[Redcarmoose]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/flip-tips-or-fliptips-prepare-to-have-your-mind-blown.906357/

 

[cleg]

My video about BL01

 

[chinmie]

my short review on the BL-01
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/blon-bl-01.24799/review/24927/

 

[dharmasteve]

My video about BL01

Hi Cleg
As reviewers you are a bit stuck, having to review the package you are given....stock tips, stock cables. That is a massive problem for these cheapo's like the Blon 01 and Blon 03. They are so cheap that one has to be 'lucky' to get a decent version.... and then if one wants, to add one's preferred tips and cables to get the best from them. Someone like me, I like to put on tips I like, that fit me well, and to use cables I prefer. Fortunately I have no constraints to have to use stock, so using my HiBy R5 4.4mm, with a cheap NiceHCK pure silver Litz cable (allegedly) and Azla Sedna L tips I found this Blon-01 to 'grow up' exponentially. I did the same to the Blon 03, but with Spiral Dots...it also improved a lot. Plus we all have such differences...so different, but completely the same....the ultimate conundrum, we will all see things differently but all deserve the best. I appreciate your reviews which always help.

 

[cleg]

Hi Cleg
As reviewers you are a bit stuck, having to review the package you are given....stock tips, stock cables. That is a massive problem for these cheapo's like the Blon 01 and Blon 03. They are so cheap that one has to be 'lucky' to get a decent version.... and then if one wants, to add one's preferred tips and cables to get the best from them. Someone like me, I like to put on tips I like, that fit me well, and to use cables I prefer. Fortunately I have no constraints to have to use stock, so using my HiBy R5 4.4mm, with a cheap NiceHCK pure silver Litz cable (allegedly) and Azla Sedna L tips I found this Blon-01 to 'grow up' exponentially. I did the same to the Blon 03, but with Spiral Dots...it also improved a lot. Plus we all have such differences...so different, but completely the same....the ultimate conundrum, we will all see things differently but all deserve the best. I appreciate your reviews which always help.

Thank you for your feedback, but as I've said in this review, I did try different tips and cables both with BL03 and BL01. I don't have exact same tips/cable you've used, but I did try spiral dots, spin fits, and mandarines. For cables — I've tested FiiO's LC-RE (or how it's called) and a few Penon's cables. All those things could be a good option for one who likes Blon's tuning, they will give a sound that is "similar, but better". At the same time, for those who prefer less warm sound, it won't be a solution. So, the main narrative of my reviews is that Blons are good, but tastes-based model

 

[dharmasteve]

Thank you for your feedback, but as I've said in this review, I did try different tips and cables both with BL03 and BL01. I don't have exact same tips/cable you've used, but I did try spiral dots, spin fits, and mandarines. For cables — I've tested FiiO's LC-RE (or how it's called) and a few Penon's cables. All those things could be a good option for one who likes Blon's tuning, they will give a sound that is "similar, but better". At the same time, for those who prefer less warm sound, it won't be a solution. So, the main narrative of my reviews is that Blons are good, but tastes-based model

Thanks Cleg. I like your reviews and they help the community and newcomers. As someone who doesn't have a lot of dosh, I often have to try to 'improve' some basic IEM's. Once a year I buy some better IEM's. There is no doubt that the Blon-03 and Blon-01 bring diverging opinions, but that is reality, we have all become uniquely different in physical and mental perceptions, yet we are all the same and equal. So I respect what you say and do. Very good reviews

 

[bhima]

I'm super late to the BLON game. Decided on a whim to pick up the BL01 since I couldn't justify buying the A7 just yet. As per the advice in this forum, I chucked the BLON tips and put on some Final E-tips. Plugged them into the Magni and had a go. Excellent timbre, an almost perfect frequency response for me, nice presentation of sound with a decent sized stage, midrange is well placed, decently resolving, and solid treble that doesn't get too peaky for me (a blight typically within this price range). Honestly, the sound is sophisticated enough to be $125. The one achilles heel of the BL01 is that the bass is too loose. It doesn't seem to hinder much of the frequency range, but the flabbiness is noticeable.

