[Wildcatsare1]

It would be quite surprising that an IEM like LX/EVO were not tested/tuned with EDM/Electronic music AS WELL. If the pinnacle of the IEM is the low end, it is inevitable that people will want it for Electronic music.

I'm liking the discussion and learning about mixing and everything. But @aaf evo and @gnahra , can't be put against the wall for their preferences and opinions.

I'm not doing that, no one knows exactly what an EDM recording sounded like when it was being performed, except for the handful of people in the booth. Hell, the “musicians” may never have seen each other, much less heard the recording as a whole. Yes, I'm sure bass was tested on amplified music, but to try and develop an audio product based on artificial, highly manipulated music is a fool's errand. There's plenty of synth-driven bass on quality recordings, but they are few and far between.

As far as their tastes, in music or equipment, it's their taste period, meaning listen to what you enjoy, on the equipment you like. Aaf evo went a step further providing his music, where he was hearing it, that takes balls, and I admire him for doing so, so I'm not judging him. My point again is that there's broad agreement, with years of data on how a Steinway, or a Stradivari sound, the sample of highly manipulated, electronic music is a sample of one.

 

[saltyfr0g]

If any of you need help burning in your EVOs, send them my way!! I won’t stop you…

I look forward to being able to A/B these with my custom LXs one of these days.

 

[cdanguyen08]

If any of you need help burning in your EVOs, send them my way!! I won’t stop you…

I look forward to being able to A/B these with my custom LXs one of these days.

If you end up getting a set, I'd love to demo now that I'm in VA, a lot closer than Bahrain

 

[Shecky504]

Question about the bone conduction in the EVO: I can feel the right monitor vibrating when music is playing and I put my finger on it but the left monitor does not have any vibration at all. Is this expected?

 

[Wildcatsare1]

If you end up getting a set, I'd love to demo now that I'm in VA, a lot closer than Bahrain

Capt. Dan, after I finish the review, I'll send the EVO down to Salty for a listen. Coordinate with him when we work it out.

 

[gLer]

its a fit issue for me personally.

it’s possible it won’t be an issue for others, but I have enough iems I love that also fit me well…so this will be someone else’s gain.

Fit was and remains my only real issue, other than trying to figure out if the upper mids are crossing the line on busy energetic tracks. I think both fit and sound are getting better with time, so it could just be me having to acclimatise. But then aside from the IE 900 (which is incomparable for fit), I don't have (or intend to have) any other high-end IEMs occupy the 'luxury' slot in my collection. Until EVO it was LX, so it's down to EVO beating out LX and being different enough to IE 900 to keep its place.

I think it is more down to my own sensitivity there which is basically what I have been saying. I think it’s just “too much” for me in the upper mid range regardless. Still puzzling to me why I can listen to it just fine on the X though which has less bass than the Evo.

Haven't had a chance to listen to your tracks yet but thanks for posting. Will listen and respond later today. So far the main example if where I go s them too 'harsh' is 'My Immortal' by Evanescence. Listen to the Band Version of that track (with the rock segment towards the end). When all those instruments hit, especially the snares, it sounded thin and harsh, almost grating, compared to how smoothly the IE 900 handles that section. A week later though and it's much improved, and with the Cardas cable, even more so. Which is why it's taking me time to figure out this puzzle. It's definitely an IEM that, in parts, and for my preferences, needs to be reigned in and tamed out the box, but then the rewards...

 

[gLer]

Question about the bone conduction in the EVO: I can feel the right monitor vibrating when music is playing and I put my finger on it but the left monitor does not have any vibration at all. Is this expected?

Sounds like a fit issue. I do find one side sometimes more prominent than the other, and need to tweak the seating of the IEM. Wild horse, this one

 

[Shecky504]

Sounds like a fit issue. I do find one side sometimes more prominent than the other, and need to tweak the seating of the IEM. Wild horse, this one

Even with the IEMs out of my ears you can feel the vibration in your hand of the right monitor but not the left one. Anyone else experiencing the same?

 

[Wildcatsare1]

Question about the bone conduction in the EVO: I can feel the right monitor vibrating when music is playing and I put my finger on it but the left monitor does not have any vibration at all. Is this expected?

It depends on the recording, and how the bass instruments were recorded.

