[Bennyboy71]

I love you mvw2 and I want your babies. After I've stolen your iems.
 

 

[patate]

Seriously, you're actually using those youtube videos for your review ?? 

 

[Confispect]

Quote:

Seriously, you're actually using those youtube videos for your review ?? 

I was wondering the same thing, nothing bad but what is the bitrate rate.

 

[mvw2]

Well I'm sticking to HD videos which does offer decent audio quality or at least as good as it was recorded.  Growing up during the compression age, I'm well aware of what bitrate does to music.  Unlike some of you I remember raw wavs that swallowed up harddrive space(didn't take many, harddrives were tiny, just megabites) and remember first getting into mp3s upon their inception and computers have trouble decoding compressed files because the processors were too slow.  I remember very, very low bitrates and the compression algorithm war format war between players and their advancements over the years.
 
In the end, I'm using information that is decent enough for what I'm attempting to do.  I am aware that I am using streaming content and content of various recording and mixing.  In the end, my goal is to compare and highlight capabilities and limitations.  This doesn't really necessitate the need for the highest of quality recordings.  Also as a comparison all of the earphones are playing the same material and are of the same handicap doing so.  Even as part of the testing I want a poor recording just to show how revealing and blatant the earphone will be with poor quality information.  I want to hear the distortion, and I want to hear the sound quality of the earphone scale with the music.  If I'm looking for products that will do well with lower bitrates and lower quality, then I would be looking at products that do well to hide and compensate flaws.
 
I like to use the videos as a helpful visual reference to what you are hearing.  I'm just picking out a few examples, but part of this gives you some additional indicators of why certain things sound the way they do because you have a visual base to go by too.  For example with the cello you can see the player's softness or aggression, the speed and forcefulness, and you can get an idea of where he's sitting and the room's space.  You can correlate what you hear with what you see and determine if they sync up well.  Are sounds missing or poorly presented?  Is anything over-exaggerated?  Does the sound from the earphone sound like you're there with him looking at him play (like you're there) or is it more indirect and in your head (more virtual).  I'm not saying the recording is the best, but it's nice to use more than one sense sometimes to gauge some aspects of perception.

 

[ericp10]

Very nice work @ mvw2. Can't wait to read more!!

 

[patate]

Quote:

Well I'm sticking to HD videos which does offer decent audio quality or at least as good as it was recorded.  

 
It's funny how audiophiles work. It seems to be all about numbers to them. Therefore, the audio track of a 1080p HD video must be first-rate.
 
I don't want to be rude. The initiative is interesting and you've done a really hard work. But all I've read is a never-ending meaningless shower of technical terms in a bid to impress.
 
I'm not going to comment in-depth on the review. I just want to say that it is a bit inappropriate to talk of "generally poor quality" about Linkin Park's songs, when you're not able to see that the audio on your Numb Full HD video doesn't sound like a professional studio recording. Just a few seconds suffice to hear how bad the actual bitrate is. You can double-check on grooveshark -with their decent mp3 quality- if that is not obvious to you.
 
The most amusing part of the whole thing is that generally, these are the same people who swear by lossless.
 
I mean no offense in my post, so please don't take any. Just offering my thoughts. Peace.

 

[mvw2]

Oh no I don't expect things to be first rate.  For example, the Linkin Park song is relative crap even though the video is HD.  I picked it specifically for that reason.  It's simply that 1080p or 720p in a visual format on Youtube is as good as I'm going to get.  Now I can certainly pick wide range of audio quality regardless of it being of an HD video.  I'm not trying to say I'm picking HD so everything is amazing.  I just want the best format that I can get for that kind of offering.  In the end 720p or 1080p is only the video aspect.  The audio can be independent of the visual or even direct but terrible.  My phone can take 720p video, but the sound is crap.  There are some great HD (and non-HD) recordings on Youtube.  There are some terrible ones too.  I picked HD videos to get the best option in that format.  Since this is a new idea of having video as a partial tool, I am not really looking for the best audio recording in existence for a particular song.  Rather I am looking for a video version of that song and then getting a higher visual quality version which in general will correlate with at least decent audio quality (folks not typically attempting to provide an HD resolution with a terrible bitrate audio track).
 
