[csglinux]

Any updates on this?

Unfortunately not I'm still sworn to secrecy, but there's one other headfier that knows and has heard this particular IEM. You could try pestering @moedawg140 for information - although I think he's also sworn to secrecy(?!). My best guess is the company in question had second thoughts. This IEM sounded better (to my ears) than all their flagship IEMs, but will/would have been very reasonably priced. You'll see why, if it ever happens Maybe they were worried about it cannibalizing their TOTL IEM sales? If it happens, for sure I'll post about it here. It isn't/won't be as small as the Xelento, but it has some sonic advantages.

Many thanks to @angpsi and @utdeep for the information on the fake Xelentos. I knew the day when fake Xelentos popped up was probably inevitable, but it's also a bit sad. Somebody advertising genuine Xelentos and then putting fake Xelentos in the box...? That's way beyond sketchy. @utdeep, you should really do the community a service and flag your seller. That behavior isn't just immoral - it's illegal in most countries. In the US it's illegal to even send counterfeit goods through the post.

I'm very dubious about any of these knock-offs. It's not just that they undermine the hard work and R&D of the company being copied, but in my experience, they never sound as good as the originals. I don't believe this DIY earphone lab claim that the sound is 100% that of a Xelento. They've even proved this isn't the case if you look carefully enough at their website. They claim that it measures similarly to Jude's Xelento and show plots to prove this. But read more carefully...! Jude's measurements were made with a GRAS RA0401/2 coupler. This is GRAS' so-called "hi-res" coupler that strongly damps the half-wave canal resonance. For shallow-insertion IEMs in particular, this gives a very different measurement from that of a traditional 711 coupler. Those differences are explained in more detail here:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/audio-measurements-on-a-headfi-budget.893084/page-4#post-15229239

It looks like they deliberately used 1/3rd octave-band smoothing to try and make their plots look closer to those of Jude's, even though those two graphs should never be expected to match Their 1/3rd octave smoothing still doesn't account for the differences in the treble when compared to an authentic pair of Xelentos when measured on a traditional 711 coupler. Red and green are the authentic Xelentos (narrow-band and 1/3-octave-smoothed, respectively), and blue are the DIY labs knock-offs (1/3-octave-smoothed):

These knock-offs seem to have an early roll-off at both ends and the mid-range is off too. I doubt it's an authentic Tesla driver. If they had to make a fake copy of the shell, it seems highly likely they're making a fake copy of the driver too.

P.S. It's curious that the psychology of the faker always causes them to leave at least one time-bomb in the counterfeit. Big Big Train wrote a nice song about that. It's worth listening to on your (genuine!) Xelentos:

 

[holsen]

Many thanks to @angpsi and @utdeep for the information on the fake Xelentos. I knew the day when fake Xelentos popped up was probably inevitable, but it's also a bit sad. Somebody advertising genuine Xelentos and then putting fake Xelentos in the box...? That's way beyond sketchy. @utdeep, you should really do the community a service and flag your seller. That behavior isn't just immoral - it's illegal in most countries. In the US it's illegal to even send counterfeit goods through the post.

No need to out the seller. I'll out myself. If I sold him fakes, I didnt know it, I didn't intend it and I'm still not sure about it. Just sent this to @utdeep and PayPal, Should be self explanatory:
Hello Sandeep
I'm home now and have had a chance to really read everything you wrote to me, to paypal and to the Headfi community. If I sent you a set of fakes, I have no idea about that. I've got two sets of Xelentos directly from Beyerdynamic (still have one) with receipts to prove and I've had 2 set picked up from authorized sellers on Amazon. I dont know anything about this serial number issue as I've never looked but I have now written to Beyerdynamic to confirm it. I havent heard from them. I do know this, there is absolutely no difference in sound, look, or feel between the earbuds I got from Beyer Directly and those I picked up on Amazon and sent to you. Packaging, accessories, cables, tips weight, and sound are identical. Anyway, you've now done what you have done. Paypal has done what is has done. and There is nothing further than I can do. God Bless you. Best of luck to you and for the record here's what I just sent to Paypal:

