[Lamim Rashid]

Any consensus here on what is the most bass heavy iem from GS audio?
Or at least which one has authoritative plentiful bass?

Try hitting them up and asking them to yourself on AliExpress, they're pretty responsive. I think they'll tell you it's the GD3D?

 

[Carpet]

Any consensus here on what is the most bass heavy iem from GS audio?
Or at least which one has authoritative plentiful bass?

GD3B is darker version of GD3A. GD3D is darker version of GD3C. Seems to just be slightly more rolled off in the treble according to their graphs. Never seen any reviews on either of those models. I was considering GD3D, but in the absence of any feedback on them, I went for the GD3C instead.

 

[Lamim Rashid]

ST8B will be here soon I think. Was supposed to be here already but seems like its close at least. It arrived in Belgium yesterday, and updated to outbound from transit facility today so hopefully only a day to a few more days of waiting left.

Edit: it got stuck in liege for a couple days, then sent out a few days ago? No idea, the tracking information makes it sound like it's either on an airplane to Canada right now or in a sorting center with postnl lol. Either way, it's way late at this point. Postnl kinda sucks. Shipping to postnl was pretty fast, it's the shipping from postnl to Canada where canadpost will take over that has taken forever. I imagine it will get here quickly once canadapost has it.. but postnl is taking forever to get it to them.

Edit 2: weeks later, it finally hit customs in my country. Another coiple days of waiting left I guess. Postnl has by far been then the slowest part of this shipping.

 

[Lamim Rashid]

It took close to a month to get here, but it's finally here.

I was supposed to get it with a 2.5mm cable.. but it looks like they forgot and gave me a 3.5mm one instead so I won't be able to test it with the stock cable sadly. I'll have to dig up one of my 2.5mm cables to test these. Initial impressions soon.

 

[goms80]

For those who have had the GT12 and ST8B, did you find them neutral and detailed?

I'm looking for a balanced footprint that plays any kind of music.

 

[Lamim Rashid]

For those who have had the GT12 and ST8B, did you find them neutral and detailed?

I'm looking for a balanced footprint that plays any kind of music.

From what I understand they both sound fairly different despite having a similar driver config and similar looking FR graph. You'll have to ask @Tonytex cause I think he's the only one who has both.

I've had the st8b for a couple days so I'll try to answer your question about the st8b. The answer is yes, sorta. It's a bassy warm neutral. If you eq the mid bass down a little it's pretty much spot on neutral with a little bass boost. Is it detailed? Yes, definitely but it is slightly thick or soft sounding, and a little mid bassy. It's a very good iem if that's what you're looking for.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my initial impressions. Personal preference wise, its my second favorite iem (just behind the starfields), sound preference wise, it's my third favorite (er2xr edges it out, if it just weren't for it's ungodly fit in your ears). Now out of all my warm and bassy iems, these are hands down my favorite and blow the other bassy iems I've tried out of the water. Something I never thought I'd be saying when I ordered these. I mean these are all BA, how could I have expected this.

I think the closest sounding iems to these that I've tried are the dusk, but not quite, as the dusk bass shelf has less mid bass, and slightly more subbass, and the treble extends a bit better. Despite that, these sound way better. It's like the dusk sound, but without any of the weird timbral issues of the dusk that made the dusk sound strange and unnatural to me. In fact I can't even tell the st8b is an all ba iem. This is truly top end BA stuff. If you had me blindtest my jvc fdx1 in it's warmest nozzle, or even my Kato's then the st8b, and asked me which one was the DD set, I without a doubt would have guessed the st8b. This has completely rocked my previously negative impressions of ba inclusive configuration iems since there isn't a single ba/hybrid iem that I truly liked until now. I was beginning to think only dd iems were good. Now I understand why ppl say you need to spend extra if you want a good ba set. It's true, the more expensive, higher end components do make a difference here. But how much more do you need to spend? A lot apparently. If even the penon orb, isn h40 and dusk had issues that I thought were cause of the ba drivers at their prices points you probably need to at least be spending into the dunu sa6 territory to get something decent. There are of course a few exceptions it seems, where companies are offering great ba configs that would normally cost twice as much from other brands for the same or similar hardware, stuff like the mangird tea, st8b and dmg dm8 (though I can only tell you how well one of these is tuned, would have to try the other two). On the other hand, should you spend that much for a good ba/hybrid iem? I think you can probably find some decent hybrids for around 300 since you don't need as many ba drivers to make them sound good, and it's the all ba iems that you need to spend a lot more for, with only a few companies having more competitive pricing in this domain, GS audio being the best in this regard from what I've seen so far. Hopefully this changes in the future cause honestly, unless you have the money to spend and don't mind cause you really want an all ba set I don't see the point when there are so many nice cheaper dd sets (and hybrid if you spend a bit more) that imo can sound just as good for a lot less. Good all ba sets seem prohibitively expensive when compared to good dd, planar, etc, with the exception of some hidden gems like this st8b from GS audio.

