[jwbrent]

For anybody interested, I just posted my A8000 review here, soon to be shared on head-fi as well. Enjoy the read, including a detailed sound analysis, comparisons, and a ton of source pair up examples.

Yes, the A8000 is very addictive, primarily due to its resolving power, IMHO; every time I listen to an album I haven’t listened to in a while with the A8000, I hear detail that I never heard before.

 

[jmills8]

I went to the store yesterday to test the paring up of a8000 and n6ii e01. But ended up comparing luna and a8000 for quite some time , here i will share my thoughts for people who are interested in the result.

For any one who is interested in paring a8000 with e01, don’t e01 don’t have enough power to drive a8k, actually t01 barely drives it to an acceptable level.( compared to desktop performance)

A8000 driving by n8 is much better compared to any motherboard of n6ii, therefore i use n8 SE to compare luna and a8000.

With stock cable luna is easier to drive than a8000 i have to lower the volume by 15% to hear it, tonality wise luna is totally different, the imaging is bigger, much more grainy, and much less depth. Seems like luna is focused on resolution a little bit too much while losing a lot of presentations. Even though luna have a seemingly better resolution it does not retrieve any details that a8000 doesn’t have, it simply adds a grainy feeling to the sound makes it feel artificially sharpened.

I switch the cable fitting luna’s stock cable to a8000 and same to luna. Luna’s cable made a8000 sibilant and harsh, I think it’s a bad paring for both luna and a8000. On the other hand, a8000’s c106 improves luna’s over sharpening sound a bit, but couldn’t make it more pleasing to the ear.

In conclusion luna is made by a company specializing in making mid-fi iems, they probably tuned luna to sound very grainy to create a false impression of high resolution and hope it may impress those who only had their time with a midfi iem. Despite the benefits brings by BE driver, low distortion, density of sound. Luna still sounds like an iem. Not even a good one. But A8000 when driving properly is better than some full sized headphone.

Well , people who invested hours in writing reviews for Dunu will not chose to believe you , they enjoy getting loaner gear to question it. People who already spent their money thinking they reached the top of the mountain , will not want to walk down from their false mountain so soon.

 

[iBo0m]

For anybody interested, I just posted my A8000 review here, soon to be shared on head-fi as well. Enjoy the read, including a detailed sound analysis, comparisons, and a ton of source pair up examples.

TYVM! What a piece of IEMs analysis

I'm looking forward for the A/B Dunu Luna comparison.

 

[Whitigir]

TYVM! What a piece of IEMs analysis

I'm looking forward for the A/B Dunu Luna comparison.

Same here

 

[Jalo]

For anybody interested, I just posted my A8000 review here, soon to be shared on head-fi as well. Enjoy the read, including a detailed sound analysis, comparisons, and a ton of source pair up examples.


“Typically, I listen to IEMs with a more natural smoother tonality, especially when it comes to treble. So, when I switch to A8000 after my usual selection of naturally tuned monitors, it takes me a few seconds to adjust my ears to A8k vivid micro-detailed presentation of the sound. But once I do, it becomes so addictive that I’m having a hard time switching back, and some of my other favorite IEMs start to sound congested and bloated in comparison. And that is exactly how I would summarize my experience with A8000, being super addictive!”.

Good summary. The speed, the details, the transparency of the A8K have a tendency to draw one into the music. It is a process of active listening and the fun part is when everything within the music is revealed for you to enjoy.

 

[iBo0m]

Good summary. The speed, the details, the transparency of the A8K have a tendency to draw one into the music. It is a process of active listening and the fun part is when everything within the music is revealed for you to enjoy.

If the sound was more natural, these may be even suitable for critical listening (most likely DD premiere for such purpose), benefiting from all the micro-details (I am guessing). All the fun part may be gone though.

 

[Jalo]

If the sound was more natural, these may be even suitable for critical listening (most likely DD premiere for such purpose), benefiting from all the micro-details (I am guessing). All the fun part may be gone though.