I've got serious concerns about your dispute resolution process and my future activities with Paypal based on this latest incident. Last week, I received a notice that a buyer had opened a dispute, but that I had until December 10 to respond. A few hours later, I got a notice that the buyer had escalted the case. I was offisite and wrote to the buyer (through the dispute resolution panel) that I was a way and would come back with a proper response on Monday (Today, November 25) Well somewhere overnight, you, Paypal, took it upon yourself the close the case and arbitrarily refund the buyer, 15 days before you said you would step in. What the hell kind of process is that. I never even had the chance to make any kind of a proper response and was lead to believe by your own correspondence to me that I still had time to respond. The earphones I sold this buyer, I bought on Amazon, from an authorized reseller, for significantly more than that I sold them for and have receipts to prove it. Now it is absolutely clear that your dispute resolution process is completely arbitrary, has absolutely no foundation of justice, righteousness or even due process. REMEMBER: YOU told ME that I had until December 10 to respond and then just made a decision. I want to call it BS, but I have a much better command of the English Language than that so I'll call it Hooey, malarkey, balderdash, absurd, and unrighteous nonsense. How can any seller sell with any level of confidence, when you just take it upon yourself to decide things on your own without even any discourse. OK, I'll call it what it is ..... bull.

 

[csglinux]

No need to out the seller. I'll out myself. If I sold him fakes, I didnt know it, I didn't intend it and I'm still not sure about it. Just sent this to @utdeep and PayPal, Should be self explanatory:
Hello Sandeep
I'm home now and have had a chance to really read everything you wrote to me, to paypal and to the Headfi community. If I sent you a set of fakes, I have no idea about that. I've got two sets of Xelentos directly from Beyerdynamic (still have one) with receipts to prove and I've had 2 set picked up from authorized sellers on Amazon. I dont know anything about this serial number issue as I've never looked but I have now written to Beyerdynamic to confirm it. I havent heard from them. I do know this, there is absolutely no difference in sound, look, or feel between the earbuds I got from Beyer Directly and those I picked up on Amazon and sent to you. Packaging, accessories, cables, tips weight, and sound are identical. Anyway, you've now done what you have done. Paypal has done what is has done. and There is nothing further than I can do. God Bless you. Best of luck to you and for the record here's what I just sent to Paypal:

I've got serious concerns about your dispute resolution process and my future activities with Paypal based on this latest incident. Last week, I received a notice that a buyer had opened a dispute, but that I had until December 10 to respond. A few hours later, I got a notice that the buyer had escalted the case. I was offisite and wrote to the buyer (through the dispute resolution panel) that I was a way and would come back with a proper response on Monday (Today, November 25) Well somewhere overnight, you, Paypal, took it upon yourself the close the case and arbitrarily refund the buyer, 15 days before you said you would step in. What the hell kind of process is that. I never even had the chance to make any kind of a proper response and was lead to believe by your own correspondence to me that I still had time to respond. The earphones I sold this buyer, I bought on Amazon, from an authorized reseller, for significantly more than that I sold them for and have receipts to prove it. Now it is absolutely clear that your dispute resolution process is completely arbitrary, has absolutely no foundation of justice, righteousness or even due process. REMEMBER: YOU told ME that I had until December 10 to respond and then just made a decision. I want to call it BS, but I have a much better command of the English Language than that so I'll call it Hooey, malarkey, balderdash, absurd, and unrighteous nonsense. How can any seller sell with any level of confidence, when you just take it upon yourself to decide things on your own without even any discourse. OK, I'll call it what it is ..... bull.

I respect your courage to come out and own up to this, but, based on the 2nd review in the link below, it looks like you've bought at least one more pair of "Xelentos", beyond those you purchased from Beyer and Amazon: https://earphonediylabs.com/shop/di...ith-10mm-beyer-dynamic-tesla-drivers/#reviews

Legally, Paypal probably doesn't have much leeway in these matters. BTW, I don't think you compared these carefully enough. They don't appear to measure like original Xelentos.

 

[RSC08]

I respect your courage to come out and own up to this, but, based on the 2nd review in the link below, it looks like you've bought at least one more pair of "Xelentos", beyond those you purchased from Beyer and Amazon: https://earphonediylabs.com/shop/di...ith-10mm-beyer-dynamic-tesla-drivers/#reviews

Legally, Paypal probably doesn't have much leeway in these matters. BTW, I don't think you compared these carefully enough. They don't appear to measure like original Xelentos.

That's just shameful.

 

[AltoBajo]

Has anyone had experience of the Sennheiser ie80S compared with the Xelento? I've recently bought the ie80S which are a big improvement on the ie80.I'm still intrigued by the Xelentos.The extra details I'm hearing with ie80S make me think I may be missing out on even more! Thanks!