But still, I was not expecting much. I figured everyone was just hyping these and I have bought into the hype before and was disappointed. With these though, the hype is spot on. They are extremely enjoyable to listen to, even with their flaws. I was going to review these against my E2000, but I think I will need to also compare them to the Flare Pro 2 HD. These are good enough to merit that comparison. On initial listen, these are overall more capable than the E2000 which are excellent for their $35 price. Will check back in to really dig into their differences and how well it can compete with a $500 IEM.

PS: I also tried the BLON's with my Flare Audiophile tips. This is the new sexy. You do lose a very small amount of stage and possible fake sparkle in the highs, but you get more controlled bass, and an overall more liquid and coherent presentation.

 

[chinmie]

Honestly, the sound is sophisticated enough to be $125. The one achilles heel of the BL01 is that the bass is too loose. It doesn't seem to hinder much of the frequency range, but the flabbiness is noticeable.

you might want to try a harder/stiffer silicone tips material than the Final E tips. I use Symbio peel tips on mine

 

[axhng]

I probably missed this, but has anyone checked to see if there is a nylon mesh behind the grills on the BL01? Has anyone tried doing a mesh mod?

just checked, same mesh it seems. i didn't try to separate it though since I'm okay with how it sounds out of the box, even though i still personally prefer 03 w/mesh mod. I only removed it from one side though. tested it against the other side with the mesh. I only tested short while, but sounds kinda as expected. I think a bit more clarity, brighter treble, but noticeably leaner sounding overall. It didn't sound like something I would enjoy listening to, so i just stuck the mesh back on.

 

[RyuzakiL26]

I've yet to try the flip mods for the stock tips; however, I'm satisfied on using the TRN Foam T-400 tips to my Blon-01.Since it's being driven by an ancient FiiO E11, will I hear some improvement if attach it to Fiio BTR5? By the way, the FiiO E11 is attached to my computer as a permanent solution to help the ESS Sabre 9018 Dac from my AORUS Gaming 7 mobo. So far I think the integrated audio of mobos nowadays have become quite good.

 

[JEHL]

just checked, same mesh it seems. i didn't try to separate it though since I'm okay with how it sounds out of the box, even though i still personally prefer 03 w/mesh mod. I only removed it from one side though. tested it against the other side with the mesh. I only tested short while, but sounds kinda as expected. I think a bit more clarity, brighter treble, but noticeably leaner sounding overall. It didn't sound like something I would enjoy listening to, so i just stuck the mesh back on.

Maybe any of this could work on the BL01?

I got an even easier mod for you guys. It’s more precise, more consistent, and cleaner than just stuffing the nozzle with cotton.

The downsides to cotton are 1. it’s inconsistent to get a proper density and fill. And 2. small cotton dust and fibers become detached and fall onto the driver diaphragm. These downsides are not desirable at all.

This mod is made especially for the Blon owners that tried the nozzle mesh mod and feel the treble is a little too much. Or those that were afraid to try the nozzle mesh mod for fear that the treble might be too much.

There’s a guy on another popular audio board (which I cannot link to or specifically mention on HeadFi because that site is banned from discussion here). Anyways, this guy modded his JVC HA-FD01 (a carbon nanotube dynamic earphone) by rolling up an alcohol pad and inserting it into the JVC nozzle. This allowed the treble peaks to be tamed while not causing loss of detail. It’s like the best of both worlds; like having your cake and eating it too.

The resulting mod was extremely effective. So effective that a modded pair was sent to engineers at JVC in Japan for evaluation. JVC was so impressed with the mod that they actually created a whole new version of the HA-FD01 based around the modded filter. It was sold through Massdrop as the HA-FDX1.

I tried the same mod to the Blon, and all I can say is it’s basically Blon perfection.

To do the mod, you still need to remove the stock hybrid ‘sandwich’ nozzle screens, and obtain the $0.10 replacement plain stainless nozzle screens.

