[littlexx26]

So as promised, now that I have spent a good half a dozen hours on the RS6, I wanted to give the rest of the peeps on the fence some additional feedback in depth.

As most comments previously already mentioned RS6 is more pairing sensitive but no one seems to go into more depth what makes what pairing tick.. Since I have a fair amount IEM between my friend and I, I was able to test quite a few IEM pairings and with measurements to back it up. All listening is done in the range of 55db-65db. (yes apparently my hearing is more sensitive compared to most, this was measured with a calibrated SPL meter).



As an initial point the RS6 definitely has more of an W-shaped signature with emphasis in sub/mid bass (slam) and upper mids (female vocals). Tuning very similar to the previous R6 Pro I owned but with a warmer signature.

Direct comparisons were made mainly for RS6 and P6 Pro, but Paw6k and ZX507 was also used as reference. I'm not going to get into the OS/software/interface comparison, this particular post is strictly sound impressions. IEM used for this comparision: Hyla Sarda, Elysian Annihilator (CIEM), Hidition Viento-B, JVC-FDX1, Timeless, Mest MKII, Blessing2, Acoustune 1650cu/1657cu, AME J12U.



P6 Pro (black) for those have heard it is definitely up there in terms of technicalities with a mostly neutral to natural tonality. No real emphasis given to any specific frequency range, very detailed notes with slight rounding off, analog sound. Good, natural decay across the board.

In comparison, the RS6 has overwhelming amounts of mid bass (I hope you REALLY like slam). The overly warm tonality muddles the lower mids (all the notes are present but isn't always clear, instruments may be harder to identify specifically). The bass frequency decay is slow. Does not work well with EDM/dance type musics. the overwhelming mid-bass also doesn't play well with orchestral tracks either. It does well however for Rock/Hip hop/Rap music. The treble regions do have clean notes but a bit more digital texture compared to P6P...actually making it sound like a delta-sigma chip instead of a R-2R (RS6 treble actually sounds very similar to P6k, less so analog like P6P), with the right amount of decay, but that causes a bit of coherency issues with the bass regions with the two frequency ranges having different decay speeds. Bass regions definitely have that anolog sound but its a bit too smoothed out losing some texture compared to the P6P while treble regions sound somewhat less analog with some digital textures.

Upper mids (especially female vocals)....sound thin, this is exacerbated with thinner sounding IEM's and is probably where the largest pairing issue comes into play, the second being the mid-bass emphasis (yes you can have too much slam) pairing summary below:

Hyla Sarda: Way too much slam and female vocals sound hollow, sibilance
Annihilator: Too much slam, female vocals thin
Hidition Viento-B: Bass good (just right in fact), hollw female vocals
JVC-FDX1 (green filter): Good bass, but the slight metallic ting by the IEM is exasperated by the thinner mids.
Timeless: Bass a bit overwhelming (not too bad but definitely bass-head range), vocals a bit forward
Blessing2: Bass fine, hollow female vocals, some sibilance
Acoustune 1650cu/1657cu: O GOD THE METALLIC TING
UM Mest MKII: The true winner pairing as everyone else reflected, thanks to is tamer FR curve the mid-bass gets boosted to the right amount for most AND the recessed 2k rise works excellent with the more forward female vocal tuning of the RS6
AME J12U (I know pretty much no one knows of this IEM, FR below): the already warmer nature of this IEM....surprisingly did not get warmer with the RS6. Mid-bass with the RS6 was actually the right amount and the female vocal has the right amount of weight behind it.

(feel free to ignore the 0-20hz range and past 12khz, those regions are definitely not accurate)

Summary:
RS6 is a competent player BUT its not for everyone. In fact its heavily based on your own individual music preferences AND the gear you have. I know there's a very huge price difference between P6P and RS6 but there just isn't enough options in the portable R-2R market and P6P is as of now the best standard we have. Using P6P as the base line:

Sound: emphasized mid-bass, blunt lower mids, emphasized and thiner upper mids, upper mids and treble a bit of digital texture.
Pairings: IEMs with a tamer FR curve like the Mest MKII, some warmer IEMs. AVOID if your transducer collection is skewed towards thinner upper mids or boosted mid-bass (unless you are a bass head and really need more slam). Also avoid if your transducers have a bit of a metallic ting to them (this is probably why some IER-Z1R users don't like this pairing even though on FR it should be a good fit.)

