[CoiL]

3. iBasso IT01

Finally one user measurement @ IT01! Very hard to find any decent graphs on IT01. Now, imagine IT01 bass reduced and more details in mids/highs/bass and mids more prominent -> modded IT01

 

[audio123]

Very nice , excellent review ,
Thanks for your help bro ,

Glad to be of help!

 

[Dobrescu George]

Finally one user measurement @ IT01! Very hard to find any decent graphs on IT01. Now, imagine IT01 bass reduced and more details in mids/highs/bass and mids more prominent -> modded IT01

The bass and treble wouldn't be as impactful if the mids were more forward...

 

[Slater]

The bass and treble wouldn't be as impactful if the mids were more forward...

So many people complain when gear doesn’t have forward mids, but that really is a fine line. Like you said, it’s so easy to lose bass and treble impact as mids are pushed forward.

Obviously we all hear different blah blah. My personal approach when tuning mids is ‘a little goes a long way’.

 

[Dobrescu George]

So many people complain when gear doesn’t have forward mids, but that really is a fine line. Like you said, it’s so easy to lose bass and treble impact as mids are pushed forward.

My personal approach when tuning mids is ‘a little goes a long way’.

Totally agreed about that

Also, when talking about mids balance, I tend to always EQ IEMs to pull Bass and Treble more forward, but I very rarely find myself adjusting the midrange more forward. Curious if it is a music thing though, like, maybe what everyone listens to plays a big role in this

 

[Otto Motor]

So many people complain when gear doesn’t have forward mids, but that really is a fine line. Like you said, it’s so easy to lose bass and treble impact as mids are pushed forward.

Obviously we all hear different blah blah. My personal approach when tuning mids is ‘a little goes a long way’.

We had this discussion before. There are some pricey V-shaped quality earphones, for example one from Campfire. I think the idea of the iBasso IT01 is to provide a rather strong quality bass with a very well-extended quality sub-bass...which inadvertently moves the frequency response into a V-shape. But the sound of the IT01 is rather "fat/beefy" so that the mids are full bodied with a good density and never appear (too far) back...as opposed to the KZ ZS10 for example. What stays a bit behind is clarity.

 

[Dobrescu George]

We had this discussion before. There are some pricey V-shaped quality earphones, for example one from Campfire. I think the idea of the iBasso IT01 is to provide a rather strong quality bass with a very well-extended quality sub-bass...which inadvertently moves the frequency response into a V-shape. But the sound of the IT01 is rather "fat/beefy" so that the mids are full bodied with a good density and never appear (too far) back...as opposed to the KZ ZS10 for example. What stays a bit behind is clarity.

IT04 also has a smoother midrange, I think it is the way tey did the tuning to be smoother and more musical in the midrange

 

[Slater]

So the QKZ VK3 ($5) showed up yesterday.

It is based off the ZS3 not the ZS4, as the nozzle is the smaller ZS3 one (with no lip).

A big bummer was the cable. Despite it looking like a removable cable (with the identical ZS3 2-pin connector shoulder), it is just for show. The cable is fixed, which I was unaware of. Basically, imagine supergluing a stock mic'd cable to the KZ ZS3, and this is the QKZ VK3.

The included tips suck - they are too shallow and should have been longer. I swapped them for the KZ Starlines to get a proper fit. The VK3 (supposedly) has a single dynamic 10mm graphene (sprayed) driver.

They also claim High-Res certification. Whether this is even true or not, doesn't matter much. I put very little stock into HR certification, because it does not guarantee "good sound" by any stretch.

The VK3 sound is v-shaped, with a boosted low end. I assume this is due to the long and narrow nozzle and lack of a front vent. Basically if you have heard the KZ ZS3, you know basically what to expect.

I tried to retune it by adding a 0.3mm front vent, and it made it sound worse. So I filled the vent back in to put it back to stock.

The QKZ VK3 suffers from driver flex and an insertion suction effect (just like the KZ ZS3). No surprise there. It does have excellent isolation (just like the KZ ZS3).

I would say the QKZ VK3 is a small improvement over the KZ ZS3, but not the ZS4. If faced with a choice between the KZ ZS3 and QKZ VK3, I would stick with the ZS3 simply for the better tips and removable cable.

Overall, the VK1 and VK3 are the 'best' QKZ has to offer (in that order). That's not saying a whole lot though, as even their 'best' offerings are pretty average.

If you are considering any QKZ, I would strongly suggest just saving up a few dollars more and upping your budget, or else just get a KZ EDR1 for $3. Seriously, life is too short. You can't be that poor, even a 'student with no money'. Eat ramen, give up coffee for a few months, do some odd jobs for a neighbor. A homeless beggar can collect $10-$20 in a few hours. If they can do it, you can too.

 

[Emelya]

Uh-oh!

