[Adnan Firoze]

I got busy with a project (work) and will expand my thoughts and impressions further. I will say that I am a dedicated Comply Foam Guy. I haven't had single set of IEM on which I preferred Silicone, so I started with the comply foams on the Xelento and they sounded "dark" and really overly bass heavy compared to the P1s. I just switchout the foams for Final Audio E Series tips and its a huge difference. The Xelentos are far more open now, not dark as before, but I need to spend some more time with them and A/B with the P1s, not that I;ve got these new tips on.... I will expand / expound but I gotta get back to work and I'll be onsite with a client tomorrow and wednesday .... I do like these Xelentos but the fact that they are a toss up with P1s says alot about the P1s at 1/8th the price. Also the Isolation on Beyers was pretty good with foam, and less so with silicone, but they sound better to my ears now .... again, I'll listen formulate some thoughts and come back to this topic. For $800 to $1000 I expect to be impressed by the Beyerdynamics, I'm now over the moon with the P1s.

Here's what I wrote about the P1s on another Thread:
Anyway my P1s arrived today and I've got about 2 hours with them and they are BEAUTIFUL. Honestly, with all the comments that have been made and contradictory reviews, I didn’t know what to expect.... I am absolutely blown away by them ... for $160 they are magnificent. First off They fit my ears perfectly. 2nd, yes they require power but on my Shanling M5s if I normally set volume at 22, with the P1s I need to go to 43 out of 100. On the PC with JRiver and an Audioengine D3 I've got the volume at 42. The bass as has been noted has great texture - no it's not thundering but it is full and well defined, and for my 50 year old ears it's PERFECT. So far I have sensed no sibilance. I've tried them with the included SE cable, the Linsoul Balanced cable and a Shure RMCE BT2 Cable. They are magnificent. With the Shure cable I have to run volume between 75% & 90%. I've got a FiiO BTR3 but cant test it yet as it's being replaced by FiiO. I even tried lying down with them, no problem against the back of an airplane seat or pillow when sleeping. Sound wise I'm more than happy with this purchase. The question for me now, is whether or not they'll be my travelling companions. Considerations are what they do to my battery life on my BTR3 & Shanling M5S if the impact isn’t huge, they'll come on the road with me, otherwise I'll just enjoy them at home and in the office.


They seal pretty well but the included tips are garbage, Too Short. I changed them to the Final Audio E Series Silicon and they were OK, but so far the best tips have been the Grey Foams that came with the T3s (Similar to Comply T400). Again, this is subjective, but for me these tips give the best seal and isolation and comfort. The length of these and the Comply equivalent is 10.5mm which provides a greater contact patch to evenly distribute the pressure of the foam in the ear canal. The included tips are the same size as the Dekoni Bulletz which are 9mm in length. I don’t like them, they irritate my ears after a while. It's amazing the difference 1.5mm makes.
Anyway find YOUR perfect tip and you'll love these IEMs. As many of you, I have come the conclusion that we can read as many reviews and opinions as we like, but at the end of the day, they're your ears, you have to come to your own conclusion. The countless reviews can simply give some "Guidance". Anyway for me..... the P1 has been a HIGH VALUE score. Thank you @Lillian and Linsoul for an outstanding piece of gear!


I just spent another 4 hours with the P1s listening Paolo Fresu & Omar Sosa (Jazz Trumpet & Piano). This album is absolutely sublime and the P1s brought out all the subtlety and detail - I heard little details in the background I never heard before. I then moved over to Bill Laswell's AXIOM Funk Project The Funkcronomicon Album - Its a complex recording everyone deserves the opportunity to hear. Here's a sample: https://cloud.howardolsen.com/UMcpOg The depth of the bass and little details like George Clinton smacking his lips are stunning. Then I moved over to into Derek Trucks Band album "Songlines" This is an exceptionally well recorded and produced record and I heard all kinds of things I never heard before. I could literally hear and feel the reverberation in the Bongos and could hear the Foot Pedal into the Bass Drum - so many little percussion details going on all over the place. I now know what one reviewer meant when he said it's like having your favorite and best speakers in your head.

