[TooPoorForHiFi]

@aminus Interested in Blessing 2 vs Minor comparison, When you get a chance of course.

 

[aminus]

FAudio Minor:
This is a review that’s been in the making for 4 months. Yes, you read that right. 4 months.

The first time I heard the FAudio Minor was around the Canjam Shanghai period. I chanced upon a demo unit at Earphone King in, well, Shanghai, and was curious about the brand considering the Major had been often talked about amongst some people I know. I expected nothing. But yet, what I heard surprised me. This was an unassuming, obscure single DD IEM that was actually… pretty good.

I bought a unit for myself to bring back to Singapore for measurements, as well as to let some other people try it. It was the former that ended up delaying this review for so long. Massive channel imbalance plagued my unit, and I realized that my impressions of this new unit tainted my impressions of the demo unit. I sent back my unit to FAudio for repair, and after about a month of waiting it was back in my hands. Only thing is, this repaired unit sounded different, and still had a pretty noticeable channel imbalance in the bass. Back to FAudio it went.

And fastforward to today. The Minor is back in my hands, this time a full blown replacement of my original unit. I’ve verified on my measurement rig that the channel matching is, while not perfect, within tolerance. What are my thoughts on the Minor 4 months later?

Perhaps one of the things that attracted me to the Minor the first time around was its bass response. This still holds: Minor’s bass is clean, well defined, and has good slam. Decay is on the slightly faster side of things, but not so much as to sound unnatural. Texture is not outstanding by DD standards, but is by no means bad - it outshines pretty much any given BA IEM. It doesn’t struggle with bass separation on my more difficult test tracks, but I do hear it omitting some finer detail with bass guitars. Bear in mind, this is better than most BAs that can’t even accomplish the former, nevermind the latter. All in all, a solid performer.

The Minor’s midrange is on the leaner side of things, and slightly dry, but by no means is it thin or recessed. In terms of tonal accuracy, I think it’s mostly on point. With all my reference tracks, I struggle to find one that faults the Minor’s midrange. Most flavors of vocal performance as well as instruments sound as I’d expect them to. Which is not surprising at all, the Minor’s midrange happens to fit my target curve dead on. See below:

But to put it shortly, the Minor’s midrange is pretty ideal to me. The slight dryness and leanness doesn’t ever bother me, in fact it’s a tasteful coloration that I enjoy thanks to how it bumps up clarity.

But this is where it becomes hard to praise the Minor. The treble response on here, as shown by the graph, is nothing short of bright and at times grating. Treble sensitives would do well to stay away from this IEM, especially those that dislike 6khz peaks like the ones on, say the Acoustune single DDs, or EX1000, or even HD800. My first draft of this review called the Minor “unashamedly bright” and that line still stands. Some people I know dislike the Minor solely because of this, others are fine with it. Personally, I do think it’s an issue, but not enough of one to sway my overall opinion of the Minor. Make no mistake, this is definitely enough to be a dealbreaker issue for some people.

But for those that can tolerate or look past the Minor’s somewhat uncontrolled treble, it has a lot to offer in intangibles. Technicalities wise, it achieves admirable levels of detail retrieval and texturing for its price, and uncannily good separation ability, better than some of the more expensive tubed BA IEMs I’ve heard. General tactility is excellent, not just in the bass but in the midrange and treble as well. I find it slightly difficult to gauge the Minor’s dynamics, as its more diffuse presentation does muddle its dynamics a little. Somewhere around the ballpark of the Viento would seem about right, not best in class but definitely close to it.

Speaking of tubed BA IEMs, the Minor also does something else which I find a rarity in IEMs these days - sonic wall-less staging. I find more and more that IEMs without this particular quirk that so often plagues tubed setups have the uncanny ability to just fade away and sound like music, without any immersion breaking feature that reminds you that you’re listening to a pair of miniature speakers in your ear. And I appreciate that. It’s this that really made me pay attention to the Minor to begin with, and 4 months down the line I think the fact that it does this for $560 makes it stand out compared to almost every other budget offering on the market.

