[forbiddenbeat]

Personally, I'm more inclined to listen to a review that mentions both the (subjective) strengths and weaknesses of a product rather than one that just gushes over how wonderful it is.

I'd argue that "painful, boomy, bloated, and turgid" are perfectly fine descriptors of the Legend X's bass. (I may or may not agree with that statement.)

I'd also argue that the goal here shouldn't be to get people to spend more money - it should be to help people make intelligent purchasing decisions. If Zeus XR is my preferred sound signature and I came here to see that you also love the XR but found the Legend X bass "boomy", then yes, I might be hesitant on getting the Legend X. And that's a good thing, because the Legend X sure as hell wouldn't be my preferred sound signature.

True, though subjective judgements in isolation don't really help, since we all have our own preferences and frames of reference. So saying "the Legend X bass sounds boomy to me as compared to the Zeus-R" is helpful (or conversely, "The Zeus-R has anemic bass as compared to the Legend-X").

Related question: is it true EE will send loaners for all of their products? I'd love to be able to listen and then buy customs without having to purchase and then sell a universal.

 

[aaf evo]

True, though subjective judgements in isolation don't really help, since we all have our own preferences and frames of reference. So saying "the Legend X bass sounds boomy to me as compared to the Zeus-R" is helpful (or conversely, "The Zeus-R has anemic bass as compared to the Legend-X").

Related question: is it true EE will send loaners for all of their products? I'd love to be able to listen and then buy customs without having to purchase and then sell a universal.

Yep if you give them the MSRP as a deposit they will give you a loaner pending availability.

 

[Fr_eak]

Great impressions! Must have been a lot of fun to do. I do indeed love the Eros II 8W with my Phantom (listening to it as I write this). Loved Leonidas II as well, but I gave that one away in a charity raffle, so that is the reason I mention the pairing less. I simply don't have it anymore.

If you get the opportunity, you might want to check out the PlusSound Tri-Copper. I have the X6 (6-wire) version and would describe it as more fun (agree with Eros II being a bit less fun) with similarities to the Ares II, but at a higher technical level with better clarity, detail retrieval and resolution, although a bit less emphasis on the mids/vocals. I have been meaning to switch back to it at some point, but it's currently paired with the Trio and I keep ending up listening to my Phantom with Eros II anyway.

Another cable that I think pair with Phantom very well is the PW Audio 1950s. I know it's ridiculously expensive and many will doubt/argue whether its worth its asking price. However setting this aside I truly think it's a good pairing. It retains the fundamental character of the Phantom but opening up the stage quite considerably, still remaining silky smooth, adding some more weight to the bottom end, and most importantly, the mids remain lush and sweet.

 

[Wyville]

Another cable that I think pair with Phantom very well is the PW Audio 1950s. I know it's ridiculously expensive and many will doubt/argue whether its worth its asking price. However setting this aside I truly think it's a good pairing. It retains the fundamental character of the Phantom but opening up the stage quite considerably, still remaining silky smooth, adding some more weight to the bottom end, and most importantly, the mids remain lush and sweet.

I have still never had a chance to try out PW's cables, but I tremble at the thought of getting a demo unit of the 1950s and then having to explain to my wife why it is vitally important for me to buy a $2k cable... That is way too close to frying-pan-to-the-head territory.

 

[aaf evo]

I have still never had a chance to try out PW's cables, but I tremble at the thought of getting a demo unit of the 1950s and then having to explain to my wife why it is vitally important for me to buy a $2k cable... That is way too close to frying-pan-to-the-head territory.

Stay away! See sig.

 

[Wyville]

Stay away! See sig.

I like to live dangerously.

 

[aaf evo]

I like to live dangerously.

Jokes aside, I couldn’t recommend their cables enough. The PW Audio tour was fantastic, even some of the “cheaper” options such as Loki, Saladin, and Xerxes are amazing cables, and the 1950s lives up to the hype. Love it with my Legend X as well as the A18t.

 

[Wyville]

Jokes aside, I couldn’t recommend their cables enough. The PW Audio tour was fantastic, even some of the “cheaper” options such as Loki, Saladin, and Xerxes are amazing cables, and the 1950s lives up to the hype. Love it with my Legend X as well as the A18t.

Yeah, the No.5 was always high on my wish list and I never got around to it. The latest cables look really good and I hope I will get an opportunity to try out one or two of them at some point.

