[go_vtec]

The old Shure E3C was may be OK 15 plus years ago, but it is no where near current Shure nor newer IEMs. Don’t get me wrong, im not trying to bad mouth E3C, but I don’t want you to have negative preconception of IEMs are so so! I too bought Shure E3C in mid 2000, but sold it within few months at Head-fi at a loss. I found it to be very muddy and too veiled for my liking. Modern highend IEMs can approach/exceed full size cans with dynamics and details except for the Wide soundstage of open full sized headphones.

 

[U2Joshua]

do you find the best version (best of those four modes of operations of Sony’s sound) to be good enough or do you need different or better?

The audiophile world certainly has it's "frustrating" aspects... - this is one of them. For as much time and money as people spend on getting world-class audio solutions, it often seems to come back to such widely and wildly varying opinions, experiences, and recommendations as to what's good, better, best / what is absolute best.

Do I enjoy listening to the the XM3s with power on and noise canceling on while on commercial flights? Yes. Am I interested in understanding the "art of the possible" such that if an objective reality exists wherein which using CIEMs that cost $3K+ gives me an undeniably more technically superior experience? Absolutely.

This thread is testament, however, to this widely and wildly varying set of experiences. One person says that a $100 pair of Shure IEMs paired to their phone is their solution to me asking what is the best audiophile setup for commercial air travel. Others have much, much more expensive and convoluted setups - i.e. $3K+ CIEM's, etc... It seems I sit somewhere in the middle, currently, but would like to know if I can objectively improve my listening without random trial and error experiments involving purchasing unending equipment options, whether with intent of returning stuff I don't like, being an option to let me "try" as much gear as people are suggesting.

 

[Pro-Jules]

Have just traveled around the world in 36 hours my vote is custom mold iems

But with one caveat

If you have a co-traveler / partner with you it can be a pita to take custom molds in and out to Communicate with them!

I reccomend Empire Ears Nemesis, my review here https://www.gearslutz.com/board/reviews/1284738-empire-ears-nemesis.html#post14291793

Your player choice is fine imho

 

[U2Joshua]

Have just traveled around the world in 36 hours my vote is custom mold iems

But with one caveat

If you have a co-traveler / partner with you it can be a pita to take custom molds in and out to Communicate with them!

I reccomend Empire Ears Nemesis, my review here https://www.gearslutz.com/board/reviews/1284738-empire-ears-nemesis.html#post14291793

Your player choice is fine imho

Thanks, Jules. Nice review / write up.

 

[go_vtec]

I think castleofargh said the best summary of my life time obsessions with being an audiophile. I’ve heard really flat sounding headphones with Uber flat frequency response, but I really hated them. I like slightly colored presentation with warm vocal and slightly rolled off treble, yet I want very articulate bass without being boomy. I love being in this head-fi community where I can go to local meet and share my gears and able to learn from other folks’ experiences. I may have certain preference in sounds, but I also like variety in sounds. V-shaped freq response of Grado gets me smile while I listening through my old rock albums. The main reason I was asking about your preferences in sonic signature or house sound was to figure out how to properly aid you to narrow down your options for the best bang for the bucks.

I too have three kids and I don’t mind traveling since I can listen to music uninterrupted in the plane, airport, and in the hotel room. Although I don’t get to take my full sized gear (DACs & Amps) but I get kick out listening to a pair of IEMs on an old iPhone 6 Plus (last iPhone with headphone jack) or portable DAC/Amps. It is very difficult to recommend headphone gears to the new members without understanding the person’s experiences, expectations, and the end goals. Unlike a home rig recommendation, your options are limited to closed cans or IEMs for travel rig. You will be limited by size and weight and it probably cost more than home/office set up. A good news is that you have a fine DAP but you may need an amp if you need to drive inefficient headphones or high impedance headphones. Without knowing what sound quality improvements you desire and/or sonic signatures you seek, it would be very difficult for community to make good recommendations.

