SomeGuyDude
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2012
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I've had IE800 before and they certainly are impressive, the details, resolution, how the sound is presented, it's all very good, but I agree that the balance is just...wrong, for me at least. They were enjoyable even with compromised relationship between lows-mids and then mids-highs, I am talking more about quantity of each rather than transition which is impressive as they are a single driver. Their days are numbered, Chi-fi is quickly approaching IE800 level of sound quality for much much less money plus you get so many models to have an option and ultimately get what you value most. I made a mistake and bough KZ ZS5, many qualities but same issue as IE800, wrong tonal balance and the music doesn't sound the way it's supposed to. I guess I am very strict when it comes to V and U shape and then neutral or mid focused, I tolerate it to some extent, but many IEMs go beyond it and it ends up sounding wrong compared to what music should sound like.
This is one thing that kinda makes me laugh and why I get annoyed at "critical listening" or other such terminology when it comes to headphone reviews. I see them all the time trying to slice up the review into each "element" of the sound and then "bring it all together" in the end, and the result is a review that comes at its conclusion backward. Instead of listening to the "whole" of the sound and then explaining that via examples in details, they look at the details first and then attempt to stitch together an overall picture that doesn't actually end up describing anything. It doesn't matter how "good" the minutiae of the headphone is when the end result is a bad presentation.
I'm not going at you BTW, just mentioning that this phenomenon of reviews that don't start with an overall thesis are problematic. It'd be like writing a term paper where you just start pulling together various citations and examples and then attempt to give a concluding paragraph. You have to start off with what you think about it overall before you start picking apart the details.