As for lossy audio, I don't care much.  I don't even try to get lossless audio.  I listen to a bunch of 128bitrate streams, crappy radio, and a bunch of old recordings that frankly suck for audio quality.  I'll get 320 bitrate if I can for an mp3, but I'll be happy with 192 or higher as most speakers have a tough time producing a good enough sound to distinguish the differences.  Heck, a lot of speakers aren't even good enough to distinguish 128 bitrate information.  A lot of times the limit isn't even what you can hear but what you're playing the music through.  I have long accepted lossy formats as the norm for this digital world.
 
As for Linkin Park in general, it was only their older stuff that was recorded a little more roughly.  If you listen to their newer stuff it's a lot better.  Another artist off the top of my head that I've recently listened to was Jack Johnson.  His stuff is the same way.  Old songs are a little rougher around the edges than his newer albums, and it's readily noticeable back to back.  This is common for a lot of bands.  I specifically picked Linkin Park because I wanted to use something that wasn't highly polished, something rough, something flawed.  The HD format is really only visual eye candy.
 
I think the techno-babble is an unfortunate requirement.  We are a species trying to convey thought into a limited set of words.  We even continually make up new words and phrases just to convey new ideas.  We each have our own context and attempts at translating what we think into word and hopefully have others pick up that word and convert it back to thought in the correct context.  It is seldom exact, but we can try to go into detail and repeat and explain to better define our own context.  There are some standardized terms out there that are well defined like warm, sterile, cold, etc. but I'm a stubborn s.o.b. and pretty much make up my own how I convert my thought to word.  I just know that not everyone will interpret the predefined terms nor my terms exactly as I think them.  That's impossible.  My attempt at converting thought to word is always a pain to some.  I'm stuck writing a sea of techno-babble in one way or another.
 
You call me an audiophile.  I do not.  I am simply an enthusiast.  Frankly I don't think I could afford to be an audiophile.

  I think you have to be crazy to be called an audiophile and not a good crazy but nutty crazy.

 

[anubhav2345]

Great Review !!
Completely new style of doing a comparison .
 
I own a RE252 , love its mids and highs , just don't get satisfied with its lows .
Bass quality seems good , but quantity lacks .
 
Which IEM among the one;s u have reviewed is the best bet , for someone who is happy with the mids and highs of RE252 , but just misses lows . 
 
My main concern is , Excellent tight punchy bass , with rich mids , decent highs .
 
Recommend me !
My new purchase is due this month
 

 

[proedros]

re-262 seems to fit your description perfectly.
 
Quote:

Great Review !!
Completely new style of doing a comparison .
 
I own a RE252 , love its mids and highs , just don't get satisfied with its lows .
Bass quality seems good , but quantity lacks .
 
Which IEM among the one;s u have reviewed is the best bet , for someone who is happy with the mids and highs of RE252 , but just misses lows . 
 
My main concern is , Excellent tight punchy bass , with rich mids , decent highs .
 
Recommend me !
My new purchase is due this month
 

 

[anubhav2345]

Have had reviews for RE262 . Also , i own the RE2 already , so already a lot of Hi-fiMan stuff with me , now would like to go with some other brand , Westone , Earsonics , which ever suits my preferences

 

[Burma Jones]

Quote:

Have had reviews for RE262 . Also , i own the RE2 already , so already a lot of Hi-fiMan stuff with me , now would like to go with some other brand , Westone , Earsonics , which ever suits my preferences

Westone w2 or the DBA-02 might be something you want to investigate.

