[Sam L]

Thank you Sam. Downloaded and trying now.

Let me know what you think. By the way, you'll likely need to use a preamp value of - 7dB (or something in that neighborhood).

I'm noting user observations to inform the changes that will go into v1.5. Thanks

 

[lackOfInspiration]

Spent the day with Headroom MS16 because I had the feeling I was missing something. I found they were correctly tuned in the critical 1-10k area but couldn't manage to enjoy them.
I came to the conlusion that they are probably made to be used without foams (that is to say no seal at all). They are indeed very natural sounding all of a soudden. I used to audition those with dunuts foams which give me a pretty strong seal and it was a terrible mistake.
Looking at measurments from audiobudget I can see that the low frequency shelf extends way to far into the midrange and it is an indication that a lose fit is needed I think.

Looking closely it's a pretty wisely designed bud. Its openness is its main strentgh and allows a level of interraction with the outer ear that I've not experienced with any other set (and a good seal just destroyes the effect). It's also vital for the driver, closing the rear of the shell makes the sound unbearable.
I did a fun little experiment to convince my self the pinnea was playin a major role in the sound presentation of these earbuds: I occluded my left outer ear with a good quantity of cotton held in place by some tape. The cavum concha and ear canal are left free of course. (I kept my right ear unoccluded for comparaison). First I must say it makes averything sound so ridiculus everywhere around you. And well the sound of the MS16 is transformed in a noticable manner, becoming oddly midcentric. My other buds don't show such obvious transformations. Well I could have just partially hide my ears with my hands and obtain pretty muh the same result. But quarantine and boredome you all know...

In the end, with a little [40:150]hz bass bosst and a little taiming of the 5k peak (not easy to obtain, MS16 react HORRIBLY to EQ) it's just excellent. Expensive soundstage and very realistic. At higher volume, the tonal flaws in the 3k zone stand out though (and the shortcomings of the driver as well).

A similar design with a better driver could give something crazy. I'm waiting for the unheard-of openheart which seems equally open. We'll see!

 

[Sam L]

Spent the day with Headroom MS16 because I had the feeling I was missing something. I found they were correctly tuned in the critical 1-10k area but couldn't manage to enjoy them.
I came to the conlusion that they are probably made to be used without foams (that is to say no seal at all). They are indeed very natural sounding all of a soudden. I used to audition those with dunuts foams which give me a pretty strong seal and it was a terrible mistake.
Looking at measurments from audiobudget I can see that the low frequency shelf extends way to far into the midrange and it is an indication that a lose fit is needed I think.

Looking closely it's a pretty wisely designed bud. Its openness is its main strentgh and allows a level of interraction with the outer ear that I've not experienced with any other set (and a good seal just destroyes the effect). It's also vital for the driver, closing the rear of the shell makes the sound unbearable.
I did a fun little experiment to convince my self the pinnea was playin a major role in the sound presentation of these earbuds: I occluded my left outer ear with a good quantity of cotton held in place by some tape. The cavum concha and ear canal are left free of course. (I kept my right ear unoccluded for comparaison). First I must say it makes averything sound so ridiculus everywhere around you. And well the sound of the MS16 is transformed in a noticable manner, becoming oddly midcentric. My other buds don't show such obvious transformations. Well I could have just partially hide my ears with my hands and obtain pretty muh the same result. But quarantine and boredome you all know...

In the end, with a little [40:150]hz bass bosst and a little taiming of the 5k peak (not easy to obtain, MS16 react HORRIBLY to EQ) it's just excellent. Expensive soundstage and very realistic. At higher volume, the tonal flaws in the 3k zone stand out though (and the shortcomings of the driver as well).

A similar design with a better driver could give something crazy. I'm waiting for the unheard-of openheart which seems equally open. We'll see!

Awesome post! Gives me quite a few things to think through.

Are you on any platforms that support autoeq files? Android 9+ or windows 10 laptop? @cenizas is partnering with me to build a database of earbud FR graphs from which I'll be building compensation files. I'd love your input. We can prioritize the buds you have in your possession.

 

[lackOfInspiration]

Awesome post! Gives me quite a few things to think through.

Are you on any platforms that support autoeq files? Android 9+ or windows 10 laptop? @cenizas is partnering with me to build a database of earbud FR graphs from which I'll be building compensation files. I'd love your input. We can prioritize the buds you have in your possession.

Unfortunately I use only Libre softwares so no gapps and no windows. Nevertheless I can easely translate the files you produce into something compatible with Vyper/pulseaudio-peq/Rockbox (the 3 solutions I use on my smartphone, laptop and DAP respectively).

