[caracal]

a sheet of PK foams

These are for the drivers or for the vents? Or do you cut them in half? They don't look like those on the pricey shells.

 

[robar]

These are for the drivers or for the vents? Or do you cut them in half? They don't look like those on the pricey shells.

These are for the vents of various shells, for example PK but many others (usually 14.8mm) as well. These on the pic do have slightly different shape, I've seen almost square-shaped ones installed mostly

 

[HungryPanda]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32705387792.html I also use the bits left in the middle from the horseshoe tuning foams to block PK and other shells vents

 

[robar]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32705387792.html I also use the bits left in the middle from the horseshoe tuning foams to block PK and other shells vents

Thanks for the link, so pricey lol. I tried those middle bits as well but for the B40 shells (only 1 vent open on top) they didn't work well, only the regular foams which has only glue on the edges. Also I'm a bit cautious as they have glue on the exposed part as well, so I guess they will collect dust like crazy.

 

[subwoof3r]

By the way, how do you like the 150ohm from cklewis?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32983256142.html

They were my previous reference just before the 130 ohm beryllium arrived loved them, I think they were of my first steps to real DIY "world of quality"
I think I should make some new MX500 shells and solder them again (just to remember how they performs)

hopefully these will be available for less money in the future, looks very interesting, 32ohm titanium bass speakers:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000548907020.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000444169392.html

Interesting! the first looks better (not sure why, the second link looks more common. They all says 32 ohm titanium, looks like its a common description but not sure they are real titanium for some sellers)

 

[robar]

They were my previous reference just before the 130 ohm beryllium arrived loved them, I think they were of my first steps to real DIY "world of quality"
I think I should make some new MX500 shells and solder them again (just to remember how they performs)


Interesting! the first looks better (not sure why, the second link looks more common. They all says 32 ohm titanium, looks like its a common description but not sure they are real titanium for some sellers)

I'll probably try those 150ohms then The photos are somewhat confusing on that listing at cklewis, I suppose this is the same and the pics here show how it looks in real life, isn't it? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32979616405.html

I think those 32ohm titaniums might be the lower impedance versions of the 64ohm titanium we ordered. The two looks the same to me just with different covers. I'd be especially interested in the steel mesh version, but these have the regular 2x price treatment of those stores I think (they sell the 64ohm for 15usd as well, which is 6usd at nsc), so I'll wait and hope these will appear in the inventory of nsc or jietu store. :

 

[subwoof3r]

I'll probably try those 150ohms then The photos are somewhat confusing on that listing at cklewis, I suppose this is the same and the pics here show how it looks in real life, isn't it? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32979616405.html

Yup, just checked, I confirm its the exact same drivers that used
I don't think there is any other better 150ohm drivers yet, but maybe somewhere else than ali ^^
I still think you'd better to grab 130 ohm beryllium instead. Most of 150ohm+ drivers in 15.4mm I tried for now are way too warm (especially the 500ohm beryllium ones). It's like the more impedence and the warmer you'll get (based on my experience), lol

 

[robar]

Yup, just checked, I confirm its the exact same drivers that used
I don't think there is any other better 150ohm drivers yet, but maybe somewhere else than ali ^^
I still think you'd better to grab 130 ohm beryllium instead. Most of 150ohm+ drivers in 15.4mm I tried for now are way too warm (especially the 500ohm beryllium ones). It's like the more impedence and the warmer you'll get (based on my experience), lol

That's good to hear thanks I don't plan to buy the beryllium, I don't want any speaker made with that material and it's too expensive as well. About the warm high impedance speakers: I think I've already brought this up once, but are you sure the extra warmth is not due to inadequate driving power? In my experience stuff tend to sound warm and soft when my source is not enough. I'm not really sure about the reasons behind such high impedance speakers either, like 400-600ohm - what's the point really? Can't manufacturers create an similar performing speaker at max 150ohm? I'm sure there are better and worse speakers in such high impedances as well, then isn't it better to buy a very good lower impedance speaker than let's say buying an average 500ohm one? (of course maybe there aren't any top quality low impedance speakers available on ali)

 

[subwoof3r]