There's been a lot of discussion about the soundstage "Is it wide / or / there's no width" Well I wouldn't call them wide but man would I call these P1s deep. I've listened to a bit of every genre over the last 24 hours and these IEMs have taken everything I've thrown at them. I have a very eclectic musical taste with over 5000 CDs ripped to FLAC and ALAC in my collection and I love Smokey female Jazz Vocals just as much at Wynton Marsalis blowing Classical out his Trumpet. I groove on complex Funk arrangements and rock out to hard driving Classic / & blues infused Southern Rock. These P1s are my new favs. I pretty much always use EQ when listening to music and I almost always boost bass & treble and then fiddle with mids and I don’t make any apology for it. Its like this I brew my espressos as double & triple shots, I take Scotch 3 fingers over a perfect ice ball, I add extra hot sauce on Madras Indian Cuisine, and I boost EQ for my music. The P1s have responded to everything I gave them and have made me a very happy customer. I could go and listen to 20 other sets of IEMs and confuse myself, or find a reason to be disappointed with what I've got - but I'm not going to. I've got these and I'm happy. I will admit, however, that I've got a new set of Xelentos showing up tomorrow or Monday and I do look forward to comparing them. I should also add, that yesterday I listened with a Single Ended cable and it was good, but today I connected a balanced 2.5 and it made a huge difference.

My feelings about the Xelento are verbatim to what's written here. The stock tips didn't work for me. Was really disappointed. Too bass-heavy and dark. I like sparkle. Using a double flange Spinfit right now and EQed my QP2R to boost the highs too. I feel with a tesla driver inside each side, one shouldn't need to do this. I am coming from using a Beyerdynamic Tesla T1, so yeah, these are not that. At this price, I really shouldn't need to compare these to my P1s (except my P1s are the MeeAudio Pinnacle P1). haha.

 

[RSC08]

My Xelento arrive tomorrow, let's see how they fair.

 

[JoshG1217]

@holsen.
I don't recall the other items in your collection, but how do the Beyers compare beyond the P1? Would you say they have more of the overear sound with deeper bass and wider stage that Beyer is known for, or the Beyer house sound? Still curious about them, even with the Auriosonics making their way over to me.

 

[RSC08]

Listening to mine for the first time... #stupidgrin

 

[csglinux]

Listening to mine for the first time... #stupidgrin

Cool! Please let us know which eartips work best for you. I had no luck at all with the stock tips and I only own the Xelentos because of the Cp100 SpinFits. Apart from the fit and seal (and so obviously the low end) they slightly shift the treble too.

Forgot to mention something else about eartips... The good folks at DUNU recently introduced me to the new Cp360 tips. They're a softer silicone that are also supposedly more hypoallergenic. They're nice tips, but unfortunately don't work for me on the Xelentos, because, for whatever reason, SpinFit decided to make the stems on the Cp360 a little shorter. When you've already got short stubby nozzles (i.e., Xelento) short tip stems can make getting a good fit more difficult. Hopefully one day SpinFit will make Cp100 tips in the same newer, softer silicone...

Anyway, definitely try out all your SpinFits and Symbios - I suspect you'll have more luck with one of them than with the stock tips.

 

[RSC08]

Yeah, the stock tips are funky.. I'm with the stock silicone XL at the moment but I kinda turned them 90 degrees to get a better fit. I get an ok seal but nothing much. Spinfits and Symbios should arrive next week.

 

[ryanmatic]

I couldn't get a good seal with any sizes of the stock silicon tips either, but the Symbio Peels fit like a glove and sound absolutely fantastic

 

[holsen]

I have driver flex on both mine, though it's much more noticeable on the right. It is a surprising design flaw, but I'm suppressing my OCD tendency which dwells on these types of flaws. I believe (or hope) the flex doesn't negatively impacts the driver.

