ColdWolfSong
Head-Fier
So I've been having this issue for awhile now that I cannot seem to solve. It started when I got my MEE Audio Pinnacle P1. After a time of listening to them, I noticed it seemed slightly biased to the left ear. Vocals and other instruments that should have been dead center would be just off to the left, and more instruments seemed grouped to the left than the right. It doesn't ruin the experience with them, it just bugs me as a person who really likes symmetry.
I just came to accept this as a driver imbalance. It couldn't be my hearing because I do not have this imbalance when using headphones. I thought then that it might be the shape of my ears, perhaps one of my ear canals is shaped differently, causing the imbalance.
But then fast forward a few months and I finally got around to buying filters for another IEM of mine: The JVC FW01. And when I listened to that set again after many months of not listening, I was baffled. It had an imbalance to the right side. So I went about trying everything I could to see what was causing this issue.
I tried changing sources to see if my portable player is causing it. Nope, the imbalance persisted on both earphones. I tried changing tips. No change. I changed cables. No change. It can't be my ear shape as they both have a different imbalance. So the only things I can think of are:
1. I just so happened to get two pairs of IEM's made my completely different manufacturers, in different parts of the world, with completely different proprietary technology, in two different price classes that have a driver imbalance.
2. The small one or half decibel differences between two drivers in a set of IEM's is somehow apparent to a user because the driver is so close to the eardrum (which is unlikely given that I've never heard anybody state this before. Other people would have to say that their IEMs have the same phenomenon.)
3. Or the pieces of the song that were off actually were like that, but haven't been able to tell with full-size headphones because the driver isn't as close to my ears and don't bypass the outer ear structure. (Also unlikely because I listened to mono samples through the IEMs and there was still an imbalance, albeit smaller.)
So, what do you think could be causing the issue? Any similar experiences?
I just came to accept this as a driver imbalance. It couldn't be my hearing because I do not have this imbalance when using headphones. I thought then that it might be the shape of my ears, perhaps one of my ear canals is shaped differently, causing the imbalance.
But then fast forward a few months and I finally got around to buying filters for another IEM of mine: The JVC FW01. And when I listened to that set again after many months of not listening, I was baffled. It had an imbalance to the right side. So I went about trying everything I could to see what was causing this issue.
I tried changing sources to see if my portable player is causing it. Nope, the imbalance persisted on both earphones. I tried changing tips. No change. I changed cables. No change. It can't be my ear shape as they both have a different imbalance. So the only things I can think of are:
1. I just so happened to get two pairs of IEM's made my completely different manufacturers, in different parts of the world, with completely different proprietary technology, in two different price classes that have a driver imbalance.
2. The small one or half decibel differences between two drivers in a set of IEM's is somehow apparent to a user because the driver is so close to the eardrum (which is unlikely given that I've never heard anybody state this before. Other people would have to say that their IEMs have the same phenomenon.)
3. Or the pieces of the song that were off actually were like that, but haven't been able to tell with full-size headphones because the driver isn't as close to my ears and don't bypass the outer ear structure. (Also unlikely because I listened to mono samples through the IEMs and there was still an imbalance, albeit smaller.)
So, what do you think could be causing the issue? Any similar experiences?