CHIFI FREEDOM Thread-A never ending IEM-Heaphones-DAP-Dongles Sound Value Quest

[dhruvmeena96]

It just spins to and make the nozzle of tip to face ear canal straight. So its like microphone and speaker. Not ideal like ciem but good for me now..

Micropore on vent.

Cp100 deep insertion

 

[dhruvmeena96]

Well sub bass increased and treble damped out

 

[dhruvmeena96]

Well, good news.....this is small brother of my friend's noble audio kaiser encore. Or i will say youngest, because SQ is same, its the PRaT, super extension and soundscape is lacking

 

[dhruvmeena96]

This is his review as it was ciem kaiser

Well what i wanted is achieved

Well my review.

I wanted signature of expensive iem. Well they are technically advanced, but these TinAudio T2 sounds in 400$ iem range.


Thunderous bass and well controlled, not a BA style but a very fast dynamic style.

Airy, soft and well extended upper treble. Slow treble rolloff, but is now with softer peak.

Mids are engaging and lush, but with neutrality. Its neutral and resolving but resolution power is smoother.

Enjoying it. But it takes 1 to 1min 30 sec to set spinfit cp240 deep plus it becomes uncomfortable after 3hrs of listening.

 

[Otto Motor]

Ladies, gents,
I do understand your interest in changing and improving things. But when I spend good money, I want the earphone to perform right out of the box (that's why I have never heard of a Sennheiser earphone mod). Great value are the Brainwavz B100, a well reviewed, balanced and very fluid sounding single BA driver earphone.

I also prefer the Fostex TE02 as is, as it is a textbook example of a neutrally tuned and balanced earphone. I like to use it as a reference standard for comparison purposes. I also like the Tinaudio T2 as is for that reason. In my experience, any mod comes with a tradeoff: one thing is improved but another one goes missing.

I did the Slater mod for the KZ SZ3...or I attempted to...as mine did not contain any foam to be removed. The ZS3 sounds like hell to my ears: harsh and dark. I did the micropore mod on the SEAHF AWK009 and...oops...poked the needle right through the grills, unfortunately...which made no difference in the end (nothing damaged, I mean).

The KZ ZS5 and ZS6 are a joke to me (meaning, it is my personal opinion only, yours may differ). They look great ("placebo effect") but the ZS5 has tinny mids and the ZS6 has piercing treble. In the end a waste of money for me as I use the [for me] infinitely better sounding Brainwavz B100 instead.

Nevertheless, everybody has the odd earphone in the drawer that is so horrible sounding, lets say agressive, that a mod is warranted. Thanks for your good ideas here. My issue: where in Canada can you buy micropore tape, London Drugs and Shoppers Drug Mart don't carry any, and amazon.ca sells that stuff in truckloads only.

 

[dhruvmeena96]

@Otto Motor

Dunno....

 

[vladstef]

Ladies, gents,
I do understand your interest in changing and improving things. But when I spend good money, I want the earphone to perform right out of the box (that's why I have never heard of a Sennheiser earphone mod). Great value are the Brainwavz B100, a well reviewed, balanced and very fluid sounding single BA driver earphone.

I also prefer the Fostex TE02 as is, as it is a textbook example of a neutrally tuned and balanced earphone. I like to use it as a reference standard for comparison purposes. I also like the Tinaudio T2 as is for that reason. In my experience, any mod comes with a tradeoff: one thing is improved but another one goes missing.

I did the Slater mod for the KZ SZ3...or I attempted to...as mine did not contain any foam to be removed. The ZS3 sounds like hell to my ears: harsh and dark. I did the micropore mod on the SEAHF AWK009 and...oops...poked the needle right through the grills, unfortunately...which made no difference in the end (nothing damaged, I mean).

The KZ ZS5 and ZS6 are a joke to me (meaning, it is my personal opinion only, yours may differ). They look great ("placebo effect") but the ZS5 has tinny mids and the ZS6 has piercing treble. In the end a waste of money for me as I use the infinitely better sounding Brainwavz B100 instead.

Nevertheless, everybody has the odd earphone in the drawer that is so horrible sounding, lets say agressive, that a mod is warranted. Thanks for your good ideas here. My issue: where in Canada can you buy micropore tape, London Drugs and Shoppers Drug Mart don't carry any, and amazon.ca sells that stuff in truckloads only.

This is spot on how I felt about KZ ZS5 v1, technically kinda impressive for the price but ultimately let down by ridiculous tonality and overall unnatural sound where instruments seriously lacked body. I'd take my Hifiman re400 over it without thinking twice, I even paid less for re400. I've said this before, it is really surprising to me how much praising ZS5 got from esteemed reviewers.

You can order micropore tape on aliexpress, yeah you wait a long time but at least you get it eventually - I couldn't find a single pharmacy in my country which had it, probably not as popular here in Europe.

 

[skajohyros]

Hi I just got Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD and ZS6

After listening to them for 20 hours... Here are my impressions.

Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD (after the block vent mod) - Really a bang for its buck. Comfortable to wear, Nice roomy bass, but as someone mentioned earlier, it seem to miss something.. Hopefully with more hours of burn-in, the vocals can be more clear, and its mid low bass can be more developed.

