[TooPoorForHiFi]

I would like to see your last view on the Sennheiser's Single DD IE900

 

[angpsi]

I’d be interested to hear how you came to up your appreciation for the Sony M9 as of lately; perhaps due to this change of outlook? Just jumped on the bandwagon myself and waiting for my pair after lurking on these for almost a year and a half, but I’m still a bit held up by the fact that quite many of the prominent headfiers fail to absolutely love them in spite of the fact that they certainly appreciate them.

 

[linknet]

The Traillii...to put some smile on us who cannot afford it or don't want to go there...or to end the discussion if u like itMight be a good way to end this brilliant and funny thread

 

[sebiambrus]

Sennheiser Ie900 review?

 

[gLer]

@aminus it will be very sad to see this thread parked, but I completely get the reasoning. If you do decide to end it, a concluding post with your current thoughts and 'state of play' will be much appreciated. If there's any chance of sneaking in a Traillii review - the IEM that seems to have killed every other TOTL IEM that's come before, for those lucky enough to own it - would be a pleasant bonus parting gift.

Regardless of how you choose, thank you for all your efforts, the laughts, debates and refreshing entertainment. It's been one of the highlights of my journey, and for that I wish you only the best for the future.

And if you do have your own Discord server, I'd love to join. Cheers!

 

[aminus]

Are those iem EQ friendly?
Then , would you recommend the R70X?

I don't recommend using EQ in general, not just in the context of a single IEM or headphone. I actively avoid DSP as a whole beyond the ones fundamental to basic DAC processes.

I dislike the R70x and strongly disagree with the HD6X0 killer hype that's been circulating around regarding it. And for full disclosure, despite having owned many much more expensive headphones in the past (and still having a Utopia right now), my current main headphone is a HD580 and I intend on purchasing a HD600 to complement it.

I would like to see your last view on the Sennheiser's Single DD IE900

Sennheiser Ie900 review?

That can certainly be arranged, though I can't say for sure if I'd actually find anything worth writing about regarding it. Sennheiser's track record with IEMs has been very poor. I skipped over the IE300 entirely because it wasn't worth talking about at all, way too bassy with terrible midrange balance.

I’d be interested to hear how you came to up your appreciation for the Sony M9 as of lately; perhaps due to this change of outlook? Just jumped on the bandwagon myself and waiting for my pair after lurking on these for almost a year and a half, but I’m still a bit held up by the fact that quite many of the prominent headfiers fail to absolutely love them in spite of the fact that they certainly appreciate them.

The M9 is one of those IEMs that I don't think I've changed my opinion very much on over the years. Good, but not truly excellent. Strengths are pleasant timbre throughout and likable tonal balance, weaknesses are limp flabby bass and poor dynamics. It's certainly much more worth buying than many other kilobuck IEMs, but whether or not you should be buying kilobuck IEMs in the first place is the real question. As for why I increased the score; in retrospect it should always have been an 8 for the same reason that the Z1R should never have been the only 9/10 IEM. No change of opinion on the M9's part.

The Traillii...to put some smile on us who cannot afford it or don't want to go there...or to end the discussion if u like itMight be a good way to end this brilliant and funny thread

I've gotten more than a couple questions about the Traillii, so I suppose that would be one of the few things actually worth hunting down. Only problem is, I'm not sure where to actually find one. The usual Oriolus distributor here doesn't seem to have picked it up. If anyone knows where I might be able to find one in SG it'd be incredibly useful.

@aminus it will be very sad to see this thread parked, but I completely get the reasoning. If you do decide to end it, a concluding post with your current thoughts and 'state of play' will be much appreciated. If there's any chance of sneaking in a Traillii review - the IEM that seems to have killed every other TOTL IEM that's come before, for those lucky enough to own it - would be a pleasant bonus parting gift.

Regardless of how you choose, thank you for all your efforts, the laughts, debates and refreshing entertainment. It's been one of the highlights of my journey, and for that I wish you only the best for the future.

And if you do have your own Discord server, I'd love to join. Cheers!

To clarify, this thread being parked is not something I'm doing primarily out of a lack of interest, but lack of feasibility: moving to the States for college will cut me off from my primary source of IEMs, making it essentially impossible for me to continue this thread the way it is. My growing personal distaste for the IEM industry is only the cherry on top.

I will say that I've very much enjoyed writing for this thread, and I certainly hope that people have enjoyed reading it just as much. Despite my current opinions on the portable audio industry, I don't think this endeavor has been a waste of time at all; it's been incredibly important to my development as a writer, both in the context of audio equipment and in general. And for the rest of you, I wish you well on your audio journeys, be they continuing in the portable audio game or quitting as I have.

 

[Tiax]

That can certainly be arranged, though I can't say for sure if I'd actually find anything worth writing about regarding it. Sennheiser's track record with IEMs has been very poor. I skipped over the IE300 entirely because it wasn't worth talking about at all, way too bassy with terrible midrange balance.

