[Ahmad313]

Well I bought 64audio u18 tzar...... Sponsored from my dad....

I am budget lover ......

Expensive IEM have mature treble, very big soundstage and scape and clearer imaging.

Signature can be found in cheap IEM too.

As tin audio t2 sound same to u18 ....T2 is a weak on bass and a little not in control on treble.


And sound is very small compared to u18.....But I feel both have same signature.

Well, it's really interesting , so how you calculate the price to performance ratio between the two , is U18t justify the asking price against the performance of T2, ???

 

[dhruvmeena96]

@Ahmad313 I have mentioned 64 audio u18 sounds very huge and transparent compared to T2......


But the frequency response curve is very much same..


U18 has low decay, distortion, and very clear harmonics.

T2 is like a newborn child from same mother where u18 is like genius prodigy in his 30.

Sound wise or DNA wise they are same.....U18 does everything so better that it deserves it's price.......

 

[SilverEars]

@crinacle

Are all the iems you ranked universal versions if not stated otherwise(as being custom)? Was the NT6 a custom or demo fit?

 

[crinacle]

Hey, nice list. How would you rank Noble Savant, Audiofly AF180, Final Audio Design heaven VI and Sony MDR EX1000, Sony XBA40 on your list. Thank you!

and Avara ciem's / iem's?

I'll keep those in mind. Still technically in the midst of hiatus, though I'll be jumping in occasionally when I receive new demos or if something new pops up around my area.

@crinacle......Where do you put singer en700 pro version

CTRL+F to search for whatever you need. If it's not there, I probably haven't got to it yet. I haven't had a chance with the EN700 Pro yet.

@crinacle

Are all the iems you ranked universal versions if not stated otherwise(as being custom)? Was the NT6 a custom or demo fit?

I'll have to update it accordingly. Haven't put that into consideration yet. The NT6 was a demo fit (a really crappy demo set, I might add) from the Null Audio office.

 

[crinacle]

New toy inbound: the Rhapsodio Zombie. Special thanks to @flinkenick for setting up the audition and of course to Rhapsodio themselves for the opportunity.

As most may know, I'm absolutely obsessed with hybrid tech. Any time something new is announced, I pounce on it like a starving tiger on a carcass. When the Zombie was announced, I was absolutely itching for a try. Another 8+1 system? One that could potentially make me sell off my W900? Oh my stars, sign me right up!

Now that it's here, I'll just cut to the chase here. It seems that my search for the perfect hybrid IEM shall continue for a little while longer.

---

First Impressions

The Zombie has something I'll call the "classic hybrid" sound. You know, the likes that the Superfi 5EB and the very first Unique Melody Merlin had. Huge, huge gobs of thundering, earthshattering bass that pretty much takes centerstage. The very first time I put the Zombie into my ears, I was greeted with my long lost friend: sub-bass. The rumble, the texture, the power... not many monitors did bass like this these days. The Zombie is fun, fantastic and held nothing back when it came to bass authority.

And then, the bass fatigue came. And so did everything else. The midrange of the Zombie was pretty decent, nothing to fault but nothing really exceptional either. My problem with the Zombie came twofold here: the tsunami-like bass and the weak treble. It has the same weakness as the AAW W900 in this regard, in that its treble was not really airy and had little snap and speed, mostly plodding along in dulled hits. The bass, while fun, definitely had many instances where it would bleed and overshadow vocals and deeper instruments which detracts from proper clarity or apparent detail.

Anyways, here's my first impressions. I'll reserve rating it another day when I had more eartime on it. My opinions on the Zombie might change too, who knows.

 

[flinkenick]

Hey Crin, not sure what the state of affairs here is on burn, but if possible please try burning it for 4 days before critical analysis due to its dynamic driver. Not that I'm an outspoken fan of the Zombie per se, but a looser bass will affect the airiness of the stage, and clarity of the treble. Hope it warms up to you later (no pun intended, but I'll take it).

 

[crinacle]

Hey Crin, not sure what the state of affairs here is on burn, but if possible please try burning it for 4 days before critical analysis due to its dynamic driver. Not that I'm an outspoken fan of the Zombie per se, but a looser bass will affect the airiness of the stage, and clarity of the treble. Hope it warms up to you later (no pun intended, but I'll take it).

I'll give it a chance. I let most of my loaners go through about 50 hours of white noise (even though I personally don't believe in it, but since I got time why not?). The impressions above were fresh out of the box.

 

[dhruvmeena96]

Well....Bass creates depth in -Z axis....Proper decayed bass is good....Tight bass takes away depth perception..

Treble create airiness and harmonic function to instrument...How they sound and how they behave with each other.

Positioning.

Mids are what makes it wide.

Driver size or driver type defines the hieght of the stage.

16mm Sony xb90ex sounds bigger than Sony xb30ex 13.2 mm driver because of bigger driver, better and deeper bass plus clean mids and treble.

Distortion rates are also a factor.

U18 tzar have many BA for specific frequency lowers distortion and follow 90% diffuse field, with the 10% bass increment.

Well very er4sr follow 99.99% diffuse field but sounds so much to your face as distortion is high on single BA, so the space between instrument is not that black, try eq etymotic and see even 1db will add negatively to the IEM.

