[Gavin C4]

So lets have the BA race continues, with Mason V3 pushing their limits to 16 and putting together all kinds of fuzzy tricks. But the duo tone cable would make cable rolling relatively hard... Now with everyone stuffing in APEX/ Adel like module into their iem. I am impressed with the speed of development in the iem scene. But I really hope they are not there just for a gimmick, as the actual listening experience is very important.

 

[ThomasHK]

I believe, in a Head-Fi video, he mentioned it as having the ideal uncoloured studio/professional sound, as well as brilliant measured performance.

How an amp sounds should not come into play for a measurement setup. The only real things to concern yourself with would be

1. THD should be at least an order of magnitude less than the DUT for the power and impedances your testing at
2. Rule flat frequency response within the measurement range you're interested in
3. Close to zero output impedance

For these reasons I use a super cheap O2 amp in the lab. Some people may dislike its sound, but is practically a wire when it comes to measureable characteristics.

 

[ThomasHK]

It's people that think something needs to be upgraded in believe cabling is an upgrade of sorts. I'm in the camp that impedance of the cable may interact with the transducer's impedance response, but this is only if the impedance response is non-linear, and at some points in the impedance response that cable impedance come relatively close in impedance. If the impedance response is flat, I rule out any effects of cabling, but nearly flat to totally flat are typically dynamic iems to planars. As an example from Headflux(.de) for the Andromeda which has non-linear response that drops it's impedance as low as 4ohms(that's what I consider relatively close):



From headflux.de:

"Likewise, the Inear responds to the output impedance of the source device. The above figure shows how the Andromeda reacts to different output impedances. The upper yellow line shows the Inear at a 0 Ohm output, which accordingly does not cause unwanted deviations of the frequency response. Below are outputs with 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 Ohm. So it can be seen that the Andromeda sounds with increasing output impedance of the player, amplifier etc. increasingly brighter. Our recommendation is a playback device with an output impedance of max. 0.5 Ohm - higher values cause changes in the frequency response of more than 1 dB, which can significantly alter the sound of the Inears."

And here are impedance of the cable measured by Rin Choi:

Which shows there are ones that can reach up to 2.4ohms. And the effects(particularly for NT6), but look closely that it's generally up to about 1dB difference, very minor. With cables, the measurements will show what the differences are, and this is undeniable.

I agree with everything here. But I would say, with regards to the cable impedance measurements, those look pretty bad actually. I have a limited number of aftermarket cables, nothing over 150 dollar and none of them measured over 1 Ohm single way, so slightly under 2 Ohm return. The best stock cable I measure was the stock shure SE846 cable (0.3 Ohm), the worst the stock Noble (2 Ohm). The 150 dollar one (Forza) was 0.7 Ohm. The difference between a 0.3 vs a 0.7 Ohm cables influence on any IEM would be minimal.

 

[doctorjazz]

Massdrop x Noble Kaiser 10 going to be offered tomorrow, anyone have any thoughts on these?

 

[Mimouille]

Massdrop x Noble Kaiser 10 going to be offered tomorrow, anyone have any thoughts on these?

I briefly tried the K10 acrylic universal and this massdrop price seems much closer to the actual value for me....

 

[piotrus-g]

Speaking of new releases, I completely forgot to talk about Unique Melody's recently announced Mentor V3 and Mason (previously also known as Mason/Maestro/Legacy) V3, and their accompanying accessories!

