Hi everyone,
I had a quick search and couldn't find a dedicated thread to Geek Wold, if there is then this can be a thread dedicated to the new GK10.
The GK10 was first brought to my attention by @Dsnuts on the Discovery Thread. These look set to take off and seem much better than Geek Wolds previous offerings and I think we need a place to discuss our observations, share cable / tip rolling, source pairings and more generally, our enjoyment of this frankly astonishing IEM.
Please find @Dsnuts formal review here
My initial impressions are collated below from the discovery thread. I will have a formal review of my own coming in the following days.
Edit: please find my formal review now published here
___
My GK10's have arrived, initial impressions are very strong...
Thankyou @Dsnuts for the heads up!
Edit: A-B'ing without burn in, I prefer the GK10 to the BL-03, which says alot as I appreciate the timbre and coherence of a single DD.
___
A few more observations about the GK10:
My acid test for most new equipment is Yosi Horikawa. Tracks Bubbles, Letter and Timbre. The GK10 does an incredibly admirable job of conveying texture and timbre on these tracks and has no problem conveying imaging information and layering. Stage is small-moderate (however ambigious and useless that label is), but it never becomes congested or limits my enjoyment.
Looking forward to the journey of burning these in! Maybe some of these observations will change / no longer apply? Who knows!
___
Further observations on GK10 (I hope you're not getting tired of these)...
They scale with amping.
I plugged them into the C9 amp that provides a ludicrous 4W balanced into 16ohms and appreciated slight background hiss in absolute silence (nothing that would put me off for electronic music), and then put on Infected Mushroom track 'No Line in MIDI'. I am not one for expletives but my first thought was:
Holy SH&"T this is incredible.
Immediate expansion in stage with bass and mids growing body and presence. Impact is full and clean and the whole signature has to a degree lost that 'light touch'. This is a similar effect that I have appreciated in the past with DD drivers and amp scaling, but there may be more going on here than just brute force wattage. My understanding is that the Shanling M8 (the source I was running from for my initial observations) also has a high output impedance (is this the right term? - please correct me if I'm wrong and apply the appropriate term to my reasoning) on its 4.4mm balanced input that might be affecting the FR, and when I switch to the C9 this could be solving the issue.
It's either to do with the high sensitivity of the IEM, the output impedance of the source device or the wattage I'm providing, or all three. I'm not technically proficient enough to reason any further. All I can say is, give these IEMs some juice and play with source pairings (that vary by output impedance).
What a step up! I simply cannot believe the value proposition that these represent. If you sleep on this...well, don't. I would hope in the coming days there may be more feedback that highlight the presence or absence of any further QC issues. If it appears that driver imbalance, or other issues, are a minority, I would say go for it and take your chances, knowing what I know now.
___
Addendum:
From discussions on the Discovery Thread and thanks to posters more informed than I, it appears a low output impedence is important to avoid drastic changes to the frequency response of the GK10.
Comparing 2Ohm output impedance (Shanling M8, 4.4mm balanced input), to a 0.5Ohm output impedance (Cayin C9, 4.4m balanced input), the 2Ohm output impedeance makes the stage slightly smaller and bass more pronounced. The difference is slight but noticable and I imagine moving upward beyond 2Ohm will change the signature, to the point where we might be discussing 'apples and oranges' with regards to overall tonality.
I have edited my review to reflect these findings as I think these details are pertinent to potential buyers.
This also means we need to account for the source output impedance each of us are running the GK10 from when discussing our observations!
I had a quick search and couldn't find a dedicated thread to Geek Wold, if there is then this can be a thread dedicated to the new GK10.
The GK10 was first brought to my attention by @Dsnuts on the Discovery Thread. These look set to take off and seem much better than Geek Wolds previous offerings and I think we need a place to discuss our observations, share cable / tip rolling, source pairings and more generally, our enjoyment of this frankly astonishing IEM.
Please find @Dsnuts formal review here
My initial impressions are collated below from the discovery thread. I will have a formal review of my own coming in the following days.
Edit: please find my formal review now published here
___
My GK10's have arrived, initial impressions are very strong...