The driver flex on mine is so strong on both sides that the left sound consistently cuts out; literally producing no sound until i bang it around in my ear force the flex to pop again. It more than annoying on an $800 IEM - its design flaw

 

[holsen]

Thanks. I have an ES100. I do like the idea of short cord but I'm having trouble convincing myself the beyer dongle will be worth $250. Looking forward to your impressions wired v BT.

The Xelento Dongle is only aptxHD, and only 8 hours battery (likely closer to 6 in practice). I wrote to Beyerdynamic to see if it was avilable last week and they gave me an order for so I could pre order it. It's $250 USD. I have a BTR3 and the Fiio short cable which is a much better solution.
LDAC sound awesome, but it also supports aptX HD if that's all your source will put out.

 

[JoshG1217]

Can you link the fiio short cable?

 

[holsen]

Here you go:

1. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...lgo_pvid=7e03688a-f33c-41d7-925f-b0f2487c81b0
2. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...8.0&pvid=a3de6d16-cb3a-47bb-8c84-d9bc64afc0b1

I bought the first version and it shipped from Singapore and was delevered to door Canada in about a week. I may get another one.

Infact I also got one of these extension cables so I could just leave the shorty plugged in and extend whenever I want to use my dap or desktop rig. https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Pole-3-5...190&pg=2060778&_trksid=p2060778.c100290.m3507

 

[JoshG1217]

Have you compared to the Shure BTX2 by chance? I've heard that and the MEE. The Shure was the better of the two. The Westone one wouldn't connect to my headphones because of the way the plug sort of recessed the connector.

 

[holsen]

Have you compared to the Shure BTX2 by chance? I've heard that and the MEE. The Shure was the better of the two. The Westone one wouldn't connect to my headphones because of the way the plug sort of recessed the connector.

I literally just returned my RMCE BT2 a couple of days ago. I suspect I got a defective unit but the even with direct line of sight, 3 ft apart i got a lot of signal drop. When it worked, it sounded good and the MMCX connection to the P1s and the Xelentos was solid ... but i also only got 7 hours of battery (claimed 12). It was lightweight and comfortable but I now can say a Shanling UP2, Es100, or BTR3 with a short cable is less expensive and sound better.

 

[JoshG1217]

Good to know. Thanks. I've experimented with all those, and there's always a trade off. Most of my listening is gym (10-12 hours per week) and the extra flexibility is great, but plugged into my R6 sounds way better

 

[holsen]

The driver flex on mine is so strong on both sides that the left sound consistently cuts out; literally producing no sound until i bang it around in my ear force the flex to pop again. It more than annoying on an $800 IEM - its design flaw

And here we are, literally 55 Minutes after this post my unit has gone dead... Just wrote this to Beyerdynamics, I'll let you know how they reply:

I’ve got way too much driver flex in my IEMS The flex and popping is in both sides but its so pronounced on the left that the sound on the left IEM frequently cuts out. At first I couldn’t tell it was because the MMCX connection is loose (which it is) or if it’s caused by the driver flex pressure with the ear, but to regain sound, I frequently had to wiggle the unit in the ear to force a “Pop” for sound to resume. It has gotten progressively worse…. Even as I write this, the left side has now completely cut out and I cant get any sound out of it; it just wont come back No Matter how many times I have removed and reinserted, the sound will not come back…. It’s dead. Please dont take it personally because we are just people communicating with each other, but this just isn’t acceptable from any IEM let alone an $800 flagship. The right side also has a lot of driver flex but the sound so far doesn’t cut out on me.

This seems to be a known issue with lots of discussion on Head-Fi and other forums about this. please let me know what I need to do to request help / service / replacement. I live in Canada (close to the US Border) but bought them in the USA.
Thanks. I’ll look forward to hearing from you… waiting in silence…