[fjf]

What a trollish reply, are you gonna dictate me what I hear now? Might as well start paying my bills buddy. F outta here

Love you too!. Kind regards.

 

[PixelSquish]

First of all this thread should be in the Portable Headphones forum, not this one. It's missing out exposure and contributors because it's in the wrong forum, this is an ongoing impressions thread now, not an announcement. I had to have someone in the impressions thread tell me about it here.

Got these the other day, returned the Mach 60, which were terrible, for these, and they had gone down from $699 to $599 over this past weekend, so that was nice.

Really nice IEM, manages to be quite detailed but still engaging and a bit more on the fun tip. Love the size of them, super comfy. Cable is mediocre and who likes strong memory wire anymore, got one from Null Audio coming, still tip rolling but man are these a nice IEM. Definitely a keeper.

 

[helloh3adfi]

Xinhs is able to make fitting cables. I'll see if it arrives as promised. It's a shame that most stock cables are garbage. Only Penon got fine stock cables so far. Beyerdynamic, AKG and DCA headphone cables were ok.

 

[ssantan2]

Xinhs is able to make fitting cables. I'll see if it arrives as promised. It's a shame that most stock cables are garbage. Only Penon got fine stock cables so far. Beyerdynamic, AKG and DCA headphone cables were ok.

I got a Xinhs cable for the IE600 and it's awesome. I'll never spend over $50 for a cable when Xinhs exists

 

[Detroifa]

I got a Xinhs cable for the IE600 and it's awesome. I'll never spend over $50 for a cable when Xinhs exists

Oh no, you gonna make me check out xinhs now...

 

[PixelSquish]

Can this thread be moved into the portable forum?

 

[kugino]

ordered. should be arriving in a few days. iʻve always been a big fan of the er4s/p...and the new universal iems with a million drivers in them are just too damn big for my tiny ears. these sound like they should fit me quite well and iʻm looking forward to trying them out with the mojo2...

 

[The-One]

This is fun to play with and all, but you cannot "convert" one to the other. What you're seeking is commonly referred to as acoustic modeling. Yes, you can nudge the response to get closer to whatever target you want, but that is strictly a frequency response play and does nothing for the other elements of the earphone that make up its sound; physical construction, materials used, proximity of components, positioning of components in the back volume, the back volume size, frequency absorbers that PHYSICALLY alter the actual soundwave moving inside the acoustic chamber, the nozzle dimensions, the hardness of the materials, the location of the frequency absorber, the amount of acoustic fleece, the tuning of the driver, so on and so on and so on. The squig is cool in that you can make measured adjustments to a frequency response target, but they should be taken as just that. Curves are not conclusive of "the sound" just as colors of paint are not a used to benchmark if the art they make is enjoyable.

What you are EQ'ing is the source signal, not the headphone. Nor are you altering it's guts, which are a tangibly different physical aspect of acoustics that gets ignored all too often. If you get one of your headphones to sound more "reminiscent" of another with EQ based on someone else's mapping, and you prefer it that way, that's great and we hope you enjoy it. But to say there is no difference between the two models is straight up and down 100% false. If you owned both of these and have had the chance to compare them side by side, by all means let the community know your thoughts on your experience listening to them both, as this seems to be what people are in search of.



We use frequency absorbers in many headphones and earphones. They can predictably damp the energy of a specific range of cycles in soundwaves, and when used strategically, are suited well for reducing the buildup of a specific frequency -- specifically the ones that mask/obscure details. This is especially helpful with transients, which are at the core of how we perceive detail and nuance in so many instruments.

We know people use third party cables and that is great. Out of the box, the IE 600 includes two, and the IE 200 does not. That's not a biased opinion. If you want the Moondrop Aria for its metal housing then that's your preference.

I make no effort to hide that I work for Sennheiser and this is clearly stated with my giant sponsor badge in the footer lol. I've heard a zillion other headphones, good ones too, but do not discuss them for what I think are obvious reasons. I'll evaluate even more at CanJam NYC coming up and look forward to doing so in order to see what the competition is doing.


Applying an EQ curve from one headphone (that was created with measurement tones, not a song), to a musical signal that is going into another headphone that already has a specific sound, and then realizing that it does not sound like anything special is not a surprise at all. If I put all-season tires on my track car to see if it could make it perform more like an everyday driver, and was underwhelmed by the amount of traction I had, it would be reasonably easy to draw a line between the cause and the effect.

TLDR: equalizing an audio signal and acoustic modeling are not the same.

Here is a hypothetical question for you. As you work for Sennheiser.

You take the IE200 / IE300 / IE900. And you use a 20 band parametric EQ (either software or from a Qudelix 5k dac/amp and you acoustically model all 3 of them using Squiglink and by hand to the IE600 frequency response.