 

[Wildcatsare1]

It depends on the recording, and how the bass instruments were recorded.

Even with the IEMs out of my ears you can feel the vibration in your hand of the right monitor but not the left one. Anyone else experiencing the same?

Yeah, I just checked on Art Blackey and the Jazz Messengers (you made me look), the bass is panned to stage left, drums the right, vibrations correspond to when the thwack or note.

 

[cdanguyen08]

Capt. Dan, after I finish the review, I'll send the EVO down to Salty for a listen. Coordinate with him when we work it out.

I don't think I can ever reach O6 but I'd take that O6 pay for sure haha Sounds like sea stories and EVO @saltyfr0g

 

[TomKorn]

I'd like to give an update for our Swiss customers. EVO has arrived at the store yesterday and is on the way to you! Thanks a lot Empire Ears for shipping to Switzerland quickly. Your service was, as always, excellent.

 

[richoval]

I'd like to give an update for our Swiss customers. EVO has arrived at the store yesterday and is on the way to you! Thanks a lot Empire Ears for shipping to Switzerland quickly. Your service was, as always, excellent.

got my shipping-confirmation!! excited!! so far amazing customer-service @TomKorn @audioessence!!

 

[gLer]

Ok, I've had a chance to sit through these two tracks now to try and better understand what you're hearing. First up let me just say that while I have quite a bit of this type of music in my library, it's definitely not my main genre (I'd call this vocal trance, right?). Still, I do love listening to this (I have gigabytes' worth of female vocal trance collections), but to be honest, more on speakers (hi-fi and car) than on highly-revealing IEMs. And for the very reason that I find much of this material to be very compressed (for maximum loudness) with very little DR to help out the super high-energy parts of the tracks that need more room to breathe. More notes below:

(For this song basically the whole opening/any time Nevve is singing and then again at the drop around 1:48)

This track in particular has extreme bright energy near the upper mids/lower treble. Nevve's vocals are also quite pitchy/compressed, but for good reason (to cut through the music). Still, I don't consider the opening part of the track too harsh or bright, at least not at my listening volume. A quick note here: if you're a high-volume listener, EVO requires much LESS power than any other IEM I've used to get its woofers going. By comparison, when I listen to LX at vol 40 HG Turbo on my R8 (balanced), that's moderate volume, and the woofers just about kick in (but not always). 33 HGT with EVO is louder that that, and on this track, which is so compressed, I find I can turn it down to 30 and it's still plenty loud with the bass hitting just right. Now, when it comes to the drop (1:48), this song is mad-full of upper-mid/bright energy. I can just about handle it, but if I was to turn it up any more, it would be too much and my ears will ring for days. Now you could say it's an EVO issue, but...

With LX: Nevve's vocals are perhaps less edgy but she has more upper harmonic 'hardness'. Her vocals aren't nearly as resolved as with EVO, even though they're pushed a touch more forward on LX. when it comes to the drop, the 'harshness' which I heard in full high-res glory with EVO is simply lower-res harshness with LX. This makes it ever so slightly more forgiving, but even at Vol 40, the OG LX bass is not hitting anywhere near as hard or deep as EVO on 10 clicks less.

With IE 900: Neve's vocals are airier, a touch less intense, but so is the bass (which it usually isn't on IE 900, suggesting more of a midbass focus on this track). The drop is, just as before, quite harsh, without much bass countering the brightness. And this on an IEM with 'scooped' upper mids.

So what is this telling me? I'm of the opinion that if IEMs are weapons (appropriate in this case), music is the ammo, and its quite important to match the right ammo with the weapon. In this case you have a bright, compressed track with tons of upper-mid energy being played back on a highly-resolving (thus not very forgiving) IEM that has an upper-mid bump (which works great for simpler music and better recordings). And despite that, I enjoyed this track more with EVO than I did the other two, even more than with the Sony XM4 wireless, which is my epitome of a warm, smooth, laid-back IEM. I have no idea how you're hearing it with Elysian X, but it must be doing some sort of voodoo crossover magic to avoid making this track sound anything elss than harsh in parts, especially at volume.

(And as an addendum, I was hearing far more harshness with EVO out the box with exacty this type of music, which is something that's settled very nicely now after burn-in and some tip/cable rolling. Out the box I dont think I would have enjoyed this track as much with EVO).

