Going fully Wireless IEMs. Too soon? Or are we there yet?

[clerkpalmer]

Any news on the Klipsch T10

Fall 2020 was the original date.

 

[Sam L]

I'm not sure, I can't wear headphones, they make me feel clostrophobic.

Etymotics use diffuse field with a slight mids boost as their target. I used Crinacles graph database with my xm3 and tried to EQ it to that.

My favorite is still my er4s, but the xm3s get really close and it helps open up the soundstage and sharpen the imaging so much.

This need to be highlighted, the fact that the xm3's can be tuned to satisfaction fairly easily. Case in point, here are my headphone xm3's settings:

Don't have a screen shot of my tws xm3 settings, but I adjust clear bass to - 2 and bump 16k another 2 or 3 dB (cause I'm old).

One thing to remember, the xm3's are faithfully tuned to the Sony house sound - - lots of bass, while at the same time trying to maintain clarity across mids and highs. I think I'm starting to tire of Sony's target curve. Lately, I've turned down the low end on all my Sony headphones and earphones.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I hear you on the APPs. i'm on my 3rd pair. They Quality Control really sucks on them. My first pair had the newer firmware and it was awful. The last two are still on the old firmware and the ANC is fantastic, so is the Transparency. I bought some aftermarket silicon and foam tips from Ali Express and They seem to fit better than the stock tips. I also own the Pamu Scroll, I haven't listened to it in a long time but I remember I didn't like how veiled the highs were, The touch sensors were too sensitive and they don't turn off w/o the case. For the price they were pretty great, but the design hurt my ear after about 30 min.

I don't think the Pamu Scroll highs are veiled so much as they are very slightly recessed. What strikes me most about the Pamu Scroll is that they are fairly transparent and uncolored, without any boxy or closed in sound or metallic timbre like some cheaper buds. They remind me of my MTW.

As for APP, by the time I decided the 2C54 firmware was too much of an issue for me the Corona virus was keeping me hiding out at home, and I'd like to get them exchanged under the warranty without using one of my 2 accidental damage claims with AppleCare+. I do not want to deal with email exchange with AppleCare, and would prefer to do it in person, but I've convinced myself that by the time it is safe to go into the Apple stores we will have a new firmware. I know I'm an easy mark.

I got the N6Pro replacements a day early today, and I charged them up and paired them with my iPhone 11 Pro Max about 20 minutes ago. In the pairing process, when the iPhone pop up asked me to pair the other side, it didn't show the earbud name, and paired it as "headset", while the left one that I'd manually paired to start the process was named "NUARL N6PRO-L".

I turned BT off and on a couple of times, and it stayed named "headset". I doubled clicked the Rt main button and it went into pairing mode, then I tapped on "headset" in my iPhone BT prefs, and it automatically renamed the "headset" to "NUARL N6PRO-R" and connected, with left as slave. It's all working fine now.

They sound pretty good before burn-in, with only a slight hint of sharp treble that should smooth out with about 24+ hours of music. The treble is not bright or sibilant, just slightly edgy sometimes, and only mildly so. The sound is crisp and detailed, rendering acoustic guitar overtones quite well. The midrange, and big air and space is pretty good, and vocals from Jackson Browne and Jack Johnson are rich and present, maybe even better than my MTW mids (will have to compare after burn-in)? They have more bass than I was expecting from the reviews I've seen here, so I won't be disappointed at all. I don't hear any driver flex when inserting them into my ear canals quickly with a tight seal.

I also think they have a bit better passive isolation than my MTW. Unfortunately this makes it hard to talk with them in, because I hear my voice rumbling deep and low inside my head when I talk during a phone call - much worse than with my MTW with transparency mode on, or my APP. These will NOT be the ones I wear while walking around in this world, but would be the ones I can use in the safety of my home when I'm alone and want to tune things out and read a good book with music, with no wires to hang me up. PS: My wife says I sound fine on a phone call with her.

 

[FYLegend]

Jabees has a new version of the Firefly.2 which has touch controls instead of buttons, currently 30% off 99$ USD. Not sure if they changed anything else (having used the Firefly Pro, I would like to see a true USB-C connection among other things...)

Ooooh very interesting!

https://www.linsoul.com/pages/tin-hifi-t2000

Interesting, but I doubt they will have controls for volume or even play-pause. They also seem to be cable-down rather than over-ear/negative fit which means the stems would be more obvious.

 

[voicemaster]

I don't think the Pamu Scroll highs are veiled so much as they are very slightly recessed. What strikes me most about the Pamu Scroll is that they are fairly transparent and uncolored, without any boxy or closed in sound or metallic timbre like some cheaper buds. They remind me of my MTW.

As for APP, by the time I decided the 2C54 firmware was too much of an issue for me the Corona virus was keeping me hiding out at home, and I'd like to get them exchanged under the warranty without using one of my 2 accidental damage claims with AppleCare+. I do not want to deal with email exchange with AppleCare, and would prefer to do it in person, but I've convinced myself that by the time it is safe to go into the Apple stores we will have a new firmware. I know I'm an easy mark.

