OK, so why am i liking these darn XM4's...
OK first off as mentioned by
@Canabuc I am a low volume listener ranging from 25% to 50% 90% of the time. But while I listen at low volumes I like to hear emotion in vocals and feel sub-bass in orchestral sound tracks. I still want to "experience" the music. So my tastes lean towards products that allow me to hear/experience those things at lower volume or be able to EQ the product achieve my goal.
What I find is most products that don't come close to allowing me this sound I like out of the box rarely are able to be EQ'd to allow it. Which is why the WF-1000XM4 surprised me so much. Out of the box they were dark sounding just as I suspected they would be. But for some reason they have responded very well to the EQ I applied. I am starting to think the challenge is the quality of the driver(s) in the TWS. If they have a certain bass threshold for example and it is already maxed out at the default tuning, then EQing it louder generally starts to sound bad. The same can be said for the midrange and treble. So in the case of the XM4 it's like Sony tuned the IEM to have a big bass and scaled back the midrange and treble even though the driver could handle more in those areas. Then when I adjusted the EQ the drivers were fully able to express the added midrange and treble because they had the sonic headroom to reach those levels. Other TWS I have when I try to do this and this includes Sony's Linkbuds S just could not deliver the EQ changes fully.
One other thing that might be why I am enjoying the XM4 is the bands they chose for their EQ settings. Most EQ's are usually 5 band and have something like 100hz, 250hz, 1khz, 4-5khz, 10-12khz or the like. Sony is not really any different except is has 5 and chose 400hz, 1khz, 2.5khz, 6.3khz, and 16khz. I have set those to +3 +5 +7 +5 +3 or basically a reverse V. This places the most emphasis as the 2.5Khz region versus the 1Khz region which may be where the emotive notes of singers like Patricia Barber reside and it also seems to give guitars edge, cymbal crashes might be around that 6.3khz giving them added presence. I then added +1 to Clear Bass which just ever so gently increased the bass. I also think that +3 on the 400hz band also added warmth and more presence to bass guitars and double bass.
So what does all this add up in a song?
I used Patricia Barber's song Smash and secondarily the song Missing from the album called Smash.
When listening to Smash there are moments when I can hear the ache in her voice on the XM4 it's like she hits a note and holds it until it almost become unbearable and then she releases it, and you can breathe. Meanwhile pianos are playing, and you can feel the notes and lushness of the notes and double bass notes are full and vibrant with wonderful detail. As the song progresses it transitions into a lament of a guitar and drums that is vibrant and crashing that carries the rest of the song.
Most TWS just lose what I mentioned above. Some can carry some of the song but areas like the vocals just come off as flat or the double bass or piano lose their vibrancy, or the cymbals lose life.
Similarly, the song Missing has even more aching vocals and equal parts of piano and guitar that fill the air. The vocals in this song have almost a whispered quality with hints of a waver. The XM4 conveys all of this. But most of my TWS just lose the sense of intimacy ruining the experience of the song.
.
