[headphonesaddict123]

hey aminus , are there any chances you would do a quick recap or some reviews of dunu iems? or pretty much more hybrids

 

[aminus]

hey aminus , are there any chances you would do a quick recap or some reviews of dunu iems? or pretty much more hybrids

Dunu stuff is surprisingly hard to come by in Singapore, so not sure what I can do about that. Almost every Dunu IEM I’ve heard has been a purchased unit rather than a store demo.

 

[aminus]

64 Audio tia Trio:
You know, at one point I almost bought a Trio. This was way back when I was first starting out. I ended up going for the A12t, and we all know how that went down. But I really wonder what I’d think of the Trio in today’s context. Time to find out.

The Trio’s woofer is thick, heavy and and has solid slam. It’s considerably sub and lower-mid bass oriented, with little to no bloat. Decay is slow, just how I like it, though I do wish there was a little bit more attack cleanliness. Bass texture and articulation isn’t lacking too, and bass guitar/kick drum separation is as expected from a good DD woofer. I really like how hard the Trio hits, it’s one of the strongest and thickest slams from any IEM that I’ve heard. It’s good enough to give my Z1R a run for its money, and I don’t take such comparisons lightly. But as mentioned earlier, there is some minor blunting to attacks that makes things sound ever so slightly mushier than they should. Almost there, but just off the mark to be truly world class bass unfortunately.

The midrange of the Trio is a little... odd. Some parts of the midrange feel sucked out, making some parts of the upper midrange sound thin and some parts of the lower midrange sound blunted. Violins and brass instruments have a hollowness to them that makes them sound overly light and maybe a little shrill and sharp. Cellos, violas and bassier woodwinds sound just a bit too full and warm, though not to the point of sounding smothered. Guitars kind of sound like they’ve had their mids scooped. In addition, there does appear to be a crossover here between the DD and the first tia BA, leading to quite a bit of time domain incoherency between the lower mids and upper mids. As a whole, this isn’t something you notice unless you’re specifically looking for it, but it does throw me off a little.

The Trio’s treble is also unusual. There is a lower treble suckout, leading to a bit too much upper-mid treble emphasis. It edges on being obnoxious and piercing, but never really pushes over the line. Not exactly a natural or desirable treble tonality, but not a horrible offensive one either. I find myself missing stick impact with cymbals, and wishing that the crash tonality was just a little warmer. Brass stuff just ends up exacerbating the odd midrange tonality with an equally odd bite. The general tonality of the Trio has some uncanny valley-ness to it, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to hate it. It’s not natural sounding nor lifelike, yet at the same time the colored tonality just... works.

The Trio is also a solid technical performer. Detail retrieval and texturing is very good, and layering on tough orchestral tracks is best in class. Resolution is surprisingly good, given the odd tonality. Dynamics do feel compressed, especially compared to my reference gear. Staging has surpassed the sonic wall, and has good amounts of forward and backward imaging. This one of the few IEMs I would not mind calling the ever-misused term “holographic”. As aforementioned, there is some time domain incoherency between the lower and upper mids, made more evident thanks to the dip in the area. The Trio definitely has some issues with coherency, moreso than most other hybrids.

The Trio is a decent IEM. Sure, it’s wonky, but it’s the kind of wonky that sort of works. It’s technically competent too. But yet, I cannot help but feel like it’s nothing more than decent. The intangibles are not good enough to propel it to excellence, and the tuning is too odd to function as a real selling point for it. It ends up stuck in an odd limbo where I find it difficult to justify its existence. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

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

What the Trio is, is a flavor of odd that’s somehow just unimpressive. It’s not bad, but it has no true wow factor either. It just kinda is. But maybe that appeals to you, and in that case I’d say sure, go for it. But for me... I need something more interesting. Guess this just isn’t for me.

Score: 6/10

 

[headphonesaddict123]

captivating review as usual aminus .
do you feel like u12t is currently one of if not the best from 64a lineup so far? thats my impression after trying out the entire kilobuck 64a models last week!

 

[aminus]

captivating review as usual aminus .
do you feel like u12t is currently one of if not the best from 64a lineup so far? thats my impression after trying out the entire kilobuck 64a models last week!

I liked the U12t the most out of all the 64s when I heard them over a year ago and I still do. Though some of their designs which I initially dismissed are better than I remember, although I still have major issues with them. More on those when I get to them individually.

