[jeejack]

Well, the truth is I didn't have a lot of luck with the metal shells, they sound good, but I didn't like the fit, I am using either the wood shells or mx500 shells, I specially liked the 400ohm in wood, then I played around with the size of the holes in the back, added some cloth bandage tape on the inside and different tuning filters

Mx500 just seem to work better in many cases, so I started to focus on them

You were right about the 400 ohm driver. Sounds damn good in a wooden shell. Bye bye bass bost. And 130 ohms in the MX500 sounds better than in a wooden shell

 

[robar]

I don't know if you've noticed how fashionable it is now for each new pair to cost over $300.
Few days ago new Yinman came out on Taobao and guess what, this is the all info that they have. Like they selling a pair of $5 dollars.
It's important that they did a lot of photos in some "supposedly" retro style

Lol yes, it might as well be just a few random diy parts put together for the price of a decent hi-fi headphone from a big brand. I'm really not sure what are they thinking, it would be bold even for Apple.. Or are these buds so hyped that rich people buy every model for the coolness factor?

I haven't tried more expensive earbuds but don't you think that there is a plateau for earbuds in terms of SQ? It's really hard for me to believe that a 300usd earbud would be anywhere near competitive with a similarly priced headphone..

 

[Themilkman46290]

Been watching and listening to earbuds for about 4 years, when the most expensive earbuds were 300 bucks, and the average totl bud was around 120-190 (I feel this was justified, if the quality of sound was good enough) during this time I began reading a lot about different companies (like venture electronics, faeal, seahf, earphone association)
And I cam across some group that was talking about the how some of these guys made there success, the industry had shifted away from earbuds in general and focused on iems, because of that, the price on foster style drivers had dropped tremendously, this left some dead stock of totl drivers in different wear houses in China and other places, some of these guys formed the earbud association and and other companies and catered to Asian comunity and they raised enough money to buy a few thousand drivers, they then tuned this for some headphone meets and had begun selling very cheap totl buds to people in there area, and in the case of VE they had grown big enough to begin selling outside of there company.
So now that there has been a huge boom in the earbud market companies like Audiotechnica jump in with outrageously priced garbage, and of course it sold, this signalled other leading companies to drop the budget segment and jump into the high end segment.
I was chatting with the owner of VE monk, and asked about there new pricing and he said there was no point for him to spend so much time in the budget segment, he can sell the same products to the "money is no object" segment and make huge returned on the same products, that was 3 years back.
Now VE has a few 500 and 700 dollars totl earbuds, the average price is 300 for a decent pair and audio technica has jumped in with an earbud that was not received as well as they had hope for almost 500 bucks, and people rushed to buy them even tho the reviews had not given them a very positive rating (I had not listened but I understand it was another mid focused bud with "retro" sound) so the industry took a small change, and a bunch of new companies showed up in the "money is no object" crowed. So now that earbuds are becoming popular, we can expect prices to inflate more and more and as long as the western world buys the over priced crap like astell kern, 700 dollar buds and 1000 dollar iems, then companies will move in the direction, and sadly some companies that catered to normal people will slowly move to the "audiofools" group who swear the the best DAP is astell and kern even though it may have high output impedance and weaker amp stage.
I river was a good company with decent prices on there daps, but after apple had revolutionised the market by proving that there was no need to improve your product to convince people that it's far ahead of the competition, you can convince the majority of people that your product is better simply by increasing the price over the competition by atleast 30% and people will beleive it it 30% better, Iriver then decided to use premium materials and give the self a name that sounded like it was German engineered, Astell & kern was born, at stupidly high prices with horrible output impedance and weak amp stages, they need sensitive high impedance dynamic drivers to sound there best.
And let's not get started on the crinacle guy, single handedly bringing down the campfire company who had a reputation of being soooo much better then the competition but selling a lot of overpriced badly tuned crap.
So as long as the world is full of people who are eager to throw away there money because "it is no object" it only makes sense that companies who make very good players with well thought out amp stages and low out put impedance like ibasso to have to raise there price so that people don't think there so much worst then the competition, and make extra money without increasing the amount they spend on research and development, it's a win win for the industry
But we lose, we end up with
Audio-Technica ATH-CM2000Ti for 480 dollars with rolled highs and lows...........