Unfortunately this player will not have a place in my collection.....thankfully my friend with the Mest MKII is happy to take it right off of my hands.

yes rs6 sounds digital that's what I heard. this r2r dap sounds digital and harsh

 

[gLer]

yes rs6 sounds digital that's what I heard. this r2r dap sounds digital and harsh

I believe you've made your feelings clear. There's no need to...

 

[davidmolliere]

yes rs6 sounds digital that's what I heard. this r2r dap sounds digital and harsh

You've heard from people or heard yourself?

It's really everything but digital and harsh
Basically the opposite...

 

[senseitedj]

You've heard from people or heard yourself?

It's really everything but digital and harsh
Basically the opposite...

I second that notion. I own 4 ESS Sabre DACs. I know a thing or two on what digital sounds like

 

[Joe Bloggs]

So as promised, now that I have spent a good half a dozen hours on the RS6, I wanted to give the rest of the peeps on the fence some additional feedback in depth.

As most comments previously already mentioned RS6 is more pairing sensitive but no one seems to go into more depth what makes what pairing tick.. Since I have a fair amount IEM between my friend and I, I was able to test quite a few IEM pairings and with measurements to back it up. All listening is done in the range of 55db-65db. (yes apparently my hearing is more sensitive compared to most, this was measured with a calibrated SPL meter).



As an initial point the RS6 definitely has more of an W-shaped signature with emphasis in sub/mid bass (slam) and upper mids (female vocals). Tuning very similar to the previous R6 Pro I owned but with a warmer signature.

Direct comparisons were made mainly for RS6 and P6 Pro, but Paw6k and ZX507 was also used as reference. I'm not going to get into the OS/software/interface comparison, this particular post is strictly sound impressions. IEM used for this comparision: Hyla Sarda, Elysian Annihilator (CIEM), Hidition Viento-B, JVC-FDX1, Timeless, Mest MKII, Blessing2, Acoustune 1650cu/1657cu, AME J12U.



P6 Pro (black) for those have heard it is definitely up there in terms of technicalities with a mostly neutral to natural tonality. No real emphasis given to any specific frequency range, very detailed notes with slight rounding off, analog sound. Good, natural decay across the board.

In comparison, the RS6 has overwhelming amounts of mid bass (I hope you REALLY like slam). The overly warm tonality muddles the lower mids (all the notes are present but isn't always clear, instruments may be harder to identify specifically). The bass frequency decay is slow. Does not work well with EDM/dance type musics. the overwhelming mid-bass also doesn't play well with orchestral tracks either. It does well however for Rock/Hip hop/Rap music. The treble regions do have clean notes but a bit more digital texture compared to P6P...actually making it sound like a delta-sigma chip instead of a R-2R (RS6 treble actually sounds very similar to P6k, less so analog like P6P), with the right amount of decay, but that causes a bit of coherency issues with the bass regions with the two frequency ranges having different decay speeds. Bass regions definitely have that anolog sound but its a bit too smoothed out losing some texture compared to the P6P while treble regions sound somewhat less analog with some digital textures.

Upper mids (especially female vocals)....sound thin, this is exacerbated with thinner sounding IEM's and is probably where the largest pairing issue comes into play, the second being the mid-bass emphasis (yes you can have too much slam) pairing summary below:

Hyla Sarda: Way too much slam and female vocals sound hollow, sibilance
Annihilator: Too much slam, female vocals thin
Hidition Viento-B: Bass good (just right in fact), hollw female vocals
JVC-FDX1 (green filter): Good bass, but the slight metallic ting by the IEM is exasperated by the thinner mids.
Timeless: Bass a bit overwhelming (not too bad but definitely bass-head range), vocals a bit forward
Blessing2: Bass fine, hollow female vocals, some sibilance
Acoustune 1650cu/1657cu: O GOD THE METALLIC TING
UM Mest MKII: The true winner pairing as everyone else reflected, thanks to is tamer FR curve the mid-bass gets boosted to the right amount for most AND the recessed 2k rise works excellent with the more forward female vocal tuning of the RS6
AME J12U (I know pretty much no one knows of this IEM, FR below): the already warmer nature of this IEM....surprisingly did not get warmer with the RS6. Mid-bass with the RS6 was actually the right amount and the female vocal has the right amount of weight behind it.

