davidmolliere
Headphoneus Supremus
Once you "know" you can end it.
There is only one way to end this...
Once you "know" you can end it.
@candlejack Let's all bow down to half baked pseudo-science that is parading around as the absolute authority on all things subjective.
Ever heard of established science being wrong?
Yeah ,Welcome to the entirety of human history you stick to someone else's graphs, and I'll stick to my ears.
Thank you very much.
I find measurements interesting, but I don't know enough about them to use them in any meaningful way. However, I recognize the importance of measuring, which you seem to dismiss completely. This was my critique. At least measurements make an attempt at dealing with audio in a scientific way.@candlejack Let's all bow down to half baked pseudo-science that is parading around as the absolute authority on all things subjective.
Ever heard of established science being wrong?
Yeah ,Welcome to the entirety of human history you stick to someone else's graphs, and I'll stick to my ears.
Thank you very much.
@candlejack @Kitechaser Hey guys, let's keep this cool we don't want the thread to get locked again
Let's just agree to disagree, this is a fun hobby - it's all about great musical experience - let's not spoil it!
I don't mean to ruin the party, David, and I hope that's not what I'm doing. At the same time, I find that discussing opposing idea (disagreeing if you will) is the main point of fora. If we all agree, then there's nothing to discuss and this becomes just a collection of reviews and impressions.
I realize my language can sometime seem harsh, but I value clarity more than politeness. :-|No problem with discussing opposing ideas quite the contrary, it looked like it was going to go off road once again so right now it rather seemed like none of you heard the opposing arguments
That may be the case for now, but it just means that we need a lot more curves. After all, your ear is nothing more than a measuring instrument, not some magical source of truth. It's just that your brain records more than just a single curve and does it using both ears at the same time. That's how you get the sense of "soundstage", if I'm not mistaking (just like the sense of depth in binocular vision).My own take is measurement give you a big picture and can confirm what you hear... Those who know how to interpret them can use them to draw partial conclusion but certainly not definite ones as there is much more to the final SQ than just a curve...
I completely get you here, because I have the same reaction. But this is not exclusive to measurements. People are influenced by all sorts of other factors as well. I would argue that "forum hype" is the biggest cause of bias for most people, not measurements.The thing that annoys me a bit is it seems those who value measurement above all and it influences what they hear when they listen it only confirms the conclusion they had initially (some kind of confirmation bias...).
If I was to measure IEMs, I'd do it AFTER I had a decent listen to them.
Well... to be fair....I kinda got what the problem was a few lines in... "Once again I only used my S8 (Snapdragon variant) to drive them. "
How do you reach any kind of conclusion with a source that is bound to have huge limitations... especially say that the Solaris is bassy is quite understandable since the source is... bassy and not in a good way (I should know, I owned a S8 for over a year there is a huge boost in the mid bass and lower mids what a mess). The S8 is not a V30/35/40, i.e not a phone that can compare to even mid tier DAPs. Probably doesn't compare to lower tier DAPs and tier aside the tuning is much too warm and bloated.
Why take a source that is all but neutral and make conclusions about the frequency range? "an emphasis at 3kHz" and "the midrange reminded me more of the Vega tuning" is nothing but accurate IMHO they couldn't be more different. Luckily the conclusion is a bit reassuring "Could be that the Solaris would need a much better source than the S8 to truly show its imaging capabilites, but the UERM doesn't and it still scales like crazy with better gear." I don't know the UERM but some IEMs do fare well with even cheaper smartphones and usually those are rather pure neutral or brighter in nature as most phone are very warm tuned. And it's not only affecting imaging but the whole restitution of sound is totally messed up. I wouldn't even dream of testing the Solaris or any IEM with S8 as source other than curiosity knowing in advance it won't be good. No to mention the output impedance on the S8 is around 3 ohms so that will skew the FR.
And sibilance? None for me with the Solaris at least neither from 1Z and Mojo and with the tips I used.
I could maybe imagine this could happen with the Final E tips as I think those should be avoided as any tips who as a stem narrower than the bore size.
My two cents...
You can be surprised with some sources though, out of my MacBook Pro 15" I was really pleasantly surprised at the result. In fact, I found it was a better pairing than Mojo (yes, I know...) but thousands of miles away from the magic of 1Z/Solaris. I didn't try out of iPhone X dongle but will do out of curiosity.
Out of a galaxy S8 that's probably very true!
After all, your ear is nothing more than a measuring instrument, not some magical source of truth. It's just that your brain records more than just a single curve and does it using both ears at the same time.
I completely get you here, because I have the same reaction. But this is not exclusive to measurements. People are influenced by all sorts of other factors as well. I would argue that "forum hype" is the biggest cause of bias for most people, not measurements.
Your review on these Solaris was really positive at the time and it seems you are still enjoying it up to date.
I'm wondering if your thoughts have changed over the last months? Have any con's popped up or is it in your opinion still one of the best IEM's you've ever listened to?
How is comfort for long listening sessions as it seems to hang out the ear lobe for most people (no deep insertion?).
I personally had Andromeda's and while I generally enjoyed the sound of them, the shape made them rather uncomfortable at times after long periods of listening time.
This has lead me to purchase Campfire Audio's headphones Cascades and I was wondering if you could maybe share your thoughts on the Solaris and whether it would possibly fit smaller ear canals too? My outer ear generally is ok but my ear canals are rather picky and small I believe which has lead me to turn to headphones but I miss the more subtle IEM's for my office usage?
Besides that I was wondering on your input regarding DAPS & DAC/AMPs
Well I looked on Custom arts website and it says there is a potential that the tips may be too small for some ears@Mikelowry For that price you could easily have gotten custom ear tips
I'll report when I have custom art tips, I am pretty curious to get a feel of what the Solaris sound like with perfect fit.
Does anyone have any suggestions of companies that make custom tips? Im in the NYC area
Your review on these Solaris was really positive at the time and it seems you are still enjoying it up to date.
I'm wondering if your thoughts have changed over the last months? Have any con's popped up or is it in your opinion still one of the best IEM's you've ever listened to?
How is comfort for long listening sessions as it seems to hang out the ear lobe for most people (no deep insertion?).
This has lead me to purchase Campfire Audio's headphones Cascades and I was wondering if you could maybe share your thoughts on the Solaris and whether it would possibly fit smaller ear canals too? My outer ear generally is ok but my ear canals are rather picky and small I believe which has lead me to turn to headphones but I miss the more subtle IEM's for my office usage?
Besides that I was wondering on your input regarding DAPS & DAC/AMPS. I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and I agree that from a sound perspective, they are far from perfect. I hook my phone up to my Ifi Micro IDSD black label whenever possible but that thing is far from portable so I started looking for a more portable solution that provides me with the best sound possible at all times (ideally matches with my cascade and possible andromeda / Solaris). As I often use streaming services such as Qobuz / Tidal or Spotify too, I was considering getting a Mojo Poly for around 900 euro but I'm not sure if that would be worth it. Secondly, I also enjoy classical music and very chill music so I was wondering how the solaris handles these and what sources provide the least hiss as any hiss really kills that kind of music for me. Thanks in advance
Well I looked on Custom arts website and it says there is a potential that the tips may be too small for some ears
Given that I already have small ears(meaning I dont personally know anyone with smaller ears than me.) I thought maybe custom tips would be an issue for me because the tips look rather large. I dont know the specifics but I will call them and see if custom tips are possible for me. If they are I'd get them done immediately.