kaushama
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2004
- Posts
- 2,012
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- 214
FIRST LET ME THANK HEADFI AND ALL ITS MEMBERS FOR THE WONDERFUL AND PLEASANT EXPERIENCE GIVEN ME OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS ON MY 1000TH POST!
I was using CX300 for last few months. I was not interested in high end or mid range IEMs for few factors. The most important one is the price factor. They are so expensive for the tiny instruments. I used to use HD650 or DT990 for critical listening with either Supermacro or GS-1. The other major factor is their imbalanced tonal characters. The mid priced IEMS have skewed frequency range. Either they are skewed to bass extreme or treble extreme. This gives a particular IEM rolled off or thin response in the other extreme. This is especially true for single driver IEMs. For more balanced type of sound tri or bi driver IEMs, costing fortunes of bucks, required.
The UE IEMs known to favour the bass range while etymotics favouring higher frequency range.
CX300 is a canal phone by Sennheiser. It does give considerable degree of isolation but not sufficient for air travel. It’s resemblance to Creative EP630 and several other canal phones made people think that OEMS are made by same company based in Japan called, Fosters, making rebadged phones to various manufacturers. The Sennheiser has officially said several times that they use driver of their own. But this never substantiated.
Recently two IEMs appear in the scene called Mylar X3 and Atrio M5. Both seems to be less affected by the above two factors. CROSSROADS MYLARONE X3 is made in Korea and marketed by Jaben in Singapore. It is very cheap, the price being just 57US$ inclusive of shipping. FUTURESONIC ATRIO M5 is made by a small American company, supplying audio equipment for studio artists. Priced at 199 US$ it is significantly costly than X3.
The two burning questions are, firstly; whether M5 and X3 performs better than cheapest CX300 and secondly; whether M5 has better performance than X3, justifiable to extra money consumer pays?
Here is my take on them!!!
Build Quality:
Cable and Jack: The best construction of cable and jack goes to M5 though for 199$, I expected little better construction. M5 has right angled 1/8 jack and the cable is relatively thick. It has better spilt and a memory wire at the driver end. The lightest cable is that of CX300 and it is very thin. At first it gave me a flimsy feeling but over the months it served very faithfully. CX300 has 90 degree jack construction. X3 cable has intermediate thickness between three. It has a clip attached and straight jack construction. I am bit concerned of the strain relief of X3 both at the driver and jack. Both CX300 and M5 have better strain relief. M5 and X3 both have Y endings and CX300 has asymmetrical T ending, which is bit of a pain!
Microphonics of cables: CX300 has worst microphonics. It even gives your own foot impact when walking; chewing sounds and rubs against cloths. I used a cheap cellular headset clip to fasten it to collar as a solution. X3 too suffers from microphonics but to a lesser extent than CX300 though it has all the same problems. M5 cable is relatively free from microphonics even in the usual style, but when worn over the ear, it lacks any microphonics. The best out of three.
Driver: The largest driver is M5 and it is obviously designed to wear cable running over the ear to reduce microphonics. The body is made out of tough plastics and rubber. The cable entry part of driver is rubber. The Futuresonic logo is printed on plastic part and seems to be worn off with usage. I like the memory wire of this driver as it gives strain control and easy handling. Ease of putting it, needs some practice if you are not used to the drivers. For 199$ product I would have expected to have better build quality though I can’t blame it as so bad. CX300 driver is the smallest and toughest. It has short barrel and dose not go into depth of canal. So it gives least isolation. Even after some usage you can see that CX300 is in excellent condition. X3 driver is made out of plastics and having build quality similar to M5. But the red and blue plastic parts seem to be the weakest link as the rubber part in M5. Both X3 and CX300 is very easy to wear.
Accessories and ear sealing: M5 came with medium sized bi-flanged silicon ear tip installed. It didn’t give any good sealing for my funny ear. It has come with extra smaller and larger silicon bi-flanges. The largest is bit large for me but gives good seal. As it fits UE ear tips I ordered universal fit ear tip kit to find a suitable one. M5 in addition contained 4 foam tips of varying size and ear tip cleaning tool. Its carrying pouch is nicely done and has enough space to put another pair or additional stuff. It has a nice belt clip too. Better pouch out of two. X3 came with SONY MDR ear tips installed by Jaben. The medium tip gave me excellent fit. It also fits UE ear tips. They have included large and small size tips too. The pouch is red and has a carrying strap attached. It has some feminine touch to its design. CX300 came with SONY like ear tips and accommodates SONY tips too. I have been using some Sony MDR ear tips with it for better seal.
Comfort and isolation: CX300 is the most comfortable to wear for its light weight and short body. But it has worst isolation. Its isolation is better than SONY EX71sl I used to have and I have used it for several air trips without much degradation to enjoyment of music. The best isolation is given by M5 though it needs some getting used to in the comfort zone due to more-what heavy body and awkward over the ear wearing style. X3 has better isolation than CX300 and nearly as comfortable as CX300.