ZS6 - Very detailed vocals and quite decent bass. Slightly uncomfortable to wear compared to Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD as I have small ears. However, its high treble really makes it uncomfortable especially listening to vocals. I tried putting hard foam, sponge to damp the treble but didnt achieve much results. Sponge helps to tame the treble a little, but it is still not enough. Hard foam reduce the vocals volume and muffles the vocals..

For now, I find Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD easier to use, but I know if ZS6 can be modded properly, I would use it everytime.

Basically I have read on the forum, but can someone else recommend me a good idea to mod the ZS6 without sacrificing heavily the detailed vocals?

I put a drop of glue on one of the BA in the nozzle. Less sibilance but it's still there.
Try it, it might be enough for you

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

Ladies, gents,
I do understand your interest in changing and improving things. But when I spend good money, I want the earphone to perform right out of the box (that's why I have never heard of a Sennheiser earphone mod). Great value are the Brainwavz B100, a well reviewed, balanced and very fluid sounding single BA driver earphone.

I also prefer the Fostex TE02 as is, as it is a textbook example of a neutrally tuned and balanced earphone. I like to use it as a reference standard for comparison purposes. I also like the Tinaudio T2 as is for that reason. In my experience, any mod comes with a tradeoff: one thing is improved but another one goes missing.

I did the Slater mod for the KZ SZ3...or I attempted to...as mine did not contain any foam to be removed. The ZS3 sounds like hell to my ears: harsh and dark. I did the micropore mod on the SEAHF AWK009 and...oops...poked the needle right through the grills, unfortunately...which made no difference in the end (nothing damaged, I mean).

The KZ ZS5 and ZS6 are a joke to me (meaning, it is my personal opinion only, yours may differ). They look great ("placebo effect") but the ZS5 has tinny mids and the ZS6 has piercing treble. In the end a waste of money for me as I use the [for me] infinitely better sounding Brainwavz B100 instead.

Nevertheless, everybody has the odd earphone in the drawer that is so horrible sounding, lets say agressive, that a mod is warranted. Thanks for your good ideas here. My issue: where in Canada can you buy micropore tape, London Drugs and Shoppers Drug Mart don't carry any, and amazon.ca sells that stuff in truckloads only.

OttO
The Gringe hehe

Ya got opinion.
Thanks to share!

Personally, I care more about what you like....and we need more new LIKES!

Just receive some MACAWS GT600S the 24.....don't have lot of time to listen to them but construction is very impressive, very curious to try 3 metal nozzles for soundsignature. Its a1DD+1BA drivers iem.

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

Headfi santa claus and his team at boxing day in a chifi IEM and Headphones Store:

 

[CYoung234]

Ladies, gents,
I do understand your interest in changing and improving things. But when I spend good money, I want the earphone to perform right out of the box (that's why I have never heard of a Sennheiser earphone mod).

Sounds like you don't get out much then, Otto. Lots of people have been modding Senns, AKGs, etc.

For example, the HD800, one of the best:

www.innerfidelity.com/content/diy-modification-sennheiser-hd-800-anaxilus-mod

I have personally modded my AKG K-501s, a VERY neutral headphone with mids to die for, admittedly just changing pads, but many other mids of all sorts have been done. As you say, some of these "improvements" may or may not be so good. But, the one I referenced above appears to show viable improvements.

So, try to keep an open mind about all of this. And realize that there are a lot of different opinions about what sounds best. I am not trying to say that all opinions are equal, though, as our opinions are colored by our backgrounds, our tastes in music, the shape of our ears, the genres of music we prefer, our live music listening history, etc...

 

[NymPHONOmaniac]

By the way peps, there a thread about mods, very interesting the ones you share, could be very usefull there too (especially with some pics....):
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the...l-your-full-sized-headphone-mods-here.867426/

 

[tancg]

Oh dear, I didnt use micropores on my Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD, I used superglue to cover the vent. No wonder the vocals take a hit in clarify department. Crap, this means my Xiaomi is a goner... Im currently using Ostry OS300 tips.

Im in Asia, I dont really know PITA foam. When I try to google PITA form, it gives me a shampoo brand lol. Does that means you replace the metal cover with Transpore openings?

@tancg use spinfit normal with xiaomi hybrid pro HD.

Do @Slater mod on kz6. Do the PITA foam in BA driver and then cut small 3m transpore and paste on BA openings. Then take needle and poke hole in centre. This will make hf treble to not roll off significantly. And the tube 10khz is damped

 

[weedophile]

Oh dear, I didnt use micropores on my Xiaomi Hybrid Pro HD, I used superglue to cover the vent. No wonder the vocals take a hit in clarify department. Crap, this means my Xiaomi is a goner... Im currently using Ostry OS300 tips.

Im in Asia, I dont really know PITA foam. When I try to google PITA form, it gives me a shampoo brand lol. Does that means you replace the metal cover with Transpore openings?

What the flying.. i dont even... U superglued ur IEM?? Gosh, that's like a death sentence T.T

 

[Vidal]

Superglue in the nozzle of a BA to fix the sound, wow that's pretty drastic and a one way mod. If I'm honest it seems pretty idiotic to me, if I'd have had that problem with the sound and I was restricted in terms of buying new ones I'd have just stuck them on eBay.