Your mileage may vary, but if you can meet up some head-fiers near you and join the local meets, you will have better chance buying a rig that you will be happy with for a while. Nothing beats auditioning some gears at the local meets and/or borrow them to listen to them in your own home! I was fortunate enough to join the head-fi long time ago where our community was just big enough have options and opinions yet small enough to meet and care in person to swap gears and join the loaner programs. Everything you read here and watch at YouTube are mere few grains of salt. However, I hope you can get some good options and recommendations to research further from other postings and YouTube. Although, you may have to pay near full retail, buy from a reputable headphone dealer that you can return with no restocking fee or carefully snipe the sale threads to buy an used gear! If I were to make recommendations, I would steer you toward to Shure SE846, Westone W80/W60, or Campfire Audio Solaris/Andromeda IEMs to experience what highend mainstream IEMs actually sound like! By comparison, Sony XM3 sounds thin, boomy, and unrefined! If you want full sized cans, you can consider Drop Fostex TR/TH series or more refined version of Sony sounds of Z7M2 or Z1R. If you really want to experiment, there is Audeze iSine in-ear headphone option as well.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Update: I dug out my old Shure IEMs - appears they are E3’s / E3C’s.

I’ve ordered some new ”black foam” tips after reading that they are/were a major improvement over the original yellow foam ones included when I bought them back in 2004.

At any rate, I’m going to mess around with these for a while. In all honesty, my early impressions are that they are (just) “okay.”

Not having a lot of experience with IEM’s, I’m hard-pressed to imagine night and day difference potential between these and high-end IEM's, but that is based solely on ignorance and not being able to appreciate the amount of technology that apparently can be packed into such a small device.

My impressions are that IEMs only offer a "partial" listening experience. To me, sound is a full-body experience. If I'm sitting in a modern theater, when noise levels increase, I experience the sound as it reverberates through my entire body - ears, limbs, chest, etc. Headphones allow sound to interact with the whole of my ears, at least, while IEMs are only interacting with my ear canals and everything downstream.

I'd love to be proven wrong and try the right IEMs (CIEMs?) that not only fit superbly, but blow me away, acoustically, challenging my assumptions above.

I think there probably are some great IEMs even before you get to custom fits. The Shures I have are just ok but I don't get along well with IEMs. On a plane I don't think anybody is going to be able to tell the difference between a good one and a great one anyway. I chose the Shures for the isolation and for the MMCX connectors. It's easy to get cables for them.

 

[PaganDL]

Thanks. I was definitely eyeing the Sony IER-M7, for a couple of reasons: 1.) it's relatively inexpensive, 2.) it's Sony, so the compatibility factory with my NW-ZX300 should be a safe bet - particularly, it has a 4.4mm Balanced cable connection, which my NW-ZX300 receives. Interestingly, no one has brought this up as a discussion point in the thread, so far, but it's something I'm mindful of and interested in exploring the benefits of the application. Until now, I've only had 3.5mm cable connected devices - namely, my WH1000XM3's. Over in the NW-ZX300 thread, most people rave about the NW-ZX300's 4.4mm Balanced port as being oodles better than the 3.5mm. That said, assuming I am not divorcing my ZX300 anytime soon, I want my headphone/earphone selection to be capable of connecting via 4.4mm Balanced cable.

I am curious about your Cowon Plenue D recommendation. Real world, are you suggesting it as a superior device to the NW-ZX300? The NW-ZX300 is the first / only DAP I've owned. To your point, I'm not in need of Bluetooth - again, I think BT on a high-end DAP is pointless and silly, and I don't need WiFi (for now), although the NW-ZX300's successor, the NW-ZX507 does have WiFi connectivity with Android OS. I've kicked the tires of trading in the 300 for the 507 just to have the added functionality, combined with that fact that some 507 owners report improved sound over the 300, as well, thanks to "all new polymer capacitors (purportedly an improvement over the ones onboard the 300, even)."

Hi @U2Joshua,

Honestly, hard to go wrong with the IER M7 as it is on my top 5 current weekly rotation.
Depending on who you ask, is balanced connection better than single?

That's subjectively hard to say as balanced audio signals tend to only do two things :

Make audio signal stronger & have a potentially lower noise floor, mostly everything else, like difference in volume, wider staging & imaging is mostly Perception & Expectation Bias.

Keep in mind, this is my personal & subjective opinion so definitely not many are going to agree with this but I will say it never hurts to run balanced if you can...