That is outlined here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/blo...ressions-thread.916702/page-182#post-15531900

And yes, the proper size of nozzle mesh is listed at that link, as well as where/how to buy them.

Next you need to obtain a 2-ply alcohol wipe. The kind that you rub on your skin before an injection is given. You cannot use the 1-ply type, as they are way too thick. The 2-ply pads are basically a 3”X1.5” rectangle that is folded in half to make a 1.5”X1.5” square from the factory.



You can buy them anywhere and everywhere. Even get one for free from a Dr office, hospital, or health clinic. Or ask any diabetic, nurse, doctor, pharmacist, or paramedic. They will give you one for free, trust me. But you must open the wipe up and inspect it to make sure it’s the 2-ply type that can be unfolded.

Let me repeat that: Get. The. 2-ply. Type. Only.

If you can only one the thick fuzzy 1-ply type, then keep looking until you the 2-ply type.

Once you have your 2-ply alcohol pad, all you do is remove it from the package, unfold the wipe, and let it air dry on a table for a few hours. Then it’s all ready to use.

Next you take sharp scissors and cut the dried alcohol pad into a 4mmx12mm rectangle. Like this:



The size must be precise. You can play with the length some. Just don’t go longer than 18mm or you will dampen too much treble. And don’t go shorter than 12mm or it won’t really do anything noticeable.

Next, carefully roll up the filter, like this:



Then insert it down into the nozzle with sharp tweezers. It will ‘spring’ open and fill up the nozzle. Once inserted, it should look like this:



Here’s a closer shot.



Also, you don’t want to jam the alcohol filter down as far as it will go inside the nozzle. You want to insert it so it’s juuuust barely under the stainless nozzle mesh (once the stainless mesh is reinstalled). Look for a little shelf flange section that’s machined into the inside of nozzle; that’s what the stainless screen will sit on. You want the alcohol filter to be just barely below that little shelf flange part.



Also note that the center of the nozzle is not blocked in any way by the alcohol pad roll. All the rolled up alcohol pad filter did was make a more narrow opening, where the inside circumference of the nozzle is lined with the alcohol pad filter. The bulk of the sound from the driver is still free to come up through the hole in the center of the alcohol pad filter.

Finally, you install the new stainless nozzle mesh you obtained earlier.



And that’s all there is to it!

Enjoy.

BLON BL-03 MOD MEASUREMENTS

Alright so I spent my 2 days measuring the BL-03 with some mods, hopefully these are useful.
In case you don't know, THe BLON BL-03 also using infamous nylon cloth mesh as a damper underneath the metal nozzle grill. Im into simple modding IEM, not into extreme mod or anything else, but from my experience, this kind of damper have more bad effects rather than its goodness.
The nylon cloth mesh dampers are believed by chifi manufacturer to smoothen upper mids region, while that doing good for the purposes, they also came with bad effect altogether, the main issue is bad airflow especially with IEM containing DD. THis will make bass part become bloated, think of covering vents with something, bass become bigger in quantity but sounded bloated. Other bad issues are reduced clarity, and blurry imaging (reducing imaging quality).
Moondrop lately found a way using similar cloth damper but I have yet to know what material they are using (mine still on the way) that sold separately. THeir damper although using similar cloth, may have different effect. Why? because they made a gap between the the damper and the grill. This is a clever way to avoid air flow blockage, but I need to listen myself if they still make bass bloated.
So some of us tried to remove / change the grill to make the IEM sounded better, but sometimes the default tuning without damper are too peaky, so we have to damper them with different way that better than using nylon cloth mesh.

THank you to @Slater that found this BL-03 are using that infamous cloth mesh damper, I didn't think at all that they are using the cloth mesh damper, you can take a look of his great tutorial few pages back (someone help me find the link, i will post here for easier findout)

So I tried to mod with several materials to find which are the best, I mod and measure every materials that i use hopefully this will be useful for the community.