If by natural you mean live like, the A8K has it due to good reproduction of timbre and texture of the natural sound.

 

[iBo0m]

If by natural you mean live like, the A8K has it due to good reproduction of timbre and texture of the natural sound.

I meant more like a reference freq response, but I got your point.

 

[twister6]

Btw, a few people asked me to clarify what I meant by filter stickers and reduction in upper frequency peaks in my A8000 review. Take it with a grain of salt because a lot of these FR measurements are usually made with budget couplers and custom compensation curves, like what I'm using. But for a relative comparison I find this quite useful if you pay more attention to the delta.

A8000 comes with an open 4-bore nozzle and a set of stick-on filters to keep the dust out. I used 2 of these dust filters on each IEM, stacked on top of each other.



and here is what I noticed, measuring before and after. Just don't read too much into the y-scale of amplitude, but look closer at the peaks after 2kHz. In my setup (Veritas II coupler with ARTA sw) the results are repeatable. And you can see how Left/Right channels match.

 

[Jalo]

@twister6, very interesting and if I may ask, on a straightly sound basis will you notice that difference blind or otherwise?

 

[twister6]

@twister6, very interesting and if I may ask, on a straightly sound basis will you notice that difference blind or otherwise?

That is exactly how I noticed it, by actually hearing it. But I thought maybe it's a placebo effect, so I did a measurement to confirm it. I mean, we all hear things differently due to our ear sensitivity and the shape of our earcanal (which is a filter by itself, it attenuates some peaks by the time a sound reaches our eardrum). So, I don't expect everybody to hear the same, but at least I was able to confirm that I'm not going crazy. And keep in mind, I used two of these filters on top of each other.

 

[Jalo]

That is exactly how I noticed it, by actually hearing it. But I thought maybe it's a placebo effect, so I did a measurement to confirm it. I mean, we all hear things differently due to our ear sensitivity and the shape of our earcanal (which is a filter by itself, it attenuates some peaks by the time a sound reaches our eardrum). So, I don't expect everybody to hear the same, but at least I was able to confirm that I'm not going crazy. And keep in mind, I used two of these filters on top of each other.

Thanks for the extra effort to confirm the difference. It is good to know. With the slight reduction at post 2K, do you notice any change in holographic and airiness sound as those attributes do not show up on graph?

 

[twister6]

Thanks for the extra effort to confirm the difference. It is good to know. With the slight reduction at post 2K, do you notice any change in holographic and airiness sound as those attributes do not show up on graph?

Personally, I didn't notice those type of changes after applying the filter. Or if there were some, it will be splitting hairs to pick up the difference, at least to my ears. The sound was as holographic, kind of reminding me of open-back headphones.

 

[toughnut]

When double down on the filters, did you cross the mesh by 45deg or both aligned?

 

[Infoseeker]

Btw, a few people asked me to clarify what I meant by filter stickers and reduction in upper frequency peaks in my A8000 review. Take it with a grain of salt because a lot of these FR measurements are usually made with budget couplers and custom compensation curves, like what I'm using. But for a relative comparison I find this quite useful if you pay more attention to the delta.

A8000 comes with an open 4-bore nozzle and a set of stick-on filters to keep the dust out. I used 2 of these dust filters on each IEM, stacked on top of each other.



and here is what I noticed, measuring before and after. Just don't read too much into the y-scale of amplitude, but look closer at the peaks after 2kHz. In my setup (Veritas II coupler with ARTA sw) the results are repeatable. And you can see how Left/Right channels match.

If you want to filter treble, I have been trying some Ostry 200 model tips.

Metallic energy fatigue is reduced for longer listening sessions. But the contrasting peaky fun aspect is reduced.

Reduces both mid and upper treble peaks and makes the listening for music more pleasing.

But for me, probably how you record the freq peaks, they can shift. I would say 1 peak is no doubt at 8kHz with the metallic treble sounds. The other is probably 5 or 6kHz.