Please do! IE900 should be quite a bit better than IE300, and there is already some hype and a lot of marketing around it, so more critical reviews will be welcome.

 

[angpsi]

(...)
The M9 is one of those IEMs that I don't think I've changed my opinion very much on over the years. Good, but not truly excellent. Strengths are pleasant timbre throughout and likable tonal balance, weaknesses are limp flabby bass and poor dynamics. It's certainly much more worth buying than many other kilobuck IEMs, but whether or not you should be buying kilobuck IEMs in the first place is the real question. As for why I increased the score; in retrospect it should always have been an 8 for the same reason that the Z1R should never have been the only 9/10 IEM. No change of opinion on the M9's part.

Thanks for the clarification.

Coming from the 2-channel stereo hi-end scene originally, I perfectly understand your reservations about the limitations of IEMs against over-ears (and those, in return, against stereo systems and the latter against live auditions, let alone concert halls). However, my personal take is that, once emancipated to the differences of each rendering, one gets to enjoy each piece of gear for what it's worth within the range of its inherent properties and characteristics.

With this in mind, I wish you happy travels to the rest of your journey; it's been fun reading your take on IEMs over the years and it certainly contributed to my education!

 

[illumidata]

I don't recommend using EQ in general, not just in the context of a single IEM or headphone. I actively avoid DSP as a whole beyond the ones fundamental to basic DAC processes.

I dislike the R70x and strongly disagree with the HD6X0 killer hype that's been circulating around regarding it. And for full disclosure, despite having owned many much more expensive headphones in the past (and still having a Utopia right now), my current main headphone is a HD580 and I intend on purchasing a HD600 to complement it.



That can certainly be arranged, though I can't say for sure if I'd actually find anything worth writing about regarding it. Sennheiser's track record with IEMs has been very poor. I skipped over the IE300 entirely because it wasn't worth talking about at all, way too bassy with terrible midrange balance.


The M9 is one of those IEMs that I don't think I've changed my opinion very much on over the years. Good, but not truly excellent. Strengths are pleasant timbre throughout and likable tonal balance, weaknesses are limp flabby bass and poor dynamics. It's certainly much more worth buying than many other kilobuck IEMs, but whether or not you should be buying kilobuck IEMs in the first place is the real question. As for why I increased the score; in retrospect it should always have been an 8 for the same reason that the Z1R should never have been the only 9/10 IEM. No change of opinion on the M9's part.


I've gotten more than a couple questions about the Traillii, so I suppose that would be one of the few things actually worth hunting down. Only problem is, I'm not sure where to actually find one. The usual Oriolus distributor here doesn't seem to have picked it up. If anyone knows where I might be able to find one in SG it'd be incredibly useful.


To clarify, this thread being parked is not something I'm doing primarily out of a lack of interest, but lack of feasibility: moving to the States for college will cut me off from my primary source of IEMs, making it essentially impossible for me to continue this thread the way it is. My growing personal distaste for the IEM industry is only the cherry on top.

I will say that I've very much enjoyed writing for this thread, and I certainly hope that people have enjoyed reading it just as much. Despite my current opinions on the portable audio industry, I don't think this endeavor has been a waste of time at all; it's been incredibly important to my development as a writer, both in the context of audio equipment and in general. And for the rest of you, I wish you well on your audio journeys, be they continuing in the portable audio game or quitting as I have.

Good luck at college and thank you for all the invective, your writing style is definitely what made the thread worth lurking in, and you can put it to bed knowing you've saved at least one person a lot of money

Very happy with what I've acquired based on your recs, and even happier about what I've avoided.

Still want a Z1R though...

 

[Zasshuwu]

a final rant post regarding my opinions on the IEM industry as it is today and why I find it so unsatisfying

Unironically very excited for this, if it happens, that is

 

[abuanw]

ikko OH7:
ikko are a bit of a weird brand. Well, weird as of late, anyways. They started out with the OH1 and OH10, two fairly decent midfi IEMs for the price. Then there was that dongle which got what seems to be a bit of a mixed reception, and suddenly they hit us over the head with this thing. A 90ohm single DD IEM running at about a grand. Jeez. Not sure what to think of the sudden change in pace.

The bass on the OH7 is thick and midbassy. It’s heavy both tonally and in transients; decay is slow to the point of mushiness. Bass guitars and kickdrums get confused and muddled pretty much all the time, and bass texture is really not very good. I’m really surprised by this sudden deviation from their house sound, which was previously characterized by strong subbass emphasis and little to no midbass bloat. There is quite a surprising amount of slam here, which does complement its midbass heavy response nicely. But I honestly find this much bass beyond excessive and bloated, and people usually find my preference in bass to be too much. I’ll let that speak for itself.