 

[angpsi]

Hi Aminus, been an avid reader for some months now and I enjoy your musings so much! Any chance you may have auditioned the ISN H40 and have an impression on them? Some knowledgeable people listened to them in France and ended up organizing a group guy to which I’m already half way in. But since this is going to be a blind buy for me I’m very reluctant because of chi-fi hype (albeit I do enjoy my FLC8s).

I know you share the same reservations so your impressions would certainly be worth having on this one; the H40 are definitely getting super-hyped lately and this is making me anything but confident about the actual quality of the set.

Thanks!

 

[aminus]

Hi Aminus, been an avid reader for some months now and I enjoy your musings so much! Any chance you may have auditioned the ISN H40 and have an impression on them? Some knowledgeable people listened to them in France and ended up organizing a group guy to which I’m already half way in. But since this is going to be a blind buy for me I’m very reluctant because of chi-fi hype (albeit I do enjoy my FLC8s).

I know you share the same reservations so your impressions would certainly be worth having on this one; the H40 are definitely getting super-hyped lately and this is making me anything but confident about the actual quality of the set.

Thanks!

The name vaguely rings a bell but I can’t say I’ve ever heard one. I think I know where I’d have the best chances of running into one, though it’s not guaranteed. I’ll see what I can do.

 

[aminus]

Aminus Rants: The Aminus Target Curve:
For a couple weeks now I’ve been working on something. After my experiences with the U12t and the Viento-B, and just how tonally accurate they sounded to me, I came upon a realization: they have an eerily similar slope to their pinna compensation. See below:

The main point of focus here is the pinna gain, primarily the degree of the slope starting at 1khz. Approximately 4dB of gain at 1.5khz and approximately 7dB of gain at 2khz, peaking at different spots of course, and with a 1dB variance towards 2khz, but these two markers are the main ones of importance. Combine that with an obligatory bass boost focusing on the sub regions and leaving some wiggle room beyond the pinna gain slope for the tuner to add their own flair, and voila. The following is created:

Here it is with the original IEMs superimposed.

The dotted and dashed lines represent the boundaries set to tune to. Essentially, as long as the tuning’s curve does not exceed the boundaries, it would count as falling under my curve. This leaves a little bit of open interpretation for how one wants to go about tackling the curve. The upper boundary is based on the Hidition Viento with linear extension from the 2.5khz peak to 5khz, while the lower boundary is based on the 64 audio U12t. This gives a physical real world reference for what this curve should sound like. Eventually there will be some sort of concrete curve for a prospective tuner to follow closely to, with of course some leeway for flair, but for now the curve exists as a range that a FR can fall under rather than a concrete target.

But Aminus, what makes this different from Harman? Or Diffuse Field?
Harman’s curve is based on a combination of listener preference blind tests on headphones (not IEMs!) and objective measurements based on loudspeakers. I don’t agree with Harman, as I find it overly shouty with the 3khz peak’s intensity, and overly thin with a lower midrange suckout. Diffuse Field is also based on objective measurements, but runs into a similar problem: I don’t perceive it as genuinely neutral, and on top of that it’s an unrealistic curve for neutrality as the Diffuse Field listening environment for speakers is one that almost no one has listened to. It is unrepresentative of what would be a normal listening environment for the average consumer, or even the high end one.

What about Crinacle’s target curve?
Crinacle’s curve is similar to mine in that it’s based on subjective listening. However, I find some odd discrepancies in IEMs that follow his curve. For example, with the FDX1 on blue filters, I find it thicker than neutral. Yet with something like the PEARS SH3 or the Kumitate Lab Sirius, it’s far too uppermid forward, unnaturally so. While both measure to his curve, it’s clear that there is some level of intangible differences between the transducers that affects tonality in a non-FR domain. As such I find it difficult to have a concrete real world reference in order for me to agree with his curve, not that I find any of the IEMs that follow his curve neutral to begin with.

Does this mean your curve will be immune to intangible differences between transducers affecting tonality?
Absolutely not. But my curve has 2 very real world references that one can extrapolate from. The Viento’s availability is scarce, yes, but the U12t is fairly easy to demo in most parts of the world with some semblance of an IEM scene. As for the actual question of what if intangibles throw things into peril, well, I’ll have to see an example of it first. This curve’s pinna compensation is, for now, strictly designed for tubed BA IEMs, at least in the midrange. I cannot predict what would happen if one takes a DD approach to it, or a tubeless approach to it. The results would be interesting though.