If the IE600 is 100% of the sound. How much out of 100 would the IE200/IE300 be? Would an IE900 tuned like an IE600 be higher than 100%, ie sound better than a real IE600 itself?

Do you think I've asked a fair question?

--

(my sennheiser iem story, so technically I am a customer lol)

Last year, I picked up a pair of Sennheiser IE300 new in an Amazon sale at 50% MSRP as an impulse buy.

It turned out that I hated the tuning, basically, scooped mid + excess treble gave female vocals a very crystalline edge.

Obviously, I think I would have been much happier with an IE600. But I didn't actually return the IE300, instead I kept it and bought Qudelix 5k dac with 20 band parametric equalizer. And I am now actually very happy with the IE300 purchase given the price I paid for it, its comfort / fit and how well has taken EQ, to make it sound nothing like an IE300.

 

[ericpalonen]

Here is a hypothetical question for you. As you work for Sennheiser.

You take the IE200 / IE300 / IE900. And you use a 20 band parametric EQ (either software or from a Qudelix 5k dac/amp and you acoustically model all 3 of them using Squiglink and by hand to the IE600 frequency response.

If the IE600 is 100% of the sound. How much out of 100 would the IE200/IE300 be? Would an IE900 tuned like an IE600 be higher than 100%, ie sound better than a real Ie600 itself?

Do you think I've asked a fair question?

--

(my sennheiser iem story, so technically I am a customer lol)

Last year, I picked up a pair of Sennheiser IE300 new in an Amazon sale at 50% MSRP as an impulse buy.

It turned out that I hated the tuning, basically, scooped mid + excess treble gave female vocals a very crystalline edge.

Obviously, I think I would have been happier with the default IE600 tuning. But I didn't actually return the IE300, instead I kept it and bought Qudelix 5k dac with 20 band parametric equalizer. And I am now actually very happy with the IE300 purchase given the price I paid for it, its comfort / fit and how well has taken EQ, to make it sound nothing like an IE300.

Indeed a fair question and thanks for chiming in! The squiglink, 20 band EQ, etc are not acoustic modeling. I have to get that out there first and foremost. They're all based around the boosting/cutting of frequencies (or bands of them) to achieve a desired response of the signal. You're equalizing a signal based on a target. You're literally changing nothing about the headphone except for asking it to reproduce more or less of frequencies you've adjusted. Sometimes we'll say that a headphone "takes an EQ well" as shorthand, but really the headphone hasn't been altered.

Regarding the "% of the IE 600's sound"...its all subjective (eartips, seal, ear canal shape, hearing loss, listening preference, music tastes, positioning in the ear, etc etc all factor in to the experience) so I cannot answer that practically or accurately.

If you like the IE 300 more with a specific EQ curve applied, then that's great! The extreme capabilities of the transducer, in some cases, can be a bit more evident with heavy EQ (does the signal break up, do details disappear). With the right amount of equalization, you can make any headphone sound bad but what you're actually doing is making the signal sound bad and the headphones are just showing you that. On the contrary, with tasteful equalization, you can probably shape the experience in a practical way that suits your listening preferences and the headphones are showing you that as well.

The hi-fi game is very subjective and that makes it fun, IMHO. You have to just try stuff. The tools available to research helps get us closer to our audio nirvana. But when the signal hits your eardrums, whether you like it or not is up to you.

 

[fjf]

Here is a hypothetical question for you. As you work for Sennheiser.

You take the IE200 / IE300 / IE900. And you use a 20 band parametric EQ (either software or from a Qudelix 5k dac/amp and you acoustically model all 3 of them using Squiglink and by hand to the IE600 frequency response.

If the IE600 is 100% of the sound. How much out of 100 would the IE200/IE300 be? Would an IE900 tuned like an IE600 be higher than 100%, ie sound better than a real IE600 itself?

Do you think I've asked a fair question?

--

(my sennheiser iem story, so technically I am a customer lol)

Last year, I picked up a pair of Sennheiser IE300 new in an Amazon sale at 50% MSRP as an impulse buy.

It turned out that I hated the tuning, basically, scooped mid + excess treble gave female vocals a very crystalline edge.

Obviously, I think I would have been much happier with an IE600. But I didn't actually return the IE300, instead I kept it and bought Qudelix 5k dac with 20 band parametric equalizer. And I am now actually very happy with the IE300 purchase given the price I paid for it, its comfort / fit and how well has taken EQ, to make it sound nothing like an IE300.

