[furyossa]

I found a little aliexpress trick yesterday if you're interested. In the mobile app, there is a menu called something like "coupon pals" under the coupons tab. It directs you to a silly minigame where you need to tap a button as fast as you can for 10 seconds. If you get to the full bar, you get (need to press the redeem button) a universal aliexpress coupon which is applicable for any order over a certain amount. I did it twice and got two 1.5usd off over 11usd coupons. I found this because I was thinking about buying the little brother of the ES9018K2M "fever" DAC which I'm still really impressed with. I needed a backup / secondary dac which is cheap and portable, works with OTG and can drive stuff properly at least up to 100-150ohm. So I was quite happy to find this trick, I could order the stick for about 12usd with aliexpress standard shipping included. I'll post impressions when I get it link: ES9023 dac


By the way, do you know an aliexpress listing where I could buy mx760 shells for cheap? The original style, which has two holes through the stem. I found some listings few months ago where they sold a pair for about 1-2 usd, but they disappeared since then. I really like my modded blue mx760 build from the NSC DIY kit (which also disappeared from alli), I'm still impressed every time I listen to it. Would be nice to build more stuff with these shells now that I figured out how to make them sing.


Third topic: sometimes a topic comes up about what music do we test with, or use as a benchmark for earbud evaluation. I just found a gem for vocals a few days ago. It's a channel called stories from the creators of Scary Pockets and Poomplamoose, and in my opinion this is their best project to this day. It's about minimalist, acoustic covers of popular songs, focusing on amazing guest singers. The music and the recording quality is top notch. The maxed out Spotify has waay better sound quality than the youtube version. Every song is great, but here is some starting suggestions from me:
Dreams - Lily Kershaw
Ain't no sunshine - Sarah Dugas
Your Song - Kenton Chen
Black Hole Sun - Jennah Bell
How deep is your love - Abby Celso
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yUK_2HT9rxQSsweAjjNiA/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid


Also, here is my spotify playlist for testing, which got way out of hand with hundreds of songs (the embedded player only shows the first 100, but there's much more lol)

Only found these 3 links for MX760:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000851137552.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32811264808.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32757755374.html
BTW...nice music choice, I will test it tomorrow

 

[robar]

Only found these 3 links for MX760:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000851137552.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32811264808.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32757755374.html
BTW...nice music choice, I will test it tomorrow

Thanks, I've seen these but they're not what I'm after. The trick to those earlier listing was that mx760 wasnt mentioned anywhere in the title or description lol. And usually random stores sold them which were not specialized in audio.

I have the first one, it's not mx760, that vent layout of the shell is more similar to DP100. The main problem with those is that the diameter is smaller than neccessary and I cant snap on any common 15.4mm speaker on them. (And my glue hasnt arrived since april) I'm working on a build with vido drivers transplanted into extra tight non-standard covers but I got stuck because one of the speakers became bad sounding after the cover swap.

Hope you find my list useful

 

[assassin10000]

By the way how do you tune pk-style shells? I'm really struggling, no matter what I put on the vents, I just cant seem to get rid of the typical characteristic: too warm, soft bass and overemphasized upper mids/lower treble. I'm trying to do something with the B40 speakers with different pk-like shells and the sony ericcson bud I wrote a out earlier.

It may be the drivers you are using.

With the pk1 150Ω redfilm drivers and the metal 'bell' shaped shells I used micropore tape and a needle to tune the bass response. And I added some cotton from a cotton ball to dampen resonance.


With the N55 64Ω and MMCX PK shells that I cut the stem off of, I only put that center mx500 foam over the vent.

If I needed less bass I would probably seal the port behind the MMCX/cable opening and resize it using a drill bit.

 

[robar]

It may be the drivers you are using.

With the pk1 150Ω redfilm drivers and the metal 'bell' shaped shells I used micropore tape and a needle to tune the bass response. And I added some cotton from a cotton ball to dampen resonance.

With the N55 64Ω and MMCX PK shells that I cut the stem off of, I only put that center mx500 foam over the vents.

