[PopZeus]

The thing about Super Reviews, from what I can tell, is he thinks a fair amount of aspects in the audiophile hobby are placebo. He even had t-shirts made. So tbh, I'm not sure something like musicality or engagement is a facet he's considering when reviewing IEMs. It's generally not something he brings up in reviews. Or at the very least, those things are derived from engineering the tuning, distortion, and technicalities, not something different or distinct from those standard talking points. Like this IEM is "fun" because it has some bass lift. He's probably not going to say something is "lush" or "chocolatey", even though I'd describe sound that way sometimes. It's hard to ask someone what they think about something they're not even sure exists like you might think it does.

 

[AsciiJC]

The thing about Super Reviews, from what I can tell, is he thinks a fair amount of aspects in the audiophile hobby are placebo. He even had t-shirts made. So tbh, I'm not sure something like musicality or engagement is a facet he's considering when reviewing IEMs. It's generally not something he brings up in reviews. Or at the very least, those things are derived from engineering the tuning, distortion, and technicalities, not something different or distinct from those standard talking points. Like this IEM is "fun" because it has some bass lift. He's probably not going to say something is "lush" or "chocolatey", even though I'd describe sound that way sometimes. It's hard to ask someone what they think about something they're not even sure exists like you might think it does.

Thing is, a lot of the audiophile hobby to me atleast have a lot of placebo involved. If you or others do not, I will not argue or attack those beliefs, but I do believe cables and burn in do not improve sound at all considering they make no FR changes and tonality changes. But for MRS or super review, I believe he is trying to use terms that would have a better understanding on a wider audience. Lush and chocolately are terms i have never heard an average IEM enthusiast use much at all, but to each their own.

 

[drftr]

Fiio and burn in. Name a better combo.

If it really makes that much difference. They should do it before they ship them away. Telling people to not use their iems while it is burning away their warranty time is not cool.

Even more, if they had ever found burn in to be helpful (I think it is but that's not relevant to this discussion) then they would ABSOLUTELY burn in the REVIEW units they're sending out as that makes or breaks their future. They must have a good reason not to do so, or prefer to not get business.

drftr

 

[drftr]

The thing about Super Reviews, from what I can tell, is he thinks a fair amount of aspects in the audiophile hobby are placebo. He even had t-shirts made. So tbh, I'm not sure something like musicality or engagement is a facet he's considering when reviewing IEMs. It's generally not something he brings up in reviews. Or at the very least, those things are derived from engineering the tuning, distortion, and technicalities, not something different or distinct from those standard talking points. Like this IEM is "fun" because it has some bass lift. He's probably not going to say something is "lush" or "chocolatey", even though I'd describe sound that way sometimes. It's hard to ask someone what they think about something they're not even sure exists like you might think it does.

True, and the only reason I tried to "push" people to write their reviews. One review is useless to me, but 10 focussing on the exact same things will be extremely useful, EVEN if those reviewers saw those aspects as weak points. Because they don't have to be for readers as there's ways to compensate. To be honest, I've seen a couple of reviews that didn't mention ANY weaknesses. I will never trust those reviewers again. It's similar to not reviewing an IEM at all. We EXPECT things to be great and will never be allergic to anything fantastic. It's the not-so-perfect things that we need to take into consideration to see if they could possibly trigger an allergy and make it a disappointing buy.

drftr

 

[nishan99]

Why all of this drama about this review?.

I respect Super but his ears are just good enough for telling the tonality of an IEM and graphs do better job. I only watch his previews for the unboxing, fit, comfort, ergonomics and the tuning of the headphones and that's it. He literally can't hear the other placebo audiophile stuff.

 

[nishan99]

When I got the FD5 the most noticeable differences after burning them in are the treble refinement/smoothness and the level of microdynamics. idk if that will be applicable to the 7 but I don't see why not. The ZMF Verite too got smoother after burning them in (+less bass).

 

[PopZeus]

Thing is, a lot of the audiophile hobby to me atleast have a lot of placebo involved. If you or others do not, I will not argue or attack those beliefs, but I do believe cables and burn in do not improve sound at all considering they make no FR changes and tonality changes. But for MRS or super review, I believe he is trying to use terms that would have a better understanding on a wider audience. Lush and chocolately are terms i have never heard an average IEM enthusiast use much at all, but to each their own.

Yeah, I don't dislike the channel because he doesn't believe in burn-in or something. Still watch them when i'm interested in what's being reviewed. Side note: just because the frequency response hasn't changed doesn't mean the sound hasn't changed. The human ear picks up on everything there is to be heard. Measurements only capture information if you know how to look for it.

 

[walkmanforever]

There are certain things that can't be captured by a FR graph. Speed, transient response, soundstage, decay, smoothness of the sound with time etc. People who are ignorant about burn-in are the same people who do not break-in their new cars and diss mechanical engineering in the same way.