I got the N6Pro replacements a day early today, and I charged them up and paired them with my iPhone 11 Pro Max about 20 minutes ago. In the pairing process, when the iPhone pop up asked me to pair the other side, it didn't show the earbud name, and paired it as "headset", while the left one that I'd manually paired to start the process was named "NUARL N6PRO-L".

I turned BT off and on a couple of times, and it stayed named "headset". I doubled clicked the Rt main button and it went into pairing mode, then I tapped on "headset" in my iPhone BT prefs, and it automatically renamed the "headset" to "NUARL N6PRO-R" and connected, with left as slave. It's all working fine now.

They sound pretty good before burn-in, with only a slight hint of sharp treble that should smooth out with about 24+ hours of music. The treble is not bright or sibilant, just slightly edgy sometimes, and only mildly so. The sound is crisp and detailed, rendering acoustic guitar overtones quite well. The midrange, and big air and space is pretty good, and vocals from Jackson Browne and Jack Johnson are rich and present, maybe even better than my MTW mids (will have to compare after burn-in)? They have more bass than I was expecting from the reviews I've seen here, so I won't be disappointed at all. I don't hear any driver flex when inserting them into my ear canals quickly with a tight seal.

I also think they have a bit better passive isolation than my MTW. Unfortunately this makes it hard to talk with them in, because I hear my voice rumbling deep and low inside my head when I talk during a phone call - much worse than with my MTW with transparency mode on, or my APP. These will NOT be the ones I wear while walking around in this world, but would be the ones I can use in the safety of my home when I'm alone and want to tune things out and read a good book with music, with no wires to hang me up. PS: My wife says I sound fine on a phone call with her.

The bass will lessen a bit and same with the treble harshness. They have pretty good call quality and I usually only wear one side when doing phone call.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

The bass will lessen a bit and same with the treble harshness. They have pretty good call quality and I usually only wear one side when doing phone call.

But, but, I don't want the bass to lessen a little

For d3myz - I grabbed the Pamu Scroll which are my bedside TWS, and I stand by my thoughts - the details are not veiled to me and they have nice air and space. I find them to have a nice transparent sound with a good balance of bass, mids and treble. The treble is just slightly recessed to me, which makes them work better with poor recordings, but despite my 58 yr old ears I have not thought about EQing more treble lately.. The PaMu charging case size, while round, is about as wide and deep as the N6pro case, but at least 1.5x the length of the N6Pro.

And yes, with PaMu it is easy to pause the music when trying to re-adjust them in your ears, so that they don't apply pressure to sensitive parts of the ears..

 

[Synthy]

looks like my galaxy buds have died on me. the left bud is extremely low volume, almost no sound at all, and every thing i've tried (careful cleaning of every ingress, hard reset, software update) hasn't helped. it has been close to a year.

i got the Shanling MTW100 as a cheap tws in the meantime (and it does have a Knowles BA in it, which is nice), the issue i'm having with it is the stem and tips are all very short, too short in fact for me to get a good seal, and almost every other tip i've tried on them that would be long enough makes them not fit in the case. i'm trying them with the tips from the galaxy buds, which might be just barely long enough to get a seal and just barely short enough to work in the case, but they are tips that i'm not a huge fan of in the first place, the hole is strangely super small.

BTW, last time I heard someone was gonna order the Astrotec S90 Pros to try them out? Whatever happened to that?

I kinda can get them for the price of the Edifier TWS NB here where I am, and that twin BA setup is pretty intriguing TBH.

Of course, no EQ app or ambient passthrough or ANC or anything like that, though the case does QI which is pretty nice to have (I'm spoiled by the L2P case lol).

that was me, hifigo just finally shipped them out yesterday, so it'll still be a bit till they get here.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I took put down the Pamu Scroll and went back to the N6Pro for a bit. When I used the iPhone Music on-screen volume slider to slide the volume up and down, I heard the left ear bud volume change out of sync with the right, so that it seemed like the channel balance was changing. The master volume changes faster than the slave volume when using the on-screen slider, but not when using the volume buttons on the side of the phone.

WHAT WAS VERY STRANGE WAS that if I would slide the volume up and down too fast, to explore this "feature", then the buds freak out. The left earbud made a lawn mower engine sound for a couple of seconds, which stopped, and then the left ear bud said "connected". This is repeatable, but some of the time they are not really connected.

Also the N6Pro still push against or apply pressure to the tragus of my ears, just like the Pamu Scroll. Only time will tell if they become irritating to wear for long periods (pic is not my ear).

 

[TooFrank]

I had zero issues with the Beoplay E8 3g using an iPhone 11 pro max. They did issue a firmware update that helped the Passthrough mode while I had them. That said, I do like my MTW2 better. If the Beoplay E8 3g come down in price, I might revisit.

I’m pretty happy with the e8 3g. Much better than the 1g and sometimes better than the XM3s.Have not experienced any issues. However, curious about the MTW2s. Will if be possible for you to put some words on what you like better compared with the e8 3g?