(For this one, it started at :58 seconds when she starts singing but got me around 1:25 and on)

For his track all I'll say is that I'm hearting it much the same as above, except it's a much smoother and more forgiving track. The vocals push the limit, but then again, like I said above, the vocals are recorded compressed in an already-compressed production. That's just how I hear much of this type of music, which is why I said I usually prefer to listen to it on speakers where I don't have a microscope in my ears picking up every nanodetail of the compression and cheap plugins/samples they're using.

All that said, I like these tracks enough to go find more similar material where these came from, so thanks for the recs @aaf evo.

 

[aaf evo]

Ok, I've had a chance to sit through these two tracks now to try and better understand what you're hearing. First up let me just say that while I have quite a bit of this type of music in my library, it's definitely not my main genre (I'd call this vocal trance, right?). Still, I do love listening to this (I have gigabytes' worth of female vocal trance collections), but to be honest, more on speakers (hi-fi and car) than on highly-revealing IEMs. And for the very reason that I find much of this material to be very compressed (for maximum loudness) with very little DR to help out the super high-energy parts of the tracks that need more room to breathe. More notes below:

This track in particular has extreme bright energy near the upper mids/lower treble. Nevve's vocals are also quite pitchy/compressed, but for good reason (to cut through the music). Still, I don't consider the opening part of the track too harsh or bright, at least not at my listening volume. A quick note here: if you're a high-volume listener, EVO requires much LESS power than any other IEM I've used to get its woofers going. By comparison, when I listen to LX at vol 40 HG Turbo on my R8 (balanced), that's moderate volume, and the woofers just about kick in (but not always). 33 HGT with EVO is louder that that, and on this track, which is so compressed, I find I can turn it down to 30 and it's still plenty loud with the bass hitting just right. Now, when it comes to the drop (1:48), this song is mad-full of upper-mid/bright energy. I can just about handle it, but if I was to turn it up any more, it would be too much and my ears will ring for days. Now you could say it's an EVO issue, but...

With LX: Nevve's vocals are perhaps less edgy but she has more upper harmonic 'hardness'. Her vocals aren't nearly as resolved as with EVO, even though they're pushed a touch more forward on LX. when it comes to the drop, the 'harshness' which I heard in full high-res glory with EVO is simply lower-res harshness with LX. This makes it ever so slightly more forgiving, but even at Vol 40, the OG LX bass is not hitting anywhere near as hard or deep as EVO on 10 clicks less.

With IE 900: Neve's vocals are airier, a touch less intense, but so is the bass (which it usually isn't on IE 900, suggesting more of a midbass focus on this track). The drop is, just as before, quite harsh, without much bass countering the brightness. And this on an IEM with 'scooped' upper mids.

So what is this telling me? I'm of the opinion that if IEMs are weapons (appropriate in this case), music is the ammo, and its quite important to match the right ammo with the weapon. In this case you have a bright, compressed track with tons of upper-mid energy being played back on a highly-resolving (thus not very forgiving) IEM that has an upper-mid bump (which works great for simpler music and better recordings). And despite that, I enjoyed this track more with EVO than I did the other two, even more than with the Sony XM4 wireless, which is my epitome of a warm, smooth, laid-back IEM. I have no idea how you're hearing it with Elysian X, but it must be doing some sort of voodoo crossover magic to avoid making this track sound anything elss than harsh in parts, especially at volume.

(And as an addendum, I was hearing far more harshness with EVO out the box with exacty this type of music, which is something that's settled very nicely now after burn-in and some tip/cable rolling. Out the box I dont think I would have enjoyed this track as much with EVO).

For his track all I'll say is that I'm hearting it much the same as above, except it's a much smoother and more forgiving track. The vocals push the limit, but then again, like I said above, the vocals are recorded compressed in an already-compressed production. That's just how I hear much of this type of music, which is why I said I usually prefer to listen to it on speakers where I don't have a microscope in my ears picking up every nanodetail of the compression and cheap plugins/samples they're using.

All that said, I like these tracks enough to go find more similar material where these came from, so thanks for the recs @aaf evo.

thanks for checking them out, it still isn’t clicking with me why I can listen to stuff like that on X just fine but Evo makes my ears about to bleed Im just narrowing it down to the quality difference in the the highs between both IEMs at this point.