That's good to hear thanks I don't plan to buy the beryllium, I don't want any speaker made with that material and it's too expensive as well. About the warm high impedance speakers: I think I've already brought this up once, but are you sure the extra warmth is not due to inadequate driving power? In my experience stuff tend to sound warm and soft when my source is not enough. I'm not really sure about the reasons behind such high impedance speakers either, like 400-600ohm - what's the point really? Can't manufacturers create an similar performing speaker at max 150ohm? I'm sure there are better and worse speakers in such high impedances as well, then isn't it better to buy a very good lower impedance speaker than let's say buying an average 500ohm one? (of course maybe there aren't any top quality low impedance speakers available on ali)

I drived my 500 ohm into my Fostex HP-A8C dac/amp which can drive anything up to 600ohm, the results were way too warm (for my tastes) but I need to try into my ES100 in max power output (via balanced mode which needs to be 300ohm minimum, never tried this step yet, so it could be interesting)

 

[robar]

I drived my 500 ohm into my Fostex HP-A8C dac/amp which can drive anything up to 600ohm, the results were way too warm (for my tastes) but I need to try into my ES100 in max power output (via balanced mode which needs to be 300ohm minimum, never tried this step yet, so it could be interesting)

It could also be something related to the tuning? I don't have experience with such high impedance speakers but I'm sure a frequency response measurement would reveal interesting things. It might need different dampening than other speakers. Warmth for me at least is an abundance of freqs around 200-600hz

 

[Themilkman46290]

Finally got the 600ohm, was tuning, and one of the drivers simply stopped

Should I bother with a dispute or is it all on me at this point?

 

[HungryPanda]

unlucky

 

[Themilkman46290]

I am heart broken, saved money for a wile... They sounded pretty awesome

 

[headenvelopedinsound]

That's good to hear thanks I don't plan to buy the beryllium, I don't want any speaker made with that material and it's too expensive as well. About the warm high impedance speakers: I think I've already brought this up once, but are you sure the extra warmth is not due to inadequate driving power? In my experience stuff tend to sound warm and soft when my source is not enough. I'm not really sure about the reasons behind such high impedance speakers either, like 400-600ohm - what's the point really? Can't manufacturers create an similar performing speaker at max 150ohm? I'm sure there are better and worse speakers in such high impedances as well, then isn't it better to buy a very good lower impedance speaker than let's say buying an average 500ohm one? (of course maybe there aren't any top quality low impedance speakers available on ali)

Here is a good explanation of why different ohms "matter" to a point. He does a far better explanation than I could, with actual tests to show how each of them behave. DT880 32, 250, and 600ohm. https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-dt-880-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones

 

[robar]

Here is a good explanation of why different ohms "matter" to a point. He does a far better explanation than I could, with actual tests to show how each of them behave. DT880 32, 250, and 600ohm. https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-dt-880-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones

Thanks for the link, yes I'm familiar with the concept of damping factor. However in my opinion this is more about matching your equipment well especially with these random oem chinese speakers. With most portable dacs having way less than 1ohm output usually, I'm not sure if this has any significance in most cases.. (the innerfidelity article used a roughly 2ohm output for the example, and even there the difference between 250 and 600ohm was minor) Why not use a less than 0.5ohm output with low impedance speaker to match the damping factor of the high impedance + amp setup and then compare? For me earbuds are portable devices and I'm a bit skeptical that the minor theoretical advantage of let's say a 500ohm speaker has over 150ohm outweighs the difference between actual speaker models and what it looses in a typical use case by driving it with small less ideal gear, adding the poor isolation etc.

While this article compare supposedly the same speaker design with different impedance, I was more interested in comparing the price/performance of actual speakers we can buy for aliexpress. I get interested in this because there seems to be a craze about very high impedance earbuds lately, while the most of today's high tier earbuds seem to be even less than 50ohm. I did a quick check: Turandot: 16ohm, Bell Ti: 30ohm, ST10: 45ohm, M1Pro: 32ohm, Chaconne: 24ohm, Liebesleid: 24ohm.
Do these 300-600ohm speakers from ali really worth their price? Are there a lack of high quality low impedance speakers that could match their performance? Or this is just the cool factor of big numbers and having something to justify the big amps at home for these small earbuds?
I'm aware that many people here already own the big amps and therefore it's a no brainer to try some highs impedance stuff even just for fun. But building an earbud audio setup from scratch concentrating on audio quality, isn't it better to just focus on max 150(-300ohm) gear with low output impedance source and make the most out of it?