Your builds seem to have lot less venting due to mmcx etc. Maybe I need to close the airflow from the cable tunnel then. These kind of pk shells have one or two big vents on top plus open bass port plus open cable hole, maybe its too much. I only have medical tape and standard tuning horseshoe foams, couldnt really find any micropore tape locally :/ If I have time, I think I'll also try modding the bell shaped metal shell of the TOPK bud which I found to be compatible with 14.8mm. I was thinking about buying a set of PK2 speakers (about 10usd for 5 pairs) but these 14.8mm shells seemed quite risky so far for tuning.

 

[assassin10000]

Your builds seem to have lot less venting due to mmcx etc. Maybe I need to close the airflow from the cable tunnel then. These kind of pk shells have one or two big vents on top plus open bass port plus open cable hole, maybe its too much. I only have medical tape and standard tuning horseshoe foams, couldnt really find any micropore tape locally :/ If I have time, I think I'll also try modding the bell shaped metal shell of the TOPK bud which I found to be compatible with 14.8mm. I was thinking about buying a set of PK2 speakers (about 10usd for 5 pairs) but these 14.8mm shells seemed quite risky so far for tuning.

Breathable 3M medical 'paper' tape is micropore tape.

You could use a bit of e8000 or e6000 glue to seal the ports. Even silicone or hot glue would work for semi-permanent solutions.

___________________

Fyi on e6000 vs e8000 glue.

I took a bit of e6000 & e8000 glue and let it cure to see how strong they are. The e6000 is much stronger and was harder to tear apart, the e8000 was softer and easier to tear. Both dry or cure flexible and are semi-permanent but the e8000 is softer and is easier to remove because of it.

 

[Slater]

You must have ridiculously fast fingers lol. I can get over the 1/2 way mark and partway to the 3/4 mark only.


I got a new soldering iron from AE. One of those cheapish digital adjustable temp ones. We'll see how it works once I get around to doing something with it. Hoping the much smaller tips than my 20 year old weller make things way easier.

I bought that exact same one. It worked great 3 times and then died. The seller sent me a replacement, which was DOA. I finally got fed up and bought a Hakko digital soldering station and never looked back.

I sincerely hope that you have much better luck with that soldering iron than I did.

Maybe one of these days I’ll take the broken soldering irons apart, figure out what’s wrong with it, and use my Hakko soldering iron to fix them. That is a mind blowing thought haha

 

[assassin10000]

I bought that exact same one. It worked great 3 times and then died. The seller sent me a replacement, which was DOA. I finally got fed up and bought a Hakko digital soldering station and never looked back.

I sincerely hope that you have much better luck with that soldering iron than I did.

Maybe one of these days I’ll take the broken soldering irons apart, figure out what’s wrong with it, and use my Hakko soldering iron to fix them. That is a mind blowing thought haha

Lol. Well thanks. I hope so too. Already turned it on and off like 10 times so already outlasted your record.

Figured out how to change temp over to F as well, hold both buttons down while plugging in. It also has another option or two I'm trying to figure out.

 

[Slater]

Lol. Well thanks. I hope so too. Already turned it on and off like 10 times so already outlasted your record.

Figured out how to change temp over to F as well, hold both buttons down while plugging in. It also has another option or two I'm trying to figure out.

Be very very careful with the tips. The ceramic element down inside is ridiculously fragile. In fact, I don’t recommend even unscrewing the cap or trying to change the tip. Just leave the tip that came with it on.

 

[robar]

Has anyone tried these 300ohm N52 drivers? Quite cheap for a high impedance speaker, only 10usd but looks nice. Not sure if it's a newer or older model, I haven't really kept track of high impedance drivers. Looks similar to the "blue blob" 150ohm driver from the outside. It's possible that you already discussed it, I just couldn't find anything related in a quick search. (with the terrible search function of headfi haha)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001103895371.html

And here is a new 15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium speaker which I haven't seen before. Extremely cheap for 3usd. Looks unusual, any experience or opinions? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001296003822.html

 

[furyossa]

Has anyone tried these 300ohm N52 drivers? Quite cheap for a high impedance speaker, only 10usd but looks nice. Not sure if it's a newer or older model, I haven't really kept track of high impedance drivers. Looks similar to the "blue blob" 150ohm driver from the outside. It's possible that you already discussed it, I just couldn't find anything related in a quick search. (with the terrible search function of headfi haha)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001103895371.html

