[Otto Motor]

OH YA!!!!!!

Gents,
Of course does it come down to taste but the general argument here in favour of these "little chainsaws" is flawed.
1. Similar comments to mine by others are dismissed as "selective" (meaning "invalid") for no good reason.
2. The peaks that describe the "shrillness" are dismissed as the graph is dismissed. Do they not exist?
3. Quality gear is dismissed as being "for the masses" whereas Chifi is NOT at all catering to the Chinese masses (but to an exclusive group of cheap Caucasian audiophiles)?
4. A cheap earphone is compared to an exclusive, pricy sports car. Not warranted either.
5. You don't have to be particularly sensitive to treble to find these quickly fatiguing. This may be valid for a large portion of the "masses".
6. Getting a headache after a short while has nothing to do with taste. I speculate I am not the only one here.

Fairness and logic to the argument should be applied.

Last but not least, Vidal and Co. do and have done a great favour to this community and have provided much pleasure and a great service and given excellent advice over longer periods of time. Thanks a bunch. This little quibble here is just a small, unimportant snapshot in the big picture.

I did try foams and it improved the pain a bit. And yes, they are great sounding, have a great soundstage, good separation, decent mids, a well defined bass, and they constitute overall excellent value...would there not be my quickly oncoming fatigue, the reasons of which I think I have identified.

Oh, and I fully agree with Vidal on the Rock Zircon, for example.

 

[vector84]

/
What is selective quoting? Any quoting is selective! You probably mean "out of context" - which they are not. I'd say the quotes are representative and the graph does not lie. "Bright" - sure, why not, I love the Tin Audio T2. But "aggressive" may be generally an acquired taste.

Interesting article:
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/taming-the-treble

Also I love graphs and I'm a huge fan of that site, but you need to know what you're working with.
For example, "cold" versus "bright" - as in warm/cold, dark/bright are typically considered interchangeable, but as that site does a decent job of explaining, they choose to use "cold" for a treble tilt and "bright" for a 5kHz emphasis - both can sound "bright" in the sense of the feeling of exposure to bright light captured in sound form.

2. The peaks that describe the "shrillness" are dismissed as the graph is dismissed. Do they not exist?

They in fact frequently do not, especially when trying to cross-compare between different couplers / measurement rigs. In addition to the bit from @Vidal about @Brooko's fun experience, this was a big thing in head-fi / innerfidelity recently too - resonance artifacts are difficult to interpret, but easy to recognize on hearing - does a sweep really spike up to 3-4x as loud at that peak when you listen to one? If so, it's "real" for you, if not it's a measurement artifact.

6. Getting a headache after a short while has nothing to do with taste. I speculate I am not the only one here.

Ohh really? Overexposure to a hefty mid-bass hump is far more likely to give me a migraine than even the most fatiguing of sound, to be perfectly honest.

 

[Otto Motor]

Great! Bach makes everybody happy! He has always three tunes on the go - simultaneously. The Bandenburgs are my favourite piece. I must have 15 versions.

 

[Otto Motor]

...but you need to know what you're working with.
For example, "cold" versus "bright" - as in warm/cold, dark/bright are typically considered interchangeable, but as that site does a decent job of explaining, they choose to use "cold" for a treble tilt and "bright" for a 5kHz emphasis - both can sound "bright" in the sense of the feeling of exposure to bright light captured in sound form.

Yeah, these things are often not clearly defined or used inconsistently and such a misunderstanding started this whole discussion. What I called "harsh" was the treble and Vidal had a different idea of "harsh" in the frequency spectrum. He was referring to the cause and I (more casually) to the effect. His was actually more accurate. And see where it led to...

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

Great! Bach makes everybody happy! He has always three tunes on the go - simultaneously. The Bandenburgs are my favourite piece. I must have 15 versions.

I'm kind of addict to the Goldberg Variation (there so much place for creativity in interpretation), find it quite fascinating for string quartet too.
And its true that conterpoint is a endless discovery of new melodies imbraquate one in another.
I like harpsichord and organ pieces too....so prolific composer. He wanna please god with its composition, it perhaps explain why its so incredible!

And we cannot talk about Bach without talking about GLENN GOULD. He's my only argument to say ''i'm pround to be canadian'' hehe What a genius, and an intersting mind as well!

 

[Otto Motor]

I'm kind of addict to the Goldberg Variation (there so much place for creativity in interpretation), find it quite fascinating for string quartet too.
And its true that conterpoint is a endless discovery of new melodies imbraquate one in another.
I like harpsichord and organ pieces too....so prolific composer. He wanna please god with its composition, it perhaps explain why its so incredible!

And we cannot talk about Bach without talking about GLENN GOULD. He's my only argument to say ''i'm pround to be canadian'' hehe What a genius, and an intersting mind as well!

