[JAnonymous5150]

Who the heck are you??? One hell of a funny and interesting guy, that's who!

The only psilocybin based therapy I did was when I was a teenager after finding a particularly productive farmer's field. Let's just say that the therapy was not quite a successful as I wanted it to be lol

Anyway, you are very entertaining and informative, so thanks for contributing!

On an earbud related note, here's a very positive (surprise surprise) review of the FF3 by @twister6:
https://twister6.com/2022/09/09/fiio-ff3/2/

My set has finally been shipped after being delayed due to covid lockdown. They can't get here quick enough - I know I'm going to love them.

Thank you very kindly! I'm glad you got a kick out of it and I'm always happy to contribute. And trust me knowing who I am isn't nearly as interesting as you might think. I mean, I like to think I'm cool and all that, but I'm not some rockstar laying low. I promise! My band is what you might call moderately successful in the grand scheme of things, but I would be shocked if anyone here knew me by name or face. A few folks who like and follow indie rock have probably heard of the band I'm in, but we're nowhere near successful enough for that to be guaranteed.

You want a funny story, I'll give you one. Being a drummer in a recently moderately successful band hasn't made me a recognizable figure. I occasionally do drum clinics for a couple companies I have endorsement deals with and some hardcore drummers know who I am, but until the last couple years more of them knew me because of a band I filled in on tour with or a couple of drum solo videos that got me some recognition a few years ago.

So with that in mind, I was walking around downtown in this city we played a couple months ago looking for some late night grub. I spot a local hamburger drive in kinda place and I get in line. I'm standing there looking up at the menu when I catch a snippet of conversation going on behind and to the side of me.

Guy 1: Dude, no way. It's not him. Now shut the F up before you creep this dude out.

Girl: I don't know, I think it's him. I'm gonna google him.

*I start doing a super casual look around to see if I can figure out who they're talking about*

Guy 2: It's def (yes he said def lol) him. I don't need to see pics. I saw their Fing show!

*Right as I realize it's me they're talking about Guy 2 talks to me*

I tried to be all rockstar cool because the dude knew my name and as a fellow drummer he even knew what kit I use and was pretty stoked to see me. Inside I was all happy and stuff because this was legitimately the first time that I have ever been singled out on the street. I was definitely glad it was pretty dark even by the window because I'm not positive I wasn't blushing or something.

I ended up eating some take out with some drunk locals one of whom had actually been to my band's show the night before. I signed some autographs and gave them some contact info for how to score free tickets for the mid week show we had coming up and some shirts and stuff for making my night by recognizing me.

I have been recognized at events where people knew I was attending or with my band, but never on the street by myself before. Does that give you a better idea of the scale of non-rockstardom we're dealing with here lol?!?!

 

[Ronion]

I also like the (false?) confidence when I have a coupler with me. The only challenge is I have no way to know the ground truth. Still, I have listened to IEMs and looked at their IEC711 graphs, and vice versa, so many times that I have formed certain kind of association between graph and sound (That’s why I always complain about the weirdness of the graphs of those Smabat drivers). I don’t agree with some reviewers and manufacturers (like Moondrop) who think the closer you get to Harman / VSDF / etc., the better “sound quality”, but it’s good to have a target. Otherwise, your tuning can go every where, and then you spend time blacklisting reviewers for saying that your tuning sucks .

Change, listen, measure, confirm / reject hypothesis, form new hypothesis, repeat. I like to think that's how we should go. The faster and more accurate we go through the loop, the better we can learn. That's why I'm enthusiastic about something like Smabat M4. It's certainly faster to learn with M4 than soldering iron and drills



I’m curious about that first driver. Are those cones paper?? Seems like a cheap and cheery platform for testing all kinds of mods.

the SMABAT graphs are crazy weird. I’m not even sure how they are screwing it up so bad…. This is why they have so much trouble tuning and why FiiO doesn’t.