 

[voicemaster]

But, but, I don't want the bass to lessen a little

For d3myz - I grabbed the Pamu Scroll which are my bedside TWS, and I stand by my thoughts - the details are not veiled to me and they have nice air and space. I find them to have a nice transparent sound with a good balance of bass, mids and treble. The treble is just slightly recessed to me, which makes them work better with poor recordings, but despite my 58 yr old ears I have not thought about EQing more treble lately.. The PaMu charging case size, while round, is about as wide and deep as the N6pro case, but at least 1.5x the length of the N6Pro.

And yes, with PaMu it is easy to pause the music when trying to re-adjust them in your ears, so that they don't apply pressure to sensitive parts of the ears..

Its not lessen more like tightened.

 

[assassin10000]

This need to be highlighted, the fact that the xm3's can be tuned to satisfaction fairly easily. Case in point, here are my headphone xm3's settings:



Don't have a screen shot of my tws xm3 settings, but I adjust clear bass to - 2 and bump 16k another 2 or 3 dB (cause I'm old).

One thing to remember, the xm3's are faithfully tuned to the Sony house sound - - lots of bass, while at the same time trying to maintain clarity across mids and highs. I think I'm starting to tire of Sony's target curve. Lately, I've turned down the low end on all my Sony headphones and earphones.

This is what I ended up with, more neutral or vocal focused.

 

[SilverEars]

I’m pretty happy with the e8 3g. Much better than the 1g and sometimes better than the XM3s.Have not experienced any issues. However, curious about the MTW2s. Will if be possible for you to put some words on what you like better compared with the e8 3g?

I saw the Sound response curve on Rtings and look horrendous.

Minidisk's impression was that the treble was aleviated, but that obviously isn't true on the graph. The two spikes scares me off like a little squirrl back to my safety tree. I get a feeling it will be like M&D treble, but worse. That 7k looks so painful!

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/b-o-play/e8-3-0-true-wireless



Rting's description of the treble. "The E8 3.0's treble accuracy is mediocre. There's a dip in low treble, making notes in this range dull and recessed. However, a high spike in the mid-treble sound overly bright and piercing, especially on sibilants (such as S and T sounds)."

The last bit is exactly what 7k boost does, but I say mainly T sounds. It emphasizes it like a Mofo. Look it how drastic it is on that graph, and it's spiking up rather than down (which it's suppose to be at 7k).

 

[bronco1015]

I don't think the Pamu Scroll highs are veiled so much as they are very slightly recessed. What strikes me most about the Pamu Scroll is that they are fairly transparent and uncolored, without any boxy or closed in sound or metallic timbre like some cheaper buds. They remind me of my MTW.

As for APP, by the time I decided the 2C54 firmware was too much of an issue for me the Corona virus was keeping me hiding out at home, and I'd like to get them exchanged under the warranty without using one of my 2 accidental damage claims with AppleCare+. I do not want to deal with email exchange with AppleCare, and would prefer to do it in person, but I've convinced myself that by the time it is safe to go into the Apple stores we will have a new firmware. I know I'm an easy mark.

I got the N6Pro replacements a day early today, and I charged them up and paired them with my iPhone 11 Pro Max about 20 minutes ago. In the pairing process, when the iPhone pop up asked me to pair the other side, it didn't show the earbud name, and paired it as "headset", while the left one that I'd manually paired to start the process was named "NUARL N6PRO-L".

I turned BT off and on a couple of times, and it stayed named "headset". I doubled clicked the Rt main button and it went into pairing mode, then I tapped on "headset" in my iPhone BT prefs, and it automatically renamed the "headset" to "NUARL N6PRO-R" and connected, with left as slave. It's all working fine now.

They sound pretty good before burn-in, with only a slight hint of sharp treble that should smooth out with about 24+ hours of music. The treble is not bright or sibilant, just slightly edgy sometimes, and only mildly so. The sound is crisp and detailed, rendering acoustic guitar overtones quite well. The midrange, and big air and space is pretty good, and vocals from Jackson Browne and Jack Johnson are rich and present, maybe even better than my MTW mids (will have to compare after burn-in)? They have more bass than I was expecting from the reviews I've seen here, so I won't be disappointed at all. I don't hear any driver flex when inserting them into my ear canals quickly with a tight seal.

I also think they have a bit better passive isolation than my MTW. Unfortunately this makes it hard to talk with them in, because I hear my voice rumbling deep and low inside my head when I talk during a phone call - much worse than with my MTW with transparency mode on, or my APP. These will NOT be the ones I wear while walking around in this world, but would be the ones I can use in the safety of my home when I'm alone and want to tune things out and read a good book with music, with no wires to hang me up. PS: My wife says I sound fine on a phone call with her.

Great that they're working. That slightly harsh treble is exactly what i was refering to when i mentioned these do well with a little burn in.

 

[clerkpalmer]

Maybe off topic maybe not. Can anyone recommend something good for road cycling? I tried my mtw2 with transparency on but the wind noise even at low speeds was brutal. Recommendations appreciated even if not strictly tws

 

[dw13]

Maybe off topic maybe not. Can anyone recommend something good for road cycling? I tried my mtw2 with transparency on but the wind noise even at low speeds was brutal. Recommendations appreciated even if not strictly tws

The Sony WF-1000XM3 are really good at wind noise reduction.