[geniebomb]

Hey,

I just got my Vibes today, and after listening to them, I find them....underwhelming. Actually, I feel like there's no detail, no highs, and the low bass is very sloppy. There's an overpowering feeling to it somewhere around the low mids. I guess muddy is the right word to describe them.

This is my first time with an IEM, so my question is, do I have my Vibes in right? Or are they supposed to sound like this? I tried both the small and medium tips, and they sound about the same.

I'm thinking of returning them, as I'm looking for something like my HD580. My HD580 is worlds ahead of these Vibes, IMO. Can anyone recommend a pair of IEMS that is more neutral? I'm not looking for expensive IEMS, just something that is sub-$100. Partial isolation is a plus.

Thanks for reading.

 

[slydog64]

are you sure your making a good seal? If your not used to IEM's they may feel very intruding. But you pretty much have to shove them into your ear canal and twist unless they seal right. If you dont have a seal then most of the sounds gets out and not in.

 

[rb67]

Hey, are you at the U of M too? If you're up north often, maybe we can arrange a meet on campus real quickly. I've got a pair of ER-4P's and plenty of tips if you're interested. They aren't sub $100 though.

Anyways, I would imagine ER-6i's to be the right ones for you, if you are looking for neutral IEMs in that price range.

 

[warrior05]

Yeah, the Vibes are far from neutral though you might want to try giving them some time to tighten up. They are dynamic drivers and will change with a bit of time. Don't get me wrong - they won't ever be like your 580s but they are decent canalphones (though there's been a lot of Vibes-bashing as of late).

I'm sure others will chime in but if you want somewhat neutral IEMs with detail - try Shures. The E2x are in your price range.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Hey geniebomb, if you look around more and more people are complaining about the Vibes, and with good reasons.

You may want to try the ER6i...

 

[spinrite]

er6i's get another vote from me. great value for your money with the etymotic reputation to boot.

 

[ak40ozKevin]

As I recently bought a pair of Vibes and returned them I guess I'll let you know the path I went down searching for a better similar priced IEM.

The ones I was looking at and contemplating getting were:

IM716 by Altec Lansing but have ER-4 drivers from what I understand ($69.99)
ER6i by Etymotic ($69.99)
Ultimate Ears Super Fi 3 ($82)
Westone UM1 ($109)

All the prices are from Amazon btw except for the UM1.

I think hands down the most commonly recommended IEMs were the Etymotic ones. I however, went with the Westone UM1. I heard a few user experiences on this site and it sounded like what I wanted. Something neutral that responded well to EQ. So far I haven't been disappointed either other than the bass lacking a little punch. The Vibes had that punch IMO but I couldn't differentiate the low bass tones. It was like monotonous thumping coupled with muffled highs and it made me hate them.

Anyways I'd suggest looking into these IEMs and then searching for user reviews on this site or something. There's probably other good ones people will mention too.

 

[MrBlonde]

I'll jump in here. I just got my Vibes yesterday too, and I'm feeling somewhat ambivalent about them as well. I've let them burn in for a while, even though I'm not really convinced about the concept of burn in.

They seem to be confusingly and inconsistently music-dependent. Some pieces just feel like the highs is are simply not there and everything is muddy. On others, it's fairly detailed. Source quality is not an issue here - all the music is about the same bit rate and is coming right out of my DAC and amp. Alot of it has to do with the type of music, but I think the problem may be that the overwhelming bass is really downing out the treble. Or maybe the treble is okay, but the bass is muddy and bloated. Or maybe not... clearly, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Solo piano pieces sound pretty great - the Gould '81 Goldberg is crisp and the Vibes' bass gives it just the correct degree of solidity. Even Gould's trademark humming is natural and familiar. Same feelings with Ashkenazy on the Beethoven Tempest sonata. But comparatively, a solo cello work is a soggy mess. Rostropovich on Bach's Cello Suites feels inarticulate and far from crisp. Chamber music is hit or miss. Orchestral pieces are sort of the same. Emerson on the Dvorak American Stirng 4tet is perfect. Hahn on the Elgar Violin Concerto is very crisp. Ma on the Dvorak Cello Concerto really sings in the solos. Bell playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto is a mess. Anne Sophie Mutter playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto is superb. The two recordings are engineered a bit differently, but they're not distinctly different in terms of recording quality.

Meanwhile, a similar disparity exists for more modern music. The Seeker by The Who really just, well, rocks. The bass is snappy and the vocals are crisp. Rainbow High from the Evita film soundtrack sounds like Madonna is muffled, even like my ears are covered with gauze. Little Green Bag off the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack is superb in all areas. The percussion is tight as a drum (*groan*).

In short: I'm very confused. There doesn't seem to be a consistent trend here. I cannot predict which pieces will sound good and which won't. More songs sound very good than bad, but the bad sounds pretty bad. Pretty much everything sounds damn good on my Senn HD580s, though I do understand that the comparison may be a little unfair. Maybe sleep deprivation has finally driven me insane.

Anyways, my experience with IEMs is about 2 years of listening to a pair of E3Cs, which I enjoyed, but always felt not completely satisfied. They didn't really seem very fun. I thought that for portable listening, having the sound be a bit colored is perfectly alright and maybe even preferable to "sterile." I've got a pair of MS-1s and (coincidently) HD580s at home that I listen to when I listen "seriously."