And here is a new 15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium speaker which I haven't seen before. Extremely cheap for 3usd. Looks unusual, any experience or opinions? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001296003822.html

Short info for 300ohm N52
15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium is a sensitive driver. 116±3dB for low resistance drivers (32ohm) ... hmmm... probably will skip this,
The problem is at higher volume level sound can be harsh and distorted.
Bery 600ohm has sensitivity around 100db, Bery 130ohm around 107db, graphene 400ohm around 102db. This is a good ratio for my taste.
I just found about this model. It has 96db / 400ohm. This is hard to drive, Very nice specs.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32879372064.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32862696536.html

 

[robar]

Short info for 300ohm N52
15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium is a sensitive driver. 116±3dB for low resistance drivers (32ohm) ... hmmm... probably will skip this,
The problem is at higher volume level sound can be harsh and distorted.
Bery 600ohm has sensitivity around 100db, Bery 130ohm around 107db, graphene 400ohm around 102db. This is a good ratio for my taste.
I just found about this model. It has 96db / 400ohm. This is hard to drive, Very nice specs.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32879372064.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32862696536.html

Thanks, I'll probably skip the 32ohm and wishlist the 300. If I decide to go higher impedance in the future, this will be a nice starting point then.

 

[assassin10000]

Wish those 14.8mm 40Ω bass drivers would get here already. Itching to try them or at least something new.


In other news, I found the instruction / manual for that 908s soldering iron after browsing a bunch of sale listings on AE.

Spoiler: 908S soldering iron instructions

 

[willyboyaudio]

I found a little aliexpress trick yesterday if you're interested. In the mobile app, there is a menu called something like "coupon pals" under the coupons tab. It directs you to a silly minigame where you need to tap a button as fast as you can for 10 seconds. If you get to the full bar, you get (need to press the redeem button) a universal aliexpress coupon which is applicable for any order over a certain amount. I did it twice and got two 1.5usd off over 11usd coupons. I found this because I was thinking about buying the little brother of the ES9018K2M "fever" DAC which I'm still really impressed with. I needed a backup / secondary dac which is cheap and portable, works with OTG and can drive stuff properly at least up to 100-150ohm. So I was quite happy to find this trick, I could order the stick for about 12usd with aliexpress standard shipping included. I'll post impressions when I get it link: ES9023 dac
[...]
Third topic: sometimes a topic comes up about what music do we test with, or use as a benchmark for earbud evaluation. I just found a gem for vocals a few days ago. It's a channel called stories from the creators of Scary Pockets and Poomplamoose, and in my opinion this is their best project to this day. It's about minimalist, acoustic covers of popular songs, focusing on amazing guest singers. The music and the recording quality is top notch. The maxed out Spotify has waay better sound quality than the youtube version. [...]

Hi @robar you piqued my interest in the DAC. Would be nice to improve the audio on my work computer a little bit hehe. So this ES9023 DAC is a different one from the ES9018K2M you've owned? If so, do you have link to the 9018? I look forward to your review of the 9023.
I also like Scary Pockets and Pomplamoose and use them regularly when reviewing or tuning hahaha.

Has anyone tried these 300ohm N52 drivers? Quite cheap for a high impedance speaker, only 10usd but looks nice. Not sure if it's a newer or older model, I haven't really kept track of high impedance drivers. Looks similar to the "blue blob" 150ohm driver from the outside. It's possible that you already discussed it, I just couldn't find anything related in a quick search. (with the terrible search function of headfi haha)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001103895371.html

And here is a new 15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium speaker which I haven't seen before. Extremely cheap for 3usd. Looks unusual, any experience or opinions? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001296003822.html

I'm also interested in that one

Short info for 300ohm N52
15.4mm steel mesh 32ohm titanium is a sensitive driver. 116±3dB for low resistance drivers (32ohm) ... hmmm... probably will skip this,
The problem is at higher volume level sound can be harsh and distorted.
Bery 600ohm has sensitivity around 100db, Bery 130ohm around 107db, graphene 400ohm around 102db. This is a good ratio for my taste.
I just found about this model. It has 96db / 400ohm. This is hard to drive, Very nice specs.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32879372064.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32862696536.html