Speed and transient response is inverse proportional to distortion rates. But taking them separately, it first makes music faster, and detailed(resolving) without any sparkle additions to signature. Hd600 vs hd660s is example. Listen to hd660s , well both have same signature(completely same).....HD660s sounds way better a and is not like laid back hd600...

Coherency plays role in multiple driver..Non coherent sounds disjointed and busy on different frequency, killing hieght of the stage like cliff and narrowing the width, but not in extreme manner....

Music becomes disjointed and headaching

 

[Ang Probinsyano]

@crinacle hope you can test again the LZ big dipper and also the QDC Anole v6, it has four tuning. .

 

[vilhelm44]

New toy inbound: the Rhapsodio Zombie. Special thanks to @flinkenick for setting up the audition and of course to Rhapsodio themselves for the opportunity.

As most may know, I'm absolutely obsessed with hybrid tech. Any time something new is announced, I pounce on it like a starving tiger on a carcass. When the Zombie was announced, I was absolutely itching for a try. Another 8+1 system? One that could potentially make me sell off my W900? Oh my stars, sign me right up!

Now that it's here, I'll just cut to the chase here. It seems that my search for the perfect hybrid IEM shall continue for a little while longer.

---

First Impressions

The Zombie has something I'll call the "classic hybrid" sound. You know, the likes that the Superfi 5EB and the very first Unique Melody Merlin had. Huge, huge gobs of thundering, earthshattering bass that pretty much takes centerstage. The very first time I put the Zombie into my ears, I was greeted with my long lost friend: sub-bass. The rumble, the texture, the power... not many monitors did bass like this these days. The Zombie is fun, fantastic and held nothing back when it came to bass authority.

And then, the bass fatigue came. And so did everything else. The midrange of the Zombie was pretty decent, nothing to fault but nothing really exceptional either. My problem with the Zombie came twofold here: the tsunami-like bass and the weak treble. It has the same weakness as the AAW W900 in this regard, in that its treble was not really airy and had little snap and speed, mostly plodding along in dulled hits. The bass, while fun, definitely had many instances where it would bleed and overshadow vocals and deeper instruments which detracts from proper clarity or apparent detail.

Anyways, here's my first impressions. I'll reserve rating it another day when I had more eartime on it. My opinions on the Zombie might change too, who knows.

I got the Zombies a few weeks back and was taken back by how powerful the bass was compared to the other frequencies; I wasn't a fan initially. I got it second hand with around 80 hours on it...but after another 50 hours things started to change for the better. The bass wasn't as boomy and the rest of the frequencies balanced out more, the treble was more present as well. For a warm IEM, you get some really great detail and clarity but without the sibilance that sometimes comes with it. I'm using them balanced with WM1Z and EA Lionheart cable, maybe the synergy is playing a part but I'm loving what I'm hearing now. Will be interested to hear your updated thoughts at some point.

Loving the list by the way...thanks for the time putting it together.

 

[koven]

crinacle, what is your personal favorite A or S tier after listening to all of these?

 

[crinacle]

crinacle, what is your personal favorite A or S tier after listening to all of these?

I put something together a few months ago

 

[crinacle]

My review of the Rhapsodio Zombie is now finished.

Rhapsodio Zombie: Hybrid Throwback

Final grade: B

 

[crinacle]

I have this in my possession for quite a while but haven't really gotten around to write and rate it. Which is weird, because it's a pretty impressive piece of gear.

Note that this is not a full review as this unit isn't a true final production model, but yet good enough to give a taste of what it's to be.

Soranik SK3
(no pictures due to unit being a demo)

The SK3 is not something I really expected much out of when Hieu Trung Tran offered to send me a set early this year. It had no fancy name and was basically relegated to a "middle child" position, sporting 3 drivers and overshadowed by its popular big brother, the Ion, and its easily accessible cheaper brothers the SK1 and Aya. When I put it on for the very first time, I wasn't really that impressed either. It sounded... there. It was an IEM. Nothing really stands out and it lacks that "wow-factor".

As usual, the first thing I do is to pick out any and every weakness. The bass is very much BA and there's no escaping that; limp, lacks authority, not a lot of articulation in the sub-regions. The upper treble isn't as snappy as I would like; granted, no fatigue, but it could use a smidgen more sparkle. Just a tiny bit would do, to bring out a little more energy in the high percussions. Nothing offensive but it's not exactly exciting.

I kept listening. And I listened even closer. I couldn't find any more weaknesses. The midrange sounds right, the timbre was very good, very natural presentation, vocal centric if anything. There was no muffling or veiling as far as I could hear, the SK3 had clarity and it had it in spades. Detail retrieval is spot on, perhaps not to the extent of the top dogs but definitely in the ER4 ballpark. A neutral signature, perhaps tilted towards the midrange due to the subdued higher registers and typical BA bass. Nothing stuck out like a sore thumb and everything is there as it should be. The more I listened and the more I compared with the rest of my gear, the more I loved it. The SK3 has a very UERM-inspired sound and is now part of what I consider "The Sub-$500 Reference Trifecta" alongside the Massdrop Plus and the Etymotic ER4.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Grade: A-

​

 

[donunus]

I wonder where the er3sr or xr would rate in this ranking