Now back to the st8b. I'll cut to the chase, I think it's two steps away from perfection. Or rather my personal audio taste. With a little less mid bass, and a little more treble extension these would hands down be perfect, unless you like those traits, in that case these will already be perfect for you. These are warm neutral sound but with a lot of bass. There's a good amount of sub bass, but it also extends a little into the mid bass which make these sound a little thick, some ppl will like this some ppl won't. Personally I would have liked just a teeksy bit less mid bass, but not to the point where it's gone or starts to sound thin. The treble and mid sounds very similar to my etys, the er2xr. It's also comparable to the dusk but it's way less sibilant and way more tonally pleasing, and little softer sounding. It is a little soft sounding, for me this is mostly a plus, but it felt like it was missing a little bite, perhaps needed a little more treble extension? These are definitely detailed and resolving, and it's impressive that I can manage to sound so detailed and resolving despite it's warmer bassy sound, I think these are the only warm/bassy set I've tried to actually sound technically strong and resolving. The top end sonion 38 + 37 drivers they use here for bass are no joke, but maybe the 37 drivers for mid bass are adding a bit too much to the bass shelf?

I don't think my impressions are doing much justice to how good these are cause I try to be as transparent and uncolored as possible. I'm not the type of person to rave about every iem I try. I dislike a lot of iems and even the ones I like I'll usually have some bad things to say about, cause no iem is perfect, they're all gonna have their quirks and own strengths. I'll try to use some comparisons to put things into perspective.

The dusk was one I already mentioned. I hands down take these over the dusk any day. Dusk timbre sounds way off to me and I just couldn't enjoy it. I know a lot of others that said the same, and some others that had no idea what I was talking about so take this as you will. I like dusk bass shelf slightly more but I wouldn't say it's perfect, in fact I think it has a little too much subbass just by a slight bit. I think something that fell more in between the two would have been great, because where the st8b has the perfect amount of subbass, it has just a hair too much midbass. And again, a little more treble extension would have been nice.

Isn h40, and penon orb are the next two closest competitors. They're both bassy/warm iems. The h40 is the better one between the that and the orb. It's main issue is that it's a little muddy and bloated at times, the st8b has a very similar amount of bass and similar bass shelf imo but does it while sounding way less muddy. The treble also sounds much better tonally and timbre wise. But the isn h40 does have the bite in the treble that I was missing from the st8b. The orb are very good tonally and timbre wise, but the tuning overall kinda sucks and treble gets pretty sibilant and hurts my ear even though the treble sounds pretty recessed to begin with.. it's a really odd situation. The st8b is everything I expected the penon orb to be and wanted from it back when I was following the penon orb thread and all the "rave" reviews it was getting. That was a fun lesson to learn, don't follow the hype train.

The mele. I actually quite liked the mele, sounded very good to me but it was too sibilant to me, there was a peak in the treble that hurt my ears if I put any amount of volume too high into the mele.. made it hard for me to enjoy the set. The previous owner of my mele did not have this issue so I guess it will depend on the shape of your ear cavity. Bass wise see my comments about the dusk, but I prefer the bass shelf of the mele slightly more.

Now the Kato and fdx1. These are okay, but sound way too thin to me, the bass shelf is the same shape as the dusk but it felt like there was even less bass, and the treble kinda hurt my ears, and I could not turn it up very much for this reason. It's like the opposite of the st8b, in all senses. Or maybe the fdx1 is, which I actually prefer over the Kato. If I were to describe the fdx1 it would be in the same way as Kato except these sound slightly more resolving, have even less bass, and also have a very metallic timbre which make them sound less natural. The reason why I still like these slightly more than the Kato, is cause while they can get a little sibilant it's not as bad, and it doesn't sound as thin. Compared to the st8b it's hard to say which one is more resolving because the tuning is very different, but they're all quite resolving, maybe the fdx1 is the easiest to hear details with cause of it's tuning? it's so odd to me how this all ba set sound more natural, and tonally correct than either of these did sets and also has way more (and better) bass.

The kbear believe. Yeah these are super duper v shaped. Don't even wanna talk about these. They sound not bad with some heavy eq. Could have been a great dd set if it didn't sound like it was tuned by a random dude from Walmart. Good hardware/driver, bad tuning. Even beats by Dre could have done better.