You can go to https://squig.link/?share=Sennheiser_IE_300,Sennheiser_IE_900 and you will see the curves of the 300 and 900. You can autoeq the 300 and make it sound like the 900 (or the 600 or 200); export the autoeq data to a txt file and import it with the chrome qudelix app and save it to the flash memory of the device. The corrected equalization removes the excess of low frequencies. I have the 300 and improves quite a bit.

 

[helloh3adfi]

@ericpalonen Thanks for your answers. I just don't get why Sennheiser provides awful stock cables. Your IEM cables seem to have microphonics and the HD800S cables are also very stiff, heavy and not practical. Is it the Grado syndrome?

 

[frix]

I don't understand why acoustic modeling should be superior/different.

 

[ssantan2]

I don't understand why acoustic modeling should be superior/different.

my understanding is this. the FR graphs we use/look at are the the sound coming out of the headphone. The signal chain goes through many layers before it comes out of the headphone (digital source -> cable / bluetooth -> dac -> amp -> transducer -> acoustic chamber of the headphone). EQ can alter the digital signal at different places (source or dac) but just because you enter +5db @2kHz there doesn't mean that the +5db is what comes out the other side. It can get altered at the dac/amp, the transducer or even in the acoustic chamber. If I am understanding correctly, the "acoustic modeling" that @ericpalonen is talking about is the tuning at the end of the chain (the transucer and acoustic chamber) so by tuning there you have more confidence that the changes you want will actually come out.
Another aspect is no matter how much EQ you apply you can't make a transducer do something it physically cannot. With acoustic modeling you are physically changing the transducer to do what you want.

 

[ericpalonen]

@ericpalonen Thanks for your answers. I just don't get why Sennheiser provides awful stock cables. Your IEM cables seem to have microphonics and the HD800S cables are also very stiff, heavy and not practical. Is it the Grado syndrome?

What cable would you put on each? Be specific.

You can go to https://squig.link/?share=Sennheiser_IE_300,Sennheiser_IE_900 and you will see the curves of the 300 and 900. You can autoeq the 300 and make it sound like the 900 (or the 600 or 200); export the autoeq data to a txt file and import it with the chrome qudelix app and save it to the flash memory of the device. The corrected equalization removes the excess of low frequencies. I have the 300 and improves quite a bit.

@The-One no disrespect to the 300 but it's just not the 900 and no amount of EQ will make those experiences the same. They share DNA but painting a fast car red doesn't make it faster, no matter what the internetz promise you.

I don't understand why acoustic modeling should be superior/different.

Acoustic modeling (common in pro audio/studio applications via DSP in hardware or even more commonly at the software level) tries to emulate more than just the frequency curve. It might be the synergy of certain transformers, wiring, noise floor, compression ratios, converters, schematics, even things like powersinks and the reflection of sound on certain species' of cabinet wood -- that type of behavior cannot be replicated by just EQ'ing an audio signal. This field has come a long way in recent years and can produce some awesome results (and some plain bad imitations), but does not apply to all gear in the audio world. That's why people still pay big bucks for vintage gear. There's "close enough" and then there's the real thing. I'm not here to suggest someone pick one philosophy over the other, but there's a difference and it cannot be summarized with "just EQ it" as some folks suggest.

A frequency curve is just that --- a frequency curve. It doesn't simulate the acoustic vortex present in the IE 900's nozzle, diffusing the signal before it hits your ears for example. It doesn't simulate the nudge of spaciousness that the port on the IE 200 provides. It does not affect detail retrieval. It does not simulate proximity of components to each other or the ear. It does not affect the way air interacts with an acoustic fleece (which is another form of acoustical impedance).

I think everyone should play around with the tools available but also try to educate themselves so that they are not chasing a pot of gold that doesn't exist. I've got nothing against EQ, btw, but it seems like lately there are a lot of missing pieces regarding the application of it.

With acoustic modeling you are physically changing the transducer to do what you want.

With regard to current-era headphones, the transducer in the headphones is still just that very same transducer. In theory, one could use acoustic modeling DSP that is programmed to control a highly advanced circuit board full of components, and using controllers, adjust certain variables (power delivery via impedance matching is the lowest hanging fruit here), which could affect a transducer's behavior....but in current-era headphones and multi-component setups, we're just shaping the signal before it reaches the transducer. The transducer is just reacting to whatever it is fed. There are some cool modeling technologies out there (with genuinely useful applications), and they will get better over time, too. They go far beyond EQ, though.

Another aspect is no matter how much EQ you apply you can't make a transducer do something it physically cannot.

spot on and much more concise, thank you!

 

[helloh3adfi]

What cable would you put on each? Be specific.

Those flexible ones with the least amount of microphonics. Such as

silver plated or just copper. Either 4 cores or more. No nylon. Just smooth PVC skin. Is it specific enough?