 

[BananaOoyoo]

Jokes aside, I couldn’t recommend their cables enough. The PW Audio tour was fantastic, even some of the “cheaper” options such as Loki, Saladin, and Xerxes are amazing cables, and the 1950s lives up to the hype. Love it with my Legend X as well as the A18t.

Vanquish series (Saladin, Loki, Xerxes) straight up looks fantastic as well. Always tempting when I stop by their distributor’s store.

 

[singleended5863]

Yeah, the No.5 was always high on my wish list and I never got around to it. The latest cables look really good and I hope I will get an opportunity to try out one or two of them at some point.

I got the No.5 8wire/ Angie II (bass pot) with which I listen to the DX229 with high volume in Mango OS. No.5 performs very well with clarity, focus and tight smooth sound. Love it!

 

[Fr_eak]

Jokes aside, I couldn’t recommend their cables enough. The PW Audio tour was fantastic, even some of the “cheaper” options such as Loki, Saladin, and Xerxes are amazing cables, and the 1950s lives up to the hype. Love it with my Legend X as well as the A18t.

Agreed that the 1950s is indeed rather versatile. It has equally well synergy with the Phantom and Noble's Katana (with rather different character on their own).

 

[pinkzeppelincult]

Many thanks to everyone for the kind words and suggestions! I'll be sure to give what I can from above a listen.

True, though subjective judgements in isolation don't really help, since we all have our own preferences and frames of reference. So saying "the Legend X bass sounds boomy to me as compared to the Zeus-R" is helpful (or conversely, "The Zeus-R has anemic bass as compared to the Legend-X")

I think this is important to keep in mind. Whenever I read a review I start with the comparisons because they're so much more reliable than the standalone impressions, which I generally only look to for aspects I know I want in spades. (e.g., if anyone, no matter their preferences, has anything less than stellar to say about a monitor's sub-bass extension, I probably don't want it.) Comparisons (to products you've heard or seen compared a couple times to ones you've heard) effectively equalize your frame of reference with the reviewer and make their impressions much more concrete and useful.

 

[mr.karmalicious]

That's a general truth about reviews and reviewers—there really is no such thing as an objective review, for many categories of review subject. What's important is to understand the reviewer—what they like, what they don't like, how liable to exaggeration they are, quirks they might have, et c.—and with that knowledge, pick a reviewer who has tastes and preferences that you know historically to align with yours.

You're never going to get much, IMO, from a reviewer who just looks at one product and says, "ah, yes, this has good detail" or whatever. Good detail relative to what? What have you called "detailed" in the past; what does it mean to you? When you say "bright", is that going to mean "fatiguing" to me? When you say "mid-forward", does that mean a few dB bump over this frequency range, or some big drops outside of some slightly narrower/wider range? What are some examples of IEMs with a good soundstage to you? It goes on forever—the point is that without context, both in the field of items and in the field of reviewers, none of these terms really have any meaning that maps onto all of the readers.

This is touched on in dunkey's "Game Critics" video a bit—clearly a different field (and for our older/more sensitive folks—warning! colorful language!) but I think it makes a similar point pretty well.

An additional thing that I think should be necessary in reviews, frankly, has also been touched on in this thread: what music are you listening to? If this is genuinely supposed to be about the music, and not some pathological exercise in generating the most flowery language possible to justify our large purchases or make the company that sent us free stuff look good, we really need to be talking about what, exactly, we're sending through our headphones. You say that something is detailed? Okay, which tracks were you listening to where you heard more details than you heard on sets X, Y, and Z? What, specifically, caught your ear? You thought there was a lot of slam? Awesome—what songs made you think that? Was this some synth stuff, or bass guitar, a bass drum kick, or what?

For my money, a reviewer who won't tell you—or doesn't think to tell you—what music they're listening to and what sets they're comparing to simply shouldn't be listened to. Their review exists in some sort of etherial state, where it cannot be judged by any metric and thus should not be trusted on any metric.

 

[Layman1]

Hi all,

So, I attended London CanJam and would like to share my EE-specific impressions here for your delight or possible annoyance
Firstly a big thanks to @ajyagle for pre-CanJam advice and assistance, and to Josh at the EE stand in London for his great service and almost saintly patience during my epic listening sessions!

I should add that at all times, it was like talking with a fellow enthusiast; great banter, great insights, no pressure or sales pitches (the IEMs themselves took care of that part)

I was there at CanJam with 2 missions:

1) To find the EE IEM that could scratch a certain itch I get from time to tome and provide me with the most rumble and visceral slam.