The Minor is an IEM that, if it weren’t so peaky in the treble, I could actually imagine myself using as a daily driver on basis of tonal balance combined with acceptable intangible performance. At the moment I use both my A12t and my Z1R on the regular, depending on what music I’m listening to. The Minor comes scarily close to being able to usurp them both, even though it’s not nearly as technical as either. As such, I think the Minor is a noteworthy IEM, despite all its flaws and the QC issues I personally ran into. I’m willing to pass my problems with it off as a fluke, as a measurement on the Ear-fi blog of the Minor shows pretty stellar channel matching. For the price, I don’t think there is an IEM I would take over it.

All listening was done with the WM1A’s 3.5mm jack, as well as my Bryston BHA-1.

Recommended for people with higher treble tolerance. Some closure to this series of events feels good, as does the fact that the Minor remains a standout budget IEM 4 months later.

Score: 7/10

 

[TooPoorForHiFi]

FAudio Minor:
This is a review that’s been in the making for 4 months. Yes, you read that right. 4 months.

The first time I heard the FAudio Minor was around the Canjam Shanghai period. I chanced upon a demo unit at Earphone King in, well, Shanghai, and was curious about the brand considering the Major had been often talked about amongst some people I know. I expected nothing. But yet, what I heard surprised me. This was an unassuming, obscure single DD IEM that was actually… pretty good.

I bought a unit for myself to bring back to Singapore for measurements, as well as to let some other people try it. It was the former that ended up delaying this review for so long. Massive channel imbalance plagued my unit, and I realized that my impressions of this new unit tainted my impressions of the demo unit. I sent back my unit to FAudio for repair, and after about a month of waiting it was back in my hands. Only thing is, this repaired unit sounded different, and still had a pretty noticeable channel imbalance in the bass. Back to FAudio it went.

And fastforward to today. The Minor is back in my hands, this time a full blown replacement of my original unit. I’ve verified on my measurement rig that the channel matching is, while not perfect, within tolerance. What are my thoughts on the Minor 4 months later?

Perhaps one of the things that attracted me to the Minor the first time around was its bass response. This still holds: Minor’s bass is clean, well defined, and has good slam. Decay is on the slightly faster side of things, but not so much as to sound unnatural. Texture is not outstanding by DD standards, but is by no means bad - it outshines pretty much any given BA IEM. It doesn’t struggle with bass separation on my more difficult test tracks, but I do hear it omitting some finer detail with bass guitars. Bear in mind, this is better than most BAs that can’t even accomplish the former, nevermind the latter. All in all, a solid performer.

The Minor’s midrange is on the leaner side of things, and slightly dry, but by no means is it thin or recessed. In terms of tonal accuracy, I think it’s mostly on point. With all my reference tracks, I struggle to find one that faults the Minor’s midrange. Most flavors of vocal performance as well as instruments sound as I’d expect them to. Which is not surprising at all, the Minor’s midrange happens to fit my target curve dead on. See below:

But to put it shortly, the Minor’s midrange is pretty ideal to me. The slight dryness and leanness doesn’t ever bother me, in fact it’s a tasteful coloration that I enjoy thanks to how it bumps up clarity.

But this is where it becomes hard to praise the Minor. The treble response on here, as shown by the graph, is nothing short of bright and at times grating. Treble sensitives would do well to stay away from this IEM, especially those that dislike 6khz peaks like the ones on, say the Acoustune single DDs, or EX1000, or even HD800. My first draft of this review called the Minor “unashamedly bright” and that line still stands. Some people I know dislike the Minor solely because of this, others are fine with it. Personally, I do think it’s an issue, but not enough of one to sway my overall opinion of the Minor. Make no mistake, this is definitely enough to be a dealbreaker issue for some people.