OK, to begin with, here is my rig, using similar rig with @crinacle because I feel his measurement is one of the best in the world, and I used to see his graph among others. I'm using IEC711 coupler copy, with apple dongle, with REW, calibrated to have similar result with crinacle and always try to keep resonance peak as close as 8khz. Crinacle is using wide bore for measurement, but I'm using medium bore that can fit lot of my IEM, and more important stay inside the coupler with proper seal. So slight differences can be caused of eartips being used, unit variance on IEM themselves, unit variance on dongle, unit variance on coupler, mic, cables etc.


Comparison between My graph and @crinacle 's. His graph as always credits to him with respect.


Here the default BL-03 FR by Crin :


And here my measurement on BL-03 default :

As you can see, my L (green lines) unit have lower bass quantity, i checked everything, holes, vents, tried different cables etc with no dice. I take that as driver unit variance. Too bad i just give my second BL-03 to my relatives earlier this year.

So i will use the R unit as reference since my L unit seems off with that roll off bass (but hey that is tuned better actually i guess?)


This is measurement to compare between default BL-03 with cloth mesh filter and filterless. Brown is default, Blue is filterless

To my ears, the bass is a lot cleaner due gone of bloated effect caused by that cloth mesh. On graph they cant be really seen, but its very obvious to my ears. same with bass decat, texture that you can't see from an FR graph.

Right, so the filterless BL-03 have peaky +13db pinna gain on roughly 2.2khz, 5.5khz and 8khz. Scariest peak is on that 5.5khz, that shouty sibilances. We did try several method to tame down that peaks so I try to measure a lot of materials for our curiosity.


Dried alcohol swab (red line) rolled on side of nozzle with no blockage at all on center of nozzle tamed the peaks a little bit, the bass still very clean, fast, tight, like filterless which is great result, but the peaks may a bit shouty to some.





Rolled cotton (green line on FR), roughly square 7mm put into nozzle, similar to alcohol swab, more like a "C" in the nozzle rather than full circle donut, because its easier. The result tame the peaks as much as the original filter, but of course with no bloated bass, but the cotton absorb too much upper mids and trebles, extension of the cymbals, decay of snares sounded gone too fast, very minimum resonance.



Next up is Soft foam (bright red line) , its a foam with very soft density, like almost no power to bounce back if you pinch it. I got them from the hard case for IEM. I cut rounghly 5mm in length, with width and depth lower than nozzle diameter, so they still have plenty space of air. Result is pretty good, Bass is tight, no bloat with litlle bit smoother upper mids but without losing of clarity and treble extension. Can be a little shouty, just occasionally happen, but i like a little bit tamed upper mids, at least below 10db increment from 1khz.




With longer soft foam (roughly 10mm) (tosca line) the upper mids is tamed down, very smooth result, similar to original state but better bass (no bloated), 8khz treble resonance peak also tamed down. I like this tonality but maybe i want to cut down the soft foam a little bit more for more aggressive and fun signature, just slightly.


left green foam : animal sponge (capsule animal sponge in 1 dollar store), soft density but not as soft as right one
right black foam : soft foam from IEM case, very soft density with a lot of cavities)


This time, I was using animal sponge (purple line). What the heck is that? that is a sponge that i found quite good that i use in the past for mod, they can be bought on one dollar store, a capsule sponge animal, put into the hot water and the sponge animal will popped out

something like this, image by google.
Result is very good too, with smooth upper mids but still non bloated bass, but the softer density foam (the black one above) do better job on clarity, remember to cut smaller than nozzle diameter so they can be fit without any force, dont put big cut and pinch to insert, they will be too full and muffled the sound.





Alright so next one is our popular mod tool, the 3M micropore, with full cover, covering the entire nozzle (peach line). As you can see and inline with what im hearing, they produce similar result with default BL-03 with that cloth mesh filter, bloated bass, you can see the bass FR there, back to original state, what you can't see is how bad the bloat, the texture. Upper mids also sounded a little bit veiled.


Next is I pinched a hole on that micropore tape, just 1 hole in the center (magenta line), bass is better than full micropore covering entire nozzle, but still have smear, not as clean as other mod.


