[nmatheis]

Here you go Army-Firedawg:



Here's where I bought it for $10 shipped: LINK

EDIT: Here's the type of impedance adapter I'm more familiar with:


I've got those in the 75 Ohm & 100 Ohm flavors. With multi-BA IEM, I find they typically lean/tighten bass and increase treble. It's good for balancing out sound with darker multi-BA IEM. That way you get the intended tuning without the adapter and a more balanced sound with the adapter. It's like having two IEM in one!

 

[CrispyWonton]

In the note of a buffer jack, and pardon the ignorance, will someone post what that looks like or where I can find one. For hopefully that'd fix my noise issue.

 
Hi, @Army-Firedawg. I believe you can order the UE buffer jack on the Ultimate Ears Pro website. As for alternative impedance adapters, they are listed on this thread and, from what I've seen, the respective manufacturers also have websites where you can order.
 
@nmatheis: You beat me to it, haha!

 

[CrispyWonton]

EDIT: Here's the type of impedance adapter I'm more familiar with:


I've got those in the 75 Ohm & 100 Ohm flavors. With multi-BA IEM, I find they typically lean/tighten bass and increase treble. It's good for balancing out sound with darker multi-BA IEM. That way you get the intended tuning without the adapter and a more balanced sound with the adapter. It's like having two IEM in one!

 
Thanks for pointing that out, @nmatheis. I love this hobby where there seems to be unlimited potential for tweaking!
 
I do like those plug type adapters and plan to get one or two for myself.

 

[ReptilynSamurai]

   
 

I trust my go-to-guy, Jack, and I don't think Spartan will hiss even with the standard sensitivity option (because you are operating Spartan on portables powered by batteries).

I haven't had time to check all the pages here, but I think the hiss is unrelated to the Spartan more like Zeus, Athena, Legend R or with LPG (people in chinese forums use LPG mostly for the purpose of driving IE800).

If the stat is pretty accurate on Empire Ears, even if your sources provide 2 ohm of output impedance (which is very unlikely the case for portables), you are still far from hissing 2X8 = 16 ohm < 20 ohm. Besides, Spartan's sensitivity is plenty low for BA already. The low sensitivity option is just putting stress on your amp, then you may need a DAP or DAC/AMP to keep up 

.
 

 
Hah, now you've got me wavering again on switching to standard sensitivity, thanks. I'll have to see what the consensus ends up being - I trust Jack, just wondering about the reasons to go for each sensitivity level. I literally put the whole thing in my cart with standard sensitivity, re-read this thread, then took it out and swapped it for low sensitivity...

 

[Jazzi]

   
 

I trust my go-to-guy, Jack, and I don't think Spartan will hiss even with the standard sensitivity option (because you are operating Spartan on portables powered by batteries).

I haven't had time to check all the pages here, but I think the hiss is unrelated to the Spartan more like Zeus, Athena, Legend R or with LPG (people in chinese forums use LPG mostly for the purpose of driving IE800).

 

I primarily use the Athena with LPG, and there's absolutely no hiss in my setup.

 

[CrispyWonton]

  I primarily use the Athena with LPG, and there's absolutely no hiss in my setup.

 
Good to know @Jazzi. Have you tried streaming music from your PC (Spotify), to your Mojo, to your Athena? How is that with regard to hiss?

 

[Army-Firedawg]

nmatheis thanks bro you rock! Still thanks [@]embelardo[/@] for the input. From the looks of it it's just an extension, please correct me if I'm wrong. I have the Mophie extender will that work?

 

[CrispyWonton]

@nmatheis thanks bro you rock! Still thanks @embelardo for the input. From the looks of it it's just an extension, please correct me if I'm wrong. I have the Mophie extender will that work?

 
Hi, @Army-Firedawg. The Mophie extender looks to be a regular extension only. I believe an impedance adapter like the UE buffer jack may look like an extension but it also has that extra functionality of increasing output impedance.

 

[nmatheis]

nmatheis thanks bro you rock! Still thanks [@]embelardo[/@] for the input. From the looks of it it's just an extension, please correct me if I'm wrong. I have the Mophie extender will that work?

I'm positive the UE Buffer Jack has a resistor inside. They just don't specify what the impedance is. We'd need to get one and measure it for both impedance and how it alters FR. I plan on doing that with either my Dayton IMM-6 calibrated mic or (if it arrives in time) my new Vibro Veritas.

It would also be awesome if we knew what the impedance for the Low Impedance option was for each IEM. That might help with selecting an appropriate after-market impedance adapter.

EDIT: Hah! You beat me this time [@]embelardo[/@] :wink_face:

 

[Jazzi]

   
Good to know @Jazzi. Have you tried streaming music from your PC (Spotify), to your Mojo, to your Athena? How is that with regard to hiss?

I've had no issues streaming Tidal.  Sorry, but I don't use Spotify.  Good luck!

 

[CrispyWonton]

I'm positive the UE Buffer Jack has a resistor inside. They just don't specify what the impedance is. We'd need to get one and measure it for both impedance and how it alters FR. I plan on doing that with either my Dayton IMM-6 calibrated mic or (if it arrives in time) my new Vibro Veritas.

It would also be awesome if we knew what the impedance for the Low Impedance option was for each IEM. That might help with selecting an appropriate after-market impedance adapter.

EDIT: Hah! You beat me this time @embelardo

 
I'm with you 100% on this, @nmatheis. We hobbyists thrive on data and information! MOAR data please ...!
 
I would also be very interested in your findings regarding the UE Buffer Jack. More power, man!
 

 

[CrispyWonton]

 
I've had no issues streaming Tidal.  Sorry, but I don't use Spotify.  Good luck!

 
No worries, @Jazzi. Your confirmation is still welcome. My inner geek thanks you, sir!
 
Also, how dare you have Tidal while I only have Spotify. Haha, kidding.

 

[Army-Firedawg]

Ahhh gotcha appreciate the input I'll put me in an order the the ue one later this week.

 

[Cagin]

great review of the Apollo X ciem posted by @veindoc here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/789431/review-of-empire-ears-apollo-x-custom 

 

[WiR3D]

 
The assumption that an IEM's sensitivity is related only to impedance is a big one, though. And I suspect it might not be the case. I am ignorant about the technicalities but I hope someone can educate me on this.
 
How about it, @WiR3D? I feel we have stumbled on an important aspect of this hobby and would appreciate if you could weigh in on our discussion as I try to absorb the details in your thread

You rang? 
 
A lot of my links got removed in that thread unfortunately, but understandably because it refers to a certain banned members blog posts. 
 
But basically the impedance increasing adapter just adds resisters inline to make it easier for the amp to drive the headphones and to do so with less sensitivity to noise. The downside is (in my experience) you lose quality and the sound characteristics change. 
 
The weird impedance decreasing adapter I made actually was an improvement for me and my D7000. In every way that the graphs from (cant remember who) depicted. Which was good, and just to rule out suggestions i named and pinpointed all the improvements I heard before seeing the graphs and they correlated. Just to be specific the Denons had markedly better bass response, less sibilance and treble peaks. So I know it works. 
 
The downside is that I had my Xonar blow on me, honestly I'm not sure if it was from power surges (which we were experiencing then) or the adapter, because i went and modified the adapter the wrong way, and ended up sending too much power back on the negative rail (at least logically thats where it went) because i ended up changing the parallel resister instead of adding more in series and then yeah.... 
 
Basically i wouldn't use the impedance increasing adapters, ever. And I am still going to use my impedance decreasing adapter, but just watch the power going back on the negative, and not modify the parallel resister like a tool.