The er2xr and starfields. These are my two favorite sounding iems. The treble between the three sets are actually pretty similar sounding. Of the three the st8b sounds smoother. The er2xr are the airiest of the three. The starfields have the most treble extension I think. The st8b has the least fatiguing treble but the most fatiguing bass of the three. The starfields have my favorite bas shelf of the three. The er2xr I would say has a slightly better bass shelf than the st8b, and it also has the least mid bass of the three. The er2xr is the least resolving of the three, not that it's not resolving or anything, the other two just handle detail better imo, especially when there is a lot going on. The st8b while having my least favorite bass shelf of the three, which is a personal taste thing, it still has the best quality bass of the three, it's remarkably well controlled and tight especially for how bassy it is. It's hard for me to say which one is more detailed because the st8b is a little thick sounding, slightly more so than the starfields, the er2xr being the airiest of the three. I think relative to how thick it sounds the st8b is the most detailed, but overall, if we take the tuning into account they're all on a similar level which I find impressive for how warm the st8b is.

Oh and yes it does have DD like impact, but if you turn down the midbass in eq you'll notice the impact still isn't as much as a similarly tuned dd. That's what I want to say but I've tried so many dd iems with way less impact so I guess it depends which DD iems you want to compare to. I think the best comparisons are other bassy/warm neutral iems because they're the most similarly tuned. Usually this isn't a tuning I like cause most of them sound bloated and fatiguing cause of the bass emphasis to me, but the bass fatigue wasn't as bad for me, and more importantly these are the most controlled I've heard of any similarly tuned iem I've heard. It's amazing how few weaknesses it has for this kind of tuning. It's very well tuned if you like this kind of tuning, and the only real cons I might be able to come up with aside from personal taste things is that maybe it could use a slight more bite in the treble or treble extension. The treble is the most impressive thing to me here, how non fatiguing it is, if it weren't for the bass (I get a little bass fatigue still) these would easily be the least fatiguing iem in my collection. Like you can turn these way up without it hurting your ears. Lastly, these really really shine once you've turned them up. I didn't realize how good these sounded until I pumped the volume a little. These take to the extra volume/power very nicely (I tested with my loxjie d30 and eida9038s). The way I've talked about these make it sound like I'm talking about a basshead iem but they're really not, though they still have a little more bass than most bass boosted neutral iems, and end up sounding a little warmer than most neutral iems cause of the extra mid bass. I want to listen to these a bit more and make sure I'm not in any honeymoon phase, and now that I've realized they sound a lot better with more volume recently before giving final impressions. Plus I just kinda ranted and threw whatever came to mind as I wrote these first impressions. I definitely need revise a lot of this trim stuff out, but for those of you wondering about the st8b, not perfect but definitely gets a high grade from me, and I'm someone who doesn't give out high grades easily or often.

 

[goms80]

From what I understand they both sound fairly different despite having a similar driver config and similar looking FR graph. You'll have to ask @Tonytex cause I think he's the only one who has both.

I've had the st8b for a couple days so I'll try to answer your question about the st8b. The answer is yes, sorta. It's a bassy warm neutral. If you eq the mid bass down a little it's pretty much spot on neutral with a little bass boost. Is it detailed? Yes, definitely but it is slightly thick or soft sounding, and a little mid bassy. It's a very good iem if that's what you're looking for.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my initial impressions. Personal preference wise, its my second favorite iem (just behind the starfields), sound preference wise, it's my third favorite (er2xr edges it out, if it just weren't for it's ungodly fit in your ears). Now out of all my warm and bassy iems, these are hands down my favorite and blow the other bassy iems I've tried out of the water. Something I never thought I'd be saying when I ordered these. I mean these are all BA, how could I have expected this.

I think the closest sounding iems to these that I've tried are the dusk, but not quite, as the dusk bass shelf has less mid bass, and slightly more subbass, and the treble extends a bit better. Despite that, these sound way better. It's like the dusk sound, but without any of the weird timbral issues of the dusk that made the dusk sound strange and unnatural to me. In fact I can't even tell the st8b is an all ba iem. This is truly top end BA stuff. If you had me blindtest my jvc fdx1 in it's warmest nozzle, or even my Kato's then the st8b, and asked me which one was the DD set, I without a doubt would have guessed the st8b. This has completely rocked my previously negative impressions of ba inclusive configuration iems since there isn't a single ba/hybrid iem that I truly liked until now. I was beginning to think only dd iems were good. Now I understand why ppl say you need to spend extra if you want a good ba set. It's true, the more expensive, higher end components do make a difference here. But how much more do you need to spend? A lot apparently. If even the penon orb, isn h40 and dusk had issues that I thought were cause of the ba drivers at their prices points you probably need to at least be spending into the dunu sa6 territory to get something decent. There are of course a few exceptions it seems, where companies are offering great ba configs that would normally cost twice as much from other brands for the same or similar hardware, stuff like the mangird tea, st8b and dmg dm8 (though I can only tell you how well one of these is tuned, would have to try the other two). On the other hand, should you spend that much for a good ba/hybrid iem? I think you can probably find some decent hybrids for around 300 since you don't need as many ba drivers to make them sound good, and it's the all ba iems that you need to spend a lot more for, with only a few companies having more competitive pricing in this domain, GS audio being the best in this regard from what I've seen so far. Hopefully this changes in the future cause honestly, unless you have the money to spend and don't mind cause you really want an all ba set I don't see the point when there are so many nice cheaper dd sets (and hybrid if you spend a bit more) that imo can sound just as good for a lot less. Good all ba sets seem prohibitively expensive when compared to good dd, planar, etc, with the exception of some hidden gems like this st8b from GS audio.

