HiFlight
Headphoneus Supremus
I also owned the mkll, didn't love them so they are now gone, as in really gone. I sold them and USPS lost them never to be found!!!
Aminus hates everything (Or, Aminus rants and reviews stuff)
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The last Thieaudio IEMs I heard were the original Monarch and Clairvoyance. It appears to be impossible to demo any Thieaudio IEMs in Singapore outside of Canjam, which does make me regret the fact that I was unfortunately indisposed for half of it.
Brand Roundup: qdc
qdc Anole V14:
On the very first page of this thread, one can find a curious historical artifact — possibly the only publicly documented remnants of what was once a heated debate between the merits of the old kings of the multi-BA arrangement, the 64 Audio U12t and the qdc Anole VX. To my memory, no actual conclusion was ever reached between the participants (myself obviously included) as to which was superior, though history seems to have chosen the U12t as the victor. I rarely see the Anole VX mentioned anymore, which, in spite of my opposition to it in the prior mentioned dispute, seems like a crying shame. The VX was unrelentingly clear and polished to a fault, almost to the point of facelessness, and it would not be unreasonable to trace the lineage of a whole generation of loosely neutral, upper midrange forward IEMs (mostly chifi, mostly middling) to it. Still, there is a massive swath of IEMs today that could learn a thing or two from the VX’s dedication to refinement.
Perhaps part of the reason for its relative obscurity today is its usurpation as qdc flagship by the V14, with the 10 BA drivers of the X flanked by the addition of 4 electret tweeters in the 14. The V14 seems to take the VX in a direction that at once seems logical, but all the same questionable. It is now even more unforgivingly precise and unemotive than before, with an added leanness and emphasis on sheer clarity, no doubt influenced by the aforementioned quadruple electret tweeter setup. Against something like the Storm or the Oriolus, the big problem with this is that this oft-taken but rarely well-executed route isn’t seen to its conclusion; the V14 still has an out of place bass hump leftover from the old VX that at once destroys whatever aesthetic vision it may have claimed to have. What we are left with is yet another faux-neutral + bass boost IEM with little character; in place of individuality one simply finds a product that gives the perception of having been focus grouped to death in a manner similar to the Letshuoer Cadenza 12. An unfortunate, but perhaps predictable fate.
qdc Tiger:
At first blush, it’s the same tired shtick as the V14 trickled down, but then one notices the cracks that have formed where the downsizing process occurred imperfectly — the upper midrange now has a nauseating nasality to it. Was qdc hoping no one would notice, or did they simply not care?
qdc Dmagic 3D:
The Dmagic 3D is, thankfully, not nearly as bad as the last IEM I heard with the ridiculous and completely pointless setup known as the triple DD (why not just use 1 big one?), though to call it good would still be something a stretch. In spite of having of the wonderful subtleties and nuances that one quickly learns BAs are incapable of, it is still yet another uninspired, cliché neutral + bass boost affair, hindered further by the added caveats an overly thin midrange and a somewhat feeble and metallic timbre that gives it the kind of treble response that sets one’s teeth on edge.
qdc Folk:
qdc IEMs in stores come displayed on small acrylic stands, emblazoned with metal plaques at once both decorative and informative, with a frequency response, driver count and various other technical specifications laid out for the listener to peruse. The Folk’s plaque describes its driver arrangement as "1BA and 1dynamic and 1flat panel", the last of which initially eluded me in meaning. Of course, a little experience in poorly translated English, some elementary deduction skills, and, if necessary, a Google search for confirmation reveals that the flat panel is nothing more than a planar driver. A completely sane initial reaction to this finding would be disdain for the tastelessness of such a tribrid design, which shows no further promise in practice than theory. It is, put concisely, excessively lean, harsh in the treble, strangely hollow in the midrange, and generally unpleasant and difficult to listen to.
qdc Dmagic solo:
With the Anole VX and V14, one is given the impression of a high level of technical competence wasted upon varying degrees of a lack of concrete vision and a banal aural direction. Surely, qdc are technical wizards at their best, their Achilles heel being that they simply don’t seem to have a strong sense of individuality when it comes to actually putting their skills to practice. This is unfortunately not the case with the Dmagic solo, which sounds wrong 3 different ways at once. First is the excessively bloated bass, which then paradoxically bleeds into a thin, telephonic midrange; and then finally topped off with a piercing, one note treble response. It’s not clear to me if qdc couldn’t do any better with the single DD arrangement, or if they simply didn’t bother to try.