Sound:
Frequency response and tonality:
Bass – All three drivers have heavy bass of varying class. Cx300 has ample deep bass but lacks clarity and have ever so slight resonance compared to other two. Little boomy. Control is lacking but don’t get me wrong it has very good control for a canal phone in its class. M5 has best control and extension of bass with deepest notes. As it is giving very good isolation and seal it sometimes give little over-powering of bass like a subwoofer. I would have liked to have little more control over bass for loud listening volumes. But there is blessing in disguise too. Its bass is very impressive in low volume conditions. Though bass needs ever so little more control in intensity for my taste, it never buries highs or mids in its performance in lower registers. X3 has very well controlled bass. As it is not as fast as M5, it has right amount of bass for loud listening. I thought it gives very little over-emphasis for mid bass region.
Mids – X3 has most forward mids and pretty accurate. It is ever so mildly brighter than others but reproduces instruments and human voices with vigour and accuracy. M5 too has very impressive accurate mids but little laid back sound in mid registers resembling the famous Senn house sound. CX300 mids fall in between the two in presentation but lacks control and clarity a little.
Highs – This is where major differences of IEMs manifested. CX300 has well extended and presented highs but lacks discipline. It has sibilance and harshness appearing intermittently, when it plays music rich in highs. It seems little congested too. X3 has very well disciplined highs with control. But it has roll-off of highs perhaps above 10Khz. It is closer UE kind of tonal balance. In the process is has some lack in detail of highest registers. M5 has most well behaved and extended highs. They represent very accurate and fast highs extended to higher registers without sibilance and harshness.
Clarity, resolution and psycho-acoustics: M5 gives the best resolution and clarity though the X3 is not very far behind. M5 has very good lateral extension of soundstage and it would have done better if there was more depth too. X3 has very impressive sound-stage for its price factor. CX300 has less clarity and sound is more congested compared to other two IEMs.
Conclusion
I bought both X3 and M5 out of curiosity due to recent hype about them. I really like M5 and it has most approximate sound signature to my loving HD650. Another factor, I love about the M5, is its negligible microphonics. X3 is a very good IEM for its price factor. But in my opinion it cannot beat M5, though the differences worth the difference in value is for discussion. Opinions may change according to personal tastes! X3 is not my cup of tea as it has upper treble roll off and very slight front presentation. For me M5 is better. X3 and CX300 have to find a new home through sales forum.
I was using CX300 for last few months. I was not interested in high end or mid range IEMs for few factors. The most important one is the price factor. They are so expensive for the tiny instruments. I used to use HD650 or DT990 for critical listening with either Supermacro or GS-1. The other major factor is their imbalanced tonal characters. The mid priced IEMS have skewed frequency range. Either they are skewed to bass extreme or treble extreme. This gives a particular IEM rolled off or thin response in the other extreme. This is especially true for single driver IEMs. For more balanced type of sound tri or bi driver IEMs, costing fortunes of bucks, required.
The UE IEMs known to favour the bass range while etymotics favouring higher frequency range.
CX300 is a canal phone by Sennheiser. It does give considerable degree of isolation but not sufficient for air travel. It’s resemblance to Creative EP630 and several other canal phones made people think that OEMS are made by same company based in Japan called, Fosters, making rebadged phones to various manufacturers. The Sennheiser has officially said several times that they use driver of their own. But this never substantiated.
Recently two IEMs appear in the scene called Mylar X3 and Atrio M5. Both seems to be less affected by the above two factors. CROSSROADS MYLARONE X3 is made in Korea and marketed by Jaben in Singapore. It is very cheap, the price being just 57US$ inclusive of shipping. FUTURESONIC ATRIO M5 is made by a small American company, supplying audio equipment for studio artists. Priced at 199 US$ it is significantly costly than X3.
The two burning questions are, firstly; whether M5 and X3 performs better than cheapest CX300 and secondly; whether M5 has better performance than X3, justifiable to extra money consumer pays?
Here is my take on them!!!
Build Quality:
Cable and Jack: The best construction of cable and jack goes to M5 though for 199$, I expected little better construction. M5 has right angled 1/8 jack and the cable is relatively thick. It has better spilt and a memory wire at the driver end. The lightest cable is that of CX300 and it is very thin. At first it gave me a flimsy feeling but over the months it served very faithfully. CX300 has 90 degree jack construction. X3 cable has intermediate thickness between three. It has a clip attached and straight jack construction. I am bit concerned of the strain relief of X3 both at the driver and jack. Both CX300 and M5 have better strain relief. M5 and X3 both have Y endings and CX300 has asymmetrical T ending, which is bit of a pain!