OMG, I probably 20 interpretations of the Goldbergs, including all of Glenn Gould's: from the 1955 one to his CBC recordings. He was a great chiseller! Got the complete Bach Box by Brilliant Classics with 160 CDs or so. Bach only composed secular works when being court composer at Köthen, later he did exclusively cantatas and other sacred works, which constitute the bulk of his work. At his lifetime, there was a "coffee shop" located kiddy corner from St. Thomas church in Leipzig called "Cafe Zimmermann". A French ensemble named itself Cafe Zimmerman and they play Bach as it was played at the time. Absolutely priceless, their 6 CD Bach Box.

As to Canada and Bach, there is also Toronto's excellent "Tafelmusik". They do a great interpretation of the Brandenburgs.

 

[Brooko]

Measuring frequency is very tricky which is why I don't do it, I trust my ears more than my technical ability with mics and sh!t - pretty sure there's a good story from Brooko about this.

I guess I'm a bit different. My ears are OK (for my age), some high frequency hearing loss which is normal, but the permanent tinnitus (long story) is worse - it tends to also have a masking effect. Its almost impossible for me to hear hiss (which is actually a blessing in disguise). My enjoyment of music remains the same though Getting back to your point - my ears are Ok, its my brain I don't trust. It puts a filter on everything (and I mean everything). EG did you know that when listening for a certain thing, you'll often disregard everything else while you're listening for it? And if someone has convinced us that a certain trait is there - whether we actually hear it or not, it will influence what we think we hear. What I do is listen and notate first. Then measure. Then correlate that with what I've heard, try and understand it, then listen again. Probably 80-90% of the time I'm on the right track with straight listening, but sometimes I'm right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons. EG - warm tonality - but is it bass or rolled upper end? Dissonance - is it a sharp rise and subsequent fall in the harmonics, just the fall or ....... For most people it probably won't matter. When i'm reviewing it does. What peeves me at the moment is that there are a lot more extremely subjective reviewers at the moment, and often the wrong thing is being claimed. We have the tools - why not be as accurate as we can. When you get reviewers claiming frequency response changes because of a balanced out, when both balanced and SE have low Z, and the IEM in question is not susceptible to impedance related changes, then something is wrong with what we're doing.

They in fact frequently do not, especially when trying to cross-compare between different couplers / measurement rigs. In addition to the bit from @Vidal about @Brooko's fun experience, this was a big thing in head-fi / innerfidelity recently too - resonance artifacts are difficult to interpret, but easy to recognize on hearing - does a sweep really spike up to 3-4x as loud at that peak when you listen to one? If so, it's "real" for you, if not it's a measurement artifact.

Agree on the couplers and also on the resonance artifacts. But too many wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water though. If on the same kit, you are getting relative frequency response telling you a story, and you are hearing same - then you'd have to believe the relativity is correct. After taking 100's of hours trying to get my rig calibrated as best I can - I simply objected to someone dismissing our cheaper rigs as incorrect, wildly inaccurate, and irrelevant. I find it interesting that most my my raw measurements are now actually pretty close to most of the measurements of the manufacturers (when they are good enough to give me that data). I'll continue doing what I'm doing and if people don't like it, they an simply choose to ignore. I'd rather have a higher degree of accuracy than rely on some of the subjective audiophile foolery which currently goes on.

I know it disagrees with a lot of opinions - which is why I'm jacking it in soon. You can only bang your head against a brick wall for so long.

And for those who really are keen to know how much of a filter our brain puts on things, and why what we think we hear can't be trusted - try the first 10-15 minutes of this

 

[snip3r77]

I'm kind of addict to the Goldberg Variation (there so much place for creativity in interpretation), find it quite fascinating for string quartet too.
And its true that conterpoint is a endless discovery of new melodies imbraquate one in another.
I like harpsichord and organ pieces too....so prolific composer. He wanna please god with its composition, it perhaps explain why its so incredible!

And we cannot talk about Bach without talking about GLENN GOULD. He's my only argument to say ''i'm pround to be canadian'' hehe What a genius, and an intersting mind as well!

Just listen to Gould's Turkish March . It is so refreshing

 

[Strat Rider]

Yes, because a review can be good or bad. A negative review that is backed up with a similar experience from somenone else is solid, in my book. It serves the community.

I typically try to read as many of these negative comments as possible along with positive. Then i use Olympic scoring.... Throw out the highest and lowest scores. I find people that enjoy an item rarely rate, unhappy people always do

 

[Otto Motor]

I find people that enjoy an item rarely rate, unhappy people always do

Often enough true...see doctors' ratings. On the other hand, I reviewed (not rated) 2 earphones on youtube simply because I liked them sooo much - and never reviewed others.

 

[groucho69]

Often enough true...see doctors' ratings. On the other hand, I reviewed (not rated) 2 earphones on youtube simply because I liked them sooo much - and never reviewed others.

