Beyerdynamic Xelento!

[marcusd]

We just completed our Xelento Wireless Review. Wired sounds ideal, basically, it is the same as the regular edition with an aptX HD wireless module thrown in. Still sounds fantastic though.

https://headfonics.com/2019/12/beyerdynamic-xelento-wireless-review/

 

[Monstieur]

I may be wrong - and I hope I am, because I'd love to be pleasantly surprised - but I doubt I'm going to find a headphone that sounds significantly better than the Xelentos any time soon.

I got the LCD-i3 recently and I concur with the impressions in this review. He makes a brief comparison to the Xelento.


I don’t usually care for reviewers’ opinions because they believe in pseudoscience and think a 100 Hz roll-off is “great bass”. However his praise of the LCD-i3 is justified. Until I heard them, I did not believe an in-ear could sound so open and yet deliver sub-bass surpassing the best IEMs.

 

[csglinux]

I got the LCD-i3 recently and I concur with the impressions in this review. He makes a brief comparison to the Xelento.


I don’t usually care for reviewers’ opinions because they believe in pseudoscience and think a 100 Hz roll-off is “great bass”. However his praise of the LCD-i3 is justified. Until I heard them, I did not believe an in-ear could sound so open and yet deliver sub-bass surpassing the best IEMs.

Steve Guttenburg's reviews and opinions --> trash can

All Audeze products are very different (sound signature, form factor, isolation, etc.) from the Xelentos. I'm glad you enjoy them. Unfortunately, Audeze headphones are not my cup of tea.

 

[Spie1904]

Can anyone compare the Xelento to the Andromeda in terms of fit?
With Andromeda I can just barely get it to sit comfortable with symbio w peel (small tips).
However it's at the limit of what my ears will take and stretches the outer ear a slight bit leading to fatigue over time.
Would the Xelento be smaller or do they also fit badly for smaller eared people?

I'm no expert in describing ear shape but I'd say the space between my Tragus & Antihelix isn't exactly huge
Besides that I feel like the 'Crux of Helix' sits in the way to deeply insert my Andromeda for example.
If i were to deep insert Andromeda due to the nozzle size, it would apply pressure on what I believe to be the Crux of Helix based on the picture below

Edit: After countless of hours of research and talking to people who own them, I decided to give it a go. Let's hope they arrive soon and I can get a comfortable fit with these babies

 

[csglinux]

Can anyone compare the Xelento to the Andromeda in terms of fit?
With Andromeda I can just barely get it to sit comfortable with symbio w peel (small tips).
However it's at the limit of what my ears will take and stretches the outer ear a slight bit leading to fatigue over time.
Would the Xelento be smaller or do they also fit badly for smaller eared people?

I'm no expert in describing ear shape but I'd say the space between my Tragus & Antihelix isn't exactly huge
Besides that I feel like the 'Crux of Helix' sits in the way to deeply insert my Andromeda for example.
If i were to deep insert Andromeda due to the nozzle size, it would apply pressure on what I believe to be the Crux of Helix based on the picture below

Edit: After countless of hours of research and talking to people who own them, I decided to give it a go. Let's hope they arrive soon and I can get a comfortable fit with these babies

The Xelentos are tiny IEMs. They're also rounded. The Andromedas are larger, with stupidly, unnecessarily sharply pointed edges. Andromedas also skewer me in the antihelix/antitragus region; you're definitely not an outlier in that regard.
(To my ears, the Xelentos also sound considerably better than the Andromedas.)

If you give the Xelentos a fair shake, with a decent amount of tip-rolling, I doubt you'll be disappointed and I doubt you'll have any issues with them being too large for your ears.

 

[cfc7]

(To my ears, the Xelentos also sound considerably better than the Andromedas.)

Can you give more details?
I've never listened to the Xelento but I've tested the Andromeda and I was somehow impressed, considering I'm not quite a BA fan.

 

[csglinux]

Can you give more details?
I've never listened to the Xelento but I've tested the Andromeda and I was somehow impressed, considering I'm not quite a BA fan.

I'll try. Bear in mind that some of what I'm going to say will be specific to my own hearing.

Firstly, Andromeda are quite nicely-tuned IEMs. If they don't torture your ears, you're not going vastly wrong with a pair of Andromedas. That being said, if we drill down a bit on the details of the sound, there are two main issues I have with the Andro's sound signature.

1) Mid-range. This tends to be slightly recessed when compared to something like the Harman target, i.e., the bump we need to compensate for the fact that when our ears are blocked we won't experience the natural resonance of an open ear canal. Andromeda sounds ever so slightly unnatural to me. For example - if you were in a concert hall, listening to live music, then swapped over to headphones, their FR ought to match reality straight away. Not after a 4-week brain burn-in period, but straight away. (One audio company we work with used to pay for a number of its golden-eared listeners to visit classical music concerts regularly, with the aim of preserving their reference point.) To my ears, the Andromeda is just slightly off in the mid-range.

2) Mid-bass bleed. All balanced armatures struggle a little bit with low frequencies because they just don't naturally move a lot of air. You can use larger drivers and double up to get more power there, but it still ends up being far easier to push energy into the mid-bass than the sub-bass. My FR preference looks like a typical equal loudness curve - i.e., I'd always want the sub-bass SPL > mid-bass SPL. That's very difficult to achieve in a BA headphone, so Andromeda isn't alone in this weakness. The only all-BA IEM I know that does a decent job down there is the SE846, but that's because it has a special low-pass filter.