(feel free to ignore the 0-20hz range and past 12khz, those regions are definitely not accurate)

Summary:
RS6 is a competent player BUT its not for everyone. In fact its heavily based on your own individual music preferences AND the gear you have. I know there's a very huge price difference between P6P and RS6 but there just isn't enough options in the portable R-2R market and P6P is as of now the best standard we have. Using P6P as the base line:

Sound: emphasized mid-bass, blunt lower mids, emphasized and thiner upper mids, upper mids and treble a bit of digital texture.
Pairings: IEMs with a tamer FR curve like the Mest MKII, some warmer IEMs. AVOID if your transducer collection is skewed towards thinner upper mids or boosted mid-bass (unless you are a bass head and really need more slam). Also avoid if your transducers have a bit of a metallic ting to them (this is probably why some IER-Z1R users don't like this pairing even though on FR it should be a good fit.)

Unfortunately this player will not have a place in my collection.....thankfully my friend with the Mest MKII is happy to take it right off of my hands.

"Measurements to back it up"?

You can say anything you like subjectively, but please, do not say that any of this has any basis in measurements, based on your post.

The graph you show, deceptively above a completely matching description of "emphasized mid-bass, blunt lower mids, emphasized and thiner upper mids", is for a pair of _earphones_.

The RS6 measures _nothing_ like this.

If you are to speak of measurements, the RS6 measures completely flat across all frequencies, just like pretty much any playback device:

(it doesn't measure "completely flat" on my computer, only because
1. it's going into a crappy old $100 multichannel sound card line in
2. through the Java driver, not the ASIO driver, as the latter is glitching out for me on latest windows. But still, the basically flat response down to 2 Hz (not 20, but 2) is interesting.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

New MSEB added

I must say, I was not responsible for THIS one in any manner. Not the tuning, and definitely not the description.

 

[ayanachibi]

"Measurements to back it up"?

You can say anything you like subjectively, but please, do not say that any of this has any basis in measurements, based on your post.

The graph you show, deceptively above a completely matching description of "emphasized mid-bass, blunt lower mids, emphasized and thiner upper mids", is for a pair of _earphones_.

The RS6 measures _nothing_ like this.

If you are to speak of measurements, the RS6 measures completely flat across all frequencies, just like pretty much any playback device:

(it doesn't measure "completely flat" on my computer, only because
1. it's going into a crappy old $100 multichannel sound card line in
2. through the Java driver, not the ASIO driver, as the latter is glitching out for me on latest windows. But still, the basically flat response down to 2 Hz (not 20, but 2) is interesting.

I think I should clarify that the measurement is on the transducer side as a trend: IEMs with already emphasized midbass and upper mids (heavier V/U shaped) consistently, not absolutely does not sound well as a pairing with the RS6. At no point did I state the FR shown is the source, it was clearly identified as the IEM in question (AME J12U due to it's obscurity, all other IEMs already exist on crinacle's database so there's no reason for me to post my own results.) My own measurements are just to ensure my IEMs general FR trend follows those of Crinacle's database.

Sources DO NOT have a measurable frequency, this is no different than getting into the conversation of measuring cables. However that does not mean they all sound the same. I had assumed anyone that understands FRs know of this and thus omitted in the original post.

Finally, yes, this is one man's impression not necessarily universal facts of the device. However, this unit is personally purchased out of pocket and not provided like many other reviewers, I have no obligation to protect anyone's self interests and thus spoke as I heard it.

This quite frankly is the strangest device I've heard acoustically: loose bass, blunt lower mids, thin upper mids, while the treble remains tight and articulate...if not over sharpened. Normally if a device has a looser bass then the rest of the spectrum should also have the same kind of extended decay but it doesn't, or with a more sharpened treble the lower mids should also be more articulate. It's like the internal amp overwhelmingly amped the lower registers (up to lower mids) while the upper mids/treble is sharpened without the amp boost. How a seemingly warm source can also sound thin is beyond me.