But for those that can tolerate or look past the Minor’s somewhat uncontrolled treble, it has a lot to offer in intangibles. Technicalities wise, it achieves admirable levels of detail retrieval and texturing for its price, and uncannily good separation ability, better than some of the more expensive tubed BA IEMs I’ve heard. General tactility is excellent, not just in the bass but in the midrange and treble as well. I find it slightly difficult to gauge the Minor’s dynamics, as its more diffuse presentation does muddle its dynamics a little. Somewhere around the ballpark of the Viento would seem about right, not best in class but definitely close to it.

Speaking of tubed BA IEMs, the Minor also does something else which I find a rarity in IEMs these days - sonic wall-less staging. I find more and more that IEMs without this particular quirk that so often plagues tubed setups have the uncanny ability to just fade away and sound like music, without any immersion breaking feature that reminds you that you’re listening to a pair of miniature speakers in your ear. And I appreciate that. It’s this that really made me pay attention to the Minor to begin with, and 4 months down the line I think the fact that it does this for $560 makes it stand out compared to almost every other budget offering on the market.

The Minor is an IEM that, if it weren’t so peaky in the treble, I could actually imagine myself using as a daily driver on basis of tonal balance combined with acceptable intangible performance. At the moment I use both my A12t and my Z1R on the regular, depending on what music I’m listening to. The Minor comes scarily close to being able to usurp them both, even though it’s not nearly as technical as either. As such, I think the Minor is a noteworthy IEM, despite all its flaws and the QC issues I personally ran into. I’m willing to pass my problems with it off as a fluke, as a measurement on the Ear-fi blog of the Minor shows pretty stellar channel matching. For the price, I don’t think there is an IEM I would take over it.

All listening was done with the WM1A’s 3.5mm jack, as well as my Bryston BHA-1.

Recommended for people with higher treble tolerance. Some closure to this series of events feels good, as does the fact that the Minor remains a standout budget IEM 4 months later.

Score: 7/10

Do you happen to own some Final Audio Tips? If so could you try em w/ the Minor? I'm curious if there are any short of changes compared to Sony Tips?

Your preferred Tips for the Minor Are the Sonys right?

 

[james444]

FAudio Minor:
This is a review that’s been in the making for 4 months. Yes, you read that right. 4 months.

The first time I heard the FAudio Minor was around the Canjam Shanghai period. I chanced upon a demo unit at Earphone King in, well, Shanghai, and was curious about the brand considering the Major had been often talked about amongst some people I know. I expected nothing. But yet, what I heard surprised me. This was an unassuming, obscure single DD IEM that was actually… pretty good.

I bought a unit for myself to bring back to Singapore for measurements, as well as to let some other people try it. It was the former that ended up delaying this review for so long. Massive channel imbalance plagued my unit, and I realized that my impressions of this new unit tainted my impressions of the demo unit. I sent back my unit to FAudio for repair, and after about a month of waiting it was back in my hands. Only thing is, this repaired unit sounded different, and still had a pretty noticeable channel imbalance in the bass. Back to FAudio it went.

And fastforward to today. The Minor is back in my hands, this time a full blown replacement of my original unit. I’ve verified on my measurement rig that the channel matching is, while not perfect, within tolerance. What are my thoughts on the Minor 4 months later?

Perhaps one of the things that attracted me to the Minor the first time around was its bass response. This still holds: Minor’s bass is clean, well defined, and has good slam. Decay is on the slightly faster side of things, but not so much as to sound unnatural. Texture is not outstanding by DD standards, but is by no means bad - it outshines pretty much any given BA IEM. It doesn’t struggle with bass separation on my more difficult test tracks, but I do hear it omitting some finer detail with bass guitars. Bear in mind, this is better than most BAs that can’t even accomplish the former, nevermind the latter. All in all, a solid performer.