As a side note, personally & subjectively, I am not a fan of Sony DAPs for various reasons but I have heard enough of them to understand the appeal...

On the subject of perhaps using another DAP like the Cowon Plenue D, if going by sonics alone, I say that's a definite yes over the ZX300...though it is a given this wouldn't be a popular opinion...
As to other features, I can't say as my personal preference leans towards Sound Quality...though battery life helps & it is hard to beat a 100 hours on the PD for those two reasons.
Not to mention a little known feature is PD supports 3.5 mm Balanced which I find silly others don't believe or get how it's possible...
Interesting fact, I use a 4.4 mm female to male 3.5 mm Balanced adapter when using the IER M7 with the PD.
Other features like BT & wifi, if I really needed that, while I agree with many it is nice to have & convenient but I rather simply use a phone if I really needed those said features. So like you, for high end devices it is kind of ridiculous though I will admit, wifi is potentially useful for file transfer (when it works) though it depends...just not a go to.

Regarding the 507, honestly, seems like marketing spiel with Perception & Expectation Bias thrown in for good measure but can't say for certain nor do I care (sorry for being blunt) but unless YOU can hear a difference between the two DAPs then nobody else's opinion matters.

Hope this is all useful,

Hope you have a great day !

 

[ProtegeManiac]

...yeah, this is another question I'm not clear about regarding passing signal from a hi-res DAP, via wired-connection, to the XM3's... similar to my BT comments in an earlier post, does the signal end up being processed entirely in the headphone? I understand that noise-canceling headphones need to be "powered" to achieve said noise-canceling, but to what degree is the headphone taking over any/all signal processing if over a wired (as opposed to BT) connection?

Is the DAC in the headphones used to process the signal or the DAC in the DAP?

If you use a wired connection to an ANC headphone, and ANC is still enabled (note: newer headphones have the option to bypass the amp completely, I just wouldn't get them still since I already have IEMs with sound I like for less money and less things that can break and rendering it unusable or practically useless), the DAP's amplifier circuit only "sees" the input stage of the ANC headphone's built in amplifier, rendering it to only a high voltage active preamp with higher electronic noise than a true clean line out.

If you use BT, digital audio is sent via BT, received by the headphone's BT receiver chip, then gets decoded by its DAC too.

It makes sense that the headphone's amp is employed, but is to the exclusion of the DAP's amp?

sorry... these are definitely in the "newb" questions category

If you use a wired connection to an ANC headphone, and ANC is still enabled (note: newer headphones have the option to bypass the amp completely, I just wouldn't get them still since I already have IEMs with sound I like for less money and less things that can break and rendering it unusable or practically useless), the DAP's amplifier circuit only "sees" the input stage of the ANC headphone's built in amplifier, rendering it to only a high voltage active preamp with higher electronic noise than a true clean line out.

If you use BT then you bypass everything you might as well use a smartphone.

 

[PaganDL]

@U2Joshua,

I agree with @ProtegeManiac on the BT usage, ironically most phones have better BT implementation than most DAPs using BT despite most DAPs still supporting the wider range of BT codes though this also depends on how well the codecs are implmented in the first place, chip notwithstanding.

I also support the idea if wired is going to be the primary option, IEMs still offer far better sound quality than anything with BT though that gap is narrowing & with wired IEMs, at least battery life isn't a concern.

Hope you both have a great day !

 

[Pro-Jules]

I forgot to add that as well as iems for music / audio books / podcasts - on flights also I carry a pair of wired Bose QC20 n/c earbuds for the in flight movies and for sleeping. (airplane movie don't fall into the "audiofile" category IMHO)

 

[castleofargh]

I didn't bring that up because it wasn't on the topic of good sound, but I fully agree with any remarks concerning having to interact with people, or being plugged into the airplane's audio nightmare for the movies.
Having an option where an external mic can send ambient sound to the headphone/IEM is an amazing perk in the long run. Having to pull out an IEM 10 times in a flight because of hostesses, neighbors, relatives, wanting something from us is horrible and rapidly irritates both the ear canal and myself.
As with being brave enough to plug my stuff into the plane's audio system, it's been many years since I have stopped directly plugging a headphone or IEM into that. After trying a bunch of things, now I simply add a Shure volume control cable after the adapter. It's not audiophile at all as the impedance rapidly becomes nonsensical, and at least the 2 I got rapidly cause channel imbalance with strong volume reduction, but I can set the volume for the movie to the max on the screen , remote, whatever they have, and instead adjust the sound with that little wheel on the Shure cable. That way, cabin announcements don't end up giving me a ruptured eardrum and a heart attack.

