[Jackpot77]

Thank you for clearing that up for me indeed i did readi it here!!
Also, I will post on the correct Go Pod for further info
Regarding the synergy with Elan+
I actually sold my Elan+ after a long burn-in which did not settle down the harsh treble peak i was experiencing!
Maybe this is why they did not work well with Go Pods?
To be honest i was REALLY disappointed with the Elan+ unlike every other IMR which i have own & enjoyed, so after a bit of research & back & forth with Bob i discovered the Balanced Armature's used are not Sonion or Knowles they are Belkin the same as what KZ use!
If you are not familiar with Belkin they are a Chinese Company who mass produce cheap Balanced Armature Drivers. Once i discovered this i realized what was producing the harsh treble peaks!
I was actually pretty annoyed when i found this out due to the price of Elan+ and not using high quality Sonion or Knowles BA's drivers was seriously cutting corners in my book!
It's understandable for companies like KZ & CCA there most expensive IEM is around £100, but Elan+ cost 4 times this!
Just one quick one before i go regarding Go Pods, I actually want them to go with my Penon 10th AE which i currently use with my Go Blu but would love to get rid of the cables entirely
Anyway, once again thanks for your help and clearly up the misunderstanding the Go Pods are for sure my next buy?
Merry Christmas & Happy New Years to All

If you mean Belling rather than Belkin, there was a legal case a few years back where JH Audio, Campfire Audio and a few other manufacturers using Bellsing BA drivers in flagship level products. Turned out Bellsing had taken the designs from Knowles when some of their engineers moved companies in China, so eventually the main IEM manufacturers had to pay compensation to Knowles for each "bootleg" BAc driver they knowingly or unknowingly used.

Bottom line - Bellsing have been guilty of shady business practices in the past, but the fact some major IEM houses used their BAs in flagship models at least shows they agreed able to produce some quality drivers.

 

[Ryokan]

Reading on-line Bellsing are supposed to be as good as Knowles as they're direct copies - and cannot be sold in the US due to copyright. I'd prefer to have Knowles or Sonion in my iem's though unless they're much cheaper.
Quite a few manufacturers use Bellsing BA's and even one in the US was mentioned a few years back.

 

[Kundi]

Waiting for Enigma

What you playing?

 

[paggio]

What you playing?

Some indie titles and dark souls remastered. Waiting till Baldur's gate 3 devs finish the 3rd act, I'm in the middle of the first act
The next is going to be Disco Elysium

 

[RumbleWeed]

Wow! this is a revelation. Bob always used reputed BA drivers like sonion or knowles in the past. This is really annyoing and disappointing.
Desperate times call for desparate measures!

How did you find out about this though?

I know i was pretty surprised myself because Bob did always seem to use quality drivers, even the Bone Conductor Drivers after Dark Matter were Sonion!
I have the email somewhere in my outlook account if anyone wants confirmation?
I couldn't put my finger on the issues i was having with Elan+ and once i found out it used Belkin BA's it all made sense!
I don't care how good a tunning engineer you are if you don't start of with quality drivers it's never gonna work, as the old saying goes
"You Can't Polish a Turd"

 

[RumbleWeed]

If you mean Belling rather than Belkin, there was a legal case a few years back where JH Audio, Campfire Audio and a few other manufacturers using Bellsing BA drivers in flagship level products. Turned out Bellsing had taken the designs from Knowles when some of their engineers moved companies in China, so eventually the main IEM manufacturers had to pay compensation to Knowles for each "bootleg" BAc driver they knowingly or unknowingly used.

Bottom line - Bellsing have been guilty of shady business practices in the past, but the fact some major IEM houses used their BAs in flagship models at least shows they agreed able to produce some quality drivers.

SORRY you are totally correct it is Bellsing
In regards to the quality of those flagship IEM's which supposedly used Bellsing we will never know how said IEM would have sounded if they did have Knowles or Sonion?
My "own" opinion is they would have sounded a lot better, i don't care how good you are at counterfeiting it will NEVER ever be as good as the Original!
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Bellsing cannot make a great Balanced Armature Drivers there are thousands of people out there who enjoy there KZ, CCA, KBear, QKZ ect..
But when it comes to TOTL IEM's which cost £500++ it's that last 5% you are paying for and that 5% as small as it is comes from quality drivers like Sonion & Knowles and not Bellsing I'm afford,!

 

[Jackpot77]

I know i was pretty surprised myself because Bob did always seem to use quality drivers, even the Bone Conductor Drivers after Dark Matter were Sonion!
I have the email somewhere in my outlook account if anyone wants confirmation?
I couldn't put my finger on the issues i was having with Elan+ and once i found out it used Belkin BA's it all made sense!
I don't care how good a tunning engineer you are if you don't start of with quality drivers it's never gonna work, as the old saying goes
"You Can't Polish a Turd"

Not arguing against the use of quality drivers, but the recent Bellsing drivers are literal copies of the Knowles high end drivers, down to the machinery the engineers took with them from the Knowles factory. It's fair to say their later tech is at least on par with previous gen Knowles BAs now.

 

[Jackpot77]

SORRY you are totally correct it is Bellsing
In regards to the quality of those flagship IEM's which supposedly used Bellsing we will never know how said IEM would have sounded if they did have Knowles or Sonion?
My "own" opinion is they would have sounded a lot better, i don't care how good you are at counterfeiting it will NEVER ever be as good as the Original!
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Bellsing cannot make a great Balanced Armature Drivers there are thousands of people out there who enjoy there KZ, CCA, KBear, QKZ ect..
But when it comes to TOTL IEM's which cost £500++ it's that last 5% you are paying for and that 5% as small as it is comes from quality drivers like Sonion & Knowles and not Bellsing I'm afford,!

