[Cagin]

Thanks for your input everyone. The lower priced Sony looks interesting, esp the battery time, coming from the appalling battery life of the Calyx M. Will have a listen to the mojo also and the AK's this week.

I definately agree the ideal dap for an individual is a matter of personal preference however with the high sensitivity of the Zeus I don't want to get something now that will make the Zeus hiss too much. Thanks.

WM1A + Zeus R gets green lights from me

It's lil hissier than Cowon Plenue D and Onkyo DP-X1, you can distinguish it on pause or with just iems plugged in, but once music plays, I can't notice it from the recordings own noise.

In my scaling I rank the wm1a on par with fiio x5ii

From worse (hissy) to quiet black background, rank of the DAPs I tried:

Tier 3 very hissy, will hear with music on play, distracting
Fiio x5 : no go
Sony zx2: no go even if bit less than x5

Tier 2, can hear it on pause, but won't be noticeable on play
Fiio x5ii: good to go
Sony WM1A: good to go

Tier 1, can't notice on pause, can't detect on play
Onkyo DP-X1 : when paused on a quiet silent environment I can actually feel it over my permanent minor tinnitus but it's so ridiculously not distracting I still put it in tier 1. It was this lack of hissing aspect that made me sell the ZX2 and keep the DP-X1.
Cowon Plenue D: for the life of me I never was able to distinguish any hiss from this lil gem of a DAP over my tinnitus when paused or just plugged.


Edit: had Fiio X7 during the tour, but only with the first stock module which was a nightmare for noise from EMI but was otherwise between tier 2 and 1. Never got to test it with the balanced module or the sensitive iem module.

 

[bvng3540]

WM1A + Zeus R gets green lights from me

It's lil hissier than Cowon Plenue D and Onkyo DP-X1, you can distinguish it on pause or with just iems plugged in, but once music plays, I can't notice it from the recordings own noise.

In my scaling I rank the wm1a on par with fiio x5ii

From worse (hissy) to quiet black background, rank of the DAPs I tried:

Tier 3 very hissy, will hear with music on play, distracting
Fiio x5 : no go
Sony zx2: no go even if bit less than x5

Tier 2, can hear it on pause, but won't be noticeable on play
Fiio x5ii: good to go
Sony WM1A: good to go

Tier 1, can't notice on pause, can't detect on play
Onkyo DP-X1 : when paused on a quiet silent environment I can actually feel it over my permanent minor tinnitus but it's so ridiculously not distracting I still put it in tier 1. It was this lack of hissing aspect that made me sell the ZX2 and keep the DP-X1.
Cowon Plenue D: for the life of me I never was able to distinguish any hiss from this lil gem of a DAP over my tinnitus when paused or just plugged.


Edit: had Fiio X7 during the tour, but only with the first stock module which was a nightmare for noise from EMI but was otherwise between tier 2 and 1. Never got to test it with the balanced module or the sensitive iem module.

To my ears, my savage 9 sound better on wm1a compared to my Zeus XIV

 

[crinacle]

Here are my measurements.
 

Spoiler: Empire Ears Spartan-IV ADEL

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: Empire Ears Zeus-XR ADEL

Spoiler: XIV mode

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: R mode

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

 

 

[Raketen]

Here are my measurements.

Cool, thanks for sharing. Are you applying compensation of any kind?

 

[PinkyPowers]

Here are my measurements.

Spoiler: Empire Ears Spartan-IV ADEL

G1 module
B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: Empire Ears Zeus-XR ADEL

Spoiler: XIV mode

G1 module
B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: R mode

G1 module
B1 module
No ADEL emulation

For some reason I didn't expect so much treble on Zeus.

 

[NaiveSound]

What EQ settings you guys have on Zeus XIV or R

 

[Matte82]

Thanks for the measurements. Just curious though, are the 14 and R correct? The 14 definitely has more mids and lows then the R in my experience. And your measurements seem backwards from my experience. But other than that, pretty much what I expected.

 

[twister6]

  Thanks for the measurements. Just curious though, are the 14 and R correct? The 14 definitely has more mids and lows then the R in my experience. And your measurements seem backwards from my experience. But other than that, pretty much what I expected.

 
@crinacle measurement are correct.  R is more balanced, while XIV is more mid-forward, exactly how the graphs are reading.  What I would suggest is to combine these graphs together so people can see the difference.  That would be very helpful!