But that's such an amazing work you two are doing. Great project really. I'd be super happy to help but I'm no sure how. I have no measurment rig for the moment (Although I'm working on it), so my EQ profiles are not worth much. That said the software I plan to use for my measurments should recieve the auto eq profile computation feature (Might investigate how feasible it is to implement the feature myself if I don't want to wait)

By the way, how are your measurent rigs like? I'm just amazed by the aptness of your graphs.

 

[LordZero]

You're not going to find much by way of eq settings for buds other than my work. I'm a big fan of oratory target and make compensation files for all of my iems to his target. My initial v1.1 was based off of his curve to a degree. It wasn't a good fit for buds. If you have the FR for the masya I can run it though autoeq since oratory target is already mapped out in the autoeq package.

Thank you!
Unfortunately, I can't find fhe FR for the masya anywhere
I have been searching a lot, even tried to ask in their Facebook.

 

[Alex.Grimm]

The huge price difference between RW-1000 and RW-2000. Both drivers use Titanium diaphragm, on the newer version they increase sensitivity from 110 to 112dB and lower the impedance from 24 to 16ohm, so more mobile-friendly. The frequency range is the same 10Hz-40kHz.
I don’t see any significant improvement that would justify the $100 price difference

Do you claim that there is no difference in sounding? is it the same level and presentation of the sound?

 

[Sam L]

Unfortunately I use only Libre softwares so no gapps and no windows. Nevertheless I can easely translate the files you produce into something compatible with Vyper/pulseaudio-peq/Rockbox (the 3 solutions I use on my smartphone, laptop and DAP respectively).

But that's such an amazing work you two are doing. Great project really. I'd be super happy to help but I'm no sure how. I have no measurment rig for the moment (Although I'm working on it), so my EQ profiles are not worth much. That said the software I plan to use for my measurments should recieve the auto eq profile computation feature (Might investigate how feasible it is to implement the feature myself if I don't want to wait)

By the way, how are your measurent rigs like? I'm just amazed by the aptness of your graphs.

pulseaudio has a module to import autoeq files. It's mentioned somewhere on the autoeq github. Are you on the Librem pureos phone? I thought that didn't come out yet?

 

[Danneq]

How the hell am I just finding out about this thread now???

I hated the Fiio EM5 and AT CM2000Ti.

There's no way I can read through 3300 pages... damn can someone catch me up?

The problems I found with them seemed to stem from a misalignment of the earbud driver and the ear canal, disrupting the wavefront? Also they weren't comfortable. AT build quality was good, Fiio build quality was miserable.

The earbuds for me to beat right now are the Apple Airpods. Comfortable, wireless, sound great. They also seem to direct sound out of the "side" of the earbud toward the canal.

Does anyone know of earbuds that can beat the Apple Airpods (it has to be "better" in order to justify the cable)

What is "better"? Iono. You guys are the experts.

Edit: Hi @baskingshark !!!

About the EM5, are they too small or too big for your ears? For smaller ears, something using the same shells as the Yuin PK series usually work well. For those with bigger ears earbuds using the Sennheiser MX 400/500 shells work well. Then there are custom shells. I'm familiar with some of them. Not the most recent ones. However, I got a pair of Fiio EM5 last week and the fit is perfect for my ears.

Not many earbuds are designed in a similar fashion as the Airpods. **** has released a cheap earbud with a similar design.

The earbud market is still small, even if more brands and models are coming out. Many of the current makers are Chinese and design is not always the focus. I love Indonesian DIY boutiques, and they almost always use standard MX shells. However the earbuds can sound great even if they look plain.

 

[rprodrigues]

@Danneq

According to Fiio, EM5 has shells with diameter of 16.2mm.
They are already pretty small, however the general shape of the shells might be a problem.

 

[rkw]

The earbuds for me to beat right now are the Apple Airpods. Comfortable, wireless, sound great. They also seem to direct sound out of the "side" of the earbud toward the canal.

**** PT25 has that style of design, with sound directed to the side. Search the thread for reactions.
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/33009752274.html

 

[vygas]

I haven't auditioned Diy Shozy, but I think that is DIY versions of "Shozy Earbuds 1st Gen (2015)" reviewed on the following sites.
https://kingrudi0504.blogspot.com/2015/12/shozy-earbud-unboxing-and-impressions.html

The shell shape is the same as "2005 - NTT DoCoMo Old Variant (16Ω) OEMed by Mitsubishi" that is named in the list of
HISTORY OF EARBUDS (Key Models Timeline).