Now back to the st8b. I'll cut to the chase, I think it's two steps away from perfection. Or rather my personal audio taste. With a little less mid bass, and a little more treble extension these would hands down be perfect, unless you like those traits, in that case these will already be perfect for you. These are warm neutral sound but with a lot of bass. There's a good amount of sub bass, but it also extends a little into the mid bass which make these sound a little thick, some ppl will like this some ppl won't. Personally I would have liked just a teeksy bit less mid bass, but not to the point where it's gone or starts to sound thin. The treble and mid sounds very similar to my etys, the er2xr. It's also comparable to the dusk but it's way less sibilant and way more tonally pleasing, and little softer sounding. It is a little soft sounding, for me this is mostly a plus, but it felt like it was missing a little bite, perhaps needed a little more treble extension? These are definitely detailed and resolving, and it's impressive that I can manage to sound so detailed and resolving despite it's warmer bassy sound, I think these are the only warm/bassy set I've tried to actually sound technically strong and resolving. The top end sonion 38 + 37 drivers they use here for bass are no joke, but maybe the 37 drivers for mid bass are adding a bit too much to the bass shelf?

I don't think my impressions are doing much justice to how good these are cause I try to be as transparent and uncolored as possible. I'm not the type of person to rave about every iem I try. I dislike a lot of iems and even the ones I like I'll usually have some bad things to say about, cause no iem is perfect, they're all gonna have their quirks and own strengths. I'll try to use some comparisons to put things into perspective.

The dusk was one I already mentioned. I hands down take these over the dusk any day. Dusk timbre sounds way off to me and I just couldn't enjoy it. I know a lot of others that said the same, and some others that had no idea what I was talking about so take this as you will. I like dusk bass shelf slightly more but I wouldn't say it's perfect, in fact I think it has a little too much subbass just by a slight bit. I think something that fell more in between the two would have been great, because where the st8b has the perfect amount of subbass, it has just a hair too much midbass. And again, a little more treble extension would have been nice.

Isn h40, and penon orb are the next two closest competitors. They're both bassy/warm iems. The h40 is the better one between the that and the orb. It's main issue is that it's a little muddy and bloated at times, the st8b has a very similar amount of bass and similar bass shelf imo but does it while sounding way less muddy. The treble also sounds much better tonally and timbre wise. But the isn h40 does have the bite in the treble that I was missing from the st8b. The orb are very good tonally and timbre wise, but the tuning overall kinda sucks and treble gets pretty sibilant and hurts my ear even though the treble sounds pretty recessed to begin with.. it's a really odd situation. The st8b is everything I expected the penon orb to be and wanted from it back when I was following the penon orb thread and all the "rave" reviews it was getting. That was a fun lesson to learn, don't follow the hype train.

The mele. I actually quite liked the mele, sounded very good to me but it was too sibilant to me, there was a peak in the treble that hurt my ears if I put any amount of volume too high into the mele.. made it hard for me to enjoy the set. The previous owner of my mele did not have this issue so I guess it will depend on the shape of your ear cavity. Bass wise see my comments about the dusk, but I prefer the bass shelf of the mele slightly more.

Now the Kato and fdx1. These are okay, but sound way too thin to me, the bass shelf is the same shape as the dusk but it felt like there was even less bass, and the treble kinda hurt my ears, and I could not turn it up very much for this reason. It's like the opposite of the st8b, in all senses. Or maybe the fdx1 is, which I actually prefer over the Kato. If I were to describe the fdx1 it would be in the same way as Kato except these sound slightly more resolving, have even less bass, and also have a very metallic timbre which make them sound less natural. The reason why I still like these slightly more than the Kato, is cause while they can get a little sibilant it's not as bad, and it doesn't sound as thin. Compared to the st8b it's hard to say which one is more resolving because the tuning is very different, but they're all quite resolving, maybe the fdx1 is the easiest to hear details with cause of it's tuning? it's so odd to me how this all ba set sound more natural, and tonally correct than either of these did sets and also has way more (and better) bass.