Then i went crazy, stabbing the micropore on nozzle so they have many holes lol (on purpose) (showed in dark green line), bass become great, non bloated, much better than full micropore or micropore with 1 hole, logically of course make in common sense, better airflow for the DD. The upper mids of course less tamed than full micropore or just 1 hole, as you can see, but this is pretty good result too.



Then I ditch that micropore, changed into new micropore but now I cover only 3/4 of nozzle hole (dark red line), left with roughly 1/4 open, unfiltered. This is a classic mod and now proven this is a very good solution too, and very easy way too for beginner. Bass is clean, non bloated, very nice clean bass like the unfiltered one, the upper mids is similar with micropore with many holes. Great result too!



Just to kill curiosity, i reduce the micropore into half, covering only half of nozzle opening (green line). Bass of course great like filterless, but the upper mids also similar like filterless, too shouty. Hence, I didn't bother to try with 1/4 cover nozzle with micropore.



So out of few experiments with different materials, I like the 3/4 micropore cover and soft foam as the best result among all. As a note, sony is using soft foam as a damper, its no joke, they put soft density foam on the nozzle without any grill, but keep in mind that they did their homework, they tuned the Z1R for example with crazy bosst high mids but then put the foam, or the other way, they tune and measure with foam attached.

Conclusion, chifi manufacturer need to stop put this nylon cloth mesh glued together with grill as damper. They will bloat the bass. My H40 have similar effects too, and with the mod, the H40 is crazy, much better result than the BL-03 mod.

I'm sorry for super duper long post, but i feel its necessary to post everything in 1 post. Thanks for reading, sorry for your bandwidth.

Edit: Has anyone tried ANY of these on the BL-05s as well?

 

[trumpethead]

Using my MH750 large tips on my BL-01. The fit and seal are great and they really open up the sound without having to jam them in all the way. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the sound that I'm getting from these under 16 dollar pair of earphones.. Almost headphone like, clear and clean with good impact. Not the widest Soundstage but good enough with excellent instrument separation. Vocals are clear/clean and cut through the mix... Very natural sounding and the timbre is close to Big Brother 03...imo these are overall better than 03 with their own special sauce however, I do still love my 03....btw stock cable sounds great but may experiment later on.. Imo you can't go wrong with BL-01 and I think they are going to save me money because I am very satisfied atm and don't think I can do better at this price point.... Amping with old school Fiio E 11 really brought out the best in mine... Ymmv

 

[Redcarmoose]

Using my MH750 large tips on my BL-01. The fit and seal are great and they really open up the sound without having to jam them in all the way. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the sound that I'm getting from these under 16 dollar pair of earphones.. Almost headphone like, clear and clean with good impact. Not the widest Soundstage but good enough with excellent instrument separation. Vocals are clear/clean and cut through the mix... Very natural sounding and the timbre is close to Big Brother 03...imo these are overall better than 03 with their own special sauce however, I do still love my 03....btw stock cable sounds great but may experiment later on.. Imo you can't go wrong with BL-01 and I think they are going to save me money because I am very satisfied atm and don't think I can do better at this price point.... Amping with old school Fiio E 11 really brought out the best in mine... Ymmv

Such a great story!

Cheers!

 

[trumpethead]

Such a great story!

Cheers!

Thanks, because of these I am sending back my SSP to Amazon. They sound good but because of the low volume I'm just not getting that "good feeling" that the Bl-01 produce... Looking forward to seeing how these sound with some break in.. You are the one who got me really excited about these so Thank you.

 

[jedimindticks]

I'm new to iems. so far I've considered purchasing either blon 03 or bl01. only amazon ships to my place and the price difference is just 1 usd, 03 being higher priced.
i mostly listen to metal, rock, jazz and some hiphop. but i pretty much listen to all genres, the above being my preferred.
and from what I've seen in this thread, bl01 is said to be harder to drive. I've got a lg v30, so i think it will be sufficient enough to drive the bl01's.
i would have gone for the 01's if it was cheaper, but the difference is only 1 usd. what should i get?