After I bought my k's samsara for 120 bucks, the prices of totl quickly began to increase to the prices they are now, and now there are a lot of new companies, even fiio (a company who has left a bad flavor in my mouth since the x1ii) have 300 dollar earbuds (I wasn't very impressed with there sound)
So I decided to try diy
I used samsara as my reference and to my surprise, like the owner of VE said to me, it isn't difficult to tune an earbud
The 400ohm were the first that I realized can be better, then the 130 I was able to tune better

So if any of the people reading this have been curious to try it, please do
And for the people thinking of dropping 400 on some earbuds, contact me, for that price I will tune drivers to sound how ever you prefer, I will even add a pure silver cable and gold plated mx500 shells for the low low price of 400 dollars..... It's a deal, and I guarantee you, that you are special...

 

[Themilkman46290]

Hope I don't get in trouble for talking bad about sponsors.........
Astell & kern is the best ever. and audio technica is infallible........

 

[meju]

Wish me luck guys !

how does this driver sound?
is it same as fengru's emx500? big & thick mid bass?

btw, hi to all guys here, long time silent reader here

 

[meju]

I have no idea ! I threw it in the trash. I didn't even check anything with a multimeter

is wire from voice coil break?
use gasoline/zippo lighter fluid to weaken the glue, and pull the remaining wire.
sometimes this wires need to be heated first before soldering to melt the insulation.

earbud voice coil wires is very thin, thinner than guitar pickup wires (which is 44awg) that i used to play with

 

[jeejack]

how does this driver sound?
is it same as fengru's emx500? big & thick mid bass?

btw, hi to all guys here, long time silent reader here

Yes! Thick bass

 

[furyossa]

Lol yes, it might as well be just a few random diy parts put together for the price of a decent hi-fi headphone from a big brand. I'm really not sure what are they thinking, it would be bold even for Apple.. Or are these buds so hyped that rich people buy every model for the coolness factor?

I haven't tried more expensive earbuds but don't you think that there is a plateau for earbuds in terms of SQ? It's really hard for me to believe that a 300usd earbud would be anywhere near competitive with a similarly priced headphone..

There is no limit in SQ. The new drivers i.e. new technologies they appear every day, but that is not a reason for the prices of products to rise so drastically.

Been watching and listening to earbuds for about 4 years, when the most expensive earbuds were 300 bucks, and the average totl bud was around 120-190 (I feel this was justified, if the quality of sound was good enough) during this time I began reading a lot about different companies (like venture electronics, faeal, seahf, earphone association)
And I cam across some group that was talking about the how some of these guys made there success, the industry had shifted away from earbuds in general and focused on iems, because of that, the price on foster style drivers had dropped tremendously, this left some dead stock of totl drivers in different wear houses in China and other places, some of these guys formed the earbud association and and other companies and catered to Asian comunity and they raised enough money to buy a few thousand drivers, they then tuned this for some headphone meets and had begun selling very cheap totl buds to people in there area, and in the case of VE they had grown big enough to begin selling outside of there company.
So now that there has been a huge boom in the earbud market companies like Audiotechnica jump in with outrageously priced garbage, and of course it sold, this signalled other leading companies to drop the budget segment and jump into the high end segment.
I was chatting with the owner of VE monk, and asked about there new pricing and he said there was no point for him to spend so much time in the budget segment, he can sell the same products to the "money is no object" segment and make huge returned on the same products, that was 3 years back.
Now VE has a few 500 and 700 dollars totl earbuds, the average price is 300 for a decent pair and audio technica has jumped in with an earbud that was not received as well as they had hope for almost 500 bucks, and people rushed to buy them even tho the reviews had not given them a very positive rating (I had not listened but I understand it was another mid focused bud with "retro" sound) so the industry took a small change, and a bunch of new companies showed up in the "money is no object" crowed. So now that earbuds are becoming popular, we can expect prices to inflate more and more and as long as the western world buys the over priced crap like astell kern, 700 dollar buds and 1000 dollar iems, then companies will move in the direction, and sadly some companies that catered to normal people will slowly move to the "audiofools" group who swear the the best DAP is astell and kern even though it may have high output impedance and weaker amp stage.
I river was a good company with decent prices on there daps, but after apple had revolutionised the market by proving that there was no need to improve your product to convince people that it's far ahead of the competition, you can convince the majority of people that your product is better simply by increasing the price over the competition by atleast 30% and people will beleive it it 30% better, Iriver then decided to use premium materials and give the self a name that sounded like it was German engineered, Astell & kern was born, at stupidly high prices with horrible output impedance and weak amp stages, they need sensitive high impedance dynamic drivers to sound there best.
And let's not get started on the crinacle guy, single handedly bringing down the campfire company who had a reputation of being soooo much better then the competition but selling a lot of overpriced badly tuned crap.
So as long as the world is full of people who are eager to throw away there money because "it is no object" it only makes sense that companies who make very good players with well thought out amp stages and low out put impedance like ibasso to have to raise there price so that people don't think there so much worst then the competition, and make extra money without increasing the amount they spend on research and development, it's a win win for the industry
But we lose, we end up with
Audio-Technica ATH-CM2000Ti for 480 dollars with rolled highs and lows...........

