Chinese / Asian Brand IEM Info Thread
- Thread starter Brooko
- Start date
SciOC
Headphoneus Supremus
Hmmmm, I get your point about the mids but that's not been my experience with the bass, unit variations or a source mismatch perhaps? You wanna hear a lack of punch, listen to the ZSX....
Lol, us, obsessive? No, not at all (*gulp*, takes OCD medication and gets ready to go to my psychiatrist appointment.)
I love how old and stale all the "favorites" that article lists are at this point. Heck, the blon bl-03 is starting to feel so last week at this point...
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Nice. I kind of laughed out loud when he lumped one of the most expensive iem companies, qdc, with all the cheaper ones. Other than that, good article
thanks that was some perspective on these chifi brands i was looking for, i still don't understand if i must buy 2 or 3 pairs of the same iem model in order to have a good probability of having a good one because consistency in quality is usually a problem with small brands that have a very good product at a very low price. it make sense to believe that these small chifi brands also cut the price down by lowering final quality testing threshold to reject or accept a final product. are there any experience amoung headfi users having listened to 3 or 4 of the same model and having one or two with a bad sound ?
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Slater
Headphoneus Supremus
It doesn’t really work that way.
There’s no de facto guarantee that says “X material is better than Y”. Diaphragm material is just one small piece of an overall end result.
As Dunu pointed out, the same exact material can be implemented/manufactured in different ways (changing its properties for better or worse), such as what base composite is used (PET vs PEEK vs whatever), the diaphragm thickness, the thickness and consistency of any coatings, the purity and particle size of the material, the actual method it’s deposited onto the base layer (sprayed vs vapor deposited, etc), single sided vs double sided coatings, manufacturing tolerances, quality control, impedance, sensitivity, distortion, etc etc. The list goes on.
There’s even hybrid diaphragms, such as wood domes on carbon diaphragms, carbon domes on silk diaphragms, titanium domes on bio fiber diaphragms, etc. And then there’s multi-layer diaphragms, which sandwich multiple layers of different diaphragms together. I built a headphone a few years ago using ‘triple diaphragm’ drivers (ie 3 different layers sandwiched together into 1 diaphragm). The idea of the various ‘frankendriver’ hybrids is to combine different traits of each material into something better than the individual materials would be by themselves.
Then, in addition to the diaphragm material there’s other very important characteristics of the driver, such as the magnet material and strength, the voice coil material/thickness/winding, how the diaphragm itself is attached to the frame (basic glue vs a stiff copper/brass ring), the material of the driver frame (different types of plastic or even aluminum), any passive electronic circuits (crossover), driver venting, quality control, etc.
Then of course you have the shell, which has a huge effect on the end result. Shape, internal volume, construction material, dampening, venting, etc.
And finally, you have THE most important factor - tuning. Without good tuning, even the “best” driver will sound and perform like crap.
Don’t forget drive matching too. There are slight manufacturing variations between individual drivers, and a few of the better companies perform quality control that includes driver matching (making sure a pair of drivers are matched).
With all that said, I think you’d be interested in the below chart. It is a theoretical ROUGH GUIDE of the comparison between different diaphragm materials. But be aware however, to take it for a grain of salt, because it describes theoretical engineering characteristics that exist in a vacuum. Just because the chart says “DLC has less internal losses than titanium” and is therefore ‘better’, doesn’t mean it applies to every driver and definitely shouldn’t be taken as gospel. But it is OK as a rough guide.
I will add 1 more thing. Below is a laser scan comparison of the Ora graphene driver vs a ‘standard’ Mylar driver. You can see the obvious differences:
However, it should be noted that Ora’s graphene drivers are UNLIKE all ‘graphene’ drivers from other manufacturers. Ora’s driver is made almost entirely of pure graphene, arranged in layers like plywood. All other graphene drivers are simply flakes of graphene suspended in a carrier material and simply sprayed onto a ‘regular’ diaphragm (usually Mylar). And Ora claims that, despite the sprayed Mylar drivers containing ‘graphene’ flakes, they only perform marginally better (and even sometimes poorer) than a standard uncoated Mylar diaphragm! In other words, the sprayed-on ‘graphene’ coating can actually make the driver perform worse than if it didn’t even have the coating in the 1st place.
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thesheik137
1000+ Head-Fier
Chifi is not monolith. Quality differs between different brands and different models. Some have more unit variation that others. Look into specific brand/product threads for reports of quality issues.
Yeah, also Hifiman getting pissed off at being labeled as Chifi.
Yes, the V90 is slightly V-shaped. But they definitely don't have too much sub bass, for me the bass just right. With foam tips mids are softer and more comfortable, maybe a little artificial, but it depends on what you compare to them. I'm not saying they're ideal, but at least they're not lost.
Ziggomatic
500+ Head-Fier
Embarrassed I never realized 'BLON' is an acronym for this wonderful nonsense.
RikudouGoku
Member of the Trade: RikuBuds
after a days of listening to the Tin Hifi P1, The Fit is really horrible lol. The physical size is very similar to the blon 03 but the shape is really bad. The bass is too weak for my taste when used with my Fiio M11, but acceptable on JDS atom amp.
Probably gonna look for another iem on 11/11 the search is never ending
Have my eyes on the LZ A6/A6 mini and BQEYZ Spring 1.
edit: maybe Shuoer Tape too
Probably gonna look for another iem on 11/11 the search is never ending
Have my eyes on the LZ A6/A6 mini and BQEYZ Spring 1.
edit: maybe Shuoer Tape too
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I just noticed that VS Audio Store has the Mini for $97 on 11/11. Should be possible to het it even a bit lower with coupons...
I just bought the Ztella USB-DAC... MQA for €50...sabre chip... Worth a punt I guess. The company seems to be trying to take themselves seriously... Fingers x'd.
Zorloo has a great track record with their older models (especially the Zuperdac) so this should be an interesting one.
Edit: Did you see this thread?
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/zorloo-ztella-usb-c-dac-impressions-thread.917647/#post-15267304
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Hey guys, i'm really out of the loop with chinese IEMs, but I just found the KZ ZS10 Pro for ~30€ at Gearbest. Do you think they're worth it or is there something better I could get for that money? Z-Reviews on YouTube loved them but I think his opinions are not that highly regarded here on this forum if I'm not mistaken.
I alredy got the Tin T2 and love them, but I feel like it's time for something new, I think you know what that feels like hahaha
I alredy got the Tin T2 and love them, but I feel like it's time for something new, I think you know what that feels like hahaha
Thanks for that!
I recently compared my girlfriends usbc Samsung headphones to my 3.5 Samsung headphones and... Night and day.
Annoying.
I'd gotten out of the DAC game for portable stuff, but... Anyway... This came to my attn and the specs seem better than you'd expect for 50 euros.
I live in hope.
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