[FastAndClean]

Well, for me the audio gear is just a vessel transporting the music to your ears. It's the music that gives me the goosebumps. Yeah, certain gear may convey more emotion and give you more enjoyment but I surely don't need micro details and top-notch separation to feel the music. I do enjoy my details and technical proficiency as much as anyone here, but I have to be honest. I refuse to let the audiophile expectation ruin music for me to a point that I stop enjoying it and start treating every listening session as a product review.

i get more goosebumps from lush and musical earphones and headphones, high level of details is not doing it for me, i can get wow factor from that, but goosebumps only from lush very musical earphones

 

[goodvibes]

EQ ruins a good IEM for me. Some noticeably off things can be made better but I generally find EQ circuits more intrusive than some minor frequency abnormalities but I tend to use VG files etc so ymmv.

 

[crinacle]

[Cliffnotes] Meze Rai Penta: Empyrean
​

 

[RSC08]

[Cliffnotes] Meze Rai Penta: Empyrean
​

"Its subpar imaging doesn’t really help its case on a technical scale either, with crowded placement of instruments within a narrow soundstage making for a slightly claustrophobic experience.

Then we get to the mysterious subjective world of “dynamics” where both Mezes suffer from a serious case of “I don’t want to listen to this anymore” syndrome. The Rai Penta is… boring."

These are the main reasons why I'm returning mine. Even with the improvements that I got from the Sony Kimber 4.4mm cable, they still don't make me happy. Coming from the Xelento, it's like you're hearing Anthony Hopkins' speach in "Meet Joe Black": I want you to levitate, I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish... Sadly enough, these just won't get you there.

 

[mvvRAZ]

Thanks for the replies everyone. As someone who vastly prefers the Andromeda to the ER4 due to better treble, and bass, even with EQ, I wonder if something like the as10 would be just as good. If it really is just a matter of preference, I wonder
I wonder why the cheapest s tier headphone is Andromeda, and if you all don't really believe in crinacles tiers (which could be inferred from what you said, though not necessarily) I wonder what you are doing on this thread.

I enjoy the IEM discussion but crinacle’s criteria for ranking IEMs is completely different from mine. For example he has one bright IEM that is A or above, whereas I generally speaking prefer bright headphones and IEM

[Cliffnotes] Meze Rai Penta: Empyrean
​

The only thing that kind of works on the Penta is the bass, the mids and treble are heavily meh

 

[FastAndClean]

I enjoy the IEM discussion but crinacle’s criteria for ranking IEMs is completely different from mine. For example he has one bright IEM that is A or above, whereas I generally speaking prefer bright headphones and IEM

Щом харесваш ярки слушалки Т800 ще ти пасне много

 

[mvvRAZ]

Щом харесваш ярки слушалки Т800 ще ти пасне много

Харесвам ги но като цяло предпочитам в ушите отколкото отворени

 

[kova4a]

I enjoy the IEM discussion but crinacle’s criteria for ranking IEMs is completely different from mine. For example he has one bright IEM that is A or above, whereas I generally speaking prefer bright headphones and IEM

Well, as he's said many times his list is subjective. On the other hand, he has ranked the sony ex1000 at S-, so he obviously doesn't have anything against bright iems per se, but mostly that he thinks not that many bright iems deserve an S score. Also, a bunch of the iems labeled V-shaped or balanced are actually pretty bright. It's weird that you raise this issue and owning so many non-bright iems.

 

[mvvRAZ]

Well, as he's said many times his list is subjective. On the other hand, he has ranked the sony ex1000 at S-, so he obviously doesn't have anything against bright iems per se, but mostly that he thinks not that many bright iems deserve an S score. Also, a bunch of the iems labeled V-shaped or balanced are actually pretty bright. It's weird that you raise this issue and owning so many non-bright iems.

I’m not raising it as an issue, some guy in the thread asked why we’re in it considering we don’t full agree with his ranking of the IEMs - imo his assessments (short descriptions) of the IEMs are on point, but the grades he assigns are based on criteria that doesn’t do it for me - and to answer his question I’m in this thread cause I enjoy the discussion

The only warm IEM I own is the Noir, and I use that exclusively for rock/hip hop/rap - the U18t I use with the M13 module which reduces the bass tons, and the A18t was reshelled and re-wired by FiR so it has an elevated treble response. The M5 is pretty bright and the Katana is dead neutral

 

[kova4a]

I’m not raising it as an issue, some guy in the thread asked why we’re in it considering we don’t full agree with his ranking of the IEMs - imo his assessments (short descriptions) of the IEMs are on point, but the grades he assigns are based on criteria that doesn’t do it for me - and to answer his question I’m in this thread cause I enjoy the discussion

The only warm IEM I own is the Noir, and I use that exclusively for rock/hip hop/rap - the U18t I use with the M13 module which reduces the bass tons, and the A18t was reshelled and re-wired by FiR so it has an elevated treble response. The M5 is pretty bright and the Katana is dead neutral

