Have had a little more than a day with the Scarlet now and my ears are starting to wrap around just how much bass this thing is injecting skullside. At least, when they are not cowering in fear.
In the world of IEMs and headphones, there are "all rounder" tunings and specialist tunings. The Scarlet is undeniably a specialist, a specialist's specialist even... a basshead's bassy IEM. This thing is the
Cardinal of Bass:
Who you calling mini?
I have mainly been listening to electronic music with them for which they are such a treat. The sub bass is as advertised even more crazy than the blue line, but the overall tuning and the detail brought from the new hypertweeter really keep things energized. The balancing act the team at FATfreq have pulled off here is incredible. Delivering this much payload while maintaining coherence - let alone a nice amount of detail - a true challenge.
This is not to say it will be an IEM for everyone or all music of course. The bass is front and center, and care of a slightly more forward tuning is more frequently present than in the Maestro. While I think you could get away calling most Maestros Neutral with epic sub bass, the extra mid bass here definitely pushes these into a more pronounced v shape tuning. But when they work, for ears that are ready... these are special in a way I haven't felt since the OG mini
To be honest, I am still a little lost for words... I'll share more concrete impressions as things solidify. Comparisons in particular will warrant some time... this is Bass for the ages...
To the mate that just received his set and the upcoming lucky pals who are getting theirs soon, could you tell if its good for prog metal or metal in general? I suppose they are similar to legato where the bass is amazing but bleeds the mids so this kind of genres suffer a bit, feels like a cave
Percussion (not just bass, a lot of high details in drum texture and all manner of cymbals, hats etc) plays particularly well on the Scarlet, how well suited it is to prog metal will depend a lot on how central the drumming is vs the vocals which are comparably pushed down in the epic V tuning. Djent is particularly epic, listening to Animals as Leaders today with the Scarlet brought me right back to seeing them live. With vocal stuff it depends on how the mix is, something like Tool where the vocals are meant to be a bit lower, to make the overall sound bigger works well, whereas I didn't like it as much with Meshuggah where I want the vocals to be more present.
I wouldn't say the effect is cavernous in the way I think you are describing with the Legato... the bass shelf on Scarlet is both much higher in amplitude and steeper in transition to the mids so it slams hard but is still lean to the mids. I probably wouldn't want them as my only earphone/headphone for metal, but oh boy when they work they are special for it.
Could you take a closer picture from the cable? Thx
I got you:
Hypertweeter BA deserves that silver goodness
Sorry for asking, but can you tell is Scarlet too much for this track or not?) I simply love bass and searching for new favorite iems. Thanks)
I listened to this track earlier with the Scarlet and the bass slams so hard it made me need to poop. In a good way.
TMI? I don't care - plz recommend more bass tracks. For science