The kbear believe. Yeah these are super duper v shaped. Don't even wanna talk about these. They sound not bad with some heavy eq. Could have been a great dd set if it didn't sound like it was tuned by a random dude from Walmart. Good hardware/driver, bad tuning. Even beats by Dre could have done better.

The er2xr and starfields. These are my two favorite sounding iems. The treble between the three sets are actually pretty similar sounding. Of the three the st8b sounds smoother. The er2xr are the airiest of the three. The starfields have the most treble extension I think. The st8b has the least fatiguing treble but the most fatiguing bass of the three. The starfields have my favorite bas shelf of the three. The er2xr I would say has a slightly better bass shelf than the st8b, and it also has the least mid bass of the three. The er2xr is the least resolving of the three, not that it's not resolving or anything, the other two just handle detail better imo, especially when there is a lot going on. The st8b while having my least favorite bass shelf of the three, which is a personal taste thing, it still has the best quality bass of the three, it's remarkably well controlled and tight especially for how bassy it is. It's hard for me to say which one is more detailed because the st8b is a little thick sounding, slightly more so than the starfields, the er2xr being the airiest of the three. I think relative to how thick it sounds the st8b is the most detailed, but overall, if we take the tuning into account they're all on a similar level which I find impressive for how warm the st8b is.

Oh and yes it does have DD like impact, but if you turn down the midbass in eq you'll notice the impact still isn't as much as a similarly tuned dd. That's what I want to say but I've tried so many dd iems with way less impact so I guess it depends which DD iems you want to compare to. I think the best comparisons are other bassy/warm neutral iems because they're the most similarly tuned. Usually this isn't a tuning I like cause most of them sound bloated and fatiguing cause of the bass emphasis to me, but the bass fatigue wasn't as bad for me, and more importantly these are the most controlled I've heard of any similarly tuned iem I've heard. It's amazing how few weaknesses it has for this kind of tuning. It's very well tuned if you like this kind of tuning, and the only real cons I might be able to come up with aside from personal taste things is that maybe it could use a slight more bite in the treble or treble extension. The treble is the most impressive thing to me here, how non fatiguing it is, if it weren't for the bass (I get a little bass fatigue still) these would easily be the least fatiguing iem in my collection. Like you can turn these way up without it hurting your ears. Lastly, these really really shine once you've turned them up. I didn't realize how good these sounded until I pumped the volume a little. These take to the extra volume/power very nicely (I tested with my loxjie d30 and eida9038s). The way I've talked about these make it sound like I'm talking about a basshead iem but they're really not, though they still have a little more bass than most bass boosted neutral iems, and end up sounding a little warmer than most neutral iems cause of the extra mid bass. I want to listen to these a bit more and make sure I'm not in any honeymoon phase, and now that I've realized they sound a lot better with more volume recently before giving final impressions. Plus I just kinda ranted and threw whatever came to mind as I wrote these first impressions. I definitely need revise a lot of this trim stuff out, but for those of you wondering about the st8b, not perfect but definitely gets a high grade from me, and I'm someone who doesn't give out high grades easily or often.

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. It was a mini review haha

And as for the ST8B, I will raise eyes for him. There's Yanyin Moonlight too, which I'm watching from afar.

However, I want to thank you again for the explanations. Let the full analysis come now.

 

[Echalon]

EPZ Q1 looks suspiciously like GS Audio GD3C. That gold leaf and dark wood is pretty distinctive.

After cable and tip rolling the GD3C is really starting to grow on me. Not as bassy and relaxed as TRI Meteor and Tipsy TTROMSO. Not as detailed as Olina or TRI Starsea. It's beautifully clean and kind of fills in the middle ground. All get their share of listening depending on mood and what I'm listening to.

Variety is the spice of life!

Just got the EPZ Q1 and first impressions are that it’s not bad.

Bassy and V shaped, but switching to wide bore foam tips (from Tinhifi) gives a full satisfying sound. Nothing exceptional, but beautiful looking and so far I don’t regret it. Likely it was made by GS Audio for EPZ, though with a very different driver.

Edit: Very bass heavy! There is a nice voicing under all the bass, but avoid if you prefer a more balanced tone.

2 week edit: Well, something of a surprise. These have changed during the last 2 weeks more than any other IEM I have tried. They have really opened up, with clearer treble and much less of a pronounced V. It’s a good set, extension both ways and nice detail. I’m quite impressed, and with some wide bore tips it’s a full and satisfying sound. Certainly decent for the price, and worth considering for a capable and beautiful budget set. Just give a bit longer than usual for them to find their voice!

 

[Gilleron0]

From what I understand they both sound fairly different despite having a similar driver config and similar looking FR graph. You'll have to ask @Tonytex cause I think he's the only one who has both.