What about X IEM that follows your curve but you dislike?
As with everything else, frequency response is NOT the end all be all of audio. There are plenty of intangibles that can cause me to strongly dislike a tuning. Perfect example here is the Noble Kaiser Encore. As is shown:

The Kaiser Encore’s slope would match my specifications. However, it has numerous problems with intangibles as well as simply too much treble. That’s where what could have been a good IEM is ruined in my eyes.

Take this rant not as a declaration of absolute neutrality, not even in my own eyes. Take it as an experiment: just how good would an IEM tuned to this curve sound? And how many people would actually agree with this definition of tonal accuracy? I leave these questions with the reader, and any ambitious manufacturer wishing to perhaps pursue this idea.

 

[MrLocoLuciano]

Thank you very much for this analysis.
I also find that the slope from 1kHz to 3 or 4kHz is playing a big role in tone perception. And I'm really looking for it now as I know the odds that I'll like the inear are high.
But I can step a little aside from the boundaries you fix and find nice mid tones, like on Itsfit Fusion for example.

Of course there is other flaws on the curve compare to yours, but it sounds really neutral in the mids.
Did you try them?

 

[McMadface]

Viento-B is like a super ER2XR

 

[aminus]

Thank you very much for this analysis.
I also find that the slope from 1kHz to 3 or 4kHz is playing a big role in tone perception. And I'm really looking for it now as I know the odds that I'll like the inear are high.
But I can step a little aside from the boundaries you fix and find nice mid tones, like on Itsfit Fusion for example.

Of course there is other flaws on the curve compare to yours, but it sounds really neutral in the mids.
Did you try them?

I believe I have heard a Fusion before but it didn’t leave a lasting impression. It seemed alright to me, nothing felt particularly good or bad about it. I’ll see if I ever run into one again.

Viento-B is like a super ER2XR

I find the presentation of the ER2 much more laidback than the Viento, which is fairly aggressive. In general, most tubed BA setups (especially CIEMs) seem to be more aggressive and forward in presentation than their tubeless or DD counterparts. The Viento is also quite a bit brighter than the ER2, which I felt was lacking in a little mid-treble presence. In general though, I like both enough to highly recommend them.

 

[Ricky64]

64 Audio tia Trio:
You know, at one point I almost bought a Trio. This was way back when I was first starting out. I ended up going for the A12t, and we all know how that went down. But I really wonder what I’d think of the Trio in today’s context. Time to find out.

The Trio’s woofer is thick, heavy and and has solid slam. It’s considerably sub and lower-mid bass oriented, with little to no bloat. Decay is slow, just how I like it, though I do wish there was a little bit more attack cleanliness. Bass texture and articulation isn’t lacking too, and bass guitar/kick drum separation is as expected from a good DD woofer. I really like how hard the Trio hits, it’s one of the strongest and thickest slams from any IEM that I’ve heard. It’s good enough to give my Z1R a run for its money, and I don’t take such comparisons lightly. But as mentioned earlier, there is some minor blunting to attacks that makes things sound ever so slightly mushier than they should. Almost there, but just off the mark to be truly world class bass unfortunately.

The midrange of the Trio is a little... odd. Some parts of the midrange feel sucked out, making some parts of the upper midrange sound thin and some parts of the lower midrange sound blunted. Violins and brass instruments have a hollowness to them that makes them sound overly light and maybe a little shrill and sharp. Cellos, violas and bassier woodwinds sound just a bit too full and warm, though not to the point of sounding smothered. Guitars kind of sound like they’ve had their mids scooped. In addition, there does appear to be a crossover here between the DD and the first tia BA, leading to quite a bit of time domain incoherency between the lower mids and upper mids. As a whole, this isn’t something you notice unless you’re specifically looking for it, but it does throw me off a little.

The Trio’s treble is also unusual. There is a lower treble suckout, leading to a bit too much upper-mid treble emphasis. It edges on being obnoxious and piercing, but never really pushes over the line. Not exactly a natural or desirable treble tonality, but not a horrible offensive one either. I find myself missing stick impact with cymbals, and wishing that the crash tonality was just a little warmer. Brass stuff just ends up exacerbating the odd midrange tonality with an equally odd bite. The general tonality of the Trio has some uncanny valley-ness to it, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to hate it. It’s not natural sounding nor lifelike, yet at the same time the colored tonality just... works.