All listening was done on high gain, no oversampling on both P6P and RS6, source files either FLAC or PCM WAV, 24-bit, 48/96kHz.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I think I should clarify that the measurement is on the transducer side as a trend: IEMs with already emphasized midbass and upper mids (heavier V/U shaped) consistently, not absolutely does not sound well as a pairing with the RS6. At no point did I state the FR shown is the source, it was clearly identified as the IEM in question (AME J12U due to it's obscurity, all other IEMs already exist on crinacle's database so there's no reason for me to post my own results.) My own measurements are just to ensure my IEMs general FR trend follows those of Crinacle's database.

Sources DO NOT have a measurable frequency, this is no different than getting into the conversation of measuring cables. However that does not mean they all sound the same. I had assumed anyone that understands FRs know of this and thus omitted in the original post.

Finally, yes, this is one man's impression not necessarily universal facts of the device. However, this unit is personally purchased out of pocket and not provided like many other reviewers, I have no obligation to protect anyone's self interests and thus spoke as I heard it.

This quite frankly is the strangest device I've heard acoustically: loose bass, blunt lower mids, thin upper mids, while the treble remains tight and articulate...if not over sharpened. Normally if a device has a looser bass then the rest of the spectrum should also have the same kind of extended decay but it doesn't, or with a more sharpened treble the lower mids should also be more articulate. It's like the internal amp overwhelmingly amped the lower registers (up to lower mids) while the upper mids/treble is sharpened without the amp boost. How a seemingly warm source can also sound thin is beyond me.

All listening was done on high gain, no oversampling on both P6P and RS6, source files either FLAC or PCM WAV, 24-bit, 48/96kHz.

Thanks for clarifying. Well, as long as we can agree that nothing has been measured that substantiates impressions like
W-shaped signature
overwhelming amounts of mid bass
"the recessed 2k rise works excellent with the more forward female vocal tuning of the RS6"

etc. on the part of the player, that's great.

As these are all claims regarding the frequency response of the player (where W-shaped literally imposes an expected shape on the measured frequency response, the second line describes how far up the left side of the W goes, and the last line detailing the middle bump of that W frequency response shape, narrowing it down to the 2kHz range)

None of these things show up in any measurement.

Of course, here in the audiophile world, everything is true, regardless of what is or isn't measured, and that is fine. But just don't say that you have measurements to back up your true listening impressions, because that's the one thing that's not true. And as you pointed out, these are your impressions, and everyone else has given their impressions as well.

It's a hard one to swallow, but I must point out that, if all impressions in this thread are taken together, then the RS6 has been at once bassy and bass-shy, warm and cold, bright and dark, forward and veiled, etc.

If the RS6 is this one single design, these impressions cannot all be true.

I suggest that people should take a look at others everybody's impressions, preferably with some sort of statistical tally, to see whether they add up with each other or not.

Finally, it sounds like you are very sensitive to variations in frequency response from an ideal target for you. Most IEMs when inserted into one's ears present sharp spikes in the treble frequency response that do not show up on graphs (at least, not necessarily at the same frequencies), because of ear canal resonances, which are impossible to get rid of entirely in IEM design, e.g. because of variability of ears. My ears were once as sensitive as yours to that, and the one sure way to get a smooth treble response, at the time, was to ring out the resonant frequencies of the particular earphones in my own ear using a signal generator, and then to null out the peaks using parametric EQs of the right frequency, gain and Q. Would you like to try that together with me?

(I also listened to music at low low levels before that, because anything higher invariably offended the ear. Once these peak frequencies were identified and brought down, I could listen at much more enjoyable levels, and seldom blamed playback equipment on SQ woes anymore. Does that make all players the same? No, because most players still do not let you shape the sound with such precision. It's why I pushed for the R players to include all these processing options. The one regret I had was that we were not able to squeeze a complete parametric EQ in (it overwhelmed the UI programmer at the time), the MageSound 8-ball was the result of brainstorming for a simpler system both to program and to use. But the convolver is capable of taking and using the output of an infinite number of parametric EQ bands, and more different things besides.)