Hi @furyossa thank you for your impressions (in reply to my question, even). Upon reading it again, I wonder if the V-shape tuning you describe is with the stock horseshoe foam intact?
My latest acquisition is an Audio Technica R70x, 99 dB/470 Ohm. Very very nice headphones, vocals and instruments open up with more volume, the sound is controlled and not offensive, similar to what you said about this 300 Ohm driver. Makes me want to try a high impedance earbuds even more.
Or, forget what I said and think of it as a justification to spend money on this hobby hahaha.

 

[Themilkman46290]

Hi @robar you piqued my interest in the DAC. Would be nice to improve the audio on my work computer a little bit hehe. So this ES9023 DAC is a different one from the ES9018K2M you've owned? If so, do you have link to the 9018? I look forward to your review of the 9023.
I also like Scary Pockets and Pomplamoose and use them regularly when reviewing or tuning hahaha.


I'm also interested in that one


Hi @furyossa thank you for your impressions (in reply to my question, even). Upon reading it again, I wonder if the V-shape tuning you describe is with the stock horseshoe foam intact?
My latest acquisition is an Audio Technica R70x, 99 dB/470 Ohm. Very very nice headphones, vocals and instruments open up with more volume, the sound is controlled and not offensive, similar to what you said about this 300 Ohm driver. Makes me want to try a high impedance earbuds even more.
Or, forget what I said and think of it as a justification to spend money on this hobby hahaha.

The 400,500, and 600 ohm are the best, 400 ohms are have the best mix of highs and sub bass after tuning, they are also the most responsive to tuning. The 500 have the best sub bass but are a bit harder to tune, the 600 have good sub bass but are slightly rolled of on the highs and are very difficult to tune, better if you leave the factory tuning on this one

 

[robar]

Hi @robar you piqued my interest in the DAC. Would be nice to improve the audio on my work computer a little bit hehe. So this ES9023 DAC is a different one from the ES9018K2M you've owned? If so, do you have link to the 9018? I look forward to your review of the 9023.
I also like Scary Pockets and Pomplamoose and use them regularly when reviewing or tuning hahaha.


I'm also interested in that one


Hi @furyossa thank you for your impressions (in reply to my question, even). Upon reading it again, I wonder if the V-shape tuning you describe is with the stock horseshoe foam intact?
My latest acquisition is an Audio Technica R70x, 99 dB/470 Ohm. Very very nice headphones, vocals and instruments open up with more volume, the sound is controlled and not offensive, similar to what you said about this 300 Ohm driver. Makes me want to try a high impedance earbuds even more.
Or, forget what I said and think of it as a justification to spend money on this hobby hahaha.

Oh nice, than definitely give their "stories" youtube channel a try

I can absolutely recommend the "DAC AUDIO" ES9018K2M DAC, it sounds really nice and has good power for very little money. First dac of mine which really brings the Faaeal Rosemary 150ohm alive. I have a vintage silver AKG K141 4-600ohm and it sounds punchy and dynamic as well. Just turn the volume down before trying, it gets very loud very fast with my pc. It mainly works on computers, phone/android compatibility is very hit or miss, it needs good usb source definitely. I use it daily with my windows desktop computer. Here's a review that @furyossa showed me, and eventually sealed the deal for me:

(edit: srry I posted the wrong link before, this is the actual review)

and the link to the aliexpress listing from where I ordered:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32932392383.html

I have not yet received the "DAC AUDIO" ES9023P DAC, I think it'll arrive in 2-3 weeks if everything goes well. It's half the price of the ES9018K2M, and understandably it should be somewhat less good. However it supports android/OTG, and I expect it to be still noticeably better and more powerful than most type-c dongles for the same price. Of course it's all theory at this point but the reviews are promising. It appears to be from the same manufacturer who did the ES9018 so I have good faith in the tuning and performance of this dac. It could be the ultimate ultra-low-budget usb dac that is decent at everything for peanuts haha. Something that we could just throw in a laptop bag, plug into an office computer or bring along a vacation and not worry about much