The Trio is also a solid technical performer. Detail retrieval and texturing is very good, and layering on tough orchestral tracks is best in class. Resolution is surprisingly good, given the odd tonality. Dynamics do feel compressed, especially compared to my reference gear. Staging has surpassed the sonic wall, and has good amounts of forward and backward imaging. This one of the few IEMs I would not mind calling the ever-misused term “holographic”. As aforementioned, there is some time domain incoherency between the lower and upper mids, made more evident thanks to the dip in the area. The Trio definitely has some issues with coherency, moreso than most other hybrids.

The Trio is a decent IEM. Sure, it’s wonky, but it’s the kind of wonky that sort of works. It’s technically competent too. But yet, I cannot help but feel like it’s nothing more than decent. The intangibles are not good enough to propel it to excellence, and the tuning is too odd to function as a real selling point for it. It ends up stuck in an odd limbo where I find it difficult to justify its existence. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

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

What the Trio is, is a flavor of odd that’s somehow just unimpressive. It’s not bad, but it has no true wow factor either. It just kinda is. But maybe that appeals to you, and in that case I’d say sure, go for it. But for me... I need something more interesting. Guess this just isn’t for me.

Score: 6/10

Good review. I currently own these, the Z1R, and the Final e5000.
Between the Trio and Z1R, I like the Trio's chestier lower midrange, which helps make Coltrane's tenor more realistic and full. I feel the Trio is tipped upward in the upper midrange and treble, to add excitement and imaging. The Z1R has a much better treble quality, no comparison. I do find the Trio is a nice to go iem driven out of my iphone. I also find the foam tips are a must to smooth out the frequency response.
Still looking for something that warms my emotions like the e5000, but with better bass control and less rolled off. The FAudio Major keeps calling my name as a potential solution.

 

[aminus]

Good review. I currently own these, the Z1R, and the Final e5000.
Between the Trio and Z1R, I like the Trio's chestier lower midrange, which helps make Coltrane's tenor more realistic and full. I feel the Trio is tipped upward in the upper midrange and treble, to add excitement and imaging. The Z1R has a much better treble quality, no comparison. I do find the Trio is a nice to go iem driven out of my iphone. I also find the foam tips are a must to smooth out the frequency response.
Still looking for something that warms my emotions like the e5000, but with better bass control and less rolled off. The FAudio Major keeps calling my name as a potential solution.

Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, the Trio’s warmth and more laidback presentation definitely had an appeal to it. I could see myself enjoying it as a more relaxing IEM, but in the same terms that I judge my Z1R and A12t, which I enjoy pretty much everything on, it feels like it’s unable to be quite as versatile to me. It’s similar to the M9 where the overly relaxed presentation gets on my nerves the more I listen to it.

As for the FAudio Major, it’s a really nice warm IEM. Also very technically impressive as a single DD. Just one caveat: there seems to either have been a running change or some sort of unit variance going on. I originally heard a Major unit at Earphone King in Shanghai in November of last year, and I found it essentially dark. Others I know who had heard demo units in numerous e-earphones in Japan agreed. That is, until, someone I know who lives in Hong Kong actually called it bright, and I trust his impressions enough to question what’s going on. I also chanced upon a FR measurement of the Major and it’s clearly not a downsloping IEM like what I heard, which makes me seriously wonder what’s going on. In either case I hope to get a Major unit in for review soon, hopefully as a representative sample.

 

[Mimouille]

Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, the Trio’s warmth and more laidback presentation definitely had an appeal to it. I could see myself enjoying it as a more relaxing IEM, but in the same terms that I judge my Z1R and A12t, which I enjoy pretty much everything on, it feels like it’s unable to be quite as versatile to me. It’s similar to the M9 where the overly relaxed presentation gets on my nerves the more I listen to it.

As for the FAudio Major, it’s a really nice warm IEM. Also very technically impressive as a single DD. Just one caveat: there seems to either have been a running change or some sort of unit variance going on. I originally heard a Major unit at Earphone King in Shanghai in November of last year, and I found it essentially dark. Others I know who had heard demo units in numerous e-earphones in Japan agreed. That is, until, someone I know who lives in Hong Kong actually called it bright, and I trust his impressions enough to question what’s going on. I also chanced upon a FR measurement of the Major and it’s clearly not a downsloping IEM like what I heard, which makes me seriously wonder what’s going on. In either case I hope to get a Major unit in for review soon, hopefully as a representative sample.