qdc Anole V14:
On the very first page of this thread, one can find a curious historical artifact — possibly the only publicly documented remnants of what was once a heated debate between the merits of the old kings of the multi-BA arrangement, the 64 Audio U12t and the qdc Anole VX. To my memory, no actual conclusion was ever reached between the participants (myself obviously included) as to which was superior, though history seems to have chosen the U12t as the victor. I rarely see the Anole VX mentioned anymore, which, in spite of my opposition to it in the prior mentioned dispute, seems like a crying shame. The VX was unrelentingly clear and polished to a fault, almost to the point of facelessness, and it would not be unreasonable to trace the lineage of a whole generation of loosely neutral, upper midrange forward IEMs (mostly chifi, mostly middling) to it. Still, there is a massive swath of IEMs today that could learn a thing or two from the VX’s dedication to refinement.
Perhaps part of the reason for its relative obscurity today is its usurpation as qdc flagship by the V14, with the 10 BA drivers of the X flanked by the addition of 4 electret tweeters in the 14. The V14 seems to take the VX in a direction that at once seems logical, but all the same questionable. It is now even more unforgivingly precise and unemotive than before, with an added leanness and emphasis on sheer clarity, no doubt influenced by the aforementioned quadruple electret tweeter setup. Against something like the Storm or the Oriolus, the big problem with this is that this oft-taken but rarely well-executed route isn’t seen to its conclusion; the V14 still has an out of place bass hump leftover from the old VX that at once destroys whatever aesthetic vision it may have claimed to have. What we are left with is yet another faux-neutral + bass boost IEM with little character; in place of individuality one simply finds a product that gives the perception of having been focus grouped to death in a manner similar to the Letshuoer Cadenza 12. An unfortunate, but perhaps predictable fate.
qdc Tiger:
At first blush, it’s the same tired shtick as the V14 trickled down, but then one notices the cracks that have formed where the downsizing process occurred imperfectly — the upper midrange now has a nauseating nasality to it. Was qdc hoping no one would notice, or did they simply not care?
qdc Dmagic 3D:
The Dmagic 3D is, thankfully, not nearly as bad as the last IEM I heard with the ridiculous and completely pointless setup known as the triple DD (why not just use 1 big one?), though to call it good would still be something a stretch. In spite of having of the wonderful subtleties and nuances that one quickly learns BAs are incapable of, it is still yet another uninspired, cliché neutral + bass boost affair, hindered further by the added caveats an overly thin midrange and a somewhat feeble and metallic timbre that gives it the kind of treble response that sets one’s teeth on edge.
qdc Folk:
qdc IEMs in stores come displayed on small acrylic stands, emblazoned with metal plaques at once both decorative and informative, with a frequency response, driver count and various other technical specifications laid out for the listener to peruse. The Folk’s plaque describes its driver arrangement as "1BA and 1dynamic and 1flat panel", the last of which initially eluded me in meaning. Of course, a little experience in poorly translated English, some elementary deduction skills, and, if necessary, a Google search for confirmation reveals that the flat panel is nothing more than a planar driver. A completely sane initial reaction to this finding would be disdain for the tastelessness of such a tribrid design, which shows no further promise in practice than theory. It is, put concisely, excessively lean, harsh in the treble, strangely hollow in the midrange, and generally unpleasant and difficult to listen to.
qdc Dmagic solo:
With the Anole VX and V14, one is given the impression of a high level of technical competence wasted upon varying degrees of a lack of concrete vision and a banal aural direction. Surely, qdc are technical wizards at their best, their Achilles heel being that they simply don’t seem to have a strong sense of individuality when it comes to actually putting their skills to practice. This is unfortunately not the case with the Dmagic solo, which sounds wrong 3 different ways at once. First is the excessively bloated bass, which then paradoxically bleeds into a thin, telephonic midrange; and then finally topped off with a piercing, one note treble response. It’s not clear to me if qdc couldn’t do any better with the single DD arrangement, or if they simply didn’t bother to try.
bukumurah
100+ Head-Fier
IMO qdc iems may have been tuned accordingly for Mainland Chinese music that are treble heavy, i.e. they like to sing in the higher octaves.. similar to jpop girls?
desutruction
100+ Head-Fier
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I discovered this thread pretty late, but I've found that most of your takes are pretty accurate with mine (barring certain biases). Still waiting for a true bass upgrade from Z1R and CE-5.
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