I recommend you to look at the Rosewill EX-500. It is absolutely the same as the Sound-inn TS-PIE010 and available now on Amazon for $22 (Amazon ASIN number is B06XBBKNQP) with a set of SpinFit eartips. I also found the short review. The author's opinion about the sound signature differs from the official EX-500/TS-PIE010 FR graph

 

[durwood]

@Otto Motor It's interesting your problem with the B400. @Wiljen was nice enough to loan me his pair and I had a hell of a time trying to measure it- definitely had bass measurement issues. I could not get repeatable measurements even with the same side earpiece and not even removing it. I have noticed that on some IEM's that the bass gets funky. Not sure what I am doing wrong, and not saying you are doing anything wrong, I am just curious. Granted, I only had some old apple IEM tips to use and getting a good seal on my coupler was my best guess for the issues I was having.

 

[Slater]

@Otto Motor It's interesting your problem with the B400. @Wiljen was nice enough to loan me his pair and I had a hell of a time trying to measure it- definitely had bass measurement issues. I could not get repeatable measurements even with the same side earpiece and not even removing it. I have noticed that on some IEM's that the bass gets funky. Not sure what I am doing wrong, and not saying you are doing anything wrong, I am just curious. Granted, I only had some old apple IEM tips to use and getting a good seal on my coupler was my best guess for the issues I was having.

I was having a problem with them that I thought was a channel imbalance. I tried them a few days later on a different dap and the imbalance was gone. Maybe it wasn’t the dap after all - maybe it was just reinserting them that one time that was the issue?

 

[CoiL]

The bass and treble wouldn't be as impactful if the mids were more forward...

Well, they actually are and even more defined/detailed with modded IT01
IT01 just needs littlebit reduced overall bass level, making mids more prominent. Treble/mids details/clarity will improve with nozzle double-grill removal (treble improvement somwhere around 7-9kHz I think) + very wide bore tips (also helps @ soundstage width and air).
Will soon send my modded IT01 to measurements. Very curious if I hear pseudo or improvements are provable with graphs

We had this discussion before. There are some pricey V-shaped quality earphones, for example one from Campfire. I think the idea of the iBasso IT01 is to provide a rather strong quality bass with a very well-extended quality sub-bass...which inadvertently moves the frequency response into a V-shape. But the sound of the IT01 is rather "fat/beefy" so that the mids are full bodied with a good density and never appear (too far) back...as opposed to the KZ ZS10 for example. What stays a bit behind is clarity.

+1

 

[Wiljen]

@Otto Motor It's interesting your problem with the B400. @Wiljen was nice enough to loan me his pair and I had a hell of a time trying to measure it- definitely had bass measurement issues. I could not get repeatable measurements even with the same side earpiece and not even removing it. I have noticed that on some IEM's that the bass gets funky. Not sure what I am doing wrong, and not saying you are doing anything wrong, I am just curious. Granted, I only had some old apple IEM tips to use and getting a good seal on my coupler was my best guess for the issues I was having.

I've got a new Umik-1 mic coming and might try to run some numbers on my set of b400s once I've had some time to play with it and feel good about what I am doing.

 

[durwood]

I was having a problem with them that I thought was a channel imbalance. I tried them a few days later on a different dap and the imbalance was gone. Maybe it wasn’t the dap after all - maybe it was just reinserting them that one time that was the issue?

I've got a new Umik-1 mic coming and might try to run some numbers on my set of b400s once I've had some time to play with it and feel good about what I am doing.

Here is my logic for thinking it was a tip sealing issue
-the only thing that was affected was the low end. I didn't have problems with the upper area.
-The change was so drastic, I hard time believing anything else would cause that (subjective I know)
-Even when listening to them with the tips I had, I had trouble getting a good seal and I would constantly lose bass. I maybe should have measured them with my comply tips instead to see if that made a difference in repeatability measuring. When I finally switched to the complys for listening vs my too soft apple tips my sealing issues went away during listening sessions.

Now I am not ruling out connection issues, but higher impedance should affect treble and roll it off.

My current measurement rig is a Umm-6 with a clear vinyl tube, laptop soundcard, ATRA with MLS 32K. Ignore the white line, that was when I was seeing what the SRS setting did to my onboard soundcard. If you look at the two separate graphs you can see how I was having trouble at getting a consistent bass measurement

 

[vladstef]

Here is my logic for thinking it was a tip sealing issue
-the only thing that was affected was the low end. I didn't have problems with the upper area.
-The change was so drastic, I hard time believing anything else would cause that (subjective I know)
-Even when listening to them with the tips I had, I had trouble getting a good seal and I would constantly lose bass. I maybe should have measured them with my comply tips instead to see if that made a difference in repeatability measuring. When I finally switched to the complys for listening vs my too soft apple tips my sealing issues went away during listening sessions.

Now I am not ruling out connection issues, but higher impedance should affect treble and roll it off.

My current measurement rig is a Umm-6 with a clear vinyl tube, laptop soundcard, ATRA with MLS 32K. Ignore the white line, that was when I was seeing what the SRS setting did to my onboard soundcard. If you look at the two separate graphs you can see how I was having trouble at getting a consistent bass measurement

I noticed that I could get wrong bass measurements by touching the IEM cable or even the laptop that did the measurements. The results could be drastic just by tapping the cable slightly.