[Audiowood]

Commercial Break !
 
 

 

[Oof Oink]

And for what exactly does EarSonics owe an explanation? Oh yeah, this’ll make for a real compelling argument:

Dear EarSonics,

We demand you change the way you deliberately tuned the frequency response. Else you’ll have many pleased listeners (zach915m, RatFarm, Gasdoc, Audiowood, jackrabbitslim0, feverfive, Tom Yum Goong, rudi0504, midnightwalker, jaytee189, ychristian, tomscy2000, shigzeo, music4life, Lseries, SoundFreaq, vrln, average_joe, ericr, sly_in_the_sky, wormsdriver, TheMarkRemains) to answer to! -_-

With love,

Unsatisfied listener/observer

The truth of the matter is, many of us always have been, and still are pleased with the way the SM64 sounds, despite the fact that their graph doesn't please a select few. *facepalm*

 

[Inks]

This is exactly why manufacturers can get away with poor tuning...I can't reason with one that doesn't want to see the objective fact.

 

[gnarlsagan]

Quote:

And for what exactly does EarSonics owe an explanation? Oh yeah, this’ll make for a real compelling argument:

Dear EarSonics,

We demand you change the way you deliberately tuned the frequency response. Else you’ll have many pleased listeners (zach915m, RatFarm, Gasdoc, Audiowood, jackrabbitslim0, feverfive, Tom Yum Goong, rudi0504, midnightwalker, jaytee189, ychristian, tomscy2000, shigzeo, music4life, Lseries, SoundFreaq, vrln, average_joe, ericr, sly_in_the_sky, wormsdriver, TheMarkRemains) to answer to! -_-

With love,

Unsatisfied listener/observer

The truth of the matter is, many of us always have been, and still are pleased with the way the SM64 sounds, despite the fact that their graph doesn't please a select few. *facepalm*

 
Did tomscy2000 say that he liked them, or didn't notice the missing 5k?

 

[Oof Oink]

This is exactly why manufacturers can get away with poor tuning...I can't reason with one that doesn't want to see the objective fact.

Yep. Guess you can't. How silly are we, with our unobjective ears, admiring products with "poor tuning." Guess we're missing out on the real pleasure of it all, the measurements!

Moving on...

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

And for what exactly does EarSonics owe an explanation? Oh yeah, this’ll make for a real compelling argument:

Dear EarSonics,

We demand you change the way you deliberately tuned the frequency response. Else you’ll have many pleased listeners (zach915m, RatFarm, Gasdoc, Audiowood, jackrabbitslim0, feverfive, Tom Yum Goong, rudi0504, midnightwalker, jaytee189, ychristian, tomscy2000, shigzeo, music4life, Lseries, SoundFreaq, vrln, average_joe, ericr, sly_in_the_sky, wormsdriver, TheMarkRemains) to answer to! -_-

With love,

Unsatisfied listener/observer

The truth of the matter is, many of us always have been, and still are pleased with the way the SM64 sounds, despite the fact that their graph doesn't please a select few. *facepalm*

 
What....you think I'm just a lot of chopped liver or something? Why wasn't my handle included in the list of party goers?

 

[Oof Oink]

Did tomscy2000 say that he liked them, or didn't notice the missing 5k?

Page 12, post #178

 

[Oof Oink]

What....you think I'm just a lot of chopped liver or something? Why wasn't my handle included in the list of party goers?

If it's any consolation, I also forgot to add myself.

Guess we're both chopped liver.

 

[gnarlsagan]

Quote:

Page 12, post #178

 
Thanks. And wow he said nothing but good things about them, especially that they were a huge upgrade over the SM3 for personal listening. And that the vocals were a bit thick, which personally I can't stand but a lot of people seem to like. That 5k drop is the likely culprit there.
 
Tomscy is usually pretty on it with this stuff. Maybe he'll have some insight into these poor measurements.

 

[Tom Yum Goong]

Hmm even with this oh so bad "design error" this IEM still sounds like it belongs, according to a lot of impressions and reviews here, into the upper tier of IEMs and it's still comparable with all the other IEMs in this price range (and even more expensive ones).
So the only thing one could complain about, is "misleading" FR graphs. But isn't that a very common thing in the ear/headphone world?

