[JEHL]

In comparing listening to the BL03 with Sedna Light Short tips vs Sedna Xelastec tips, I previously stated that...
“It depends on what you want. Sound wise, it makes the treble brighter and airier. It sounds slightly more dynamic, lively, and V-shaped. It doesn’t really make the mids sound more recessed though, it just accentuates the treble especially, but not the upper mids that I can tell. To me, the bass doesn’t seem more in quantity, just a little punchier, and perhaps slightly cleaner.

Edit: I guess take my sonic impressions with a grain of salt, as they seem to differ from other peoples experiences. ”

Since then, I read other‘s opinions that the Xelastec actually tames treble peaks, so I listened further, with different IEMs. Well, I still come to the same general conclusions, but I think I have a plausible explanation. I think the material used for the Xelastec, to me, causes more reverberations as a whole. I notice it most in the bass and treble. The bass seeming more “punchy“ is likely due to more mid bass reverb, and the sound is a bit warmer as a whole. The treble also has more reverb, and is more “wet” sounding. One track where I notice it a lot is Panic! At The Disco’s High Hopes. The overall effect is a brighter sound.

That sounds like the opposite of what I want, I want less V shaped, not more.

Edit: Also contrary to my worst fear, rather than boosting all the treble overall, the mesh removal appear to simply make the treble roll off slower than if it had it on. Does that sound beneficial to all of you?

Edit 2: Also if it's not clear already, I'm neither a basshead nor a treblehead. Probably not a midhead either if that's a thing.

 

[genck]

mids are thin and shouty just like your voice here, also your CNT 1 have grainy treble

CNT1 does have grainy treble, true. 05 does not have thin mids though, in my opinion.

 

[dharmasteve]

CNT1 does have grainy treble, true. 05 does not have thin mids though, in my opinion.

I feel like a defender of the faith. The CNT1 was for ages my go to IEM. I think it is better, with the gold filter, than many give it credit for. Shame many won't be able to buy it...to enjoy it. A great IEM.

 

[chickentender]

Finally got the 05's. I was nonplussed at first and will say I prefer the 03s to them with the stock cable by a large margin.
However doing the same comparison with a balanced cable was a different story and the margin is slim.
Overall, I still prefer the 03s to the 05s, (though I be I would not have before I switched to less dense foams months ago on the 03s which tamed the bass for me to perfection with those) but only for certain artists/genres.
For the first few days I was going to send them back but I'm going to hang onto them.
They are flat enough that I'd even mix with them, but not really grab them as often for casual listening.
I don't like heavy bass, but the 03s get right up and toe the line of what I'm comfortable with which makes them more fun... Not the slamming basshead sort of fun, but just enough that to me they sound great with everything.
After comparing these back and forth for the week I also ordered a back-up pair of 03s. Still the king all-rounder in budget head-fi as far as my listening is concerned.

 

[alxw0w]

Ok so I came here to say that I'm really impressed by blon bl 03. Blo(w)n away ? - maybe in some way

Lets start from that I don't have rather any experience with iems. I mean I've had some cheap (like 5$) philips/sony earphones in the past - I was using them in the gym but nothing more serious.
Actually I've never liked iems as their sound was too piercing for me and just I didn't like the comfort.
Recently I bought Shanling M0 to act as a transport for my Chord Mojo (previously used mojo only at the office with pc). As I will be traveling during my holidays I though it would be nice to have some nice sounding rig with me.
And the last missing part was headphones/iems. Since I didn't want to carry big headphones I decided to go for iems.
As I said I don't like iems that much mainly because of comfort (so my price target was low) - quick research for cheap but still good chi fi and kaboom I'm decided for Blon Bl03.

And as you can expect I'm positively surprised by them. Really pleasing sound for the price. I was afraid of highs to be too shrill (even through people say that they are not - but I'm sensitive for that region). But no, the highs are pretty ok I would say. The bass is a bit overblown, but hey we are talking about 25$ headphones.
I know it's going to be nice vacations this year

 

[peskypesky]

Woohoo!!! I just received my Blon BL-03's that I ordered back in April.

First quick reactions:
1. Build. Wow!! I love them! The metal feels so solid and substantial. And they look so cool. Definitely the nicest IEM's I've yet bought. Make my KZ ZS5's seem flimsy.

The cable, on the other hand, is pretty lame. Doesn't feel high quality and seems prone to tangling.

2. Sound. Hmmm. At first, I was really wowed by how ALIVE they sound. Which they do. The music just seems to almost explode out of them. But first impression after some minutes listening is that the high end is too strong, and almost harsh. And believe me, at my age (54) I need a lot of treble.. With a lot of headphones and IEM's, I have to boost highs with eq. But not these. Quite the opposite. I'm having to boost mids and lower highs, something I NEVER do.

The bass is nice and punchy, the way I like it. I'm a bit basshead I guess. I wouldn't call these basshead IEM's but they're not lacking in low end either.

So, for sound, I like them, but they are a bit too harsh and shrill on the high end for me to be totally satisfied.

I look forward to comparing them to my other IEM's.

 

[JEHL]

Woohoo!!! I just received my Blon BL-03's that I ordered back in April.

First quick reactions:
1. Build. Wow!! I love them! The metal feels so solid and substantial. And they look so cool. Definitely the nicest IEM's I've yet bought. Make my KZ ZS5's seem flimsy.