2) To listen to the whole X-series line-up, plus Phantom and Wraith.

I'm pleased to be able to state: Mission(s) accomplished!

I'll deal with part 2) first. Mostly just brief subjective impressions that have stuck in my head since then; do take them as such and judge accordingly
For your reference, I listened to tracks from the genres of Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Classical, Blues, Motown, Opera, Acoustic and Jazz.
For those who find the low end of (e.g.) the Legend X to be a tad overwhelming, or are looking for a mid-tier priced entry point, I thought the Bravado was great.
Punchy, detailed, open, balanced.

Vantage: This one, I wasn't so keen on. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't make me go 'wow' in any way.
Conversely, my fellow Head-Fi'er who was sat next to me declared it was his favourite of the whole EE line-up, and loved its powerful vintage sound.

Phantom: only listened to bits of 5 or 6 tracks with this one (albeit of different genres), so I can only give the briefest of impressions.
I'd heard it described as a 'Marmite, love it or hate it' IEM.
I have to say, I found it very enjoyable (but then, I also love Marmite, so perhaps I'm just a contrarian by nature lol).
Timbre, tone, detail, it was all on point. I would LOVE to get the chance for a much more extensive listen.

Same goes for Wraith and Valkryrie, both of which surprised me by confounding my expectations.

Wraith: With FOUR E-stats, I was expecting HUGE soundstage and treble that soared and extended forever, possibly to even piercing levels (I'm somewhat treble sensitive).
But it's a strange one. The soundstage is there, no doubt, but just.. not how I expected. It's more subtle and mysterious, and the highs are indeed extended, but controlled, without any sharpness or fatigue. It's actually really quite enchanting, and I'm still thinking about this IEM daily.

To give my impressions of the Wraith's low end, they seemed to be more focused around the lower/mid areas of mid-bass.
What this meant in practice was that there certainly was a definite low end presence that was (from memory) an increase over the Zeus.
However, this is not WeaponX bass. There isn't that slam and physical tactility.

It's happily present, polite and well-mannered, like a maître d at a 5 star establishment who is expert in directing and controlling, whereas the Legend X's low end would be like a hulking doorman at a nightclub of a certain reputation, sporting a bow-tie whilst projecting the sure knowledge that he has the power to lay the smackdown should the situation require
So in this way, I would say the Wraith has a low end that is entirely appropriate to its calling. It's unlikely to be overbearing even to Zeus fans (of which I am one), but neither is it anaemic or lacking.


Valkyrie: The surprise here was that the treble and soundstage were what I was expecting from the Wraith.
Putting these in my ears was like a scene I recall in a disaster movie (Cloverfield, I think?) where a man in a skyscraper opens the door to an office and instead finds himself standing on a precipice at a dizzying height, looking upon the city spread out before him (the building having been sliced in half from top to bottom).
It was really quite astonishing.
Regarding the low end, if we say the Legend X is 8 or 9 out of 10 for rumble, slam, impact and so forth, then I'd place the Valkyrie at 6.5 or 7.
It's more than I expected and well-executed. I enjoyed them a lot, and, as with the Wraith, would welcome the opportunity for a more extensive demo.

This has turned into rather an epic post, so I shall cease and desist here.
For the record, I chose the Nemesis (recall Mission 1) and have placed an order for my first custom IEM, of which more to follow later

Many thanks to all the team at EE; I have such love for what you're doing and what you've achieved. Keep at it

 

[pinkzeppelincult]

For my money, a reviewer who won't tell you—or doesn't think to tell you—what music they're listening to and what sets they're comparing to simply shouldn't be listened to. Their review exists in some sort of etherial state, where it cannot be judged by any metric and thus should not be trusted on any metric.

I agree that comparisons are critical to an informative review, but I think Deezel's earlier comment that genres can be a tool but not a catch-all applies just as well to naming individual tracks. Usually when people list the music they used, it's nothing I've ever listened to or even heard of. Where's the use in that? I could go listen to those tracks to get an idea, but it won't do much good until I'm properly familiar with them, and that sort of effort seems better spent just auditioning the product in question yourself. Plus, there's the problem of logistics. I will often use anywhere up to 50 tracks by 40 artists in 20 genres to test setups, starting with around 10 staples and pulling things in from there as questions develop. Listing all of that would be tedious—for me and the reader—without me going into what I'm listening for in each track.

Granted, that was all fairly specific to me. Maybe all y'all have a secret club where you listen to the same music, in which case more power to you.