You can test the difference by listening to the original campfire audio Solaris, and the first "special edition" Solaris, which replaced the Bellsing driver with the Knowles equivalent. It's pretty much identical - mainly due to the fact it wasn't so much counterfeiting as former Knowles employees using the same materials and the same actual machines taken from a Knowles factory to make identical spec armatures.

Can't speak to the relative quality of current Bellsing designs, but they took some of the engineers that designed and made "the good stuff" from Knowles, so you'd hope it was reasonably decent.

 

[bk123]

I know i was pretty surprised myself because Bob did always seem to use quality drivers, even the Bone Conductor Drivers after Dark Matter were Sonion!

This is no longer the case with IMR now. Bob again removed Sonion from IEM descriptions. Though NaLe has not been made/delivered yet. But until few months back, the description clearly stated Sonion BC drivers. Now there is no mention of sonion drivers in the description and it is already put under the archieve models
There was a shortage of Sonion BC drivers reported at the end of last year and in the beginning of this year. I am not sure if the supply situation has improved or not. But If NaLe would ever be delivered then it would not have Sonion BC drivers for sure.......

 

[AlexCBSN]

Though NaLe has not been made/delivered yet

And it won’t be made nor delivered. Cause ‘it got lost in the mail” or “the dog ate em”

 

[Jackpot77]

This is no longer the case with IMR now. Bob again removed Sonion from IEM descriptions. Though NaLe has not been made/delivered yet. But until few months back, the description clearly stated Sonion BC drivers. Now there is no mention of sonion drivers in the description and it is already put under the archieve models
There was a shortage of Sonion BC drivers reported at the end of last year and in the beginning of this year. I am not sure if the supply situation has improved or not. But If NaLe would ever be delivered then it would not have Sonion BC drivers for sure.......

A few big manufacturers like Unique Melody, Noble etc are now using BC drivers from Sonion. Bob was having delivery issues with Sonion back in the Avalon build days, along with a few other small manufacturers. Given the tiny number of units IMR order, I think they are permanently at the bottom of the pile as the other manufacturers order 40-50x as many units as IMR in a single order, and that's before and subsequent cashflow issues that may have occurred.

That's just the reality of being a boutique manufacturer dealing with the industry leader, and a multinational to boot (c. 7000 employees). In the nicest possible sense, IMR's business volumes are insignificant to Sonion.

 

[bk123]

A few big manufacturers like Unique Melody, Noble etc are now using BC drivers from Sonion. Bob was having delivery issues with Sonion back in the Avalon build days, along with a few other small manufacturers. Given the tiny number of units IMR order, I think they are permanently at the bottom of the pile as the other manufacturers order 40-50x as many units as IMR in a single order, and that's before and subsequent cashflow issues that may have occurred.

That's just the reality of being a boutique manufacturer dealing with the industry leader, and a multinational to boot (c. 7000 employees). In the nicest possible sense, IMR's business volumes are insignificant to Sonion.

Understood. But if the situation was already grim during Avalon delivery, then why annouce models specific with Sonion BC drivers, collect pre-orders amount and then remove it from description.
I totally understand that a small botique store will always be at the bottom of big manufactring unit suppliers. And in my limited opinion any botique store which solely depends on a very limited customer base should not keep its customer in dark at least in such matters.

 

[RumbleWeed]

You can test the difference by listening to the original campfire audio Solaris, and the first "special edition" Solaris, which replaced the Bellsing driver with the Knowles equivalent. It's pretty much identical - mainly due to the fact it wasn't so much counterfeiting as former Knowles employees using the same materials and the same actual machines taken from a Knowles factory to make identical spec armatures.

Can't speak to the relative quality of current Bellsing designs, but they took some of the engineers that designed and made "the good stuff" from Knowles, so you'd hope it was reasonably decent.

I get what you and others are saying and you may be 100% correct when it comes to the older Knowles drivers that's were being made by ex-Knowles employees "At That Time".
but do you honestly believe Bellsing have spent the R&D over the last five years which Knowles have?
And do you think Bellsing are paying the same wages to engineer's as Knowles and Sonion do?
And whilst on the subject of Sonion?
Correct if I'm wrong but the BA's which Bellsing do produce are knock offs of Knowles NOT Sonion?
I'm not being rude when i say this but there is no way in hell Bellsing could Engineer something like the Sonion 38D1XJ007Mi/8a AquPass Sub-Woofer let alone the new Sonion E50 'Hummingbird' Dual Ultra-Tweeter used in the new ThieAudio Hype Series!
It takes millions of ££$$ to do the R&D and pay the top engineers to accomplish something of this class of technology and that what people are paying for when they buy TOTL Flagship IEM's!
As i said in my previous post, I'm not saying Bellsing cannot make a great BA driver because there are many "budget" IEM's and "Some" Flagship IEM's which sound great BUT let me ask this question?
If you are paying £500-£2000 for a TOTL Flagship IEM would you want Sonion & Knowles Driver's or Bellsing?
I bet your bottom dollar it's the former 100% of the time..…...

 

[Nick24JJ]

I apologise for the OFF-TOPIC question but does anyone know what kind of drivers does the 64 Audio Volür use?
I mean, are they Knowles, Sonion, something else?

 

[bk123]

I apologise for the OFF-TOPIC question but does anyone know what kind of drivers does the 64 Audio Volür use?
I mean, are they Knowles, Sonion, something else?

@64Audio is one of the sponsor in head-fi. I guess you will get more direct answers from them.