Yes, I know - if I wanted to mainly listen to classical music, I should have picked up a ER6i... maybe that's true. But I'm a big fan of the notion that, while it should be articulate and crisp, classical music should not sound sterile, which is a not uncommon complaint about the ER6i. Hell, I prefer to listen to classical music on my Sennheisers. I'm also really uneasy about the superthin cables on the ER phones. We'll see how I feel about the Vibes tomorrow, when my Creative EP630s come in and I can compare a bit ($10 shipped AR Buy.com deal!)

 

[geniebomb]

Thanks guys for all the input. I'm really stuck, and am not sure whether I want to return the Vibes or keep them. I guess I've gotten more used to them, and they sound great for the electronic music I listen to (Om Records), but not so great with other stuff, like jazz (Diana Krall), classical.

I've read that there are always trade off's when getting cheap IEM's, so if I get ER6i's instead, will the bass be weak so that electronic music won't have much of a beat? Also, do ER6i's have fragile cables? They look kind of thin in the pictures. If I do opt for ER6i's, it'll probably later in the summer. I'm going out of the country in less than two weeks, so I won't have time to return those if I don't like them also.

 

[mdarnton]

For perspective, first, I have Ety Er-6 and Er-4P, Shure E2C, and Grado SR-80 phones. I like the Grados and Er-4Ps the best, the Shures are warm and friendly, but not detailed enough for me, but I would like them better than the Er6s if they were more defined, and the Er6s are OK. So you can see that when I drive by the windows of my car aren't thumping with bass. But I do like a lot of clear, well-defined bass, if I can get it. I bought Vibes thinking, because a lot of people were comparing them to the mid range Etys and Shures, that they might offer some of that defined bass that the others I have are missing.

Boy, was I disappointed. What they sound like is a bad live folk performance when the sound system is set up wrong, the bass is almost feeding back, and the singer is swallowing the mic. Everything in the bass comes out with an offensive "puff", like when a singer is blowing into the mic. It's not good, and I don't see how anyone with ears could have given these a good review, if my Vibes are representative of what they sound like.

I'm burning them in, and hope they'll firm up a bit, but I don't think that's going to happen. On stuff with no bass, they're fine and detailed, so if they stop puffing out the low notes, I'll be happy. I definitely would not recommend them, though.

At the same time I got the Er-4Ps, an those are turning out great! I didn't buy any of the higher-grade Shures only because I don't like the big Shure earpieces and find the over-ear business uncomfortable, but if I hadn't minded that, they'd have been in the running.

Within the range of good phones I think a lot of it is subjective, and I switch around a bit depending on the music and surroundings, and even especialy like the stock buds that came with my wife's Vision-M (I have an 80GB iPod), but to me the Vibes don't have any function at all--I'd rather listen through stock earbuds.

 

[antonyfirst]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdarnton /img/forum/go_quote.gif For perspective, first, I have Ety Er-6 and Er-4P, Shure E2C, and Grado SR-80 phones. I like the Grados and Er-4Ps the best, the Shures are warm and friendly, but not detailed enough for me, but I would like them better than the Er6s if they were more defined, and the Er6s are OK. So you can see that when I drive by the windows of my car aren't thumping with bass. But I do like a lot of clear, well-defined bass, if I can get it. I bought Vibes thinking, because a lot of people were comparing them to the mid range Etys and Shures, that they might offer some of that defined bass that the others I have are missing. Boy, was I disappointed. What they sound like is a bad live folk performance when the sound system is set up wrong, the bass is almost feeding back, and the singer is swallowing the mic. Everything in the bass comes out with an offensive "puff", like when a singer is blowing into the mic. It's not good, and I don't see how anyone with ears could have given these a good review, if my Vibes are representative of what they sound like. I'm burning them in, and hope they'll firm up a bit, but I don't think that's going to happen. On stuff with no bass, they're fine and detailed, so if they stop puffing out the low notes, I'll be happy. I definitely would not recommend them, though. At the same time I got the Er-4Ps, an those are turning out great! I didn't buy any of the higher-grade Shures only because I don't like the big Shure earpieces and find the over-ear business uncomfortable, but if I hadn't minded that, they'd have been in the running. Within the range of good phones I think a lot of it is subjective, and I switch around a bit depending on the music and surroundings, and even especialy like the stock buds that came with my wife's Vision-M (I have an 80GB iPod), but to me the Vibes don't have any function at all--I'd rather listen through stock earbuds.

I also found that the Vibes aren't much responsive to the equalizer, so you have to keep them as they sound.

 

[penguindude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdarnton /img/forum/go_quote.gif Boy, was I disappointed. What they sound like is a bad live folk performance when the sound system is set up wrong, the bass is almost feeding back, and the singer is swallowing the mic. Everything in the bass comes out with an offensive "puff", like when a singer is blowing into the mic. It's not good, and I don't see how anyone with ears could have given these a good review, if my Vibes are representative of what they sound like.

Wow, that is kind of offensive to the many experienced Head-fi'ers who reviewed the Vibes.

 

[antonyfirst]

Just wondering... where did all those Vibe supporters go?
Right now we hear only critics about these iems (included mine).

 

[Debaser86]

Definitely don't judge the Vibes' sound straight out of the box! Let them burn in for as little as 15 hours and they'll sound much better (more detailed mids and much tighter bass).

 

[BushGuy]

They NEED 16-20 hours burn-in and they DO change. Further, care in getting the correct fit of the tips is critical to their sound. Tip too small = unsuffcient bass, tip too large = bloated bass. I use a Xin amp with mine and find I prefer to implement the Impedence switch - thereby raising resistance. They're terrific to wear for workouts, and walking where isolation is not demanded.