2. Sound. Hmmm. At first, I was really wowed by how ALIVE they sound. Which they do. The music just seems to almost explode out of them. But first impression after some minutes listening is that the high end is too strong, and almost harsh. And believe me, at my age (54) I need a lot of treble.. With a lot of headphones and IEM's, I have to boost highs with eq. But not these. Quite the opposite. I'm having to boost mids and lower highs, something I NEVER do.

The bass is nice and punchy, the way I like it. I'm a bit basshead I guess. I wouldn't call these basshead IEM's but they're not lacking in low end either.

So, for sound, I like them, but they are a bit too harsh and shrill on the high end for me to be totally satisfied.

I look forward to comparing them to my other IEM's.

My Dekoni Bulletz remove the 10kHz peak. Maybe that would help?

 

[chickentender]

My Dekoni Bulletz remove the 10kHz peak. Maybe that would help?

I was gonna suggest this as well. Play around with different tip comps... can make a huge difference.

 

[peskypesky]

My Dekoni Bulletz remove the 10kHz peak. Maybe that would help?

Maybe. I have a bunch of tips I can try.

 

[baskingshark]

Woohoo!!! I just received my Blon BL-03's that I ordered back in April.

First quick reactions:
1. Build. Wow!! I love them! The metal feels so solid and substantial. And they look so cool. Definitely the nicest IEM's I've yet bought. Make my KZ ZS5's seem flimsy.

The cable, on the other hand, is pretty lame. Doesn't feel high quality and seems prone to tangling.

2. Sound. Hmmm. At first, I was really wowed by how ALIVE they sound. Which they do. The music just seems to almost explode out of them. But first impression after some minutes listening is that the high end is too strong, and almost harsh. And believe me, at my age (54) I need a lot of treble.. With a lot of headphones and IEM's, I have to boost highs with eq. But not these. Quite the opposite. I'm having to boost mids and lower highs, something I NEVER do.

The bass is nice and punchy, the way I like it. I'm a bit basshead I guess. I wouldn't call these basshead IEM's but they're not lacking in low end either.

So, for sound, I like them, but they are a bit too harsh and shrill on the high end for me to be totally satisfied.

I look forward to comparing them to my other IEM's.

From graphs the BLON isn't bright in the higher treble, actually it is pretty rolled off for those higher frequencies IMHO (See Crinacle's graph below, 8 kHz area is a resonance peak). I have a feeling what you are experiencing could be a boosted upper mids area (around the 2 - 5 kHz areas). I do find that area a bit hot especially with higher volumes (fletcher munson curve), much like some other IEMs tuned to follow the harmanish curves.

If it is indeed an upper mids harshness issue, this could possibly be fixed by a few ways, YMMV:
1) Use micropore mod (cover the nozzle of the BLON with a 3M micropore tape, cover 80% and not the whole nozzle).
2) EQ the offending frequencies down.
3) Using narrower bore eartips eg spinfit CP100 which boosts the bass and hence the ears perceive the entire frequency spectrum to be less harsh in the upper mids.
4) I don't think you are having a eartip fit issue since you can hear the bass quite well, but perhaps try using various foam/silicone eartips, they do change the sound signature, so that might just tweak the sound to your preference.
5) Play it at softer volumes (fletcher munson curve) - at higher volumes, sound is perceived by ears to be more V shaped. At lower volumes it is perceived to be more U shaped with lesser bass/treble.

 

[tgx78]

Just received the new NICEHCK pure silver litz cable.
I like how it looks and it is very comfortable.
My ear tells me Blon’s bass tightened, but it could be easily because I am running it balanced out through 9038s instead of my iphone 3.5mm out.

 

[JEHL]

From graphs the BLON isn't bright in the higher treble, actually it is pretty rolled off for those higher frequencies IMHO (See Crinacle's graph below, 8 kHz area is a resonance peak). I have a feeling what you are experiencing could be a boosted upper mids area (around the 2 - 5 kHz areas). I do find that area a bit hot especially with higher volumes (fletcher munson curve), much like some other IEMs tuned to follow the harmanish curves.



If it is indeed an upper mids harshness issue, this could possibly be fixed by a few ways, YMMV:
1) Use micropore mod (cover the nozzle of the BLON with a 3M micropore tape, cover 80% and not the whole nozzle).
2) EQ the offending frequencies down.
3) Using narrower bore eartips eg spinfit CP100 which boosts the bass and hence the ears perceive the entire frequency spectrum to be less harsh in the upper mids.
4) I don't think you are having a eartip fit issue since you can hear the bass quite well, but perhaps try using various foam/silicone eartips, they do change the sound signature, so that might just tweak the sound to your preference.
5) Play it at softer volumes (fletcher munson curve) - at higher volumes, sound is perceived by ears to be more V shaped. At lower volumes it is perceived to be more U shaped with lesser bass/treble.

I remember him pointing out that almost every other reviewer measures flat from 400Hz-1kHz effectivelly putting it more in the U shaped realm rather than the V shape he seems to measure.

 

[dharmasteve]

Just received the new NICEHCK pure silver litz cable.
I like how it looks and it is very comfortable.
My ear tells me Blon’s bass tightened, but it could be easily because I am running it balanced out through 9038s instead of my iphone 3.5mm out.

I run one of my Blon 03s with the NiceHCK Silver Litz cable, 4.4 balanced. Bass IS tightened. Sounds beautiful. A great choice. Who says cables don't make a difference? This Silver Litz does.

 

[JEHL]

From my understanding cable frequency response of any decently made cable should measure perfectly flat until 1-2MHz or so.

 

[dharmasteve]

It's good to remember graphs measure quantities. Graphs as we use them cannot measure qualities. Quantity yes, qualititive measurements no.