I've had the st8b for a couple days so I'll try to answer your question about the st8b. The answer is yes, sorta. It's a bassy warm neutral. If you eq the mid bass down a little it's pretty much spot on neutral with a little bass boost. Is it detailed? Yes, definitely but it is slightly thick or soft sounding, and a little mid bassy. It's a very good iem if that's what you're looking for.


Since I'm here, I might as well share my initial impressions. Personal preference wise, its my second favorite iem (just behind the starfields), sound preference wise, it's my third favorite (er2xr edges it out, if it just weren't for it's ungodly fit in your ears). Now out of all my warm and bassy iems, these are hands down my favorite and blow the other bassy iems I've tried out of the water. Something I never thought I'd be saying when I ordered these. I mean these are all BA, how could I have expected this.

I think the closest sounding iems to these that I've tried are the dusk, but not quite, as the dusk bass shelf has less mid bass, and slightly more subbass, and the treble extends a bit better. Despite that, these sound way better. It's like the dusk sound, but without any of the weird timbral issues of the dusk that made the dusk sound strange and unnatural to me. In fact I can't even tell the st8b is an all ba iem. This is truly top end BA stuff. If you had me blindtest my jvc fdx1 in it's warmest nozzle, or even my Kato's then the st8b, and asked me which one was the DD set, I without a doubt would have guessed the st8b. This has completely rocked my previously negative impressions of ba inclusive configuration iems since there isn't a single ba/hybrid iem that I truly liked until now. I was beginning to think only dd iems were good. Now I understand why ppl say you need to spend extra if you want a good ba set. It's true, the more expensive, higher end components do make a difference here. But how much more do you need to spend? A lot apparently. If even the penon orb, isn h40 and dusk had issues that I thought were cause of the ba drivers at their prices points you probably need to at least be spending into the dunu sa6 territory to get something decent. There are of course a few exceptions it seems, where companies are offering great ba configs that would normally cost twice as much from other brands for the same or similar hardware, stuff like the mangird tea, st8b and dmg dm8 (though I can only tell you how well one of these is tuned, would have to try the other two). On the other hand, should you spend that much for a good ba/hybrid iem? I think you can probably find some decent hybrids for around 300 since you don't need as many ba drivers to make them sound good, and it's the all ba iems that you need to spend a lot more for, with only a few companies having more competitive pricing in this domain, GS audio being the best in this regard from what I've seen so far. Hopefully this changes in the future cause honestly, unless you have the money to spend and don't mind cause you really want an all ba set I don't see the point when there are so many nice cheaper dd sets (and hybrid if you spend a bit more) that imo can sound just as good for a lot less. Good all ba sets seem prohibitively expensive when compared to good dd, planar, etc, with the exception of some hidden gems like this st8b from GS audio.

Now back to the st8b. I'll cut to the chase, I think it's two steps away from perfection. Or rather my personal audio taste. With a little less mid bass, and a little more treble extension these would hands down be perfect, unless you like those traits, in that case these will already be perfect for you. These are warm neutral sound but with a lot of bass. There's a good amount of sub bass, but it also extends a little into the mid bass which make these sound a little thick, some ppl will like this some ppl won't. Personally I would have liked just a teeksy bit less mid bass, but not to the point where it's gone or starts to sound thin. The treble and mid sounds very similar to my etys, the er2xr. It's also comparable to the dusk but it's way less sibilant and way more tonally pleasing, and little softer sounding. It is a little soft sounding, for me this is mostly a plus, but it felt like it was missing a little bite, perhaps needed a little more treble extension? These are definitely detailed and resolving, and it's impressive that I can manage to sound so detailed and resolving despite it's warmer bassy sound, I think these are the only warm/bassy set I've tried to actually sound technically strong and resolving. The top end sonion 38 + 37 drivers they use here for bass are no joke, but maybe the 37 drivers for mid bass are adding a bit too much to the bass shelf?

I don't think my impressions are doing much justice to how good these are cause I try to be as transparent and uncolored as possible. I'm not the type of person to rave about every iem I try. I dislike a lot of iems and even the ones I like I'll usually have some bad things to say about, cause no iem is perfect, they're all gonna have their quirks and own strengths. I'll try to use some comparisons to put things into perspective.

The dusk was one I already mentioned. I hands down take these over the dusk any day. Dusk timbre sounds way off to me and I just couldn't enjoy it. I know a lot of others that said the same, and some others that had no idea what I was talking about so take this as you will. I like dusk bass shelf slightly more but I wouldn't say it's perfect, in fact I think it has a little too much subbass just by a slight bit. I think something that fell more in between the two would have been great, because where the st8b has the perfect amount of subbass, it has just a hair too much midbass. And again, a little more treble extension would have been nice.