Mentor V3 and Mason

The Mentor V3 and Mason V3 will be refreshes of Unique Melody's top-tier models. The key take-aways from the flier they've put out is an increased driver count (12 on the Mentor V3, and 16 on the Mason V3), the adoption of JH's 4-pin connectors (but with no bass control and an entirely different implementation that I'll talk about in the Dual-Tone Cable section) and the implementation of APEX/ADEL-like models. It's fully adjustable, so it's more akin to a MAM module, and it is said to control "acoustic dampening, pressure attenuation, and real-time low frequency adjustment." It's also bumped up the bore count to five, which may alert the smaller-eared of you out there. Here's the full flier for more info:

Spoiler

Dual-Tone Cable

The Dual-Tone cable is a 2-in-1 cable that essentially allows you to switch metal compositions on the fly. Only two of the four pins on each JH socket are active, and depending on the orientation of the cable, you get to choose what conductor (silver or copper) the audio signal gets transmitted through. Here's another graphic for further information:

Spoiler

Color-Changing Shells

UM will also be introducing a new shell that changes colour based on temperature. The shift will occur at 31-degrees-Celsius, and is a neat option for further customisability. No fliers for this one, unfortunately.

Not to be downer, I'm just wondering how UM is going to work around JH's patent on the connector https://patents.justia.com/patent/9172180 unless of course they license it, then it's all dandy.

UM will also be introducing a new shell that changes colour based on temperature. The shift will occur at 31-degrees-Celsius, and is a neat option for further customisability. No fliers for this one, unfortunately.

We toyed with this idea as well as sun activated colors, cool stuff

 

[ForceMajeure]

Patents and China...
also here is the "flier" about the color changing

tbh I know those color changing pigments and I think the colors are not so good...but it can be cool nonetheless

 

[kubig123]

Massdrop x Noble Kaiser 10 going to be offered tomorrow, anyone have any thoughts on these?

The price makes it really interesting.

 

[piotrus-g]

Patents and China...

How about the rest of the world though.

 

[ForceMajeure]

How about the rest of the world though.

They will be at RMAF showing the new stuff haha

 

[tsn141]

As I remember UM used 4 pin connector before(not sure, platform pp6)

http://theheadphonelist.com/ciem_review/unique-melody-pp6/

 

[piotrus-g]

They will be at RMAF showing the new stuff haha

 

[piotrus-g]

As I remember UM used 4 pin connector before(not sure, platform pp6)

http://theheadphonelist.com/ciem_review/unique-melody-pp6/

Oh you mean this https://encrypted.google.com/patents/US20060193480

 

[Deezel177]

not only for hot places, the average body temperature is 37 therefore the part of the cable that touch the skin will be have temperature higher than 31. This is just marketing.

Yeah, it seems to me like the two colours might as well be called "Colour when I'm wearing the IEM" and "Colour when I'm not wearing the IEM." I too see no use for it as I'd rather have a uniform design without the possible long-term drawbacks of colour-shifting dyes, but it was in the announcement, so I put it in.

So lets have the BA race continues, with Mason V3 pushing their limits to 16 and putting together all kinds of fuzzy tricks. But the duo tone cable would make cable rolling relatively hard... Now with everyone stuffing in APEX/ Adel like module into their iem. I am impressed with the speed of development in the iem scene. But I really hope they are not there just for a gimmick, as the actual listening experience is very important.

To be honest, the entire engineering aspect of the accouncement (driver count rise, pressure modules, JH connectors) seemed a bit, for lack of a better term, shady to me. It may have been lost in my excitement, but I'm still really wary as to how all of these "borrowed" technologies will actually improve the listening experience. And, probably worst of all, how it'll affect pricing.

Not to be downer, I'm just wondering how UM is going to work around JH's patent on the connector https://patents.justia.com/patent/9172180 unless of course they license it, then it's all dandy.


We toyed with this idea as well as sun activated colors, cool stuff

Considering JH and 64Audio's recent spat over one of the former's patents (regarding triple-driver IEMs, I believe), I'm confident JH will have something to say. Great to see you're still experimenting, Piotr! Your passion for this industry is one of the reasons why you're one of my favorite manufacturers. Can't wait to see the next FIBAE IEM.

 

[tsn141]

Oh you mean this https://encrypted.google.com/patents/US20060193480

No, focus on connector. I mean the 4 pin connector used before the patent date. So there is no protection on connector.
(Still not sure )