[Brooko]

George

Look at the specs on the X7ii mate.
Single ended - same dac, same amp section
Balanced - its just two of everything

Then go back to what I wrote about the real specs - eg SNR, crosstalk, etc. X7ii's balanced output is at least almost doubling voltage and power output - so its useful. I have an adaptor coming for my HD800S so I can see how well it performs. But for an IEM which does not need the extra power, and is not affected by the slight impedance change (multi-BA's may well be though), what could possibly cause it to sound different?

The problem is that people tell you they volume match - but really they don't. They try and match by ear, and we know how inaccurate that is. Get an SPL meter (proper one), use test tones, and do everything properly. Watch those differences melt away. Then get yourself a measuring kit, and start really seeing what changes there are. Stop using your brain's other filters, and all that is left is truth.

The problem is that there are a lot of reviewers who have the ability to set a level playing field - but its too hard to do it - easier to write prose than tell it the way it is. My sig is very apt. None of us like to hear it - but I think its pretty accurate. We all like to think we are golden eared audiophiles. Of course we can tell a difference - right? The problem with that stance is that as long as we carry on believing it, and don't take the time to actually learn what your own limits are - then all we are doing is writing a fictional account of what we really hear. And the same myths get trotted out, and a new generation of misinformed go forth.

Cynical I know.

 

[sjb57]

George

Look at the specs. .... And the same myths get trotted out, and a new generation of misinformed go forth. Cynical I know.

Not cynical at all. Well said. If more reviewers were more disinterested in the hype and more interested in the reality then buyers would get better real-world products. Keep telling it as it is!

 

[Virtu Fortuna]

So why need reviewers? Why review the equipment? You just need to measure them at that's it. All the answers are there.

Right?

I'm sorry but "measurements" don't say a thing to me. If you want to measure everything you can do it all day long. I don't care.

And I find it disrespectful and arrogant to say "you need to change that review because I measured everything and I'm the only truth".

If I was interested in hyping the product than I wouldn't have highlighted its cons. I also find that claim disrespectful, because I put so much effort to my reviews to reflect the honest truth about the product, not praising it for no reason for pleasing everyone.

It's always easy to talk from the outside. Go and write reviews all year long and put this much effort and listen to the people who say "your review is hyped and not based on reality"

Sorry, if you can't hear the difference, it's your problem.

 

[Brooko]

Your claim - balanced changes the frequency response. It doesn’t - and so that is clearly wrong. It’s measurable and provable that it doesn’t. And I’m not being disrespectful, I’m being factual. If you want to post a review with clearly incorrect information - that’s on you. But it diminishes the value of the rest of the review when you state something subjectively which is clearly incorrect.

Thanks for the “arrogant” tag though - but wouldn’t it be better to go get them measured and actually print fact rather than fiction? I think it would - but heh I’m new at this and have only written a couple of hundred reviews - right

To me the sign of a good reviewer is someone who uses everything they can to portray truth to prospective buyers - Objective and subjective. If you’re Incorrect, and it can be proven to you - then you should learn and adjust. That’s what I’ve been doing over the 6 years I’ve been writing reviews (yes I’ve been in this game a long time).

FWIW I said the review was good and you need to changd that one small piece. Call it professional courtesy. If you want to leave it up then it makes the review weaker IMO. Your call. If it was me, I’d change it. But I’m more concerned with accuracy than pride.

 

[Brooko]

Oh and for the record Berkhan - we both used the Q1mkii right. Here is the F9 measured using the Q1ii

See if you can spot the difference in frequency - before or after volume matching ....



Volume match properly - and I bet you won't "hear" it either - if you get someone to switch blind. The measurements aren't opinion - their fact. They tells us what is, not what our brains tell us is .....

Again my signature quote is apt.

 

[Dobrescu George]

George

Look at the specs on the X7ii mate.
Single ended - same dac, same amp section
Balanced - its just two of everything

Then go back to what I wrote about the real specs - eg SNR, crosstalk, etc. X7ii's balanced output is at least almost doubling voltage and power output - so its useful. I have an adaptor coming for my HD800S so I can see how well it performs. But for an IEM which does not need the extra power, and is not affected by the slight impedance change (multi-BA's may well be though), what could possibly cause it to sound different?

The problem is that people tell you they volume match - but really they don't. They try and match by ear, and we know how inaccurate that is. Get an SPL meter (proper one), use test tones, and do everything properly. Watch those differences melt away. Then get yourself a measuring kit, and start really seeing what changes there are. Stop using your brain's other filters, and all that is left is truth.