 

[cfc7]

Unfortunately not I'm still sworn to secrecy, but there's one other headfier that knows and has heard this particular IEM. You could try pestering @moedawg140 for information - although I think he's also sworn to secrecy(?!). My best guess is the company in question had second thoughts. This IEM sounded better (to my ears) than all their flagship IEMs, but will/would have been very reasonably priced. You'll see why, if it ever happens Maybe they were worried about it cannibalizing their TOTL IEM sales? If it happens, for sure I'll post about it here. It isn't/won't be as small as the Xelento, but it has some sonic advantages.

Many thanks to @angpsi and @utdeep for the information on the fake Xelentos. I knew the day when fake Xelentos popped up was probably inevitable, but it's also a bit sad. Somebody advertising genuine Xelentos and then putting fake Xelentos in the box...? That's way beyond sketchy. @utdeep, you should really do the community a service and flag your seller. That behavior isn't just immoral - it's illegal in most countries. In the US it's illegal to even send counterfeit goods through the post.

I'm very dubious about any of these knock-offs. It's not just that they undermine the hard work and R&D of the company being copied, but in my experience, they never sound as good as the originals. I don't believe this DIY earphone lab claim that the sound is 100% that of a Xelento. They've even proved this isn't the case if you look carefully enough at their website. They claim that it measures similarly to Jude's Xelento and show plots to prove this. But read more carefully...! Jude's measurements were made with a GRAS RA0401/2 coupler. This is GRAS' so-called "hi-res" coupler that strongly damps the half-wave canal resonance. For shallow-insertion IEMs in particular, this gives a very different measurement from that of a traditional 711 coupler. Those differences are explained in more detail here:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/audio-measurements-on-a-headfi-budget.893084/page-4#post-15229239

It looks like they deliberately used 1/3rd octave-band smoothing to try and make their plots look closer to those of Jude's, even though those two graphs should never be expected to match Their 1/3rd octave smoothing still doesn't account for the differences in the treble when compared to an authentic pair of Xelentos when measured on a traditional 711 coupler. Red and green are the authentic Xelentos (narrow-band and 1/3-octave-smoothed, respectively), and blue are the DIY labs knock-offs (1/3-octave-smoothed):



These knock-offs seem to have an early roll-off at both ends and the mid-range is off too. I doubt it's an authentic Tesla driver. If they had to make a fake copy of the shell, it seems highly likely they're making a fake copy of the driver too.

P.S. It's curious that the psychology of the faker always causes them to leave at least one time-bomb in the counterfeit. Big Big Train wrote a nice song about that. It's worth listening to on your (genuine!) Xelentos:

Do you find this mysterious IEM being better then Xelento?

 

[Timthegreek87]

Has anyone had experience of the Sennheiser ie80S compared with the Xelento? I've recently bought the ie80S which are a big improvement on the ie80.I'm still intrigued by the Xelentos.The extra details I'm hearing with ie80S make me think I may be missing out on even more! Thanks!

I have got the IE80 (had the IE8 & IE80S) and the Xelentos. I also upgraded from the Sennheiser to the Beyers and was very happy with the result. It was a big jump for me in soundqualiy (and also in price^^).
If you like the IE80 sound you will love the Xelentos.
Shures 846 is also a great monitor. The isolation is quiet better. For me they had more in common (signature wise) than differences. But there is one thing: 846s are Balanced Armature and while many prefer the sound in Bass it would be definitely a big difference from the dynamic driver.
I also listen to techno and more electronic genres and specifically for these genres I would recommend you to go for the Xelentos. Because the music is very compressed and every bit of impact counts^^
For other genres I would go for the Shures.

I upgraded from the ie80 to the xelento - and this sums it up nicely!

I pretty much only listen to House/Techno and electronic music and the xelentos are absolutely mind blowing for these genres, but I cannot comment on others really as I haven't given them a good go.

When I went back and listened to the ie80 to compare the difference was like night and day - the xelentos are a far better headphone - so if you can afford them I can't recommend them highly enough!

 

[csglinux]

Do you find this mysterious IEM being better then Xelento?