 

[drftr]

There are certain things that can't be captured by a FR graph. Speed, transient response, soundstage, decay, smoothness of the sound with time etc. People who are ignorant about burn-in are the same people who do not break-in their new cars and diss mechanical engineering in the same way.

I truly wonder why measurements for IEMs are done so poorly. A frequency response shows just a tiny part of the whole picture. It's like maybe 20% of what is measured for high end quality headphones. But those are mostly done by companies that have much more money to throw at measurements, like Stereophile, Hifi News, etc.

This is just an example:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stax-sr-lambda-pro-headphones-measurements

drftr

 

[walkmanforever]

I truly wonder why measurements for IEMs are done so poorly. A frequency response shows just a tiny part of the whole picture. It's like maybe 20% of what is measured for high end quality headphones. But those are mostly done by companies that have much more money to throw at measurements, like Stereophile, Hifi News, etc.

This is just an example:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stax-sr-lambda-pro-headphones-measurements

drftr

Partly because an IEM or a HP will be paired with hundreds of different sources and each user will hear it differently because of the internal ear structure,so there's no objective measurement available for how an IEM is supposed to sound in the intended way. I have seen excellent as well as average reviews of the same product, esp those that scale up with better sources and more power. Anyway, not to digress from the forum topic, but audiophilia is still at a nascent stage and I consider this to be the golden era considering the frequency of the launches and a steep rise in the VFM graph.

 

[gikigill]

There are certain things that can't be captured by a FR graph. Speed, transient response, soundstage, decay, smoothness of the sound with time etc. People who are ignorant about burn-in are the same people who do not break-in their new cars and diss mechanical engineering in the same way.

Nope, break in all my cars but headphones are a much smaller mechanical device and considering the break in process for cars and the amount of residue left behind in the oil after breaking in a 3-5 litre V6/V8, the residue from an IEM is probably going to be on a nanometric scale.

High performance car engines nowadays are built to finer tolerances than most IEMs with gearboxes that have parts and tolerances smaller than an expensive Swiss watch and any manufacturer worth its salt already runs in the engine befoe putting them in.

The ideal method to break in an engine is still the dead run in though thats a whole different argument.

 

[walkmanforever]

Nope, break in all my cars but headphones are a much smaller mechanical device and considering the break in process for cars and the amount of residue left behind in the oil after breaking in a 3-5 litre V6/V8, the residue from an IEM is probably going to be on a nanometric scale.

High performance car engines nowadays are built to finer tolerances than most IEMs with gearboxes that have parts and tolerances smaller than an expensive Swiss watch and any manufacturer worth its salt already runs in the engine befoe putting them in.

The ideal method to break in an engine is still the dead run in though thats a whole different argument.

Agree that cars have a lot more moving parts but the topic is the on the perceivable difference post break-in/burn-in, which is discernible and vouched by the manufacturers and a lot of experienced reviewers as well. People will still be ignorant until there is an empirical proof to end this topic for once and all.

 

[drftr]

Agree that cars have a lot more moving parts but the topic is the on the perceivable difference post break-in/burn-in, which is discernible and vouched by the manufacturers and a lot of experienced reviewers as well. People will still be ignorant until there is an empirical proof to end this topic for once and all.

That is exactly why I referred to different kinds of measurements. If you measure speed/decay out of the box and after every 50 hours of playing then you may see different measurements as the diaphragm becomes less stiff. Extreme example: In the times of paper and rubber cones if I took a speaker out of its carton box and tried to make the speaker move with my fingers it was comparatively difficult, while after a couple of weeks I would barely have to touch it. For sure speed and decay measurments would have been very different. But that was for speakers that could move forward and backward by at least a centimeter. That's not gonna happen with IEMs so I'm not sure if those measurements can actually be done.

drftr

 

[walkmanforever]

That is exactly why I referred to different kinds of measurements. If you measure speed/decay out of the box and after every 50 hours of playing then you may see different measurements as the diaphragm becomes less stiff. Extreme example: In the times of paper and rubber cones if I took a speaker out of its carton box and tried to make the speaker move with my fingers it was comparatively difficult, while after a couple of weeks I would barely have to touch it. For sure speed and decay measurments would have been very different. But that was for speakers that could move forward and backward by at least a centimeter. That's not gonna happen with IEMs so I'm not sure if those measurements can actually be done.

drftr

There's a possibility of leveraging Neuralink's advancements in discerning the neural activity basis the effects of sound waves. Though this will be a small subset, it should be possible to gather data around this use case.

 

[FiiO]

Because of the working principles and characteristics of the unit speakers, new earphones usually need to be burned in for about 200 hours so to make the diaphragm work in the best state.
In general, you can choose some softer songs and keep the volume at a medium level until you are satisfied with the sound performance of the earphones.

Best regards