 

[ayanachibi]

Thanks for clarifying. Well, as long as we can agree that nothing has been measured that substantiates impressions like
W-shaped signature
overwhelming amounts of mid bass
"the recessed 2k rise works excellent with the more forward female vocal tuning of the RS6"

etc. on the part of the player, that's great.

As these are all claims regarding the frequency response of the player (where W-shaped literally imposes an expected shape on the measured frequency response, the second line describes how far up the left side of the W goes, and the last line detailing the middle bump of that W frequency response shape, narrowing it down to the 2kHz range)

None of these things show up in any measurement.

Of course, here in the audiophile world, everything is true, regardless of what is or isn't measured, and that is fine. But just don't say that you have measurements to back up your true listening impressions, because that's the one thing that's not true. And as you pointed out, these are your impressions, and everyone else has given their impressions as well.

It's a hard one to swallow, but I must point out that, if all impressions in this thread are taken together, then the RS6 has been at once bassy and bass-shy, warm and cold, bright and dark, forward and veiled, etc.

If the RS6 is this one single design, these impressions cannot all be true.

I suggest that people should take a look at others everybody's impressions, preferably with some sort of statistical tally, to see whether they add up with each other or not.

Finally, it sounds like you are very sensitive to variations in frequency response from an ideal target for you. Most IEMs when inserted into one's ears present sharp spikes in the treble frequency response that do not show up on graphs (at least, not necessarily at the same frequencies), because of ear canal resonances, which are impossible to get rid of entirely in IEM design, e.g. because of variability of ears. My ears were once as sensitive as yours to that, and the one sure way to get a smooth treble response, at the time, was to ring out the resonant frequencies of the particular earphones in my own ear using a signal generator, and then to null out the peaks using parametric EQs of the right frequency, gain and Q. Would you like to try that together with me?

I definitely appreciate the offer, unfortunately I have and no longer dabble in any form of software EQ. It tends to introduce artifacts or unwelcome changes in sound. I generally don't touch EQ unless it's hardware.

As you say everyone has different ear structures, listening sensitivities, preferred sound/tonality/and even collection of transducers. A large of my personal transducers already gear towards a sharper rise in the female vocal and elevated mid-bass and the RS6 pushes those two particular region over the edge for me.

I don't persolly believe I have a strict personal target curve and do enjoy a fairly wide variety of tonalities, as can be seen with my current active collection of IEMs (from reference viento-b, to mid/vocal focused fitear 334, more energetic and bass focused hyla sarda, treble heavy v/u shaped annihilator, and even a warm J12U

What really didn't work for me with the RS6 is the inconsistency in it's presentation and this is NOT something any amount of EQ will fix.

Either way this is the fastest player to ever come into AND leave my possession. As previously stated thankfully my friend with his Mest MKII (amazing pairing btw) was happy to take off my hands.

 

[Xinlisupreme]

Good news for VE owner

 

[Xinlisupreme]

@Joe Bloggs I saw your working on Aroma Jewel, will you di the same for Thunder?

 

[davidmolliere]

@Xinlisupreme Did you test the preset?

Honestly I'd be very curious to know how this works and what are the parameters for each preset as so far I just don't hear any difference really... or I am doing something wrong?

 

[wgkwgk]

I fully agree. And to me personally, customer service is part of the product experience and goes into the rating for sure!

Don't get me started on HiBy customer service. It's abysmal. I'm in month 9 on my 3rd unit. They growsed about paying my returning postage. Seriously????

 

[Xinlisupreme]

@Xinlisupreme Did you test the preset?

Honestly I'd be very curious to know how this works and what are the parameters for each preset as so far I just don't hear any difference really... or I am doing something wrong?

It’s not night and day but combined with MSEB fine tuning I notice slightly improvement.
I’d chose wich fit better but with Aroma Thunder I noticed more Darwin effects than cheaper IEMs.
Hope they will add Thunder before I’ll go with Jewel

 

[davidmolliere]

It’s not night and day but combined with MSEB fine tuning I notice slightly improvement.

Well if you apply MSEB, then it's something different but pure presets do make a difference to you?