Hi,
my name is Mat, I’m new here and this is my first (probably way too long) post — amazing forum, I’ve already spent way too much time here in the past couple of weeks reading
I hope you guys can help me with some thoughts.
My question - short version:
I’m looking for a mid-centric, intimate, rather warm, but highly resolving TOTL IEM, that excels especially at classical music for solo piano, but is a good alrounder for vocal focussed popular music as well.
And the long version:
My Background: I’m a professional in the classical music industry doing everything except playing and making music myself, i.e. writing about music, managing and curating, sometimes recording, etc. I had almost become a classical pianist myself and am therefore very familiar with piano music and very very sensitive regarding it’s aural representation.
As of now I own two IEMs: A Sennheiser IE80 and the AirPods Pro. I bought the IE80s years ago when it seemed to be a good deal, and didn’t really spend much attention since. Until I recently saw the IE900 announcement and thought, it might be time for an upgrade. That’s when I discovered this forum.
Obviously anything would be an upgrade to the IE80s and the AirPods, but I’d like to get something really really good, so that I can ideally forget about it for a couple of years again.
Therefore I don’t really have a hard budget limit. If it made absolute and perfect sense I could even see myself paying 6.000$ for a Traillii or so. At the same time, I still would much rather not, and would prefer to get away with as little as possible, let’s say ideally around 1.000$. But again, my budget is flexible and the point is to get something of the best.
I will most likely run the IEM off a dongle like the S1 or W2 and not get a DAP.
Music I listen to:
1) Classical Solo Piano
This is the make or brake genre. My future IEM has to excel here. The IE80 is unbearably terrible at it (extremely muddy), the AirPods a bit better resolving and less muddy but still not acceptable. I realized I had actually avoided listening to my favourite piano music in the last couple of years as I just can not stand the bad sound quality.
Solo piano despite being a single instrument is acoustically very challenging. You have a lot of notes from the same instrument, same timbre and very close to each other frequency-wise, you have a lot of resonances from the other strings when dampers are lifted and you have a lot of overtones. Usually piano solo sound gets very very muddy very very quickly. That happens even live with a real piano if the room is not good enough acoustically (most are not) and it happens of course in speakers and headphones.
So assuming the recording is good, one needs a technically very powerful headphone to reproduce all the notes and resonances and overtones without creating an aural mess. In the case of my current IEMs, the IE80 does just fine with a lot of popular music with a lot of instruments + vocals, but is a total failure at almost any kind of even the least challenging piano solo music (like Bach played without pedal).
And here comes a twist: When people think about classical music listening, they usually think the listener wants a clear, neutral and vast presentation. The ideal listening situation for the typical classical concert goer being a large modern concert hall with fantastic acoustic design (Philharmonie Berlin, Musikverein Vienna, Disney Conert Hall L.A.), sitting somewhere in the middle, not too close, not too far from the stage, so that you get just the right mix of direct and reflected soundwaves into your ears.
That is not me. I hate sitting in the middle of a big concert hall when listening to piano solo music. I would dose off in that scenario because it’s musically so unegaging and often ourtight boring for me. I always go for the front row. I don’t care about the acoustics of the hall, I want the pure and direct piano sound, as close and loud as possible and nothing else. I much prefer smaller halls for piano solo, and the most memorable lsitening experiences with great pianists I had in extremely small halls or living rooms. If I could, I would stick my head right into the piano. That’s how I like my solo piano. When I occassionally record piano music, I usually go against conventional wisdom, bring the microphones much closer to the piano than is custom and add very little, sometimes no ambience.
—> for this all deciding genre I think I need an IEM that is as close to the top as possible in technicalities, especially resolving prowess, and at the same time able to present the music in a direct and intimate manner.
Other Classical Music
I also listen to a lot of classical music for ensemble and orchestra. I distinguish between two kinds:
a) rather dynamic, ‘musical’ and engaging music usually from the classic and romantic periods (Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff). —> Same requirements as for solo piano.
b) rather static, sculptural, architectural music from the baroque and contemporary period (Bach, spectral music, etc.)
This is the kind of music where I would not sit in the front row, but rather further back, listening for the music just being there like a sculpture and capturing the dead silent concert hall with it’s static electric tension. —> I think this is all about technicalities, wide soundstage, etc. As the width of the soundstage might be limited by my requirement for intimacy, I think just a lot of detail and precision would make this kind of music sound great.