The Harman and Moondrop targets don’t really make a lot of sense. You’ve seen the way the graphs change from a fairly flat in room response, which by Harman’s own data should be too bright (It’s not, but that’s a whole other can of worms). If you reverse extrapolate their headphone graph, there’s no way you come up their room response graph. The whole myth is so…. Interesting. It takes some incredible mental gymnastics to justify their final curve. It’s so bad, even Lars Ulrich knows it (Joke). The feature of their graph that is definitely missing is called the Head Shadow. Here’s some more scholarly supporting documents. Look at the upper left and the upper right photos in this first document. They are not from a stereo source and thus do not contain data from the head shadow.

those last 2 pictures illustrate how the head shadow works. The resultant graphs from a stereo source will look like this taken from my ear and living room:

Both ears will hear low end from both speakers and how they interact with the room. The head is roughly 1,500Hz wide. So the high frequency sound won’t be equal on both sides: the left ear will hear more treble from the left speaker than the right speaker and the right ear will hear more treble from the right speaker than the left speaker. You notice my in room graph is fairly flat, but my in ear graph has the same bass as the room, then the head shadow kicks in, then the pinna gain elevates it (the ear canal resonance is missing from the graph due to mic position), then the notch that occurs d/t the 30 degree speaker placement/standard stereo triangle.

Harman’s in room graph looks like this:

Yet their headphone curve looks like this:

It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The only reason I wouldn’t agree with you about learning faster from SMABAT’s bud is that their tuning is so unusual and their shell so unconventional that you’d be better off with the MX500 for both speed and versatility.

The biggest issue you’ll encounter is calibrating your rig…. Without going through the madness I did, I’m just not sure how else it could be possible. The best way may be to see how the FiiO graphs and attempt to approximate it—boosting the upper end until is seems neutral to you…. It’s not the most scientific, but you can see that even my crazy OCD version has a lot of issues. I can improve it, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. There’s just no standard mixing and mastering room and thus no playback system can achieve a technical perfection. IOW, that FiiO method should be essentially as good as you would ever need.

 

[JAnonymous5150]

+1

I realize nowadays most modern day singers and musicians "cheat" when they do performances/recordings, compared to the old days. Kinda disappointing.

Many singers use auto-tune unreservedly to hit the correct notes, and even back-end, their voices are remastered to sound perfect or even to hit higher ranges than their legit voices. Musician recordings are also mastered back end (as long as you don't play too out of time/key) and the computers can make notes be hit in perfect timing.

Ah, then you see some of these pop stars sing in live performances without their crutch and most of them sing flat or out of time LOL. Some even have to sing many keys lower than the album recordings, simply cause they can't actually reach those notes without technology intervening.

I actually really admire our lead singer because of how little he lets producers touch up his vocals. Our band has always been about live performances being the best way to connect with fans/listeners and if your live performance sucks because you can't actually sing or play without the crutches of auto-tune and track alignment you're just doing a disservice to your fans and to music in general. It's hard to have pride in something you can't or didn't actually do.

When you're recording there are some things you have to do to produce a viable record involving compression, dynamic control, and other mastering and editing techniques that are to be expected. However, it is definitely possible to keep that stuff basic and your performance in the studio and live as congruent as possible. That's what many of the best bands strive for and you're actually starting to see more and more of that coming back in certain rock based genres in particular.

For indie rock stuff, if you ever go see The Black Keys or Kings of Leon or Interpol and other really top tier bands live it's immediately clear that these guys are legit musicians and they are every bit as good as their records make them sound. It's real insult amongst professional musicians and bands if you or your band are known for being studio puppets.

Anyways, it's always refreshing when I see listeners who notice stuff like that because it reassures musicians/artists/bands who put in the extra blood, sweat, and tears so to speak to be outstanding in and out of the studio rather than relying on studio tricks that their effort is appreciated and will pay off.

 

[JAnonymous5150]

Saw this at a cafe restroom - thought folks here would appreciate! I love "Piano Party" lolll

That's classic! I love the short shorts jumpsuit. So 70s chic!

 

[Ronion]

Saw this at a cafe restroom - thought folks here would appreciate! I love "Piano Party" lolll

My piano party never looks like that. Very disappointed

 

[o0genesis0o]

the SMABAT graphs are crazy weird. I’m not even sure how they are screwing it up so bad…. This is why they have so much trouble tuning and why FiiO doesn’t.

