[pacman46]

If you see my post from yesterday, that's exactly what happened. My left driver just finally gave out. Having said that, Beyer pretty much instantly gave me an RMA and promise of replacement when I brought it to their attention. And @ryanmatic say he had very similar experience - he never had a driver failure but tremendous driver flex and with his replacement the issue was taken care of, not to be seen again, so I'm hopeful it was limited to the first production runs and now it's been dealt with. We'll see. I should have a brand new factory direct set next week

Yes that’s awesome they have pretty good customer service. They will most definitely give you a later production model for sure. When I had them I would get a little pop in the left ear when I inserted I in my ear. But that was really when I tried to maybe stick them in deep as possible and quickly. When I would insert them slowly I didn’t get that flex. However it never hurt the driver at all. I have this problem with my jvc fx 1200. When I insert the left ear with force I get flex and the driver sounds off. I have to actually do it again to have it reverse to normal. But when I insert it slowly I don’t get that at all. Wierd. Anyways I’m glad they got back to you quickly and solved your problem.

 

[Adnan Firoze]

I can't thank you guys enough @TooPoorForHiFi and @RSC08 - you guys practically got me into keeping the Xelentos. I spent hundreds of bucks in cables and a lot in tips (including Double flange Spinfits, other Spinfits, Spiral Dots and several other silicone ones for a tight fit and I don't like foam anyway)! So, I was just doing it all wrong! THANK YOU! The stock tips came to the rescue and so did the stock cable. Since I am using QP2R as source, I am running an Oriveti Affinity 2.5 balanced SPC (and throwing away my $200+ pure silver cable similar to one of you guys)! Again, tons of gratitude.


I feel like this Beyer gem needs a lot of homework. I am coming from the T1 so I know exactly what the Tesla driver sounds like and this wasn't it until now! NOW it is it! Woohooo!

 

[JoshG1217]

Well, if you're just going to throw it away...

 

[Adnan Firoze]

Well, if you're just going to throw it away...

Haha! By that I meant, plug it into the Pinnacle P1 (mmcx).

Loved the comment.

 

[RSC08]

I can't thank you guys enough @TooPoorForHiFi and @RSC08 - you guys practically got me into keeping the Xelentos. I spent hundreds of bucks in cables and a lot in tips (including Double flange Spinfits, other Spinfits, Spiral Dots and several other silicone ones for a tight fit and I don't like foam anyway)! So, I was just doing it all wrong! THANK YOU! The stock tips came to the rescue and so did the stock cable. Since I am using QP2R as source, I am running an Oriveti Affinity 2.5 balanced SPC (and throwing away my $200+ pure silver cable similar to one of you guys)! Again, tons of gratitude.


I feel like this Beyer gem needs a lot of homework. I am coming from the T1 so I know exactly what the Tesla driver sounds like and this wasn't it until now! NOW it is it! Woohooo!

I'm happy for you, brother. It was driving me insane as well. I feel they really designed the whole ergonomics part of this set with that specific type of cable in mind and if you don't have something with the same curvature on the MMCX inserts, you can run into the issues we ran into. For me, especially the right one, was constantly losing it's seal cause it was being pushed to the outside of my ear due to the insert ergonomics of my Sony cable,

I also found out that, when inserting them in the ear canal, pressing the IEMs right around the middle of them is not optimal. If you do it slightly more to the front of your head (see pic) it feels like they just go in better and get into the perfect position.

 

[Tawek]

I just joined the Xelento fan club
what after these 2 days I can say that for me, despite the xelento it sounds great with organic sound, I still put the ex1000 ahead ( wider soundstage beter separation , greater resolution and faster bass with greater definition )

 

[BobJS]

I just joined the Xelento fan club
what after these 2 days I can say that for me, despite the xelento it sounds great with organic sound, I still put the ex1000 ahead ( wider soundstage beter separation , greater resolution and faster bass with greater definition )

As a side-sleeper, which would you rather have in your ear while going to sleep?