- Great detail retrieval and air (first time I've experienced peizo highs)
- Well balanced tuning with no sibilance
- Bass has great texture and reasonable impact
- Very good coherence for a multi-driver config
- Timbre is excellent
- Mids clearly benefit from the DD, vocals are lush and well textured
- Technicalities are strong enough to cope with demanding music
- Fit is great
- Design and looks aren't bad at all - I was never really put off by the shape of the shell anyway
- Packaging & accessories are awful but I can forgive that for cost savings (potentially a GK10 MK2 with economies of scale behind Geek Wold might see improvements?)
Thankyou @Dsnuts for the heads up!
Edit: A-B'ing without burn in, I prefer the GK10 to the BL-03, which says alot as I appreciate the timbre and coherence of a single DD.
___
A few more observations about the GK10:
- These have an unique degree of transparency throughout the FR
- The signature isn't warm, think room temperature (to my ear atleast)
- What's most impressive for the price is the dynamic range, very high to very low, you can appreciate it all
- Second to that is coherency and timbre
- Third is the inoffensive but equally exciting tuning
- I would say it can confidently manage nearly all genres
- I'm really liking what it does for jazz / instrumental / strings because of the deft tuning of the uppermids and treble, lots of resolution to enjoy here
- I can appreciate a very slight mids recession suggesting the tuning sits somewhere between W and V, learning towards W (I think!)
- It has the technical ability to handle electronic and bass-heavy music and do it justice (to my standards atleast)
- Given that all frequencies, including the bass, has a degree of transparency and in this case the bass has a subbass focus, lovers of midbass impact may be left wanting more. However, I'm very happy with this transparency in the lower frequency because it brings out the detail and texture. It also matches the character of the other drivers and frequencies sitting above it. [Addendum: Impact of bass and body to bass and mids has improved with amping / appropriate output impedance of amp/source]
My acid test for most new equipment is Yosi Horikawa. Tracks Bubbles, Letter and Timbre. The GK10 does an incredibly admirable job of conveying texture and timbre on these tracks and has no problem conveying imaging information and layering. Stage is small-moderate (however ambigious and useless that label is), but it never becomes congested or limits my enjoyment.
Looking forward to the journey of burning these in! Maybe some of these observations will change / no longer apply? Who knows!
___
Further observations on GK10 (I hope you're not getting tired of these)...
They scale with amping.
I plugged them into the C9 amp that provides a ludicrous 4W balanced into 16ohms and appreciated slight background hiss in absolute silence (nothing that would put me off for electronic music), and then put on Infected Mushroom track 'No Line in MIDI'. I am not one for expletives but my first thought was:
Holy SH&"T this is incredible.
Immediate expansion in stage with bass and mids growing body and presence. Impact is full and clean and the whole signature has to a degree lost that 'light touch'. This is a similar effect that I have appreciated in the past with DD drivers and amp scaling, but there may be more going on here than just brute force wattage. My understanding is that the Shanling M8 (the source I was running from for my initial observations) also has a high output impedance (is this the right term? - please correct me if I'm wrong and apply the appropriate term to my reasoning) on its 4.4mm balanced input that might be affecting the FR, and when I switch to the C9 this could be solving the issue.
It's either to do with the high sensitivity of the IEM, the output impedance of the source device or the wattage I'm providing, or all three. I'm not technically proficient enough to reason any further. All I can say is, give these IEMs some juice and play with source pairings (that vary by output impedance).
What a step up! I simply cannot believe the value proposition that these represent. If you sleep on this...well, don't. I would hope in the coming days there may be more feedback that highlight the presence or absence of any further QC issues. If it appears that driver imbalance, or other issues, are a minority, I would say go for it and take your chances, knowing what I know now.
___
Addendum:
From discussions on the Discovery Thread and thanks to posters more informed than I, it appears a low output impedence is important to avoid drastic changes to the frequency response of the GK10.
Comparing 2Ohm output impedance (Shanling M8, 4.4mm balanced input), to a 0.5Ohm output impedance (Cayin C9, 4.4m balanced input), the 2Ohm output impedeance makes the stage slightly smaller and bass more pronounced. The difference is slight but noticable and I imagine moving upward beyond 2Ohm will change the signature, to the point where we might be discussing 'apples and oranges' with regards to overall tonality.
I have edited my review to reflect these findings as I think these details are pertinent to potential buyers.
This also means we need to account for the source output impedance each of us are running the GK10 from when discussing our observations!
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