is actually an issue with those sonion e-stat drivers, I think it's come up with a few different e-stat models. for instance Fitear EST, it's a strange IEM with a lot of texture but sounds tonally blunted at the same time- it has a strong 8khz rolloff in the graph but I've heard other IEMs with similar rolloffs that don't sound so unextended. Maybe it's the extremelly even upper mid/treble response? (eventually I'll get around to testing it out w/ some EQ) However PP8 measures rather similarly, people do comment on its sterility, but I'm not sure that's what I'm hearing with the EST. Even lowly Sony N3, though not so textured is better in this area.

 

[mvvRAZ]

I wonder if this is actually an issue with those sonion e-stat drivers, I think it's come up with a few different e-stat models. for instance Fitear EST, it's a strange IEM with a lot of texture but sounds tonally blunted at the same time- it has a strong 8khz rolloff in the graph but I've heard other IEMs with similar rolloffs that don't sound so unextended. Maybe it's the extremelly even upper mid/treble response? (eventually I'll get around to testing it out w/ some EQ). Even lowly Sony N3, though not so textured is better in this area.

I’d say it’s an issue with the implementation

The Elysium is proof that you can have an EST produce an amazing treble response (some of the best I’ve heard), while not being overly hard to drive

I wouldn’t say it’s outright inferior tech, just not one that’s been figured out by most for this time being

 

[aminus]

I wonder if this is actually an issue with those sonion e-stat drivers, I think it's come up with a few different e-stat models. for instance Fitear EST, it's a strange IEM with a lot of texture but sounds tonally blunted at the same time- it has a strong 8khz rolloff in the graph but I've heard other IEMs with similar rolloffs that don't sound so unextended. Maybe it's the extremelly even upper mid/treble response? (eventually I'll get around to testing it out w/ some EQ) However PP8 measures rather similarly, people do comment on its sterility, but I'm not sure that's what I'm hearing with the EST. Even lowly Sony N3, though not so textured is better in this area.

In all honesty, my take on it is that the Sonion electrets are just not good drivers. The fact that only 1 IEM (excluding the FiR M5 because that thing has so many running changes who knows what it sounds like anymore) has managed to make it sound halfway decent (and even then it’s not amazingly good compared to it’s BA counterparts - I probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate them in any sort of blind test) is proof that the electret implementation is either exceedingly hard (unlikely considering the number of big names that have tried and failed to pull it off) or the electrets themselves are just not good to begin with. I think that VE just managed to polish a turd and use it for marketing gimmickry.

 

[duaned]

I'm thinking the reviewer's ears need to be checked for hearing loss from 10khz onwards. It does degrade over the years....

 

[candlejack]

I'm thinking the reviewer's ears need to be checked for hearing loss from 10khz onwards. It does degrade over the years....

He does comparative reviews and if the Z1R is his benchmark for treble, then his hearing is fine.

 

[aminus]

I'm thinking the reviewer's ears need to be checked for hearing loss from 10khz onwards. It does degrade over the years....

I am able to hear the 16khz spike on 64 audio stuff just fine. Really the question with my hearing is if it stops at 17 or 18khz. Also I’m really not old enough where hearing loss is going to affect my writing.

As for the Major - stay tuned on that, I am trying to get something done behind the scenes. I suspect there’s more to the discrepancy between your and my impressions than initially thought.

 

[duaned]

Sure. I use a DX160 via 4.4mm so perhaps it's the difference of impedance between our DAP's that is responsible?

 

[aminus]

Sure. I use a DX160 via 4.4mm so perhaps it's the difference of impedance between our DAP's that is responsible?

I don’t think it’s impedance, single DDs are not sensitive to minor impedance changes. I have a friend in HK looking into it, but there may be some form of a running change or unit variance going on. Hopefully I will be able to confirm this soon.

 

[Redcarmoose]

@https://www.head-fi.org/members/aminus.516215/

Another opinion that would be cool to read would be your impression on the past Noble flagships........... the Encore and Katana. Only because they both were well received improvements in ways over the original K-10. Also because the Encore is in many ways the polar opposite of the IER-Z1R.

The Encore is a series of ingredients that would not seem to come off as musical as it does. Overall neutrality yes, except it has a dropped lower midrange which then places emphasis on the remaining midrange. Basically very midrange, without it forward. Also just to spice things up.........the whole response is blanketed in a slight warmish distortion removing any real possibility of finite detail. Yet this series of slight V curved neutrality comes off incredibly musical. Sub-bass normal for a 10 BA affair lacking some of the physicality of the lows in the IER-Z1R. None of this sounds good on paper, except the midrange and upper midrange and treble soundstage save the show......along with a style of integration from all BAs.

The Katana......even more neutral due to less treble and bass. Except reviews will focus in on the warmth.......basically not finding it AS neutral as some IEMs.

“Stereo” will have these along with the Khan and new M3 or Tux .....maybe?
https://www.stereo.com.sg/catalog/category/view/id/45#scrollLanding

 

[aminus]

@https://www.head-fi.org/members/aminus.516215/

Another opinion that would be cool to read would be your impression on the past Noble flagships........... the Encore and Katana. Only because they both were well received improvements in ways over the original K-10. Also because the Encore is in many ways the polar opposite of the IER-Z1R.

The Encore is a series of ingredients that would not seem to come off as musical as it does. Overall neutrality yes, except it has a dropped lower midrange which then places emphasis on the remaining midrange. Basically very midrange, without it forward. Also just to spice things up.........the whole response is blanketed in a slight warmish distortion removing any real possibility of finite detail. Yet this series of slight V curved neutrality comes off incredibly musical. Sub-bass normal for a 10 BA affair lacking some of the physicality of the lows in the IER-Z1R. None of this sounds good on paper, except the midrange and upper midrange and treble soundstage save the show......along with a style of integration from all BAs.

The Katana......even more neutral due to less treble and bass. Except reviews will focus in on the warmth.......basically not finding it AS neutral as some IEMs.

“Stereo” will have these along with the Khan and new M3.....maybe?

I have the Encore on my list of stuff to tackle, I just haven’t been to Stereo in forever. That and the IEX1, which is supposed to be ATH’s answer to Z1R, but I don’t exactly have high hopes for it after the CK2000Ti.