After I bought my k's samsara for 120 bucks, the prices of totl quickly began to increase to the prices they are now, and now there are a lot of new companies, even fiio (a company who has left a bad flavor in my mouth since the x1ii) have 300 dollar earbuds (I wasn't very impressed with there sound)
So I decided to try diy
I used samsara as my reference and to my surprise, like the owner of VE said to me, it isn't difficult to tune an earbud
The 400ohm were the first that I realized can be better, then the 130 I was able to tune better

So if any of the people reading this have been curious to try it, please do
And for the people thinking of dropping 400 on some earbuds, contact me, for that price I will tune drivers to sound how ever you prefer, I will even add a pure silver cable and gold plated mx500 shells for the low low price of 400 dollars..... It's a deal, and I guarantee you, that you are special...

I fully understand your frustration and a book can be written about this. All of this is also one of the big reasons why we are here on this thread. I don't care about fancy aesthetics, promotional brochures and packaging, $5K cables, nor brand logo, who thinks that these can affect the sound of the buds then ... well...
90% of TOTL buds has bad fit and comfort, and it's very sad to waste money on something that "sounds good" but you can enjoy listening to music for half an hour.

 

[furyossa]

btw, hi to all guys here, long time silent reader here

Welcome! I hope to see your creative work here soon

 

[robar]

Been watching and listening to earbuds for about 4 years, when the most expensive earbuds were 300 bucks, and the average totl bud was around 120-190 (I feel this was justified, if the quality of sound was good enough) during this time I began reading a lot about different companies (like venture electronics, faeal, seahf, earphone association)
And I cam across some group that was talking about the how some of these guys made there success, the industry had shifted away from earbuds in general and focused on iems, because of that, the price on foster style drivers had dropped tremendously, this left some dead stock of totl drivers in different wear houses in China and other places, some of these guys formed the earbud association and and other companies and catered to Asian comunity and they raised enough money to buy a few thousand drivers, they then tuned this for some headphone meets and had begun selling very cheap totl buds to people in there area, and in the case of VE they had grown big enough to begin selling outside of there company.
So now that there has been a huge boom in the earbud market companies like Audiotechnica jump in with outrageously priced garbage, and of course it sold, this signalled other leading companies to drop the budget segment and jump into the high end segment.
I was chatting with the owner of VE monk, and asked about there new pricing and he said there was no point for him to spend so much time in the budget segment, he can sell the same products to the "money is no object" segment and make huge returned on the same products, that was 3 years back.
Now VE has a few 500 and 700 dollars totl earbuds, the average price is 300 for a decent pair and audio technica has jumped in with an earbud that was not received as well as they had hope for almost 500 bucks, and people rushed to buy them even tho the reviews had not given them a very positive rating (I had not listened but I understand it was another mid focused bud with "retro" sound) so the industry took a small change, and a bunch of new companies showed up in the "money is no object" crowed. So now that earbuds are becoming popular, we can expect prices to inflate more and more and as long as the western world buys the over priced crap like astell kern, 700 dollar buds and 1000 dollar iems, then companies will move in the direction, and sadly some companies that catered to normal people will slowly move to the "audiofools" group who swear the the best DAP is astell and kern even though it may have high output impedance and weaker amp stage.
I river was a good company with decent prices on there daps, but after apple had revolutionised the market by proving that there was no need to improve your product to convince people that it's far ahead of the competition, you can convince the majority of people that your product is better simply by increasing the price over the competition by atleast 30% and people will beleive it it 30% better, Iriver then decided to use premium materials and give the self a name that sounded like it was German engineered, Astell & kern was born, at stupidly high prices with horrible output impedance and weak amp stages, they need sensitive high impedance dynamic drivers to sound there best.
And let's not get started on the crinacle guy, single handedly bringing down the campfire company who had a reputation of being soooo much better then the competition but selling a lot of overpriced badly tuned crap.
So as long as the world is full of people who are eager to throw away there money because "it is no object" it only makes sense that companies who make very good players with well thought out amp stages and low out put impedance like ibasso to have to raise there price so that people don't think there so much worst then the competition, and make extra money without increasing the amount they spend on research and development, it's a win win for the industry
But we lose, we end up with
Audio-Technica ATH-CM2000Ti for 480 dollars with rolled highs and lows...........