Microphonics of cables: CX300 has worst microphonics. It even gives your own foot impact when walking; chewing sounds and rubs against cloths. I used a cheap cellular headset clip to fasten it to collar as a solution. X3 too suffers from microphonics but to a lesser extent than CX300 though it has all the same problems. M5 cable is relatively free from microphonics even in the usual style, but when worn over the ear, it lacks any microphonics. The best out of three.
Driver: The largest driver is M5 and it is obviously designed to wear cable running over the ear to reduce microphonics. The body is made out of tough plastics and rubber. The cable entry part of driver is rubber. The Futuresonic logo is printed on plastic part and seems to be worn off with usage. I like the memory wire of this driver as it gives strain control and easy handling. Ease of putting it, needs some practice if you are not used to the drivers. For 199$ product I would have expected to have better build quality though I can’t blame it as so bad. CX300 driver is the smallest and toughest. It has short barrel and dose not go into depth of canal. So it gives least isolation. Even after some usage you can see that CX300 is in excellent condition. X3 driver is made out of plastics and having build quality similar to M5. But the red and blue plastic parts seem to be the weakest link as the rubber part in M5. Both X3 and CX300 is very easy to wear.
Accessories and ear sealing: M5 came with medium sized bi-flanged silicon ear tip installed. It didn’t give any good sealing for my funny ear. It has come with extra smaller and larger silicon bi-flanges. The largest is bit large for me but gives good seal. As it fits UE ear tips I ordered universal fit ear tip kit to find a suitable one. M5 in addition contained 4 foam tips of varying size and ear tip cleaning tool. Its carrying pouch is nicely done and has enough space to put another pair or additional stuff. It has a nice belt clip too. Better pouch out of two. X3 came with SONY MDR ear tips installed by Jaben. The medium tip gave me excellent fit. It also fits UE ear tips. They have included large and small size tips too. The pouch is red and has a carrying strap attached. It has some feminine touch to its design. CX300 came with SONY like ear tips and accommodates SONY tips too. I have been using some Sony MDR ear tips with it for better seal.
Comfort and isolation: CX300 is the most comfortable to wear for its light weight and short body. But it has worst isolation. Its isolation is better than SONY EX71sl I used to have and I have used it for several air trips without much degradation to enjoyment of music. The best isolation is given by M5 though it needs some getting used to in the comfort zone due to more-what heavy body and awkward over the ear wearing style. X3 has better isolation than CX300 and nearly as comfortable as CX300.
Sound:
Frequency response and tonality:
Bass – All three drivers have heavy bass of varying class. Cx300 has ample deep bass but lacks clarity and have ever so slight resonance compared to other two. Little boomy. Control is lacking but don’t get me wrong it has very good control for a canal phone in its class. M5 has best control and extension of bass with deepest notes. As it is giving very good isolation and seal it sometimes give little over-powering of bass like a subwoofer. I would have liked to have little more control over bass for loud listening volumes. But there is blessing in disguise too. Its bass is very impressive in low volume conditions. Though bass needs ever so little more control in intensity for my taste, it never buries highs or mids in its performance in lower registers. X3 has very well controlled bass. As it is not as fast as M5, it has right amount of bass for loud listening. I thought it gives very little over-emphasis for mid bass region.
Mids – X3 has most forward mids and pretty accurate. It is ever so mildly brighter than others but reproduces instruments and human voices with vigour and accuracy. M5 too has very impressive accurate mids but little laid back sound in mid registers resembling the famous Senn house sound. CX300 mids fall in between the two in presentation but lacks control and clarity a little.
Highs – This is where major differences of IEMs manifested. CX300 has well extended and presented highs but lacks discipline. It has sibilance and harshness appearing intermittently, when it plays music rich in highs. It seems little congested too. X3 has very well disciplined highs with control. But it has roll-off of highs perhaps above 10Khz. It is closer UE kind of tonal balance. In the process is has some lack in detail of highest registers. M5 has most well behaved and extended highs. They represent very accurate and fast highs extended to higher registers without sibilance and harshness.
Clarity, resolution and psycho-acoustics: M5 gives the best resolution and clarity though the X3 is not very far behind. M5 has very good lateral extension of soundstage and it would have done better if there was more depth too. X3 has very impressive sound-stage for its price factor. CX300 has less clarity and sound is more congested compared to other two IEMs.
Conclusion
I bought both X3 and M5 out of curiosity due to recent hype about them. I really like M5 and it has most approximate sound signature to my loving HD650. Another factor, I love about the M5, is its negligible microphonics. X3 is a very good IEM for its price factor. But in my opinion it cannot beat M5, though the differences worth the difference in value is for discussion. Opinions may change according to personal tastes! X3 is not my cup of tea as it has upper treble roll off and very slight front presentation. For me M5 is better. X3 and CX300 have to find a new home through sales forum.