I'm (semi-) kidding ... I returned my Xelento, though its low-profile was definitely one of its major advantages.

 

[csglinux]

Welcome to the club, @Tawek

Just FYI, here's a comparison of your two IEMs, measured on 711 couplers:



One confession here - I "borrowed" the EX1000 data in the above graph from @crinacle, who shoots for 8 kHz resonance peaks with all his headphone measurements, which could give a slightly false impression in the above that the EX1000 rolls off a little sooner than the Xelentos in the treble. Otherwise, there are some similarities in the FRs - except that the EX1000 just doesn't have much in the way of low-frequency punch. I can understand how some would prefer the extra definition you'd get by losing some low end. The Xelentos have a fairly hefty mid-bass and if you take that away, your brain is inevitably able to focus more on what's left behind, i.e., you'll hear more detail in the rest of the spectrum. I think this is a similar story with the Tin P1 - another good headphone, but one that also lacks a bit of sub-bass.

I wanted to ask you what you meant by "faster bass". Speedy bass seems like a bit of an oxymoron, because reproducing low frequencies is the one time where your driver diaphragm definitely isn't moving fast. There's nothing egregious about the decay of the low frequencies on the Xelento:



If you mean fast transients, i.e., rapidly switching from one bass tone to another, that's something that should be more apparent at higher frequencies (guitar pick, piano, snare drum, etc.) or even infinitely higher frequencies, like an impulse. I made some comparison plots of impulse-response for the Xelento in the following review I wrote - second one down on this list:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/rha-cl2-planar.23337/reviews?order=rating&direction=asc#reviews

The Xelento's impulse response isn't all that far behind the KSE1500, which is the thinnest, lightest, fastest driver I know of in an IEM. BTW, if you superimpose a bass tone, say a 100 Hz sine wave on that scale, it'll basically look like a flat line, as you're only covering about a fifth of one wavelength on the timescales in those plots. So, ok, the tortoise might end up winning the race, but the reason isn't speed

Maybe you had a flabby bass because of a lack of damping from some very high z-out source, but I somehow doubt that in this day and age. (Out of curiosity, what was/is your source?)

I don't doubt you're hearing differences, but I strongly suspect they're not related to the "speed" of the bass. Can you elaborate on the differences you're hearing and what you meant by "faster bass"?

 

[Tawek]

Welcome to the club, @Tawek

Just FYI, here's a comparison of your two IEMs, measured on 711 couplers:



One confession here - I "borrowed" the EX1000 data in the above graph from @crinacle, who shoots for 8 kHz resonance peaks with all his headphone measurements, which could give a slightly false impression in the above that the EX1000 rolls off a little sooner than the Xelentos in the treble. Otherwise, there are some similarities in the FRs - except that the EX1000 just doesn't have much in the way of low-frequency punch. I can understand how some would prefer the extra definition you'd get by losing some low end. The Xelentos have a fairly hefty mid-bass and if you take that away, your brain is inevitably able to focus more on what's left behind, i.e., you'll hear more detail in the rest of the spectrum. I think this is a similar story with the Tin P1 - another good headphone, but one that also lacks a bit of sub-bass.

I wanted to ask you what you meant by "faster bass". Speedy bass seems like a bit of an oxymoron, because reproducing low frequencies is the one time where your driver diaphragm definitely isn't moving fast. There's nothing egregious about the decay of the low frequencies on the Xelento:



If you mean fast transients, i.e., rapidly switching from one bass tone to another, that's something that should be more apparent at higher frequencies (guitar pick, piano, snare drum, etc.) or even infinitely higher frequencies, like an impulse. I made some comparison plots of impulse-response for the Xelento in the following review I wrote - second one down on this list:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/rha-cl2-planar.23337/reviews?order=rating&direction=asc#reviews

The Xelento's impulse response isn't all that far behind the KSE1500, which is the thinnest, lightest, fastest driver I know of in an IEM. BTW, if you superimpose a bass tone, say a 100 Hz sine wave on that scale, it'll basically look like a flat line, as you're only covering about a fifth of one wavelength on the timescales in those plots. So, ok, the tortoise might end up winning the race, but the reason isn't speed

Maybe you had a flabby bass because of a lack of damping from some very high z-out source, but I somehow doubt that in this day and age. (Out of curiosity, what was/is your source?)