There were a couple of aspects to the sound that I prefered, yes. But I don't want to over-hype a product that may never make it past the prototype stage. It was/is quite a bit larger than the Xelento and that could already be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. I find "better" to be an unhelpful adjective when comparing headphones, because all headphones have good and bad features, all of which can be subjective. (For example, like @Hellraiser86, I also own the SE846; their FR is similar with the right filter mods - they sound almost as good to me as the Xelentos - but they have better isolation.)

FWIW, I think it's entirely possible we've already reached a plateau where we simply aren't seeing significant improvements anymore. Anybody else noticed that? For the past couple of years I've been on a fruitless search for a portable IEM that sounds better than the Xelentos. There are plenty of headphones that have a slightly different FR, but different is not necessarily better. (I know some people will disagree; I'm not talking about outliers that have ear canals at the far ends of the bell curve, but your "average", Harman-ish type listener.) We may already be at the point where the distortion levels in these headphones are below any meaningful threshold. I really love the KSE1500, despite the fact that its distortion levels are notably higher than those of the Xelento. The fact is, they may already be low enough in the KSE1500s (and especially the Xelentos) where the only meaningful changes we can make now are to tinker with the frequency response. I think the most significant future upgrades are more likely to come from DSP, such as personalized head-related transfer functions for proper rendering of the soundstage. 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.

 

[Tawek]

finally I found myself perfect tips for Xelento , Sony ep-tc50l
I had a big surprise Xelento have become very transparent
now they are very widevery balanced sound with
Sony nwz x1060 sounds like they were made for each other
this is one of the best combinations I've ever heard pure bliss
I owned
Wm1z, LPG, Ak120tyt, dx100, oBravo eamt 2c, Ra-c-cu, Pf-xg, Se5ult

as I mentioned before the key role in improvement is to find the right tips
nothing else the earphone is perfect !!!! if any of you ever had to do anything
with piano forte x-g there is no exact isolation for this reason soundstage is huge, same thing
is happening with Xelento the stage is opening and we have the sound
out of the head of electrostatic quality and this is from my old Sony nwz x1061!!!!!

 

[Hellraiser86]

I upgraded from the ie80 to the xelento - and this sums it up nicely!

I pretty much only listen to House/Techno and electronic music and the xelentos are absolutely mind blowing for these genres, but I cannot comment on others really as I haven't given them a good go.

When I went back and listened to the ie80 to compare the difference was like night and day - the xelentos are a far better headphone - so if you can afford them I can't recommend them highly enough!

These IEM are incredible for this music and especially for the price. Even the Solaris and much more expensive IEM have not this impact. Of course it’s a different story for other genres and I use the Solaris a lot but for electronic music the Xelentos are king for me.
i am glad that you like them. They even sound better with balanced connections

Edit: because I just added a balanced cables to them a few weeks ago and was impressed by the improvement with my dacs/amps

 

[AltoBajo]

I upgraded from the ie80 to the xelento - and this sums it up nicely!

I pretty much only listen to House/Techno and electronic music and the xelentos are absolutely mind blowing for these genres, but I cannot comment on others really as I haven't given them a good go.

When I went back and listened to the ie80 to compare the difference was like night and day - the xelentos are a far better headphone - so if you can afford them I can't recommend them highly enough!

I listen to pretty much everything but House/Techno,but it's great to hear from someone who knows both iems.The ie80S is a big step up from the ie80,especially with a hybrid cable.Thanks!

 

[RSC08]

Any Black Friday promos on these in Europe? Seriously thinking of rebuying a pair.

 

[Spie1904]

These seem so well regarded as the universal iem for smaller ears.
Is there any reason to go for the wireless?
Since it's not Bluetooth 5.0 compatible and it's mostly listening music with a AK DAP.

 

[AltoBajo]

Does the Xelento have any reliability issues or problems? I'm definitely sold on the IEM itself,etc..I've only ever used Senn. ie80 series,and their very solid and reliable."Handmade", implies quality. I do think of Bentley cars,hand everything,look fantastic ,but are one of the least reliable cars on the road.I've not had first hand experience!!
Driver flex is another recurring subject,not something I understand to be honest.anything to worry about there? Thanks!

 

[MarkF786]

I'd consider driver flex a potential issue. My pair developed it very badly, to the point of just moving my jaw would trigger the clicking sound. Considering I have about 12 IEMs that I rotate through, the Xelento saw very little play, yet still developed the issue in less the five months. Beyer replaced them under warranty, though I fear the problem could easily return again once they're out of warranty. I haven't really listened to them much after getting the new pair.