The problem is that there are a lot of reviewers who have the ability to set a level playing field - but its too hard to do it - easier to write prose than tell it the way it is. My sig is very apt. None of us like to hear it - but I think its pretty accurate. We all like to think we are golden eared audiophiles. Of course we can tell a difference - right? The problem with that stance is that as long as we carry on believing it, and don't take the time to actually learn what your own limits are - then all we are doing is writing a fictional account of what we really hear. And the same myths get trotted out, and a new generation of misinformed go forth.

Cynical I know.

I don't think it is cynical. You make very valid and fair points.

I do some volume equalizing when I do compare things seriously. This time, I did not compare X7mkii balanced vs X7mkii SE, I compared DX200 + AMP1 + F9 vs DX200 + AMP3 + F9, which did yield improvements that were audible.

I am not necessarily a believer of the balanced ideology as much as I am a believer of the AMP design technology, when the design is different, so is the sound. I understand your concerns about the SPL not being matched, but even after matching, some things are different.

I did this for you right now, tested X7mkii Bal vs X7mkii SE>...

My impressions:

A very bit better imaging and instrument separation

A bit more bass and better bass control

A bit smoother top end

Now, I cannot physically test without there being some time in between tests, because I have only one pair of balanced cables, so it takes me about 3 minutes to change those, so there might be some user error, but those are my honest thoughts and impressions, after volume testing. The auditory memory is short though...

Honestly, since people already have that X7mkii and F9, why not let them enjoy their Balanced sound and even if it measures the same, if it feels better, why not let them enjoy it?

I will never write in a review that the Balanced of something can sound better than the SE of that same thing, unless there is a difference in the AMP architecture. With DX200, you change the module entirely, you have a whole another OP-AMP setup with larger capacitors and a different configuration for AMP3, it does change the sound. When you say that we should measure, please keep in mind that me, you and most people don't measure the decay of a signal, the impuse response and such. Only Golden Ears do, and their graphs, if judget correctly, will explain why some things sound different. They show the difference in timings between mid and bass decays and such, we don't. We barely measure the FR and now all of the inherent characteristics that could bear an impact. I am a bit caustic when I am saying this, but instead of trying to measure it, I try to describe it. The tech to measure those will show what I generally thought about an object, but the machine didn't do better than human judgement.

What I'm saying is that relying on the FR is not enough to asses all the properties about something's sound. I wholeheartedly respect and support your indication that we should try to always have a reliable support for our judgement, but I honestly think that we cannot measure all the aspects of sound, there is more to it than is measured without more equipment. I don't have access to measuring equipments, I cannot provide more help with that, but if we take a look at golden ears measurements, they usually help understand why something has the sonic character it does, including HD800S's snapiness and HD600's bass relative to HD800's despite their somewhat similar FR in that area. Even they, Golden Ears, will subject headphones to human testing to asses the properties of sound because after having all that equipment, it still is better to test by letting human beings taste something.

This doesn't make your opinion any less valid or wrong, but please trust more in humans and their souls. Machines don't buy those things, humans do, so let's judge them by human ears and try to make the human component the most important in all of this...

You will notice that I am always extremely neutral and honest, I eliminate bias and user error by large-amount testing. I test something many times over a period of time, with hundreds of repeated tests for the same song in different conditions of my own mind and soul. Of course, whatever was a very small difference disappears. I don't know how much I would wold to mention differences between X7mkii's SE and Bal after more tests, I never mentioned differences for devices in this aspect because, either they were very small for me to assess anymore, situation in which my mind and mood made more of a difference, or because my equipment didn't permit proper testing and the time between testing BAL and SE created some bias and testing error, so I don't want to mislead. Still, it is hard on humans to tell them that a machine can assess something better...

So why need reviewers? Why review the equipment? You just need to measure them at that's it. All the answers are there.

Right?

I'm sorry but "measurements" don't say a thing to me. If you want to measure everything you can do it all day long. I don't care.

And I find it disrespectful and arrogant to say "you need to change that review because I measured everything and I'm the only truth".

If I was interested in hyping the product than I wouldn't have highlighted its cons. I also find that claim disrespectful, because I put so much effort to my reviews to reflect the honest truth about the product, not praising it for no reason for pleasing everyone.

It's always easy to talk from the outside. Go and write reviews all year long and put this much effort and listen to the people who say "your review is hyped and not based on reality"

Sorry, if you can't hear the difference, it's your problem.

You also make some interesting points about that, measurements do not tell the whole story, you can measure the Frequency Response, but there are things you cannot or you do not measure normally, that will have an impact on the final sound. Like the impulse response or the decay time...

There are IEMs that have a very similar FR but different sound, as long as those exist, well, reviews help one understand how something actually is.

