Aminus hates everything (Or, Aminus rants and reviews stuff)

[aminus]

hey @aminus, you not into flathead earbuds? I saw these tgxear Totem and everyone seems to like it.

Nope, I have never had an interest in earbuds and I will probably never cover them. Too inconsistent and unreliable of a medium, and personally I've never found them very secure or comfortable.

 

[Enhance]

RE2 vs ER2?

 

[aminus]

RE2 vs ER2?

Very funny. Probably RE2. The ER2 was good for it's time, but it's pretty dated now.

 

[Enhance]

Hmm so the likes of er2, fdx1 etc are not up to par anymore? Would u say the re2 is around dusk lvl?

 

[justsomesonyfan]

aminus, question, do you still have a wm1a laying around?

 

[aminus]

Hmm so the likes of er2, fdx1 etc are not up to par anymore? Would u say the re2 is around dusk lvl?

I think thinking of these sorts of things in terms of "levels" or "up to par" is pretty counterproductive. Let me try to quickly re-review all 3 of those IEMs so that where I currently stand on them is clear.

ER2: For a really long time this was the gold standard for cheap and reliable. It was hardy, borderline disposable in price, and sounded "good enough", assuming you could live with the inherent flaws that come with Etymotic (excessive upper mids, laser thin imaging, poor dynamics and severe rolloff over 10khz) and the ER2's own quirks (grainy treble and unclear bass) on top of that. I don't think this is an inaccurate assessment today, but the main thing is that there's really no reason anyone should have to tolerate any of these issues. Much like the ER4 before it, it hasn't aged too well.

FDX1: This IEM has always had problems, but it was really easy to ignore them (unless they directly bothered you) because there was really nothing better at the time. The main ones have always been its metallic timbre, oddness in the mids, and the inherent fact that the mod that "corrects" the IEM is basically just front damping; which will always kill dynamics and musicality, alongside just sounding dishonest. I don't think any of these are excusable anymore, and it definitely reflects in the sharp decline in the interest and popularity surrounding this IEM over the last few years.

B2 Dusk: A large part of the positive reaction in my original review was probably because at the time I had a pretty strong fixation on macrodynamic and bass performance. When zooming out onto the bigger picture, the Dusk's flaws really start to show. It has fairly significant treble ringing issues (which I believe I addressed when I reviewed the S8), there is an inherent disjointedness in timbre where the DD hands off to the BAs, and as a whole it's just kind of stiff sounding in the midrange as many BA IEMs (yes I know it's a hybrid) tend to be. I'm also not really in love with the tuning anymore, especially in the upper mids which often sound somewhat feeble and lacking in density or weight. I really don't think I can recommend it anymore.

In large part, many of my older reviews suffered from a chronic overanalysis and fixations that fundamentally missed the forest for the trees. Whether this was due to some combination of still developing my way of evaluating gear or due to influence from other reviewers at the time where detailed, microscopic analysis was the norm, I do not know. Regardless, these days I find that my gear evaluations generally start from a single question — does it sound like music? The rest follows from there, and for the aforementioned 3 IEMs the answer appears to be a resounding no. With the RE2, it's not as definitive of a yes, but we are certainly approaching a level where some suspense of disbelief is possible.

aminus, question, do you still have a wm1a laying around?

It's the longest surviving component in my audio collection, yes.

 

[Enhance]

Alas it's a shame that the qc on re-2 seems questionable

 

[aminus]

Alas it's a shame that the qc on re-2 seems questionable

With the exception of yellow and maybe green, which are indeed of questionable QC, all the other measurements are quite honestly within tolerance of each other. Put it one way, I have seen individual units of CIEMs where the isolated channels match worse than, say, blue/purple in this graph, or red/purple. More fundamentally, when matched at 1k as this graph is, the pinna gain matches essentially perfectly on every unit, which is usually the spot on which most IEMs plagued by unit variance struggle.

Of course, people deserve to know about these sorts of things, but it helps to be realistic as well about manufacturing tolerances on the whole when it comes to not just IEMs, but audio in general. They’re a lot worse than many presume, and many famous transducers not particularly known for unit variance can sound totally different despite having identical measurements anyways.

 

[justsomesonyfan]

It's definitives the longest surviving component in my audio collection, yes.

Is it possible to request you to try a specific firmware on it? latest walkmanone, wm1z external tuning (takes another install after the first one), J3 region.

I found the J3 region basically improves everything, and was wondering about your opinions on it. To me it made the wm1a go from a very solid dap to something similar to desktop rigs.

 

[aminus]

Is it possible to request you to try a specific firmware on it? latest walkmanone, wm1z external tuning (takes another install after the first one), J3 region.