Well, as I said that's subjective, but IMo he has a pretty wide representation of different sound signatures in the A-S range. Also, he did share his target curve, so it's obvious that he doesn't give priority to boosted bass and warm signatures. In fact his target curve is probably very close to yours

 

[aminus]

Well, as I said that's subjective, but IMo he has a pretty wide representation of different sound signatures in the A-S range. Also, he did share his target curve, so it's obvious that he doesn't give priority to boosted bass and warm signatures. In fact his target curve is probably very close to yours

Crin’s target curve is basically his own estimation of a proper curve for pinna compensation in IEMs, against the more traditional DF and Harman curves. His ranking list also doesn’t have any sort of personal preference, the number of IEMs in S and A tier he personally dislikes is a lot more than the number of IEMs under it he personally likes. While yes, the concept of a subjective attempt at objectivity is somewhat flawed, saying that Crin prefers one sig over another in his ranking is pretty silly.

 

[AutumnCrown]

Crin’s target curve is basically his own estimation of a proper curve for pinna compensation in IEMs, against the more traditional DF and Harman curves. His ranking list also doesn’t have any sort of personal preference, the number of IEMs in S and A tier he personally dislikes is a lot more than the number of IEMs under it he personally likes. While yes, the concept of a subjective attempt at objectivity is somewhat flawed, saying that Crin prefers one sig over another in his ranking is pretty silly.

I must have similar pinna/ear canal to Crinacle because to me that harman target (e.g. the er4) is totally out of wack in the midrange. That hump is like 5 dB too high for me. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that my ears are smallish, and don't stick out much, or if it's more about ear canals. I believe is personal favorite is the only S-tier Sony? I would be curious about his other favorites.

Edit: I realize ER4 is diffuse field and not harman, although they must be very similar in the 2-4 khz area where I find the Er4 to be at least 5 dB too loud.

 

[aminus]

I must have similar pinna/ear canal to Crinacle because to me that harman target (e.g. the er4) is totally out of wack in the midrange. That hump is like 5 dB too high for me. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that my ears are smallish, and don't stick out much, or if it's more about ear canals. I believe is personal favorite is the only S-tier Sony? I would be curious about his other favorites.

Yeah, I can’t stand Harman either. DF is slightly more tolerable to me but it’s still north of neutral. I doubt it’s a earsize thing, in fact I would go so far to say that those studies are simply not representative of human hearing and more representative of HATS hearing.
Well to give you an idea his favorite IEMs are his own personally tuned N8 and his Z1R, and he uses the MH755 as a daily driver of sorts. That should clue you into some perspective.

 

[jsmiller58]

To the question asked a few posts back... Why are we all here if we don’t always agree with the OP’s conclusions? Because people want to learn from others. Because people enjoy seeing the very wide variety of IEMs and can the follow up on dedicated threads. Because whether they agree with someone or not, sometimes that person’s opinions can serve as a baseline when properly calibrated against their own preferences. Because people are social creatures. Because, yes, sometimes a little controversy can spice things up.

 

[AutumnCrown]

To the question asked a few posts back... Why are we all here if we don’t always agree with the OP’s conclusions? Because people want to learn from others. Because people enjoy seeing the very wide variety of IEMs and can the follow up on dedicated threads. Because whether they agree with someone or not, sometimes that person’s opinions can serve as a baseline when properly calibrated against their own preferences. Because people are social creatures. Because, yes, sometimes a little controversy can spice things up.

TBH I was trying to stir the pot to get someone to take a stand on the question of why the best sounding headphones tend to be so expensive. I have found this to be true in the over-ear headphone world, though the reasons are utterly mysterious. I was hoping that the IEM world, which I am new to, might be more scientifically explicable. I really like the ER4's technical abilities (though I hate the ergonomics) but even EQ'd I can't get them to sound as good as the Andromeda. And it baffles me as to why this must be the case. It drives me crazy that we don't know why electrostatics sound "fast" and why most planars have a somewhat screwed up treble. That we can't measure technical ability at all. I was hoping someone would say something along the lines of:

"well something like the ER4 could be cheap but the implementation is very difficult and highly patented. Any even the ER4 has audible THD in the midrange, so you need a multi-driver system to keep distortion really low throughout the FR, and the implementation of coherent-sounding crossovers is even more difficult."

But for all I know, all of the above is bull. The ER4 implementation might not be that difficult after 30 years, and even if it was patented, China exists. And the ER4 THD levels (the measurable kind of distortion) are probably not audible. So Multi-driver units probably aren't justified from a scientific perspective, and even if they were, they probably aren't that difficult to engineer, and even if they were, someone would probably get it right by accident with how many different Chifi models there are. I just want a little clarity, but this is hifi we're talking about, so I guess that's hopeless.

Ok, sorry. Rant over.