I heard one in Beijing a year ago or so and it was clearly not dark.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Aminus Rants: The Aminus Target Curve:
For a couple weeks now I’ve been working on something. After my experiences with the U12t and the Viento-B, and just how tonally accurate they sounded to me, I came upon a realization: they have an eerily similar slope to their pinna compensation. See below:

The main point of focus here is the pinna gain, primarily the degree of the slope starting at 1khz. Approximately 4dB of gain at 1.5khz and approximately 7dB of gain at 2khz, peaking at different spots of course, and with a 1dB variance towards 2khz, but these two markers are the main ones of importance. Combine that with an obligatory bass boost focusing on the sub regions and leaving some wiggle room beyond the pinna gain slope for the tuner to add their own flair, and voila. The following is created:

Here it is with the original IEMs superimposed.

The dotted and dashed lines represent the boundaries set to tune to. Essentially, as long as the tuning’s curve does not exceed the boundaries, it would count as falling under my curve. This leaves a little bit of open interpretation for how one wants to go about tackling the curve. The upper boundary is based on the Hidition Viento with linear extension from the 2.5khz peak to 5khz, while the lower boundary is based on the 64 audio U12t. This gives a physical real world reference for what this curve should sound like. Eventually there will be some sort of concrete curve for a prospective tuner to follow closely to, with of course some leeway for flair, but for now the curve exists as a range that a FR can fall under rather than a concrete target.

But Aminus, what makes this different from Harman? Or Diffuse Field?
Harman’s curve is based on a combination of listener preference blind tests on headphones (not IEMs!) and objective measurements based on loudspeakers. I don’t agree with Harman, as I find it overly shouty with the 3khz peak’s intensity, and overly thin with a lower midrange suckout. Diffuse Field is also based on objective measurements, but runs into a similar problem: I don’t perceive it as genuinely neutral, and on top of that it’s an unrealistic curve for neutrality as the Diffuse Field listening environment for speakers is one that almost no one has listened to. It is unrepresentative of what would be a normal listening environment for the average consumer, or even the high end one.

What about Crinacle’s target curve?
Crinacle’s curve is similar to mine in that it’s based on subjective listening. However, I find some odd discrepancies in IEMs that follow his curve. For example, with the FDX1 on blue filters, I find it thicker than neutral. Yet with something like the PEARS SH3 or the Kumitate Lab Sirius, it’s far too uppermid forward, unnaturally so. While both measure to his curve, it’s clear that there is some level of intangible differences between the transducers that affects tonality in a non-FR domain. As such I find it difficult to have a concrete real world reference in order for me to agree with his curve, not that I find any of the IEMs that follow his curve neutral to begin with.

Does this mean your curve will be immune to intangible differences between transducers affecting tonality?
Absolutely not. But my curve has 2 very real world references that one can extrapolate from. The Viento’s availability is scarce, yes, but the U12t is fairly easy to demo in most parts of the world with some semblance of an IEM scene. As for the actual question of what if intangibles throw things into peril, well, I’ll have to see an example of it first. This curve’s pinna compensation is, for now, strictly designed for tubed BA IEMs, at least in the midrange. I cannot predict what would happen if one takes a DD approach to it, or a tubeless approach to it. The results would be interesting though.

What about X IEM that follows your curve but you dislike?
As with everything else, frequency response is NOT the end all be all of audio. There are plenty of intangibles that can cause me to strongly dislike a tuning. Perfect example here is the Noble Kaiser Encore. As is shown:

The Kaiser Encore’s slope would match my specifications. However, it has numerous problems with intangibles as well as simply too much treble. That’s where what could have been a good IEM is ruined in my eyes.

Take this rant not as a declaration of absolute neutrality, not even in my own eyes. Take it as an experiment: just how good would an IEM tuned to this curve sound? And how many people would actually agree with this definition of tonal accuracy? I leave these questions with the reader, and any ambitious manufacturer wishing to perhaps pursue this idea.

The K-10 Encore absolutely has that profound 5-8K spike. It’s the most memorable thing about the signature.....and combine that bump with the dropped out lower midrange and it’s actually strange. But you can get used to it, like a friend with a personality disorder. Lol It’s beautiful?

If anything it makes things kind-of sparkle and shimmer, especially guitars and vocals. It’s on such an edge that colder or neutral DAPs may take it too far, especially if your not use to it. But with warmer gear it’s cool.