The Minor’s midrange is on the leaner side of things, and slightly dry, but by no means is it thin or recessed. In terms of tonal accuracy, I think it’s mostly on point. With all my reference tracks, I struggle to find one that faults the Minor’s midrange. Most flavors of vocal performance as well as instruments sound as I’d expect them to. Which is not surprising at all, the Minor’s midrange happens to fit my target curve dead on. See below:

But to put it shortly, the Minor’s midrange is pretty ideal to me. The slight dryness and leanness doesn’t ever bother me, in fact it’s a tasteful coloration that I enjoy thanks to how it bumps up clarity.

But this is where it becomes hard to praise the Minor. The treble response on here, as shown by the graph, is nothing short of bright and at times grating. Treble sensitives would do well to stay away from this IEM, especially those that dislike 6khz peaks like the ones on, say the Acoustune single DDs, or EX1000, or even HD800. My first draft of this review called the Minor “unashamedly bright” and that line still stands. Some people I know dislike the Minor solely because of this, others are fine with it. Personally, I do think it’s an issue, but not enough of one to sway my overall opinion of the Minor. Make no mistake, this is definitely enough to be a dealbreaker issue for some people.

But for those that can tolerate or look past the Minor’s somewhat uncontrolled treble, it has a lot to offer in intangibles. Technicalities wise, it achieves admirable levels of detail retrieval and texturing for its price, and uncannily good separation ability, better than some of the more expensive tubed BA IEMs I’ve heard. General tactility is excellent, not just in the bass but in the midrange and treble as well. I find it slightly difficult to gauge the Minor’s dynamics, as its more diffuse presentation does muddle its dynamics a little. Somewhere around the ballpark of the Viento would seem about right, not best in class but definitely close to it.

Speaking of tubed BA IEMs, the Minor also does something else which I find a rarity in IEMs these days - sonic wall-less staging. I find more and more that IEMs without this particular quirk that so often plagues tubed setups have the uncanny ability to just fade away and sound like music, without any immersion breaking feature that reminds you that you’re listening to a pair of miniature speakers in your ear. And I appreciate that. It’s this that really made me pay attention to the Minor to begin with, and 4 months down the line I think the fact that it does this for $560 makes it stand out compared to almost every other budget offering on the market.

The Minor is an IEM that, if it weren’t so peaky in the treble, I could actually imagine myself using as a daily driver on basis of tonal balance combined with acceptable intangible performance. At the moment I use both my A12t and my Z1R on the regular, depending on what music I’m listening to. The Minor comes scarily close to being able to usurp them both, even though it’s not nearly as technical as either. As such, I think the Minor is a noteworthy IEM, despite all its flaws and the QC issues I personally ran into. I’m willing to pass my problems with it off as a fluke, as a measurement on the Ear-fi blog of the Minor shows pretty stellar channel matching. For the price, I don’t think there is an IEM I would take over it.

All listening was done with the WM1A’s 3.5mm jack, as well as my Bryston BHA-1.

Recommended for people with higher treble tolerance. Some closure to this series of events feels good, as does the fact that the Minor remains a standout budget IEM 4 months later.

Score: 7/10

Good review, thanks! As a fan of my (modded) FAudio Passion, I've been curious about the Minor. Seems these two are similar in many ways.

As for peaky treble, the 6-8kHz unevenness can be reduced with a simple strip of 3M micropore tape. Guess that will work on the Minor just as well:

(DF-compensated) Green = Passion stock FR, yellow = 60% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape, red / blue = 90% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape.

You can see that micropore damping doesn't work quite as well for treble unevenness above 10kHz, that range would require more advanced modding. But the main weakness of this tuning, which is the 6-8kHz peak, can be very easily improved.

 

[aminus]

Do you happen to own some Final Audio Tips? If so could you try em w/ the Minor? I'm curious if there are any short of changes compared to Sony Tips?

Your preferred Tips for the Minor Are the Sonys right?

I use Sony Hybrids on my Minor at the moment. I tried the Final Es on my first unit, and it didn't really feel exceptional. It more or less sounded like a Sony Hybrid without the bass slam that Sony Hybrids are so damn good at.