 

[gnarlsagan]

Quote:

Hmm even with this oh so bad "design error" this IEM still sounds like it belongs, according to a lot of impressions and reviews here, into the upper tier of IEMs and it's still comparable with all the other IEMs in this price range (and even more expensive ones).
So the only thing one could complain about, is "misleading" FR graphs. But isn't that a very common thing in the ear/headphone world?

 
I don't think the graphs are too misleading. Missing frequencies just don't seem to bother a lot of people, which is something we saw with the 4.ai. I'd imagine the SM64 sounds the same way that it graphs, and that someone sensitive to a drop out would notice it and perhaps dislike it (like me). In my experience, it was only after getting used to an iem without major dips in the mid-range that I noticed and started to dislike any and all dips in that area. 
 
People have different approaches to audio. I think the brain is capable of adapting to pretty much any sound signature. That's fine. On the other hand, some people approach audio scientifically, as if there is a somewhat specific ideal to be achieved, and that gear can be rated according to their performance against this ideal. I personally take this approach. If a brain (mine included) can adapt to any sound sig, and there are a million equally valid sound sigs, then one would have to just keep buying gear forever in an endless search for an ideal that changes as new gear is obtained. It doesn't make much sense to me, and is why I and probably others are vocal about poor measurements. Assigning a positive value to a poorly performing device just makes no sense within this approach. Spending a lot of money on that device makes even less sense. Logically, one could spend infinite money on equally poorly performing devices. How does one choose among them? Which one is better? I think I have my preferences, but I also remain somewhat skeptical of my own hearing abilities. I can adapt to a sound if I believe it's accurate, although I think I require a pretty high burden of proof, which is just how my brains works. I assign higher value to something with more evidence behind it. 
 
But, measurements are also somewhat plastic. There is a little give-and-take possible for sure. Problems arise when things are way outside of that threshold. Again, it seems to boil down to one's approach to audio. Does a headphone exist to reproduce sound as accurately as possible given what the designer has learned or thinks about human hearing? Or does a headphone exist to satisfy an audiophile's thirst for a feeling? Sometimes the answers aren't easily compatible. (Thirdly, does a headphone exist to make money for companies?)...

 

[RapidPulse]

^^^ That was one of the best posts I have read during my time here.   Well said!!

 

[midnightwalker]

@Rin Choi: i am sorry to see you have a hard time reaching Earsonics.
 
I received 2 other graphs today in response to the 2cc coupler and smoothed measurement. 
 

 

[tomscy2000]

Quote:

  Tomscy is usually pretty on it with this stuff. Maybe he'll have some insight into these poor measurements.

I am?

 
TBH, I haven't heard the V2 SM64 at all, but the V1 (112 ohm) SM64 sounded pretty darn good to me. The music had plenty of crispness and clarity. There was a "blackness" that was hard to explain, and that may account for a bit of a 5k suckout, but I never did any serious testing with it as I never listened to it with my own music/test tracks. It was always with an AK100 loaded with all that demo MQS music, as my own DAP has been broken for months (soon to be replaced by a FiiO X3, thank goodness).
 
As for the "massive gap" at 5k, again, there's some kind of phase cancellation thing going on with the FK/WBFK junction caused by the fact that the drivers are welded cover to cover. So, in fact, the two drivers need to be shifted apart in phase, as the two drivers are too similar to each other --- the WBFK is merely an FK with a stiffer armature design. That's why almost all TWFKs have an integral capacitor that's not meant to be messed with, unless the designers really know what they're doing. The Knowles engineer that I spoke with said something to this effect as well. I asked her about the issue with the SM64, and she told me she'd get back to me. She hasn't replied yet, but I don't want to rush her, as she's often busy with real clients. I'm just a pesky gadfly...
 
I want to point people toward this article, written by KumitateK, a Japanese DIYer: http://diy-ciem.blogspot.jp/2013/04/twfk.html
It's written in Japanese, but Google Translate and the copious amount of pictorial labeling should help people get the gist of it. The solution presented by KumitateK is to wire the FK in reverse phase and the WBFK in normal phase; in measurements, the impulse response will still undoubtedly look ugly, and the phase will look much different from the way TWFKs normally look (look at all earphones with a TWFK, they all have a similar phase pattern). I imagine playing with higher-order crossovers may possibly do the trick as well, but driver timing might then become an issue.
 
Anyway, the moral of the story is that the TWFK is actually quite difficult to get right.

 

[tomscy2000]

BTW, Earsonics ignores a lot of people. You're not the special ones, Inks/udauda.