The midrange on the OH7 is similarly thick to its bass. The whole thing sounds kind of bloated and overly dense, which is surprising given ikko’s previous models being tuned to a more upper mid slanted signature. In comparison to the tasteful V-shape and slightly recessed lower mids of the OH1 and the OH10, this feels like it needs to cut down on the lower mids. Quite unusually however, the upper midrange here is not necessarily recessed. It’s fully capable of being shrill when called for (not a bad thing, by the way. I’d call it being faithful to the recording), which indicates to me that it's not sucked out in the upper mids. It’s just... bloated. Sludgy. Dense. I would say it’s a matter of there being too much lower midrange bleed, rather than a recessed upper midrange or lack of pinna comp.

The treble response on here is near indescribable. I unfortunately did not measure this IEM, but I’d be willing to guess that it looks like a pit of spikes past 4khz. At times I want to call it lower-mid treble focused due to the tonality, but it has basically no stick impact. Calling it mid treble focused would be inaccurate as well, because cymbal crash is recessed and muffled here. And there’s also a peak somewhere past 10khz which manifests itself as a slight zing and sharpness at times which just adds to the confusing and uneven sound of this IEM. It might be the strangest treble response I have ever heard, because it somehow swerves between sounding like it has no treble and sounding like its treble is too harsh. What a mess.

In terms of intangibles, the OH7 is really not that great. Whatever detail retrieval it has is often smushed over by just how bloated the overall sound is, as well as how sludgy the transients are. Calling it congested would be a disservice, a wall of sound is more accurate. There’s also really not much to say regarding stage (within the shell, as is typical), dynamics (compressed), imaging (blurry and fuzzy) or timbre (smeared). An attentive reader might note I said something very similar about the A8000, and that’s not an inaccurate assessment of both IEMs at once. Both are bizarrely tuned single DDs that don’t really do anything right intangibly to make up for their misgivings.

I really don’t know. I’ve expressed a few times that I’d really love to see the limits of single DD engineering be pushed, but between this and the A8000, it simply isn’t there. The basic stuff, tonality, is all wrong. Nevermind intangibles, which are much, much harder to nail. This is not a tia Fourte situation where I find myself lamenting the tonality because the technical chops are that good. This is a situation where, well, nothing is good. I don’t see much of a difference between this or the tribrid craze of the last year. It’s all just incompetent design trying to obscure itself through marketing gimmickry.

All listening was done out of the WM1A’s 3.5mm jack.

It’s all so tiresome.

Score: 3/10

OH7 is not designed to be clear and detailed. I tested it side by side with Xelento, I ended up getting the OH7 even if Xelento is on sale at -30% because Xelento sounds plasticky and the build quality is not worth close to $1k, also OH7 sounds bigger/wider compared to Xelento.
OH7 is very good opposite to my CA Andromeda Gold LE, its fun the swap them from time to time.
All of my iems are bass leaning, ex1000, ie80s, CA Andro-gold, and the latest OH7. So far all my purchases are worth it and no regrets.

Read your post, then gave my ex1k a little wink

ex1000 is almost like an open back headphone so the sound is big but thin when it comes to lows, 5yrs ago I bought that thinking it is a basshead iem by having 16mm driver but actually the driver is too agile thus cancelling the bass extension. Also ex1000 has bright peaks, specially when singers emphasize the "ssSS".
Until now I still have the ex1000, still sounds good and looks new but already passed its prime compared to new iems. IE80s eats it alive without the wide sound stage.
OH7 is full and wide and the reverb of the lows is just out of this world and really sounds very big.

 

[newworld666]

Good luck at college and thank you for all the invective, your writing style is definitely what made the thread worth lurking in, and you can put it to bed knowing you've saved at least one person a lot of money

Very happy with what I've acquired based on your recs, and even happier about what I've avoided.



Still want a Z1R though...

Sorry to ask, but which cable is used with the Xelento ? is it a balanced one ?

 

[illumidata]

Sorry to ask, but which cable is used with the Xelento ? is it a balanced one ?

No problem. It's a Dunu duw-02 that came with my dk2001. It's modular so can be balanced or single ended. Looks good but the curve of the connector doesn't actually work that well with my ears - the straight standard/stand-alone version would have been more convenient...the weight and feel are both great though.

 

[newworld666]

No problem. It's a Dunu duw-02 that came with my dk2001. It's modular so can be balanced or single ended. Looks good but the curve of the connector doesn't actually work that well with my ears - the straight standard/stand-alone version would have been more convenient...the weight and feel are both great though.

Thank you, as the shape of the mmcx connectors looked like the Sennheiser's one, I am expecting same comfort but with balanced mode. I use a straight version which disturbs the position of the xelento in my ears when I am laying down on the side.

 

[Kashtan]

@aminus - any chance to review 7Hz Timeless or Shuoer S12 ?