Good review, thanks! As a fan of my (modded) FAudio Passion, I've been curious about the Minor. Seems these two are similar in many ways.

As for peaky treble, the 6-8kHz unevenness can be reduced with a simple strip of 3M micropore tape. Guess that will work on the Minor just as well:



(DF-compensated) Green = Passion stock FR, yellow = 60% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape, red / blue = 90% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape.

You can see that micropore damping doesn't work quite as well for treble unevenness above 10kHz, that range would require more advanced modding. But the main weakness of this tuning, which is the 6-8kHz peak, can be very easily improved.

I was thinking about this while writing the review, actually. Considering the main tonal flaw is just a peakier than desired treble, some damping and fine tuning would do a pretty good job of taming that general region. I should try this and see if it goes anywhere, it has promise.

 

[ErkH]

Good review, thanks! As a fan of my (modded) FAudio Passion, I've been curious about the Minor. Seems these two are similar in many ways.

As for peaky treble, the 6-8kHz unevenness can be reduced with a simple strip of 3M micropore tape. Guess that will work on the Minor just as well:



(DF-compensated) Green = Passion stock FR, yellow = 60% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape, red / blue = 90% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape.

You can see that micropore damping doesn't work quite as well for treble unevenness above 10kHz, that range would require more advanced modding. But the main weakness of this tuning, which is the 6-8kHz peak, can be very easily improved.

this one or Ex1000, which one do you like the most?I am planing to buy a used set of higher priced single dd iem.

 

[james444]

this one or Ex1000, which one do you like the most?I am planing to buy a used set of higher priced single dd iem.

I prefer my modded FAudio Passion. The EX1000 is very good too, but you can't use it outside, due to wind noise. And treble is much harder to tame than on the FAudio.

 

[aminus]

Aminus Rants: The Source Question
Something that I’ve been thinking about for a long while is source reviews. Sources in audio are, in my opinion, tantamount to the listening experience. Sure, they may not contribute as much to sound quality as, say, a good transducer will, but I am of the opinion that a bad source will make everything downstream bad. I would rather not listen to anything than listen to say, Focal’s Utopia (a headphone I absolutely love, by the way) out of a bad amp. Though portable audio’s transducers are less extreme in finickiness than certain fullsized headphones are, that’s not to say that this isn’t equally relevant. There are some sources that I’ve disliked enough to just want to not hear my favorite IEMs off of them. Hell, there are some cables I know of that can do that.

But before I begin writing about sources and including my opinions on them in my repertoire of reviews, I feel like it’s important to note a couple of things. After all, I hold my upstream components to the same standards that I do my downstream components.

The first is that I don’t really care for the majority of traditional portable audio source designs.

Well, you might ask, what do I mean by traditional? Allow me to explain.

The large majority of DAPs are pretty basic in design. You take a standard D/S chip from one of a handful of manufacturers (AKM, ESS, Cirrus, Burr Brown, Analog Devices which no one in portable audio really uses), use the manufacturer’s cookbook implementation, and add a Class AB amp of your choice to the output stage. Almost everyone does this. A&K alongside virtually every chifi DAP manufacturer (which are, if you haven’t noticed, 90% of all DAP manufacturers) are “guilty” of this textbook player design. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach. It is, after all, the standard for a reason - when well done, it can sound pretty damn good. My problem is that they don’t really do anything right either. Pretty much every player that fits into the category I’ve described has fairly average, 2D staging, and most, though not all, have timbre or tonality issues somewhere in the treble.

There’s also another element which they tend to lack which I don’t really like to talk about much because it sounds audiophool-ish and elitist, but that’s engagement factor. Simply put, they lack something which really immerses me and draws me into the music. Is it timbre? Is it dynamics? Is it placebo? I couldn’t tell you. It’s just a certain lack of interest that puts me to sleep with the vast majority of sources I’ve tried that fall under this category, that is if they don’t revolt me first.

