I’ve written this post since there is still some confusion on the philosophy behind the scoring, the role of my personal ‘bias’, and most importantly, how this relates to the reader.
“Audiophile”
The audiophile community originated from speaker systems, which is still infinitely larger than the head fi world in terms of volume and popularity. The headphones and more recently iem community is a great deal younger in its conception, and has become a sort of spinoff from its bigger brother. It follows its own set of rules and interpretations about sound.
If you search online for articles explaining sound analysis (
this one for example), or for instance listen to Chesky’s Demonstration disk, they are nearly always from experts on speaker systems. These experts follow the audiophile philosophy, that there is a ‘right’ way for a setup to sound, incorporating many technical aspects like speed, transparency, resolution, dynamics, but also a prominent role of instrument timbre. It also for instance prescribes the role of bass in a system, which is not ‘against’ quantity as is often believed, it just prioritizes quality over quantity, and the two are by definition in conflict with each other. The reason that there are universal, objective parameters to which a sound system should adhere, is because a speaker setup is designed to reproduce a recording or live concert as
accurately as possible. The key word here is ‘realism’. In order for this to be achieved, aspects as transparency, precision of imaging, resolution, and of course instrument timbre are incredibly important; you want to mimic a real life experience as closely as possible.
Here on Head Fi, this original meaning of what ‘audiophile’ truly means, is not common practice or maybe even known. Instead it has been adopted to just describe us, which is basically people who have taken an interest in listening to high quality iems and are willing to pay ridiculous amounts for it. Part of the reason is that there is a large difference between the speaker community and iem/headphone world. In the speaker world, there are more fixed principles on how a system should sound, and ‘reference’ translates to a top tier system that incorporates them as closely as possible, including an ‘uncolored sound’ which means an accurate timbre. Here, the standard is ‘all sound is subjective, and it comes down to preference’ - which is true. And there is also an important reason for this. Speaker systems are incredibly expensive; therefore, the main demographic is by definition old, rich men that can afford them. And as you might expect, this is a demographic that primarily listens to classical, jazz, and perhaps some classic rock. So the requirements for this type of music is again tonal accuracy for instance, for it to sound realistic. But here on Head Fi, we are a diverse and dynamic population. There are people in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, as well as those in their 60’s or older. There are people from the US, Asia, or Europe. And as a result, the music we listen to is highly varied. The last two decades, the music has evolved in all kinds of directions. Genres like pop, hip hop, and electronic music rely heavily on synthetic influences. Because of that, the preference for treble and bass has increased, while the importance of factors like timbre and transparency have decreased. Then there are genres like metal that has its own set of requirements.
So now that the difference between the traditional audiophile community and head fi, and accordingly this shift in preferences, has been put in perspective, we can move to this shootout, and how the scores should be interpreted. This shootout is written and scored from this traditional audiophile perspective. I can’t score for ‘musicality’, because there is no such thing; musical just means “I think this sounds good”. So I have adopted this principle, as I need some starting point, and this is the only one that has a clear standard of principles. At the same time, I do not consider myself an audiophile. I don’t listen to either jazz or classical. And because I listen to modern genres as well, tonal accuracy is not my holy grail, although I do score accordingly. But this also means, that a high or low score only
partially means that an aspect is better or worse.
As an example, let’s take the NT6pro’s treble. The NT6pro’s treble is technically very good; it is quick, well-defined, and to my ears it is even smooth. However, its tone is too bright to be accurate. Because of its treble tuning, the upper midrange, treble, and tone have all received moderate scores. However, its brighter tone does not mean it per definition sounds worse than a similar technically good treble with a warmer tone. Some people will prefer the sparkle, other will prefer the more natural and therefore 'accurate' tone. I love the NT6pro’s sparkle, but I could not objectively score it higher than 86 despite its excellent technical properties, according to the principles of this shootout.
So how does this relate to the reader? Each of these iems has its own unique set of qualities, and accordingly, each of them will perform differently for different genres and listeners. When we come to the top 5 or even before, I consider every iem to be a specialist. None of these iems is automatically better for every listener. In fact, the chance is just as likely that someone will prefer rank #10 or #15 over rank #1. The scoring of this shootout is only direct applicable to people who listen to music with the same principles as I score; and that chance is highly unlikely. When I listen to an iem, I heavily incorporate technical aspects in my evaluation; if the transparency or imaging for instance is off, it tends to bother me. But a year ago, I didn’t even know what transparency was. So I know how equally important or unimportant these things can be. You as a reader need to decide what you find important. If I say a timbre is not accurate, that doesn’t have to mean it doesn’t sound
good. Similarly, if you’re not completely sure what imaging, resolution, or transparency is, then don’t read too much into it if I say it could be better.
So pay attention to this when you look at the scores and the ranks. I stand strong behind my final scores and ranks; but the chance that someone else would score and rank these iems the same is incredibly small. This scoring does not directly represent my own preference, for example, I wrote in the introduction that I don’t mind if an upper midrange is brighter for more excitement. When I first started, I was a basshead myself. However, my preference has been shaped by gradually understanding these audiophile principles – but the principles were there first, and my preference came later. But still, I myself might even rank these iems differently if I was strictly going on my own preference. I hope this illustrates you should primarily go by the content of the review, and only incorporate the full range of scores if you think they are equally important to you.
Without a doubt it's fun for us to see who's going to make it to the top, and it's a hell of a work Nic put together, bringing this shootout. But I hope people will get different things out of it, specifically trying to figure out what is the best IEM for them, for their setup, for their sound preference, not just which iem makes it to the Top5 or #1 per Nic's rating.
(i used to love the big beerchug smiley, too bad it's mini now)