 

[anubhav2345]

Since when DBA-02 , got heavy on bass ??
As far as i know , they are also too shy on bass , and sibiliance OMG .. way too much
Quote:

Quote:

Have had reviews for RE262 . Also , i own the RE2 already , so already a lot of Hi-fiMan stuff with me , now would like to go with some other brand , Westone , Earsonics , which ever suits my preferences

Westone w2 or the DBA-02 might be something you want to investigate.

 

[goodvibes]

The highest effective bit rate that Flash player supports is 160kbs. It's a wrong assumption that the Audio quality follows the vid which is also very compressed. Flash will compress 320kbs in to 160 and is a heavy processor load player in general. I personally don't care for anything below 320 where for lack of a better description, it gives the impression of actually connecting the dots or flow naturally. I know others find 192 fine but it doesn't really work for me. I thought those vids were examples of better sources and not the actual files. Clearly still have some value but these bit rates lack the subtle cues that give the soul of a performance or ability to connect to the music, for me. your results may vary. These compression rates are bandwidth limited and frequency compensated to 'sound' like they're intact. I'm accustomed to good files and kit, find CD quality a bit lacking to begin with and think even these links are conservative.  http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=747969http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160     
 http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160   
 I find computers noisy environments and limiting in general. I prefer home kit as opposed to a computer for playback. I mention this as it relates to the comparison tests you see on the net that are always done with less than optimised setups. For playback from a PC I use Wavelab and a TC Konnekt firewire ASIO interface into a top DAC via coax. Wavelab Pro is a better sounding player than any of the freebees, the TC's JET circuit is as low jitter as you can get from a PC, is outboard powered and transformer ground decoupled at dig out to isolate PC interference from the DAC so it's not my setup that's the limiting part.
 
All this said, the files used can still offer viable differences between the phones but I wonder how they relate to the overall goodness or musicality. I think that relaying the intent and message of the musician is still the most difficult thing for HiFi to do in general. I'm also technically oriented but care more about the message. Fortunately, they're not mutually exclusive.
 
 

 

[Confispect]

Quote:

The highest effective bit rate that Flash player supports is 160kbs. It's a wrong assumption that the Audio quality follows the vid which is also very compressed. Flash will compress 320kbs in to 160 and is a heavy processor load player in general. I personally don't care for anything below 320 where for lack of a better description, it gives the impression of actually connecting the dots or flow naturally. I know others find 192 fine but it doesn't really work for me. I thought those vids were examples of better sources and not the actual files. Clearly still have some value but these bit rates lack the subtle cues that give the soul of a performance or ability to connect to the music, for me. your results may vary. These compression rates are bandwidth limited and frequency compensated to 'sound' like they're intact. I'm accustomed to good files and kit, find CD quality a bit lacking to begin with and think even these links are conservative.  http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=747969http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160     
 http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/#160   
 I find computers noisy environments and limiting in general. I prefer home kit as opposed to a computer for playback. I mention this as it relates to the comparison tests you see on the net that are always done with less than optimised setups. For playback from a PC I use Wavelab and a TC Konnekt firewire ASIO interface into a top DAC via coax. Wavelab Pro is a better sounding player than any of the freebees, the TC's JET circuit is as low jitter as you can get from a PC, is outboard powered and transformer ground decoupled at dig out to isolate PC interference from the DAC so it's not my setup that's the limiting part.
 
All this said, the files used can still offer viable differences between the phones but I wonder how they relate to the overall goodness or musicality. I think that relaying the intent and message of the musician is still the most difficult thing for HiFi to do in general. I'm also technically oriented but care more about the message. Fortunately, they're not mutually exclusive.
 
 

Interesting....I don't know how I feel about all this, i'm in the middle with you, and mv2w post. 

 

[goodvibes]

It doesn't make his observations any less valid. Just to be taken with a grain and I guess that could be said about any review. It is a discussion board and we do try to get to heart of things so I hope most didn't feel that inappropriate.