I found the J3 region basically improves everything, and was wondering about your opinions on it. To me it made the wm1a go from a very solid dap to something similar to desktop rigs.

Sorry, but no. I don't even entertain tweaker nervosa on gear that I care about, I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to review firmware rolling on a DAP I don't even use very often tuned by some random guy that I know nothing about beyond an existing poor track record with things I've already heard. My opinion on these sorts of things is very clear: unless it was done by someone who knows what they're doing, it probably sounds worse than stock. This applies to more than just DAP firmware; it applies to cables, IEM tips, headphone pads, power conditioners, mpingo knobs, brass amp feet, Synergistic Research fuses, Audio Note capacitors, Mundorf Supreme solder, everything that can be conceivably tweaked into oblivion.

 

[justsomesonyfan]

Sorry, but no. I don't even entertain tweaker nervosa on gear that I care about, I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to review firmware rolling on a DAP I don't even use very often tuned by some random guy that I know nothing about beyond an existing poor track record with things I've already heard. My opinion on these sorts of things is very clear: unless it was done by someone who knows what they're doing, it probably sounds worse than stock. This applies to more than just DAP firmware; it applies to cables, IEM tips, headphone pads, power conditioners, mpingo knobs, brass amp feet, Synergistic Research fuses, Audio Note capacitors, Mundorf Supreme solder, everything that can be conceivably tweaked into oblivion.

oh well, that is a shame

 

[aminus]

oh well, that is a shame

I mean, I have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to this sort of thing. I’ve had people demand in the past that I had to use a specific DAP with a specific cable with a specific headphone or my opinions on said headphone would be invalid, which is just ridiculous. I cannot possibly be scrutinizing minutiae to such a microscopic level when I approach my reviews, or I quickly lose any sort of common ground that I may have with the reader. There has to be some level of pragmatism with how I approach this, so I simply just can’t take on highly specified requests like these. Sorry.

 

[justsomesonyfan]

I mean, I have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to this sort of thing. I’ve had people demand in the past that I had to use a specific DAP with a specific cable with a specific headphone or my opinions on said headphone would be invalid, which is just ridiculous. I cannot possibly be scrutinizing minutiae to such a microscopic level when I approach my reviews, or I quickly lose any sort of common ground that I may have with the reader. There has to be some level of pragmatism with how I approach this, so I simply just can’t take on highly specified requests like these. Sorry.

While I understand where you're coming from, I don't think this one is very overly specific, the mrwalkman is something I assume you already have installed, installing the wm1z external tuning and putting the region on J3 won't take more than 5 min tops.

But, this is less about the opinion to be honest, I think it's a pretty big jump from stock tuning/region and that you may find it a very enjoyable upgrade.

At the end of the day you can just check for yourself, worst case scenario if you're not a fan reverting will take the same time if not less.

just my 2cents.

 

[Enhance]

What sub $500 iems would u rec, if even dusk is considered unacceptable now? Aside from re2 ig. Have u tried the moondrop variations btw?

 

[aminus]

What sub $500 iems would u rec, if even dusk is considered unacceptable now? Aside from re2 ig. Have u tried the moondrop variations btw?

I mean, I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re hoping to get out of me. There just aren’t very many IEMs I would recommend in general; prior to Canjam NYC I would probably have erred on the side of refusing to recommend anything at all simply out of dissatisfaction with the sound of the IEM market as a whole. The fact that the RE2 managed to actually present a respectable sounding product belying my expectations really isn't something that should be taken for granted. I’m not even thinking of things in terms of price brackets here; if you just want to spend more money, I have no answer for you beyond pointing you towards consulting other reviewers who would be more than happy to tell you what to do with your disposable income.

If there’s any specific IEM you have in mind that you just want me to name to validate the decision you’ve already made up in your mind, you have my blessing. Chances are, no matter what I say, you will just go with what you really want, for better or worse, and if it doesn’t live up to your expectations then you’ll just sell it and move on. Trust me when I say I’m speaking from experience with this one, and I don’t blame anyone for this kind of behavior either. I think it’s an essential growing experience in a hobby as experiential as audio, though that doesn't change my fundamental point.

As for the Variations, I did indeed hear them, and at one point or another I had them included a very short draft for a roundup review similar to how my Canjam NYC impressions ended up turning out. I never collected enough material for it, so the whole thing was scrapped. Long story short, I’m really not a fan — it’s no joke how shouty and thin those mids are, and it has all the typical hybrid/tribrid coherence issues dialed to 11. The type of people the Variations are meant to appeal to probably also like the Moondrop packaging artwork a bit too much, and needless to say those people do not include me.