[DJ The Rocket]

My iSine 10s. Can anybody guess why I chose to stage them next to a Ferrari? kinda wish I had a chance to swap on some better looking wheels before taking this

Im digging the hell out of these earphones, so much that it's going to be hard to part with them, even though when I do, it will be because I'm ordering a pair of the 20s!

P.S.--I finally got Spiral Dot tips on them! I stretched them out first with some pliers. That pair may be ruined for anything else now, but who cares?

 

[bifeo001]

Kind of hard to answer. For me personally, if no other  big design change happens in the world of IEMs, I don't see the point of moving away from my iSine, and as long as I have the iSine, I don't see the point or allure of traditional IEMs regardless of price or newness. I was lusting after a Campfire andromeda for the longest time but now I couldn't care less. I mean the iSines have similar detail retrieval as my HD800 and a smaller, but equally unique soundstage. They also have two very nice tonalities(3.5mm and cipher). Why would I care about much else?

I can maybe see other manufacturers doing something similar if the iSines get popular enough, then I may need to look into other options. Sennheiser fitting a 20-30mm ring dynamic driver into an iem would be interesting.

Oh wow sounds like the isine are end game iems. Would you say that you are a critical critique and not being bias because it is something new that you just got?

 

[bifeo001]

Before buying my 20's I had been very content with my westone es5 customs for many years (eq'd, not the stock sound).  I had basically resigned to not getting anything else unless something really got my attention.  When i heard about the isines they were the first thing that had intrigued me in all those years, especially since i had owned lcd2's at the same time as my es5's for a period of time, and decided I was much more content with portable headphones than large cans even though i loved the lcd2's

Since the price was not rediculous, and they had the 30 day return policy, i decided i'd give the 20's a shot.  I had also realized that for me, having an open portable would be more ideal in most scenarios than my very isolating customs.

I also knew that I would very likely not want to give up using my clip zip unamped as my primary listening device, so I would either have to be content with the analogue cable sound, which is never the case for me with any headphones, or be able to eq them to essentially sound as good or better than my customs.    I figured that was a lot to ask for considering my customs were $1000 and I was very happy with them.    

It took me a while to get the isines eq'd to my liking, and I almost returned them, but once i got them sounding good, I was very happy with them.  I am a bit unique to other listeners as I have worked with eq my whole life in various sound situations, and in my own way I feel I have a very good handle on "optimal" sound for headphones, so to me the "stock sound" of a headphone is not so much relevant.  It's all about how good I can get them to sound.  How close to my idea of what a perfect headphone should sound like can i make them.

Bottom line, i was amazed.  To me with my eq settings they sound really really good, and as far as I'm concerned I'm back to where i was with the customs, which means I'll be hanging on to these for a very long time unless something totally mind blowing, and relatively similar in price comes along. 

I've had my 20's for a while now.  My customs have been collecting dust.  I will keep them, as there is always a place for isolation, and at this point they are outdated and have little resale value, but I have found that I had to completely re-eq them to get them to sound as good as the 20's, which has not been easy.

Is the eq that you made with the Audeze chipher cable or analog? How do they sound when watching movies?

 

[Br777]

the eq is for the analogue cable. for the cypher i use their app, and just make a few adjustments, but i've barely used it that way, and it's been a while.  I posted my last used settings for the cypher on page 125

 

[Dixter]

 
 
In the post below it was mentioned that you would supply EQ examples for various players...  can we get one for the Onkyo Player please...
 
 
 
Quote:

  On many devices, android supports a system wide EQ and there are various apps both paid and free that are available in the app store. As with anything android, it is hard to make any generalizations. 
Though I have seen apps that do 5 band eq or add ambiance/surround at a system level, I am not aware an app that would supports PEQ or convolution on a system wide level. My preferred app on Android is HF player (it does not provide PEQ, but has enough granularity to fine tune), except you cannot use it with streaming media such as Tidal.
 
As an Android user myself, I am painfully aware of the demand for a Cipher cable for the android users. All I can say is we are actively working on it but do not have an ETA yet.The Android market is much more diverse and a challenge to support. As for the USB-C support, though USB-C connector is different and not backward compatible with USB 2, the USB 3.1 standard is backward compatible. It would be  straightforward to make the android version work with both USB-C and Micro-USB.
 
We see the Cipher cable as a potent DSP platform and not just as a DAC/Amp. Some of the ideas we have for the platform in the future include being able to do virtual stereo or room emulation, improving impulse response, allowing users to select from multiple 'tunings' to name a few. 
 
The tuning the Cipher cable is based on PEQ and does not use the 10 band EQ presented by the Audeze App. We arrived at the current tuning used for Cipher based on analysis of numerous measurements we made using iSines on both dummy heads and real people while using different tips and also through listening tests and user feedback. We then tried to match the average response to what we perceive as the ideal curve. 
 