After I bought my k's samsara for 120 bucks, the prices of totl quickly began to increase to the prices they are now, and now there are a lot of new companies, even fiio (a company who has left a bad flavor in my mouth since the x1ii) have 300 dollar earbuds (I wasn't very impressed with there sound)
So I decided to try diy
I used samsara as my reference and to my surprise, like the owner of VE said to me, it isn't difficult to tune an earbud
The 400ohm were the first that I realized can be better, then the 130 I was able to tune better

So if any of the people reading this have been curious to try it, please do
And for the people thinking of dropping 400 on some earbuds, contact me, for that price I will tune drivers to sound how ever you prefer, I will even add a pure silver cable and gold plated mx500 shells for the low low price of 400 dollars..... It's a deal, and I guarantee you, that you are special...

Fascinating story, thanks for sharing! I see you're really well informed in this field.

I can see now how the earbud industry got from humble beginnings to almost snakeoil territory.. How the gap increases between perceived value and actual value. I wouldn't have thought that earbuds become luxury/prestige items, for me they were always such a niche and almost utilitarian design. A portable item that has no isolation and also limited in SQ, really fit dependent and lacking any sort of established industry standard for review method - everything is just so subjective. (I don't know, if I were rich and able to buy expensive stuff, then I'd go for like a flagship headphone which has actual engineering and history behind it, or at least something big and beautiful enough to put in the cabinet lol, not some sketchy gadget but that's me. )

I always thought that those flagship models are really just for display and marketing and in reality nobody buys them except for a few collectors. But if there is a market for luxury earbuds then I can totally see manufacturers can just scale the price range and fill up the middle segment to justify the expensive product. Technically yes a 500 dollar earbud could worth its price if it's a 100 dollar earbud plus 400 dollar worth of accessories, but I wouldn't say it's healthy or fair.

Honestly the best thing about earbuds is DIY imho, it's such a rare case in the audio world when one could create something actually nice and personalized with minimal equipment/budget

@furyossa By limited SQ I meant compared to headphones - I just don't think earbuds can keep up. Before the prices inflated one could have said that they were actually competitive in the price segment, but I just don't believe this can scale well with todays flagship luxury items. And what's actually nice about earbuds - comfort, portability, natural sound signature - any decent earbud can do this.

 

[furyossa]

Honestly the best thing about earbuds is DIY imho, it's such a rare case in the audio world when one could create something actually nice and personalized with minimal equipment/budget

Well said my friend, and I wish to say the same for IEMs and Headphones but for now will stay here and be quiet

 

[Themilkman46290]

Well, it is awesome that there is this diy section, same goes for the diy iem section, I spent less then 50 bucks on a pair and they are seriously the best iems I have ever had, and I listened to etymotic from 2004 until 2011, then they broke, I notice how the price on everything had jumped in everything, so I decided to give up and got cheap Sony and koss iems, I was happy with earbuds because when I started getting into them the price to performance was really good.

Atleast it's still possible in diy, this brings me to a build that I have been enjoying a lot lately, cost me about 8 bucks all together




It has become one of the more balanced pair that I have, pretty spacious, using 7:1 foam on the housing, y4 paper on the yolk, and the tubing, 3.5mm od and 2mm id almost 1.5cm long

I would have to say, this is they best I have under 15 dollar build and has lasted longer then the majority of the 19-21 builds I had

 

[Themilkman46290]

I would like to add that 5 years ago, a 50 dollar earbud, could be comparable to 50 dollar open headphone, but now, forget it, my 120 dollar samsara lose to my 80 dollar grados
And my 35 dollar 400ohm diy pretty much wipe the floor with them

 

[furyossa]

I would like to add that 5 years ago, a 50 dollar earbud, could be comparable to 50 dollar open headphone, but now, forget it, my 120 dollar samsara lose to my 80 dollar grados
And my 35 dollar 400ohm diy pretty much wipe the floor with them

And those are the words of a professional DIY-er, no fun intended.
Why are you using my avatar?

 

[Themilkman46290]

And those are the words of a professional DIY-er, no fun intended.
Why are you using my avatar?

Oops, was trying to change for a black and white version, but keep having trouble, what can I say, I like your style