Popular Music:
Sorry to all popular music experts here for throwing all kinds of non classical genres into one.
In fact I listen to quite a lot of popular music of a wide variety. I would say, half of my listening is classical the other half popular. Some of my favourite genres and artists are: Very warm and intimate duo and trio Jazz, Blues, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Diana Krall, Classic Rock, Art Rock, Dire Straits, Joe Cocker, Soul, Bob Marley, Christina Aguilra, Prince, a lot of Michael Jackson.
I’m much less critical listening to popular music and probably much easier to satisfy in this regard, although I have a few preferences here as well and wouldn’t mnind getting the best that is possible without compromising my solo piano requirements: As all my popular music is vocal focussed I’d like a vocal-focussed presentation, the vocals being as direct, as close, in my face, intimate as possible, maybe somewhat warm. I wan’t it to be very engagning as well, suitable for dancing, with a lot of energy. I don’t mind a wide, deep and high soundstage as long as the vocals are right there in front of me, and the music is presented as engaging as possible.
Music genres I DO NOT listen to:
EDM, Metal, Hip Hop, K-Pop
What I have:
Regarding the two sets I have right now, IE80 and AirPods Pro, I’m not really happy with either of those.
IE80:
Pro: I like their warm v-shaped tonality much much better than the AirPods Pro, I often feel they can be more intimate but also have a wider soundstage in some songs, like Michael Jackson.
Con: They are technically underwhelming, even though a considerable amount of popular music is presented quite well and often better than on the AirPods, they are unbearably bad at solo piano and many other popular songs, as they get very very muddy.
Second problem is that vocals are almost always way too recessed for my taste.
AirPods Pro:
Pro: have a better resolution than the IE80s and get less muddy in the problematic frequency range (probably lower mids, upper bass). For solo piano they are better but by no means good and I don’t enjoy my piano music with them either.
Con: They seem to have a somewhat flat tonality, that is uneganging, outright boring to my ears. Vocals are more present than on the IE80s but the whole presentation is way too laid back and unmusical for me.
What I’m looking for:
I honestly can’t really pinpoint what exactly I need yet in technical terms. Here are some guesses:
What I’m after here:
Obviously I don’t want to make a buying decision for one particular IEM based on this post. Rather I’d like to create a very good short list, that I could then try to demo.
(I’m open to blind buy something below 1.000$ for testing, if I can’t find an opportunity to demo it.)
As there are so many IEMs out there and it’s impossible to demo all of them, I’d like my short list to be as short and as good as possible, oriented at TOTL IEMs, maybe with a cheaper option to check whether it would be enough for me, and maybe some very contrasting expamles to check them out as well.
The IEMs I’ve listed below caught my attention mainly by reading reviews and impressions on this very forum and some other sites. I tried it with graphs, but found that they don’t really correlate with the impressions people post, so I ultimately just read a lot of impressions, rankings, etc.
While reading I could immediately relate to the impressions of some IEMs (like the VE Elysium), not at all to others (like 64Audio IEMs) and about others I just haven't read as much or got the impression from comparisons that they are not as good as the ones on my list. But as impressions are written against a most likely very different musical background than my own, I certainly could be very mislead, and therefore my list so far is somewhat arbitrary.
I hope that you can help me out, given my preferences and requirements, with recommendations for IEMs that I should add to my list or that I should cross out. Also maybe you can tell me much better what, in technical terms, I’m actually looking for, than my guesses above. (Like: Obviously you want to go for an all BA IEM, or: certainly not v-shaped, or something like that)
My current short list
Some Others (probably not for the short list):
One thought/question I have is regarding DDs. Single DDs like IE900 and Isabellae and DD hybrids seem to be the trend recently, but on crinacle for example I saw that those IEMs that rank high on techincalities usually have BAs. Given that my IE80 actually sounds ok with a lot of popular music, but fails at the technically challenging solo piano, I’m wondering if that is an issue with DDs in general, and whether something like Isabellae or IE900 could at all reach a high enough technical level for that kind of challenge.