Well you are an unusual individual though.

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

OMG, I probably 20 interpretations of the Goldbergs, including all of Glenn Gould's: from the 1955 one to his CBC recordings. He was a great chiseller! Got the complete Bach Box by Brilliant Classics with 160 CDs or so. Bach only composed secular works when being court composer at Köthen, later he did exclusively cantatas and other sacred works, which constitute the bulk of his work. At his lifetime, there was a "coffee shop" located kiddy corner from St. Thomas church in Leipzig called "Cafe Zimmermann". A French ensemble named itself Cafe Zimmerman and they play Bach as it was played at the time. Absolutely priceless, their 6 CD Bach Box.

As to Canada and Bach, there is also Toronto's excellent "Tafelmusik". They do a great interpretation of the Brandenburgs.

Right after I read this...

[TR24][SM][OF] J.S. Bach - Concerts avec plusieurs instruments -VI (Cafe Zimmermann) - 2011 (Classical)

I'm far from finish with Bach, but I adore as well baroque music, play with ancient isntrument like Viol, Viola D'amore etc...like Garth KNOX play so well and with such personal version.



Glenn Gould is a real obsession of mine. Got alot of vinyls of him, including Goldbergs:

Nice taste man, refreshing to know audiophile like you....still, at 34 I feel VERY young when I go to a classical concert sometime (begin at 18, wich was even more anachronical) hehe!

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

EG did you know that when listening for a certain thing, you'll often disregard everything else while you're listening for it?

Its like beer review, you must drink some water before trying another one, if not, it will still taste the other beer. hehe

Anyway, debate about reviewers are limitless, I feel lot of reader not necessarily wanna read a twelve page review that use to obscure terminologies...and one thing that really really make me doubtfull and that I repeat too much (?) is when it come about receive review sample of more than 200$ it make you brain strangely banalised price factore, wathever you say, cause you will never want to give a 7 out of 10, or 3 on 5, to something that sound quite good, I think Hifiman 2000 is the supreme example of that. Cannot-should not exist. Another debate...

I like comparaison, but another time, if I do not have the IEM or headphones the reviewer talk about im kind of What really....now, if I talk of my reviews approach, I want it to be informative and kind of funny-entertaining, wich I know will be a drawback to being take extremly seriously by hardcore serious audiophile, still working on the perfect approach, and wanna became more severe and critical, like, no complasaince or benifit of doubt, and did not wait to receive something to write review (in fact I stop that, cause I receive crap that do not even deserve to be seen and it can be a real plague for headfi, I prefer sometime asking for a discount, but even that its too risky for my little money...so im confuse).

Will surely review Bosshifi B7, paid with my money, Takstar Pro82, paid with my money, **** TANK that I listen right now and finally think there a good bet (paid with my money with 10$ discount), FAEEL 64 (paid with MM), F.audio FA1 DAP (discount paid with MM) cause I like them alot...etc...but its on impulse, need some adrenaline push, like perhaps a ''Péché Mortel'' 9% Imperial Stout with coffee, THAT give a push (I talk about beer too much sorry!). In fact, i'm dangerously in dept now so, will calm about buying For sure!

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

About the crappy saga of crappy defective 6BA torture mecanism, seller, as I think, is a smartass (he think) so this is going no where. Just share this smily face:

Store name: shenzhen Tiandirenhe Co.,LTD. Store
Seller's Proposal

Proposal: No return & No refund

''Mister M
17/12/16 00:20
Dear friend, we are willing to refund you $20, ok?

ME:

No its not okay.

Perhaps 60$ will be okay....but I think you will prefer this to have you IEM back.

I do not want a defective product. I will NEVER use this. Seriously. Can't repeat it enough. It was my biggest Aliexpress error of my whole life. And I have more information of your store from other heafi members=ALL negative.

Why did you have positive feedback is really impossible to understand.

From all shop I buy, its the worst product, and its the more expensive too. My words are the truth. I do not lie. Check my buying list, its not the first buy. But still, I understand something new: do NOT trust positive reviews EVER on Aliexpress and it make me very very mad cause its already complicate.

Now I will only stick with the seller I know and will write a blacklist of seller to avoid.

You do not collaborate alot. Pretty certain you will never sell this again to nobody and its a very very very GOOD thing.

Thats candy for they eyes, and poison for the ears. No earphones that ''normal'' sound is a defective sound that create distortion with low and even medium frequencies should exist. Its just plain unlistenable, I really think the positive feedback you have are from paid ''consumers'', not other way.

I wait for Ali to take step, cause you do not collaborate, I lost too much time and even walk to postal office and all for shipping price.

-Erik''

 

[MoshiMoshi]

Just wanted to alert everyone the pioneer ch9t is $79.99 on Amazon right now.