Having said this, what do I like? This brings me to my second important point.

I have a strong interest in and bias towards unorthodox D/A solutions and unique amplification stage design.

Now, this doesn’t mean that anything using an R2r or FPGA or any other similarly unusual or weird solution automatically wins my favor. On the contrary - more often than not these solutions sound bad and strange. It’s just that the genuinely good ones have the capacity to shine above the best that your traditional D/S chip and bog standard class AB amplifier combination have to offer.

The most obvious example of these would be Sony’s players. I am not ashamed nor am I closeted about the fact that I have an extreme bias towards Sony’s DAPs, many who know me personally know about my distinct preference towards them. I find Sony’s PWM (that’s Pulse Wave Modulation) based system to have a better timbre, tonality, stage and tactility to any other player on the market. More importantly, they have the coveted engagement factor in spades. One person I know in real life has criticized them as “making everything sound good”. Well really, I’d argue that’s a good thing, and that it’s a testament to what a good source should do - be capable of not screwing up, no matter what you plug into it.

Things that matter to me the most (in no particular order) when evaluating sources include tonality (perhaps the most temperamental aspect of it), timbre, tactility, staging and imaging, detail retrieval, transients, layering, and finally dynamics. These ultimately are what I feel shape a source, and their synergy and combined sum have the possibility to elevate (or negatively influence) the overall sound.

To that end, expect source reviews to begin when I get my hands on my Hidition Viento-B again. I have chosen the Viento because it is not source insensitive like my Z1R, and not particularly tonal synergy dependent like my A12t is (slightly thick and slightly dark ends up preferring more neutral or lean sources). The first review will likely be of Sony’s WM1A, as it is my daily player and establishes a reference point. From there on out we’ll see where this goes.

As a final note, I do want to say that most sources, unless they for whatever reason sound radically different from the norm (and more likely than not sound godawful for that exact reason), sound more similar than not. Sources are squarely in diminishing returns territory. If you’re satisfied with your setup, don’t let my writing influence any sort of nervosa or urge you to buy a thousand dollar source that you neither need nor can afford. As always, this is one person’s opinion, and most definitely does not apply to everyone. I hope, however, that my writing will be of use to the reader, be it for entertainment or for information. Happy reading.

 

[buonassi]

Sources are squarely in diminishing returns territory. If you’re satisfied with your setup, don’t let my writing influence any sort of nervosa or urge you to buy a thousand dollar source that you neither need nor can afford.

It's comments like this that rally a bigger following. Just bold honesty - can't argue with that! I'm liking this thread more and more.

 

[papa_mia]

*Aminus replied to thread.....*

*Is not a S8 review*

 

[Merkurio]

Good review, thanks! As a fan of my (modded) FAudio Passion, I've been curious about the Minor. Seems these two are similar in many ways.

As for peaky treble, the 6-8kHz unevenness can be reduced with a simple strip of 3M micropore tape. Guess that will work on the Minor just as well:



(DF-compensated) Green = Passion stock FR, yellow = 60% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape, red / blue = 90% nozzle coverage with 3M micropore tape.

You can see that micropore damping doesn't work quite as well for treble unevenness above 10kHz, that range would require more advanced modding. But the main weakness of this tuning, which is the 6-8kHz peak, can be very easily improved.

I'm quite interested in getting these FAudio to replace my ER2SE, as I found the FD01 and FDX1 a little off in terms of naturality and detail retrieval compared to the Etys (despite the bigger soundstage and more pronunced bass response).

What's your take on the Passion against the FDX1 and ER2SE/XR (plus your other favorite DDs)?