IIRC, these are actually the Shozy Gen 1 (first Shozy bud), I bought these as soon as I found out they were available, they use the same drivers as the long white DoCoMo (which is what I assume the XB uses). I had an old photo on here of these and an OP139 in the case the Shozy Gen 1 and another one of the bud re-cabled, sadly the driver blew on those but what I can say is that they were very warm and, from what I read on a review on this thread a while back, felt like they were literally just an XB with a worse cable. Hope all this info helped . (P.S. the Shozy Gen 1 can either come with that Koss cable or a cable similar to the White Vido.)

 

[Danneq]

After reading about the EM5, my fingers got itchy and I could not contain myself when I found a seller in Poland on Ebay. There's nothing better than spending money you don't really have on things that you don't really need.

I received the EM5 last week and have been burning them in from thursday night until now. 70+ hours will have to do. Soundwise Fiio have hit a homerun with these. They are a bit distant sounding, like you are back at 10th row or something at a concert, and the soundstage is the widest and deepest I've heard in a pair of earbuds yet. The EM5 are definitely in my top 5 and perhaps even top 3 ever when it comes to earbuds. I have only compared them directly to Cypherus Zoomfred and Red Dragon. Zoomfred is much more in your face. They are almost like a mule-kick to your head with the energy and very deep bass. EM5 have got quite deep bass for a pair of earbuds. Between the Zoomfred and EM5 it's a tie. The presentation is very different. EM5 is more refined. While it's not exactly analytical, it has got more of that sort of character than the Zoomfred which is warmer sounding (while still having great instrument separation and detail).
Red Dragon is more refined than Zoomfred and less in your face. It beats both EM5 and Zoomfred easily, but EM5 really excells in the soundstage.

I'm using the balanced foams and when switching between the EM5 and Zoomfred I notice there's more sparkle in the Zoomfred's treble. I just plugged in my SWD2+ and they also have more sparkle even when I try to volume match them. So something like Zoomfred and SWD2+ might sound more lively than the EM5, but the EM5 are very engaging.

Spoiler: Picture

 

[Danneq]

@Danneq

According to Fiio, EM5 has shells with diameter of 16.2mm.
They are already pretty small, however the general shape of the shells might be a problem.

For once, I'm lucky when it comes to fit. Sennheiser MX980/985 never worked great for me. Toneking/Musicmaker Ting didn't work either. Sennheiser MX shells are only okay if I use foams that stop them from slipping out from my ears.

 

[cenizas]

Got around to measuring the Yincrow RW9 and X6. Probably using the same driver, ie the vido driver, and slightly retuned.

 

[moonnugs]

After reading about the EM5, my fingers got itchy and I could not contain myself when I found a seller in Poland on Ebay. There's nothing better than spending money you don't really have on things that you don't really need.

I received the EM5 last week and have been burning them in from thursday night until now. 70+ hours will have to do. Soundwise Fiio have hit a homerun with these. They are a bit distant sounding, like you are back at 10th row or something at a concert, and the soundstage is the widest and deepest I've heard in a pair of earbuds yet. The EM5 are definitely in my top 5 and perhaps even top 3 ever when it comes to earbuds. I have only compared them directly to Cypherus Zoomfred and Red Dragon. Zoomfred is much more in your face. They are almost like a mule-kick to your head with the energy and very deep bass. EM5 have got quite deep bass for a pair of earbuds. Between the Zoomfred and EM5 it's a tie. The presentation is very different. EM5 is more refined. While it's not exactly analytical, it has got more of that sort of character than the Zoomfred which is warmer sounding (while still having great instrument separation and detail).
Red Dragon is more refined than Zoomfred and less in your face. It beats both EM5 and Zoomfred easily, but EM5 really excells in the soundstage.

I'm using the balanced foams and when switching between the EM5 and Zoomfred I notice there's more sparkle in the Zoomfred's treble. I just plugged in my SWD2+ and they also have more sparkle even when I try to volume match them. So something like Zoomfred and SWD2+ might sound more lively than the EM5, but the EM5 are very engaging.

Spoiler: Picture

Yeppp totally agree with your review of the sound quality on the EM5! I absolutely loved them -- the dealbreaker for me was the shape/size. They refused to stay in my ears, and the ear-wings i have are super uncomfortable (even the smallest size) and dig into my ear bones. =[ really really bummed.