Tender needs burn in! As an early bird user, after 60 hours of burn in, the change is obvious.I am not a believer in burn in but I figured I would do it with the Tender 1 since I have seen several comments that they really do change.
I ran them for around 75 hours at loud listening volume including a 12 hour stint on the Diablo at well above listening level, like all I could stand for a few seconds, MacBook to Diablo at 3pm on Standard gain. I picked a really busy bass heavy song on repeat.
I listened on and off, generally morning and night and I swear after about 50 hours they had changed. The bass seemed equally impactful and precise but seemed to dig deeper where before it was just a bit light sounding. I compared to another IEM that I know well that has more bass and I am sure the difference has closed right up.
The Tender 1 sound good on the Diablo but I think I might prefer them on the Mojo. I don’t usually hear obvious differences from amplification but the Tender 1 seem more source dependent than anything I have experienced before. Diablo is clear, precise and punchy but perhaps just a touch analytical while the Mojo seems to bring just a little warmth to the sound.
Gryphon is nice also and XBass is nice to have on some tracks.
Mojo and Gryphon do certainly need to be pushed a good bit harder than Diablo, Mojo was on double dark blue to be loud which is about where Dan Clark Aeon are.
Anson mentioned this in the email that he designed a burn in AMP for tender and all tenders need to pass 120 hours of aging test before they can be sold.
The best combo I have tried is DTR1+, and Woo Audio WA11 also performed well, and the SQ was warm and powerful.