I don't doubt you're hearing differences, but I strongly suspect they're not related to the "speed" of the bass. Can you elaborate on the differences you're hearing and what you meant by "faster bass"?

great comment thank you
I have faster bass mean
how to "fall apart" in the end
ex1000 with a good seal
and well-driven is more transparent, sounds much brighter with wider stage (semi open ) the bass goes down
is more raw, tectonic
Xelento is easier to drive even with nwz x1061 sounds great what I can not say about ex1000 (I need more power)

 

[JoshG1217]

Interesting. I've wondered how this stacks up the Z5, and how the Z5 and ex1000 compare, as the former sounds similar to the ex800, but more musical.

 

[MarkF786]

It's been a while since I looked at the Xelento's frequency response, but I'm surprised but how much of a bass boost they have; I don't really hear it as pronounced as that. Using Crinacle's graph comparison tool, the Xelento have even more of a bass boost than the IER-Z1R (which to me sometimes sounds like it has too much bass at times).

I'll have to do more listening comparisons since in memory the graph doesn't match my experience.

Welcome to the club, @Tawek

Just FYI, here's a comparison of your two IEMs, measured on 711 couplers:

 

[marcusd]

We just got the wireless edition of Xelento in the office recently, so we are starting with a pleasurable unbox and initial impressions.

https://headfonics.com/2019/07/beyerdynamic-xelento-wireless-first-contact/

 

[JoshG1217]

It's been a while since I looked at the Xelento's frequency response, but I'm surprised but how much of a bass boost they have; I don't really hear it as pronounced as that. Using Crinacle's graph comparison tool, the Xelento have even more of a bass boost than the IER-Z1R (which to me sometimes sounds like it has too much bass at times).

I'll have to do more listening comparisons since in memory the graph doesn't match my experience.

Do Xelento and 1zr even compete? At $2k, I would think 1zr would blow Xelento away.

 

[csglinux]

It's been a while since I looked at the Xelento's frequency response, but I'm surprised but how much of a bass boost they have; I don't really hear it as pronounced as that. Using Crinacle's graph comparison tool, the Xelento have even more of a bass boost than the IER-Z1R (which to me sometimes sounds like it has too much bass at times).

I'll have to do more listening comparisons since in memory the graph doesn't match my experience.

Xelento definitely has a chunky bass. But, depending on your listening volume, according to those equal loudness curves, it still might not be enough. It just looks dramatic in comparison to headphones that have no sub-bass.

Do Xelento and 1zr even compete? At $2k, I would think 1zr would blow Xelento away.

What if I were to list a pair of Xelentos on eBay for $2500? Now which headphone gets blown away, huh?! Beyond a few hundred dollars, we're talking mainly about FR preferences. There's little to no correlation between price and SQ at any price level accoridng to Sean Olive's research. I've heard most TOTL IEMs and the only ones I'd say were marginally ahead of the Xelentos are the KSE1500/1200. There's still no blowing away there.

We just got the wireless edition of Xelento in the office recently, so we are starting with a pleasurable unbox and initial impressions.

https://headfonics.com/2019/07/beyerdynamic-xelento-wireless-first-contact/

I have found Bluetooth to be a consistent and reliable way of taking an excellent headphone and slightly reducing its sound quality through a variety of lossy codecs, with the awkwardness of finding out that the battery is flat just at the point you need to use it. There, I just saved you some time with your review of the Xelento wireless

 

[marcusd]

I have found Bluetooth to be a consistent and reliable way of taking an excellent headphone and slightly reducing its sound quality through a variety of lossy codecs, with the awkwardness of finding out that the battery is flat just at the point you need to use it. There, I just saved you some time with your review of the Xelento wireless

lolz i see what you did there