 

[Matte82]

   
@crinacle measurement are correct.  R is more balanced, while XIV is more mid-forward, exactly how the graphs are reading.  What I would suggest is to combine these graphs together so people can see the difference.  That would be very helpful!

From what I'm seeing both are very similar starting around 1.5 khz and above. But below that the R averages a level around -30 dB and the XIV around -36. So wouldn't the one with more below 1.5k be the bigger warmer sounding one? I have my screen set up with the measurements on two tabs I can click back and forth between to compare. Being in one graph would help, but it's pretty obvious his charts are showing the R to have more lows and low mids. Which is opposite of what I hear in the pair I have.

 

[Malevolent]

  Here are my measurements.
 

Spoiler: Empire Ears Spartan-IV ADEL

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: Empire Ears Zeus-XR ADEL

Spoiler: XIV mode

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

Spoiler: R mode

G1 module B1 module
No ADEL emulation

 

 
Thanks for the great work, crinacle!
 
BTW, were there a lot of people at MS? I was thinking of heading down this weekend, but I'm afraid the queue to try the Zeus XRA would be prohibitively long.

 

[nmatheis]

@crinacle
 measurement are correct.  R is more balanced, while XIV is more mid-forward, exactly how the graphs are reading.  What I would suggest is to combine these graphs together so people can see the difference.  That would be very helpful!

Unfortunately, the app crinacle is using doesn't allow you to overlay FR curves. I recently put on this request to the developer, and he responded positively. It won't happen any time soon, but I think it will eventually.

 

[crinacle]

 
From what I'm seeing both are very similar starting around 1.5 khz and above. But below that the R averages a level around -30 dB and the XIV around -36. So wouldn't the one with more below 1.5k be the bigger warmer sounding one? I have my screen set up with the measurements on two tabs I can click back and forth between to compare. Being in one graph would help, but it's pretty obvious his charts are showing the R to have more lows and low mids. Which is opposite of what I hear in the pair I have.

 
To my ears, the XIV is more spacious and dynamic sounding while the R is more boring one. I could be wrong in my labelling of the graphs (I did have a lot of graphs to keep track of after all) but I'm fairly confident that the Zeus measurements are correct.
 

 
Thanks for the great work, crinacle!
 
BTW, were there a lot of people at MS? I was thinking of heading down this weekend, but I'm afraid the queue to try the Zeus XRA would be prohibitively long.

 
Yeah there was quite a lot of people yesterday but most came in the evening. Not really much of a "queue" to speak of tbh.

 

[nmatheis]

You guys are lucky with places with Music Sanctuary. No place like that around here...

 

[Matte82]

I totally appreciate you taking the time to make the measurements. And I very well may be incorrect. To me the XIV have more lows and mids are are more up front and smooth. While the R lowers the mids and lows and sounds more "reference" like my etymotic.

The first time I put them in I didn't care for the XIV tuning honestly. Coming from my er4's that side was too dark to me. Now that I've spent time with them it's hard for me to really choose a favorite. They're both great. Just different. XIV sounds like I'm in the room with the band. The R I'm in the control room listening on some nice reference monitors.

Anyway again thanks for the measurements. And I didn't mean to sound like I was discounting your work. I'm just perplexed as to what the graphs and what I hear.

 

[crinacle]

Cool, thanks for sharing. Are you applying compensation of any kind?

 
Oops, missed you out. No compensation, white noise through non octave-smoothed graphing. Refer to my original thread for more info on my procedures.
 

I totally appreciate you taking the time to make the measurements. And I very well may be incorrect. To me the XIV have more lows and mids are are more up front and smooth. While the R lowers the mids and lows and sounds more "reference" like my etymotic.

The first time I put them in I didn't care for the XIV tuning honestly. Coming from my er4's that side was too dark to me. Now that I've spent time with them it's hard for me to really choose a favorite. They're both great. Just different. XIV sounds like I'm in the room with the band. The R I'm in the control room listening on some nice reference monitors.

Anyway again thanks for the measurements. And I didn't mean to sound like I was discounting your work. I'm just perplexed as to what the graphs and what I hear.

 
No worries mate. I'll be back there eventually so I'll probably re-confirm the Zeus measurements just to be safe. For now though, at least they are representative of what the switches do to its frequency response.