Isn h40, and penon orb are the next two closest competitors. They're both bassy/warm iems. The h40 is the better one between the that and the orb. It's main issue is that it's a little muddy and bloated at times, the st8b has a very similar amount of bass and similar bass shelf imo but does it while sounding way less muddy. The treble also sounds much better tonally and timbre wise. But the isn h40 does have the bite in the treble that I was missing from the st8b. The orb are very good tonally and timbre wise, but the tuning overall kinda sucks and treble gets pretty sibilant and hurts my ear even though the treble sounds pretty recessed to begin with.. it's a really odd situation. The st8b is everything I expected the penon orb to be and wanted from it back when I was following the penon orb thread and all the "rave" reviews it was getting. That was a fun lesson to learn, don't follow the hype train.

The mele. I actually quite liked the mele, sounded very good to me but it was too sibilant to me, there was a peak in the treble that hurt my ears if I put any amount of volume too high into the mele.. made it hard for me to enjoy the set. The previous owner of my mele did not have this issue so I guess it will depend on the shape of your ear cavity. Bass wise see my comments about the dusk, but I prefer the bass shelf of the mele slightly more.

Now the Kato and fdx1. These are okay, but sound way too thin to me, the bass shelf is the same shape as the dusk but it felt like there was even less bass, and the treble kinda hurt my ears, and I could not turn it up very much for this reason. It's like the opposite of the st8b, in all senses. Or maybe the fdx1 is, which I actually prefer over the Kato. If I were to describe the fdx1 it would be in the same way as Kato except these sound slightly more resolving, have even less bass, and also have a very metallic timbre which make them sound less natural. The reason why I still like these slightly more than the Kato, is cause while they can get a little sibilant it's not as bad, and it doesn't sound as thin. Compared to the st8b it's hard to say which one is more resolving because the tuning is very different, but they're all quite resolving, maybe the fdx1 is the easiest to hear details with cause of it's tuning? it's so odd to me how this all ba set sound more natural, and tonally correct than either of these did sets and also has way more (and better) bass.

The kbear believe. Yeah these are super duper v shaped. Don't even wanna talk about these. They sound not bad with some heavy eq. Could have been a great dd set if it didn't sound like it was tuned by a random dude from Walmart. Good hardware/driver, bad tuning. Even beats by Dre could have done better.

The er2xr and starfields. These are my two favorite sounding iems. The treble between the three sets are actually pretty similar sounding. Of the three the st8b sounds smoother. The er2xr are the airiest of the three. The starfields have the most treble extension I think. The st8b has the least fatiguing treble but the most fatiguing bass of the three. The starfields have my favorite bas shelf of the three. The er2xr I would say has a slightly better bass shelf than the st8b, and it also has the least mid bass of the three. The er2xr is the least resolving of the three, not that it's not resolving or anything, the other two just handle detail better imo, especially when there is a lot going on. The st8b while having my least favorite bass shelf of the three, which is a personal taste thing, it still has the best quality bass of the three, it's remarkably well controlled and tight especially for how bassy it is. It's hard for me to say which one is more detailed because the st8b is a little thick sounding, slightly more so than the starfields, the er2xr being the airiest of the three. I think relative to how thick it sounds the st8b is the most detailed, but overall, if we take the tuning into account they're all on a similar level which I find impressive for how warm the st8b is.

Oh and yes it does have DD like impact, but if you turn down the midbass in eq you'll notice the impact still isn't as much as a similarly tuned dd. That's what I want to say but I've tried so many dd iems with way less impact so I guess it depends which DD iems you want to compare to. I think the best comparisons are other bassy/warm neutral iems because they're the most similarly tuned. Usually this isn't a tuning I like cause most of them sound bloated and fatiguing cause of the bass emphasis to me, but the bass fatigue wasn't as bad for me, and more importantly these are the most controlled I've heard of any similarly tuned iem I've heard. It's amazing how few weaknesses it has for this kind of tuning. It's very well tuned if you like this kind of tuning, and the only real cons I might be able to come up with aside from personal taste things is that maybe it could use a slight more bite in the treble or treble extension. The treble is the most impressive thing to me here, how non fatiguing it is, if it weren't for the bass (I get a little bass fatigue still) these would easily be the least fatiguing iem in my collection. Like you can turn these way up without it hurting your ears. Lastly, these really really shine once you've turned them up. I didn't realize how good these sounded until I pumped the volume a little. These take to the extra volume/power very nicely (I tested with my loxjie d30 and eida9038s). The way I've talked about these make it sound like I'm talking about a basshead iem but they're really not, though they still have a little more bass than most bass boosted neutral iems, and end up sounding a little warmer than most neutral iems cause of the extra mid bass. I want to listen to these a bit more and make sure I'm not in any honeymoon phase, and now that I've realized they sound a lot better with more volume recently before giving final impressions. Plus I just kinda ranted and threw whatever came to mind as I wrote these first impressions. I definitely need revise a lot of this trim stuff out, but for those of you wondering about the st8b, not perfect but definitely gets a high grade from me, and I'm someone who doesn't give out high grades easily or often.