 

[MrThorium]

Animus, I was just wondering what you think of the ER4P since you seem very experienced with IEMs. You see, I've been out of the audio world for quite some time until recently. The last IEM I owned was the ER4P back in 2008 and I thought it was good at the time. As you know, I have a Viento-B and an A12T which I think are probably the best for music which is 99% female kpop and jpop. I read your review about the IER-Z1R and I agree with you. It is probably the best sonically for my music but unfortunately it doesn't work for my use case. I only wear custom IEMs.​

​

I also agree with your comments about the qdc Anole VX. It's resolution and technicalities are very good but I feel that it sacrifices quite a bit in reaching that goal. I think the Viento-B's tonality absolutely kills it.​

Since I tried many of the IEMs you review, I would probably rank your ranking list as such: Z1R > Viento-B = A12T > VE8 > M9 > Anole VX > Andromeda/Solaris​

​

Regarding your target curve, I'm a bit curious to it as we seem to have similar preferences for IEMs even if our music and use case are different. Have you tried EQing one of your IEMs to meet your target curve? It seems like it's just the U12T curve with some modifications to the treble region. I was just curious what you thought as I tried EQing my A12T to that and to be honest, I found it shouty and unbearable especially with my female kpop and jpop music.​

 

[aminus]

Animus, I was just wondering what you think of the ER4P since you seem very experienced with IEMs. You see, I've been out of the audio world for quite some time until recently. The last IEM I owned was the ER4P back in 2008 and I thought it was good at the time. As you know, I have a Viento-B and an A12T which I think are probably the best for music which is 99% female kpop and jpop. I read your review about the IER-Z1R and I agree with you. It is probably the best sonically for my music but unfortunately it doesn't work for my use case. I only wear custom IEMs.​

​

I also agree with your comments about the qdc Anole VX. It's resolution and technicalities are very good but I feel that it sacrifices quite a bit in reaching that goal. I think the Viento-B's tonality absolutely kills it.​

​

Since I tried many of the IEMs you review, I would probably rank your ranking list as such: Z1R > Viento-B = A12T > VE8 > M9 > Anole VX > Andromeda/Solaris​

​

Regarding your target curve, I'm a bit curious to it as we seem to have similar preferences for IEMs even if our music and use case are different. Have you tried EQing one of your IEMs to meet your target curve? It seems like it's just the U12T curve with some modifications to the treble region. I was just curious what you thought as I tried EQing my A12T to that and to be honest, I found it shouty and unbearable especially with my female kpop and jpop music.​

I haven't heard the original ER4P unfortunately.

As for the target curve, it essentially is a U12t with the treble region taking a few cues from the Viento. The point of this is to try and rectify what I hear as an upper midrange harmonic suppression that comes through with female vocals, violins, and the like. If you don't hear this (ie. the upper midrange harmonics on the U12t are just right for you) then chances are it will be far too intense for your tastes. Though I have not had time to experiment with a version of the curve with less extension in the pinna gain region.

 

[gazzington]

Aminus Rants: The Source Question
Something that I’ve been thinking about for a long while is source reviews. Sources in audio are, in my opinion, tantamount to the listening experience. Sure, they may not contribute as much to sound quality as, say, a good transducer will, but I am of the opinion that a bad source will make everything downstream bad. I would rather not listen to anything than listen to say, Focal’s Utopia (a headphone I absolutely love, by the way) out of a bad amp. Though portable audio’s transducers are less extreme in finickiness than certain fullsized headphones are, that’s not to say that this isn’t equally relevant. There are some sources that I’ve disliked enough to just want to not hear my favorite IEMs off of them. Hell, there are some cables I know of that can do that.

But before I begin writing about sources and including my opinions on them in my repertoire of reviews, I feel like it’s important to note a couple of things. After all, I hold my upstream components to the same standards that I do my downstream components.

The first is that I don’t really care for the majority of traditional portable audio source designs.

Well, you might ask, what do I mean by traditional? Allow me to explain.