 

[Pro-Jules]

Ha fun post! I wonder if I could do that somehow with my 4.4 mm balanced termination?

Pls advise?

 

[mattiav]

I use my Sony XM3 for most long haul flights, particularly for watching movies, where the fact it doesn’t sound as nice as my IEMs doesn’t matter much. What I have done on occasion is listen to music on my Andromeda IEMs and put the Sony’s on over them (ANC on but not connected/plugged in to anything). So ANC to block out all the rumble and the passive isolation of the IEMs on top of that.

haven’t tried this with Atlas (which is vented), not sure if that would work. Since I pretty much always have at least one set of good IEMs with me for use at the destination and the XM3s for use on the plane (ANC is simply much more effective for engine rumble, IMO).

 

[U2Joshua]

I use my Sony XM3 for most long haul flights, particularly for watching movies, where the fact it doesn’t sound as nice as my IEMs doesn’t matter much. What I have done on occasion is listen to music on my Andromeda IEMs and put the Sony’s on over them (ANC on but not connected/plugged in to anything). So ANC to block out all the rumble and the passive isolation of the IEMs on top of that.

haven’t tried this with Atlas (which is vented), not sure if that would work. Since I pretty much always have at least one set of good IEMs with me for use at the destination and the XM3s for use on the plane (ANC is simply much more effective for engine rumble, IMO).

I heard of another person who does this, and then I mentioned it to the owner of a high-end audio shop, locally. He went on about anyone who does this doesn't know enough about IEMs and how they interact with "the air around them" and that the ANC cans would mess with the IEMs ability to produce/reproduce high-quality sound, blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah...

Would love to hear anyone who knows more than me help provide understanding on this topic, because it seems like a win-win setup on the surface.

 

[NovaFlyer]

Great thread as I travel quite a bit as well (100K+ miles per year or about 250 hrs per year airborne plus boarding and taxi time in both short and long haul flights), and use IEMs. My current set-up is a pair of custom Empire Ear Bravados connected to a FiiO BTR3 bluetooth device that’s linked to my iPhone. I find this provides the best option for me regarding sound quality, sound isolation, comfort, ease of use, and a lightweight kit. I don’t want to travel with a DAP as I already have two phones with me and I have all my music (~220GB consisting of mp3, aac, and FLAC up to 24/192) on my iPhone that I want when I travel. The iPhone Xs will play 24/192 FLAC natively in the native iOS music app. I also have some downloaded Tidal music for offline listening, and when at my destination I can always stream Tidal as well. The EE Bravados have a dynamic driver and hence, a vent hole; but I don’t find any sound isolation issues with the vent hole. To give a gauge on the sound isolation, I can’t hear the flight attendant with my Bravados in my ears. There is a cable from my IEMs to the BTR3, but I just tuck it into my shirt and I don’t have to worry about it getting caught on anything. At some point I’ll get a custom length cable, about 18 inches.

For long haul travel I also take a pair of Shure SE535 with me that I also connect to the FiiO BTR3, I’ve had these a long time and they are great for wearing when I sleep. The are very small and with foam tips, provide good sound isolation and comfort. My SE535s are on their last leg and I’m looking for a similar sized IEM with detachable cables - Shure, Westone and Meze Audio Rai are on my research list. I haven’t tried sleeping while wearing my Bravados yet as I’ve only had them a few months, but will give them a try next month on a transatlantic flight.

I did think about getting a pair of over the ear noise canceling headphones at one point, but the weight and space were a key factor in deciding against them. As well as needing batteries. The FiiO BTR3 that I use will last me gate-to-gate on at 14hour flight and I can recharge it with a USB-C cable, and off a Anker battery if needed.

My solution isn’t the highest audiophile quality sound wise, but on a plane it’s provides the best mix of sound, comfort, and kit size/weight for my requirements.