 

[Virtu Fortuna]

@Brooko

Well the second part of my post wasn't directed at you, but you seem to try quite hard to jump onto everything.

There were many occasions that I've heard frequency changes with DAPs and IEMs using balanced. To me the F9 simply sounds better with the balanced cable and that's the end of story.

You can believe everything is exactly the same and it's all my fictional world. Even the materials of those 2 cables are not the same.

Your graphs don't prove anything. Your graphs don't tell the separation, soundstage, overall control, tonality etc. If those are better, you should clearly hear a better sound performance.

The review will stay exactly the same and your arrogance cannot change anything. I don't have to prove anything to you. People who know me enough would know that I'll never tell a lie or a totally incorrect statement about any product.

That's all I need to say about that. Don't waste your breath because I won't answer anymore.

 

[Brooko]

Berkhan - I really find this quite amusing. I merely pointed out that frequency does not change with balanced. You have taken offence to that and felt fit to call me names. Socrates had an interesting view on that. “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser”.

Oh and by the way - a frequency response will indicate tonality - but you don’t believe in measurements, so I’ll leave it there.

What cable materials and everything else has to do with it is beyond me. Your statement on balanced changing frequency response is still incorrect - no matter what you “think” you hear. That’s all I was pointing out.

 

[Brooko]

George - I don’t want to drag this off topic, so I’ll address your points either in another thread or via PM.

 

[Dobrescu George]

George - I don’t want to drag this off topic, so I’ll address your points either in another thread or via PM.

Sorry, We are dragging F9's thread a bit

With all this discussion, I was just listening to them, and regardless of whether they were connected to their Balanced cable or their SE cable, I think we can all agree that they sound quite nice.

There is one secret that makes me use F9 muchy more than I imagined I would and that is comfort. They are so dreamy comfortable. I don't know how FiiO managed to do this, but the ergonomics and the comfort are out of this world with F9, at least for me! Makes me keep them in my ears a lot just because I don't feel them. The sound is very good as well, leading to a perfect IEM when I work or do intensive tasks where I cannot offer my full focus to the music, but have to do some multi-tasking!

While I'm not the biggest fan of thick bass, I kinda enjoy their bass. It is thick and deep, but it is somewhat fun, even with aggressive music.

 

[Soaa-]

@Virtu Fortuna, have you considered that the difference you hear between SE and balanced could be due to a difference in output impedance? Even on the same device, if SE and balanced take two entirely separate signal paths, I wouldn't be surprised if they showed differences in output impedance, which will definitely affect the FR of balanced armature IEMs.

I place great value in the conciliation of subjective experience with objective measurement. I think that if there is a difference in what we hear, then there is an objective explanation for that. Sometimes, that takes more than just an FR chart.

 

[anlh22]

just got my balanced cable for IT03, tried it with the Q1 MKII and im pretty sure i can not tell it appart from the stock cable in a volume matched scenario. ill ran some a/b testing for the review to be more scientific about it. im not shure how this whole thing scales up with meatier amps though.

Thanks for mentioning this- I also have the IT03 and was considering a purchase of their balanced cable for use with the Q1. Looks like I will stick with the stock cable

 

[slackerpo]

Thanks for mentioning this- I also have the IT03 and was considering a purchase of their balanced cable for use with the Q1. Looks like I will stick with the stock cable

i think thats a safe move, at list with the q1 mk II. pretty interesting discussion here about it.

 

[dkstott]

They're available again on Amazon US. Just placed my order.

 

[Dixon Tse]

Sorry, We are dragging F9's thread a bit

With all this discussion, I was just listening to them, and regardless of whether they were connected to their Balanced cable or their SE cable, I think we can all agree that they sound quite nice.

There is one secret that makes me use F9 muchy more than I imagined I would and that is comfort. They are so dreamy comfortable. I don't know how FiiO managed to do this, but the ergonomics and the comfort are out of this world with F9, at least for me! Makes me keep them in my ears a lot just because I don't feel them. The sound is very good as well, leading to a perfect IEM when I work or do intensive tasks where I cannot offer my full focus to the music, but have to do some multi-tasking!

While I'm not the biggest fan of thick bass, I kinda enjoy their bass. It is thick and deep, but it is somewhat fun, even with aggressive music.

I very much agree with you on this. The build/design is fantastic on the F9s (again, other than the MMCX connector being angled really tightly). I do remember the days of literally raping my ears with Etymotics and thought it was totally worth it (the triple flange is king of isolation though, hands down) but nowadays I've come to realize that IEMs can be comfortable and sound great at the same time. We've come a long way in terms of design, not to mention that great sound has become with ever so accessible to lower budget consumers too.