I understand that when it comes to EQ, there is no 'one size fits all'. While the lack of Pinna and concha resonances makes it little easier to measure, fit and seal causes some degree of variability between users.  For the tweakers like me, who like to play with EQ, here is a close approximation of the EQ we use in Cipher cable that I created using DMG Equilibrium. You can use this as a starting point or reference and change it further and share it with this community for the benefit of other users.
 
We have shared a similar EQ profile with Waves Audio for their NX plugin. We are also working with few software players to provide Audeze Presets for iSines and our to other headphones too. We are willing to share presets in other formats too for use with your favorite players or plugins. I will try to start a poll to see what is preferred.
 
 
 

 

[Dixter]

Thanks goes out the Br777 for sharing his work on the EQ for these....   its like night/day with and without EQ on these....   I got these in the mail this afternoon and just been playing for a few hours but once the EQ is setup they sound very very nice...   just wish I could find a cipher cable to mate with them to see how that is....

 

[Br777]

  Thanks goes out the Br777 for sharing his work on the EQ for these....   its like night/day with and without EQ on these....   I got these in the mail this afternoon and just been playing for a few hours but once the EQ is setup they sound very very nice...   just wish I could find a cipher cable to mate with them to see how that is....

glad you like it.  It certainly does seem like a huge improvement to me.  You can make adjustments to the gain of any of the three levels i supplied if you treat them as bass, mids, and highs and the overall sound quality should be pretty stable..  for example if that is too much bass for you, you can take it down a few db, and you wont radically effect the rest of the overall sound.  Or if the mids are too forward, you can lower that one without creating a whole new mids sound.. etc... 

 

[Music freak]

I heard that EQing headphones can cause distortion in the long run. how true is that?

 

[bussola]

What. Almost 6 db of gain at 4kHz with the Audeze proprietary eq. Audeze, why??
 
 
And of course you can hear it, in fact just cutting the 4Khz slider on the eq app immediately gives ear pain relief .
 
 

This is my eq, and it works really well. Remember, it's always better to cut than to boost in digital domain.

 

[Kazekeil]

Oh wow sounds like the isine are end game iems. Would you say that you are a critical critique and not being bias because it is something new that you just got?

I mean, I've had them for about 2 months now, and my HD800 for 1 month so that newness has worn off and I've just been using them now.
 
I'd say I'm pretty critical. I'm tight with money unless the sound really impresses me enough. I've actually been mulling over returning/selling the HD800, but the iSine is staying put.

 

[Music freak]

I got my iSine 10s today. out of the box, the bass sounded muddy and the midrange boxy. Now the bass has improved a lot after 5-6 hours. 
I am liking the sound. And the the boxiness to the vocals is also reduced a lil.
but I have this one issue. The bass sounds a bit to the right. Everything is placed properly , but the bass.
Has anyone experienced this? 

 

[Dixter]

  I heard that EQing headphones can cause distortion in the long run. how true is that?

I think with many headphones you can cause distortion...an example would be like putting way too much bass on a headphone where the drivers can't handle that type of input and the bass ends up blooming or sloppy.
 
I'm not one to normally EQ but the i20 seems to like it very much....   its not that the i20 sounds bad with no EQ its more like if you were a designer and got a chance to create your own sound signature then the i20 is like you molding clay...  
 
My very first impression of the i20 was how much separation there is of the instruments...  its very noticable...   

 

[Dixter]

  I mean, I've had them for about 2 months now, and my HD800 for 1 month so that newness has worn off and I've just been using them now.
 
I'd say I'm pretty critical. I'm tight with money unless the sound really impresses me enough. I've actually been mulling over returning/selling the HD800, but the iSine is staying put.

Thats funny....  I just got the i20 yesterday afternoon...  I'm kinda afraid to drag out my HD800 to compare with....  the i20 is staying put here too...

 

[acia]

  Thats funny....  I just got the i20 yesterday afternoon...  I'm kinda afraid to drag out my HD800 to compare with....  the i20 is staying put here too...

how about i10?
 
struggling whether to cough out even more dough.

 

[DJ The Rocket]

I got my iSine 10s today. out of the box, the bass sounded muddy and the midrange boxy. Now the bass has improved a lot after 5-6 hours.
I am liking the sound. And the the boxiness to the vocals is also reduced a lil.
but I have this one issue. The bass sounds a bit to the right. Everything is placed properly , but the bass.
Has anyone experienced this?

My 10's went through a very brief burn-in period in almost the exact way you described. I think it took less than 4 hours in my case.

About your bass issue, are you certain both sides are sitting in the same position, and creating equally effective seals on both sides? You can diagnose the issue more precisely if you swap the left and right cables, and see if the issue follows the cable or not.