Thanks for the impression and comparisons, Lamim.
The ST8B is also on my list, together with the SD9 and B2 Dusk. Great to hear that this one is a dub for GS Audio.

I am not sure if you will be able to answer this, but i am wondering if using something like a pure silver cable would have an effect on ST8B treble extension? How about running it through balanced? (I am still on the fence regarding the significant effects of cables on the general sound)

 

[Lamim Rashid]

Thanks for the impression and comparisons, Lamim.
The ST8B is also on my list, together with the SD9 and B2 Dusk. Great to hear that this one is a dub for GS Audio.

I am not sure if you will be able to answer this, but i am wondering if using something like a pure silver cable would have an effect on ST8B treble extension? How about running it through balanced? (I am still on the fence regarding the significant effects of cables on the general sound)

uhh I think @RikudouGoku is the guy to ask. He's the cable guy. From what i understand it depends on the iem, and how sensitive it is to resistance. Thats why adding a resistance adapter will change the soundof some iems, either adding or taking away treble, here's an example https://tgx78.squig.link/?share=Audiosense_DT600,Audiosense_DT600_20 Not sure which way it will go for the ST8B or even how sensitive it is to impedence but silver cables for whatever reason usually have higher resistance (see here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...zTm4ei7HEfP8AI1zxswrMw2ho/edit#gid=1801072063 youll notice the silver cables usually have higher resistance) so maybe it will make it sound warmer, or maybe thinner? All in all the difference would prob too minuscule to really matter.

 

[harshkamboj]

Had a great time with my SE12 and looking for it to have a new home now. Let me know if anyone would be interested and I can share pictures. I am based in Canada.

 

[DJ Core]

Had a great time with my SE12 and looking for it to have a new home now. Let me know if anyone would be interested and I can share pictures. I am based in Canada.

Leisurely Audio L12P​

Heard some good things about it from a friend. mine just shipped out yesterday. Will report back once I receive it but Graph and quality of drivers looks good.

Will compare to my current TOP IEM, ThieAudio Monarch + stock cable and then with ThieAudio Ocenia Cable.

 

[DJ Core]

Leisurely Audio L12P​

Heard some good things about it from a friend. mine just shipped out yesterday. Will report back once I receive it but Graph and quality of drivers looks good.

Will compare to my current TOP IEM, ThieAudio Monarch + stock cable and then with ThieAudio Ocenia Cable.

So my L12P came in and i have to say, i think we found a real winner here after one slight mod.


First thing that hit me was the soundstage. This IEM has the widest soundstage I've ever heard in any IEM currently or previously owned, almost HD800S type stage. Due to the wide stage, Mids. are a bit recessed but I fixed this by using Filter 2 on my DX240+AMP8 MK2 pairing.

Bass is just the right amount. L12P is very resolving. treble is just about perfect but yet smooth, almost EST like smoothness yet still clear.
Initially it also had too much mid-bass and treble wasn't as extended as I'd like.

What I did was remove the grill to reveal the 4 sound bores. The little wax grill has no filter of any kind behind it and so has nothing to do with the tuning of this IEM. grills actually mess with mid and high frequencies the most. also has an effect of increasing bass bloat a little.

With the Grill gone, this thing is now perfected. This IEM presents the song the way it was recorded. I was very impressed when I played some tracks with lots of instruments. L12P didn't even blink. it lets you hear everything in it's position from left to right and distance/ positioning of instruments.

L12P has more mid-bass than OG monarch which makes bass guitars and deep low piano keys sound more realistic. Monarch has slightly sharper (not in a bad way) treble vs LP12P which still very resolving never the less. This is with zero burn in.

Burn in continues today.

Fit is amazing (Will fit even a baby lol). Reminds me of my QDC Anole VX. You put it in your ears and forget about it. All your brain focuses on is the music unlike my OG Monarch where you feel the size the longer you listen.

Stock tips sound the best (Wide bore with a very short stem, shorter than anything else I have). Don't know what kind they're are but I put the extra set on my TheiAudio OG Monarch which helped widen it's stage a little more. (I experimented with AZLA Short and exslastic, spinfit 100 Plus, JVC spiral dots)

I also tried different cables from 100% copper, to $350 Gold, silver, Palladium plated ones but copper + silver plating sounds best to my ears.

At $569 this is a real steal guys. Get one asap and remember to remove the grill.

 

[helloh3adfi]

Where can I find GS Audio IEMs? I don't see them on Aliexpress anymore.

 

[TheVortex]

Where can I find GS Audio IEMs? I don't see them on Aliexpress anymore.

Still there.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911424618