The large majority of DAPs are pretty basic in design. You take a standard D/S chip from one of a handful of manufacturers (AKM, ESS, Cirrus, Burr Brown, Analog Devices which no one in portable audio really uses), use the manufacturer’s cookbook implementation, and add a Class AB amp of your choice to the output stage. Almost everyone does this. A&K alongside virtually every chifi DAP manufacturer (which are, if you haven’t noticed, 90% of all DAP manufacturers) are “guilty” of this textbook player design. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach. It is, after all, the standard for a reason - when well done, it can sound pretty damn good. My problem is that they don’t really do anything right either. Pretty much every player that fits into the category I’ve described has fairly average, 2D staging, and most, though not all, have timbre or tonality issues somewhere in the treble.

There’s also another element which they tend to lack which I don’t really like to talk about much because it sounds audiophool-ish and elitist, but that’s engagement factor. Simply put, they lack something which really immerses me and draws me into the music. Is it timbre? Is it dynamics? Is it placebo? I couldn’t tell you. It’s just a certain lack of interest that puts me to sleep with the vast majority of sources I’ve tried that fall under this category, that is if they don’t revolt me first.

Having said this, what do I like? This brings me to my second important point.

I have a strong interest in and bias towards unorthodox D/A solutions and unique amplification stage design.

Now, this doesn’t mean that anything using an R2r or FPGA or any other similarly unusual or weird solution automatically wins my favor. On the contrary - more often than not these solutions sound bad and strange. It’s just that the genuinely good ones have the capacity to shine above the best that your traditional D/S chip and bog standard class AB amplifier combination have to offer.

The most obvious example of these would be Sony’s players. I am not ashamed nor am I closeted about the fact that I have an extreme bias towards Sony’s DAPs, many who know me personally know about my distinct preference towards them. I find Sony’s PWM (that’s Pulse Wave Modulation) based system to have a better timbre, tonality, stage and tactility to any other player on the market. More importantly, they have the coveted engagement factor in spades. One person I know in real life has criticized them as “making everything sound good”. Well really, I’d argue that’s a good thing, and that it’s a testament to what a good source should do - be capable of not screwing up, no matter what you plug into it.

Things that matter to me the most (in no particular order) when evaluating sources include tonality (perhaps the most temperamental aspect of it), timbre, tactility, staging and imaging, detail retrieval, transients, layering, and finally dynamics. These ultimately are what I feel shape a source, and their synergy and combined sum have the possibility to elevate (or negatively influence) the overall sound.

To that end, expect source reviews to begin when I get my hands on my Hidition Viento-B again. I have chosen the Viento because it is not source insensitive like my Z1R, and not particularly tonal synergy dependent like my A12t is (slightly thick and slightly dark ends up preferring more neutral or lean sources). The first review will likely be of Sony’s WM1A, as it is my daily player and establishes a reference point. From there on out we’ll see where this goes.

As a final note, I do want to say that most sources, unless they for whatever reason sound radically different from the norm (and more likely than not sound godawful for that exact reason), sound more similar than not. Sources are squarely in diminishing returns territory. If you’re satisfied with your setup, don’t let my writing influence any sort of nervosa or urge you to buy a thousand dollar source that you neither need nor can afford. As always, this is one person’s opinion, and most definitely does not apply to everyone. I hope, however, that my writing will be of use to the reader, be it for entertainment or for information. Happy reading.

First off thanks for the z1r review. I bought one and love it. Does everything I want correctly.
Player wise I've spent a fortune, n8, sp2k, lpgt, wm1z, wm1a and qp2r. Which ones do I use mostly? Wm1a for work everyday. Wm1z at home in the evenings. The Sony's are amazing. Sound, battery life, UI.... I'll probably sell some of the others

 

[aminus]

First off thanks for the z1r review. I bought one and love it. Does everything I want correctly.
Player wise I've spent a fortune, n8, sp2k, lpgt, wm1z, wm1a and qp2r. Which ones do I use mostly? Wm1a for work everyday. Wm1z at home in the evenings. The Sony's are amazing. Sound, battery life, UI.... I'll probably sell some of the others

The Sony players definitely do something special. I honestly think they put most other players on the market to shame, but hey, that's just my opinion. The Android/streaming crowd probably thinks vice versa.