That's a lot to take it, but I like what I am seeing in your post. I'll answer this one first, and then I will reply on the other points when I can understand The graphs of Smabat are actually easy to replicate, IMHO. I just need to press the earbuds hard against the coupler and I will have that massive bass shell immediately. Some of the graphs that I discard look just like Smabat's graph. On the other hand, if I just slightly rest the earbuds against the coupler, I will have a graph looking similar to Fiio FF3 on the website (15db ear-gain).

I said M4 is "easy for learning" because I can rapidly change the driver and apply different damper on the vents. The interesting thing is M4 seems to implement the same kind of twisty bass pipes like Fiio, which might, or might not, lead to deeper bass. Of course, all of these are hypothetical talking. I don't have any Smabat buds.

 

[JAnonymous5150]

the SMABAT graphs are crazy weird. I’m not even sure how they are screwing it up so bad…. This is why they have so much trouble tuning and why FiiO doesn’t.

The Harman and Moondrop target’s don’t really make a lot of sense. You’ve seen the way the graphs change from a fairly flat in room response, which by Harman’s own data should be too bright. If you reverse extrapolate their headphone graph, there’s no way you come up their room response graph. The whole myth is so…. Interesting. It takes some incredible mental gymnastics to justify their final curve. It’s so bad, even Lars Ulrich knows it (Joke). The feature of their graph that is definitely missing is called the Head Shadow. Here’s some more scholarly supporting documents. Look at the upper left and the upper right photos in this first document. They are not from a stereo source and thus do not contain data from the head shadow.



those last 2 pictures illustrate how the head shadow works. The resultant graphs from a stereo source will look like this taken from my ear and living room:


Both ears will hear low end from both speakers and how they interact with the room. The head is roughly 1,500Hz wide. So the high frequency sound won’t be equal on both sides: the left ear will hear more treble from the left speaker than the right speaker and the right ear will hear more treble from the right speaker than the left speaker. You notice my in room graph is fairly flat, but my in ear graph has the same bass as the room, then the head shadow kicks in, then the pinna gain elevates it (the ear canal resonance is missing from the graph due to mic position), then the notch that occurs d/t the 30 degree speaker placement/standard stereo triangle.

Harman’s in room graph looks like this:

Yet their headphone curve looks like this:


It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The only reason I wouldn’t agree with you about learning faster from SMABAT’s bud is that their tuning is so unusual and their shell so unconventional that you’d be better off with the MX500 for both speed and versatility.

The biggest issue you’ll encounter is calibrating your rig…. Without going through the madness I did, I’m just not sure how else it could be possible. The best way may be to see how the FiiO graphs and attempt to approximate it—boosting the upper end until is seems neutral to you…. It’s not the most scientific, but you can see that even my crazy OCD version has a lot of issues. I can improve it, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. There’s just no standard mixing and mastering room and thus no playback system can achieve a technical perfection. IOW, that FiiO method should be essentially as good as you would ever need.

Now that was truly scholarly and quite enlightening! Thanks for sharing, bro!

 

[Ronion]

@o0genesis0o You’ll see that same sort of thing when you get an ear as well as far as distance goes. Different foam materials and placement end up being a massive difference in what you end up hearing. I’m definitely still figuring out the finer, and finer points. There’s likely no end to that.

You won’t be able to convince me that the SMABAT is better for you ha ha. Just cost alone, let alone versatility is massively in favor of the MX500. Just stay systematic and document.

 

[Ronion]

Now that was truly scholarly and quite enlightening! Thanks for sharing, bro!

Thank you! This is why Dan Clark is bumping 100Hz on the Stealth and why the HD650 is the improvement over the 600 by Sennheiser’s account. The balance is closer to a normal sound than the Harman target. When you start looking at the direction of most modern IEM tunings, you can see the Harman Room Curve thrown in there as well. I’m not sure if any of these people are actually aware of it, but it’s been right under our noses for a very long time. The CAL! Which was so beloved almost lines up well with my data.

 

[o0genesis0o]

You won’t be able to convince me that the SMABAT is better for you ha ha.

the “better for me” that I need is a better soldering iron . I don’t know what’s wrong but it took forever to melt solder on the drivers.

Thank you! This is why Dan Clark is bumping 100Hz on the Stealth and why the HD650 is the improvement over the 600 by Sennheiser’s account. The balance is closer to a normal sound than the Harman target. When you start looking at the direction of most modern IEM tunings, you can see the Harman Room Curve thrown in there as well. I’m not sure if any of these people are actually aware of it, but it’s been right under our noses for a very long time. The CAL! Which was so beloved almost lines up well with my data.

