How are they with female vocals? The Z is definitely stronger with male vocals, and female vocals tend to flare up, especially voices with a higher pitch. Hopefully the R2 is much smoother in this aspect.
IMR R2 Aten Thread
- Thread starter warriorpoet
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Not sure yet mate. Thought I would get a few days on them before I looked at the weakness of the previous IMR IEMs
warriorpoet
500+ Head-Fier
Do you have a track to highlight this?
I tend to use Laura Marling, Cyndi Laupa, Sade and Norah Jones but I would go with whatever you know well
Listen to Heidi Talbot’s ‘Cathedrals’ at moderate volume. Or Missy Higgins ‘Shark Fin Blues’ (if you want to bring out the sibilance).
Some Norah Jones can be fairly pitchy too. Depends on volume. And tips.
To be honest a lot of my reference tracks haven't changed since i got into hifi 25 years ago. Some of them are probably not as suitable for headphones as they are for setting up speakers and room acoustics.
And to be fair the Z (and Aten) are really just one giant woofer. They’re basically sledgehammers. Asking them to be silky smooth and subtle for waif-like female folk vocals is not exactly playing to their strengths
Not that they’re terrible at it, mind you, but there are many other IEMs (even slightly cheaper ones) that are simply better at doing that specific thing.
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warriorpoet
500+ Head-Fier
They do both have piezo tweeters however. That should, in theory, give them some rangeAnd to be fair the Z (and Aten) are really just one giant woofer. They’re basically sledgehammers. Asking them to be silky smooth and subtle for waif-like female folk vocals is not exactly playing to their strengths
Not that they’re terrible at it, mind you, but there are many other IEMs (even slightly cheaper ones) that are simply better at doing that specific thing.
Now that you mention it, i would really like to know which IEM's you have in mind for that. I actually like the vocals on the R2 more than with the Zenith and can't think of cheaper ones that could do it a lot better.And to be fair the Z (and Aten) are really just one giant woofer. They’re basically sledgehammers. Asking them to be silky smooth and subtle for waif-like female folk vocals is not exactly playing to their strengths
Not that they’re terrible at it, mind you, but there are many other IEMs (even slightly cheaper ones) that are simply better at doing that specific thing.
Recently started listening to tracks like 'Familiar' by Agnes Obel and similar others, which i feel like the R1 perform really well on.
warriorpoet
500+ Head-Fier
No sibilance on Shark Fin Blues (Red/ red). According to IMR's FR chart, the red filters present a slight cut around 7-8kHz. Greens are pretty flat in that region, but Blue and Black both present a 3 dB boost. You'll likely have more sibilance problems with those filters. Norah Jones didn't present any real issues in that region either, so I went for the big guns- Fleming & John's Suppressed Emotions. No sibilance with the red filters.
Update: I can get some sibilance with the blue filters, but both the green and red filters (same FR shape) solve the issue. I kind of like the more crystalline presentation of the greens, so I've switched to those for now.
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warriorpoet
500+ Head-Fier
Man, I really wish there were an option between red and purple. The purples are so wonderfully clean, and the red have such awesome sub-bass impact, but the purples are just a little too tame, and the reds are a little too thick and midbassy...
Classical loves purples if you're into strings and brass, red if you're into clean percussion and space.
The low end golds are warm, warm, warm. I don't know if it's fair to organize them on a bass quantity spectrum. They diffuse the bottom end, and have an analog feel, like an old tube console record player, the kind I fell in love with music sitting in front of. It's a wonderfully nostalgic experience listening to Beethoven through the gold filters. I literally had tears in my eyes, can't wait to share that experience with my dad- he lost his house in a fire several years ago, and that record player went with it.
Classical loves purples if you're into strings and brass, red if you're into clean percussion and space.
The low end golds are warm, warm, warm. I don't know if it's fair to organize them on a bass quantity spectrum. They diffuse the bottom end, and have an analog feel, like an old tube console record player, the kind I fell in love with music sitting in front of. It's a wonderfully nostalgic experience listening to Beethoven through the gold filters. I literally had tears in my eyes, can't wait to share that experience with my dad- he lost his house in a fire several years ago, and that record player went with it.
So disappointing...
Waited all day for mailman to come with the package. Didn’t show up.
Waited all day for mailman to come with the package. Didn’t show up.
Sounds like the Aten is both smoother and more malleable than the Zenith, which is definitely a step in the right direction given you get to keep that awesome bass!
mw7485
100+ Head-Fier
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the presentation of classical music through the R2, certainly with low hours on them, is sometimes sub-par. For example, violins, playing in the higher octaves and as supporting instruments sound distinctly "plastic". This occurs through my CDM DAC/Amp and my Sony DAP. There would have to be a pretty dramatic tonal shift to fix this - which I guess may or may not happen over time. For me, the blue and green dampers are too shrill, the red to "low/veiled" - so the pink dampers and pink nozzles have it for now. With the R1Z, I use the blue nozzles, although I did use pinks with these for the first 200 hours or so as I found the blues too shrill to start with.
I am still really hoping that the R2 will settle down over time (like the R1Z did) so they become my one and only iem. I suspect if this is going to happen, it will take in the order of 100-200 hours of use. In the meantime, I'm sticking to using the R2 for non classical where they definitely bring something "big" to the table and are without doubt, a "banging" set of iems that really do convey a sense of space, depth and separation.
I am still really hoping that the R2 will settle down over time (like the R1Z did) so they become my one and only iem. I suspect if this is going to happen, it will take in the order of 100-200 hours of use. In the meantime, I'm sticking to using the R2 for non classical where they definitely bring something "big" to the table and are without doubt, a "banging" set of iems that really do convey a sense of space, depth and separation.
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