 

[Spie1904]

The Xelentos are tiny IEMs. They're also rounded. The Andromedas are larger, with stupidly, unnecessarily sharply pointed edges. Andromedas also skewer me in the antihelix/antitragus region; you're definitely not an outlier in that regard.
(To my ears, the Xelentos also sound considerably better than the Andromedas.)

If you give the Xelentos a fair shake, with a decent amount of tip-rolling, I doubt you'll be disappointed and I doubt you'll have any issues with them being too large for your ears.

They are arriving tomorrow and I'm hoping the driver flex issue isn't too bad.
Furthermore let's pray for comfort
I'm hoping silicone tips work well cause I've never been a comply foam guy

 

[csglinux]

They are arriving tomorrow and I'm hoping the driver flex issue isn't too bad.
Furthermore let's pray for comfort
I'm hoping silicone tips work well cause I've never been a comply foam guy

Check out the SpinFit Cp100 eartips. I wouldn't be a Xelento owner without them. None of the stock tips work for me.

 

[cfc7]

I'll try. Bear in mind that some of what I'm going to say will be specific to my own hearing.

Firstly, Andromeda are quite nicely-tuned IEMs. If they don't torture your ears, you're not going vastly wrong with a pair of Andromedas. That being said, if we drill down a bit on the details of the sound, there are two main issues I have with the Andro's sound signature.

1) Mid-range. This tends to be slightly recessed when compared to something like the Harman target, i.e., the bump we need to compensate for the fact that when our ears are blocked we won't experience the natural resonance of an open ear canal. Andromeda sounds ever so slightly unnatural to me. For example - if you were in a concert hall, listening to live music, then swapped over to headphones, their FR ought to match reality straight away. Not after a 4-week brain burn-in period, but straight away. (One audio company we work with used to pay for a number of its golden-eared listeners to visit classical music concerts regularly, with the aim of preserving their reference point.) To my ears, the Andromeda is just slightly off in the mid-range.

2) Mid-bass bleed. All balanced armatures struggle a little bit with low frequencies because they just don't naturally move a lot of air. You can use larger drivers and double up to get more power there, but it still ends up being far easier to push energy into the mid-bass than the sub-bass. My FR preference looks like a typical equal loudness curve - i.e., I'd always want the sub-bass SPL > mid-bass SPL. That's very difficult to achieve in a BA headphone, so Andromeda isn't alone in this weakness. The only all-BA IEM I know that does a decent job down there is the SE846, but that's because it has a special low-pass filter.

Thanks for details.
The midrange didn't seem to be recessed but if you're referring to the upper midrange, indeed, Xelento is more emphasized in that area if I look at the frequency graph but I'm very sensible to it and maybe that's why I liked the Andro's tuning there.
Mid-bass bleed yes, I've noticed it but didn't give me the impression that is something I couldn't live with, eventually I could use the EQ.

 

[csglinux]

Here's what I mean about the mid-range being slightly scooped out on the Andromedas:

 

[surfgeorge]

Check out the SpinFit Cp100 eartips. I wouldn't be a Xelento owner without them. None of the stock tips work for me.

It was the sane for me until I pulled out the hair from my ears....
That allows the stock tips to seal with a very gentle push and it’s incredibly comfortable.
But CP100 work very well too

 

[Spie1904]

I've received my pair today and the small size is everything I could have hoped for.
I feel absolutely no pressure building up in ear canal or outer ear.
Dare I say that it is more comfortable than my CIEM? I don't know if it's more comfortable but it's a more 'relaxed fit' with obviously worse isolation.
Initially I struggled with the silicone tips as I think I was trying to push them in too deep.
When it suddenly clicked how to insert them properly, I'd say they seem more comfortable at first sight then spinfits (although they def worked very well, thanks for the recommendation).

Sound wise, I don't usually comment on before the honeymoon phase is over but so far I can say I'm happy

 

[Spie1904]

Just a question, is it normal to hear the driver flexing while inserting the IEM?
I also get it occasionally when moving my head vigorously?
Using stock silicone S and I try to deep insert it.
Is that the right approach and is it dangerous for the IEM durability wise?
I've tried stretching my ear as per usual recommendations but it doesn't help and I have a rather small ear canal so I don't feel like it completely unseals

If anyone has any recommendations on the best way to insert (shallow, deep), or tricks , feel free to share obviously!

Thanks in advance

 

[MarkF786]

Welcome to to the driver flex of the Xelento. For me, it started off similar as you described - until gradually over a few months, it would make that noise with every step when I walked or when I moved my mouth. It's absurd Beyeredynamic hasn't fixed this product flaw yet.

Just a question, is it normal to hear the driver flexing while inserting the IEM?
I also get it occasionally when moving my head vigorously?
Using stock silicone S and I try to deep insert it.
Is that the right approach and is it dangerous for the IEM durability wise?
I've tried stretching my ear as per usual recommendations but it doesn't help and I have a rather small ear canal so I don't feel like it completely unseals

If anyone has any recommendations on the best way to insert (shallow, deep), or tricks , feel free to share obviously!

Thanks in advance