Oh, Dan Clark! I love his seminar on headphone measurements (Can Jam last year?). Won’t be able to afford his headphone (nor I want to get one) anytime soon, but I like how clear and no-nonsense the guy is.

Isn’t his Stealth tuned super close to Harman, though?

Anyhow, back to the topic, beside the holy cow earbuds and FF3, are there any good buds that are not based on MX500 or PK shell? I’m looking forward to make something fancy looking. Maybe I’ll stick some gems on the buds like @FranQL

 

[FranQL]

The CAL! Which was so beloved almost lines up well with my data.

In buds we have CAAir and nobody pays attention to it, an old bud, from an old brand, and also rare.... I have read very ambiguous and timid comments about it... as if with reservations...

It is a bud that sounds excellent in every way and a gift at the price I bought it, surely the best prefabricated I have. But... that's the market...

 

[o0genesis0o]

In buds we have CAAir and nobody pays attention to it, an old bud, from an old brand, and also rare.... I have read very ambiguous and timid comments about it... as if with reservations...

It is a bud that sounds excellent in every way and a gift at the price I bought it, surely the best prefabricated I have. But... that's the market...

*Searching*

Oh my, they are ancient Assuming that you are talking about the flat head ear buds version, of course.

 

[JAnonymous5150]

In buds we have CAAir and nobody pays attention to it, an old bud, from an old brand, and also rare.... I have read very ambiguous and timid comments about it... as if with reservations...

It is a bud that sounds excellent in every way and a gift at the price I bought it, surely the best prefabricated I have. But... that's the market...

If you live in certain european countries you can still buy the Airs directly from Creative for €39.99. I checked to see if I could buy them, but they only ship to a handful of european countries and won't ship to the US unfortunately. I also found a pair on ebay in the US for like $330!

If you don't mind me asking, what is it you like so much about the Airs? I'm genuinely curious since I have never heard anyone mention them.

 

[FranQL]

If you live in certain european countries you can still buy the Airs directly from Creative for €39.99. I checked to see if I could buy them, but they only ship to a handful of european countries and won't ship to the US unfortunately. I also found a pair on ebay in the US for like $330!

If you don't mind me asking, what is it you like so much about the Airs? I'm genuinely curious since I have never heard anyone mention them.

For not to speak of memory, I have taken them out to listen to them for a long time and I tell you.

My descriptions of the sound are bad and deficient, I have no skills to describe intangible or subjective, but I can tell you what I like about them.

Edit: at €300 they are not worth it at all.

 

[FranQL]

CREATIVE AURVANA AIR

Very good tonality, more juice and meat on vocals, as it is a little thicker than the reference you get from other tunings, it is not important for general listening, wide presentation, focus on low mids and someone might think that they tend to a way of V, could be, but the mids aren't delayed or shadowed, but... the out-of-the-ears feel here is outstanding, resulting in a more open-than-average sound. Very low pinna gain, lower than what I consider ideal.

The highs are not the protagonists, but it has a small emphasis that makes them seem more detailed, far from peaks or hisses, perceptible in high plucks of acoustic guitars, bells, etc. In something like for example Moonstruck - Chris Jones, it's too much for my taste (and I lower the volume), in fact they are more delayed or softened in the buds that I do for myself.

it lacks that realistic resonance to piano hits or reverb on string instruments, but it has large deliberate vents that enhance other qualities.

What I do like about these is how good their subbass is to be a bud, the perception of it and how it moves the air.

They are not perfection, no, but they have nothing, absolutely nothing to envy a Shozy BK for example, that is, they are not a god level IMO, but they are very good.

I have never had the need to open these, but I will not be surprised to see a 16mm fostex driver, made for this Aurvana air, who knows, of course IMO they are highly recommended on current offers at those prices (39.90 € in Spain ). Comfortable, you forget you're wearing them and good for long listening sessions. Good value, although I hardly use them, but they remain in my collection (as do others, Viridis for example).

I know, it's not my specialty to describe what I hear. And I emphasize the things that I don't like, which is what really contributes, what is good, is good...