So far this is a too theoretical endeavour, I know, and I should get to hear some IEMs as soon as possible -- but given the current situation, it's not that easy and I'd like to be as well prepared as possible. I look forward to your recommendations and promise to report back how the process goes!
my name is Mat, I’m new here and this is my first (probably way too long) post — amazing forum, I’ve already spent way too much time here in the past couple of weeks reading
I hope you guys can help me with some thoughts.
My question - short version:
I’m looking for a mid-centric, intimate, rather warm, but highly resolving TOTL IEM, that excels especially at classical music for solo piano, but is a good alrounder for vocal focussed popular music as well.
And the long version:
My Background: I’m a professional in the classical music industry doing everything except playing and making music myself, i.e. writing about music, managing and curating, sometimes recording, etc. I had almost become a classical pianist myself and am therefore very familiar with piano music and very very sensitive regarding it’s aural representation.
As of now I own two IEMs: A Sennheiser IE80 and the AirPods Pro. I bought the IE80s years ago when it seemed to be a good deal, and didn’t really spend much attention since. Until I recently saw the IE900 announcement and thought, it might be time for an upgrade. That’s when I discovered this forum.
Obviously anything would be an upgrade to the IE80s and the AirPods, but I’d like to get something really really good, so that I can ideally forget about it for a couple of years again.
Therefore I don’t really have a hard budget limit. If it made absolute and perfect sense I could even see myself paying 6.000$ for a Traillii or so. At the same time, I still would much rather not, and would prefer to get away with as little as possible, let’s say ideally around 1.000$. But again, my budget is flexible and the point is to get something of the best.
I will most likely run the IEM off a dongle like the S1 or W2 and not get a DAP.
Music I listen to:
1) Classical Solo Piano
This is the make or brake genre. My future IEM has to excel here. The IE80 is unbearably terrible at it (extremely muddy), the AirPods a bit better resolving and less muddy but still not acceptable. I realized I had actually avoided listening to my favourite piano music in the last couple of years as I just can not stand the bad sound quality.
Solo piano despite being a single instrument is acoustically very challenging. You have a lot of notes from the same instrument, same timbre and very close to each other frequency-wise, you have a lot of resonances from the other strings when dampers are lifted and you have a lot of overtones. Usually piano solo sound gets very very muddy very very quickly. That happens even live with a real piano if the room is not good enough acoustically (most are not) and it happens of course in speakers and headphones.
So assuming the recording is good, one needs a technically very powerful headphone to reproduce all the notes and resonances and overtones without creating an aural mess. In the case of my current IEMs, the IE80 does just fine with a lot of popular music with a lot of instruments + vocals, but is a total failure at almost any kind of even the least challenging piano solo music (like Bach played without pedal).
And here comes a twist: When people think about classical music listening, they usually think the listener wants a clear, neutral and vast presentation. The ideal listening situation for the typical classical concert goer being a large modern concert hall with fantastic acoustic design (Philharmonie Berlin, Musikverein Vienna, Disney Conert Hall L.A.), sitting somewhere in the middle, not too close, not too far from the stage, so that you get just the right mix of direct and reflected soundwaves into your ears.
That is not me. I hate sitting in the middle of a big concert hall when listening to piano solo music. I would dose off in that scenario because it’s musically so unegaging and often ourtight boring for me. I always go for the front row. I don’t care about the acoustics of the hall, I want the pure and direct piano sound, as close and loud as possible and nothing else. I much prefer smaller halls for piano solo, and the most memorable lsitening experiences with great pianists I had in extremely small halls or living rooms. If I could, I would stick my head right into the piano. That’s how I like my solo piano. When I occassionally record piano music, I usually go against conventional wisdom, bring the microphones much closer to the piano than is custom and add very little, sometimes no ambience.
—> for this all deciding genre I think I need an IEM that is as close to the top as possible in technicalities, especially resolving prowess, and at the same time able to present the music in a direct and intimate manner.
Other Classical Music
I also listen to a lot of classical music for ensemble and orchestra. I distinguish between two kinds:
a) rather dynamic, ‘musical’ and engaging music usually from the classic and romantic periods (Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff). —> Same requirements as for solo piano.
b) rather static, sculptural, architectural music from the baroque and contemporary period (Bach, spectral music, etc.)
This is the kind of music where I would not sit in the front row, but rather further back, listening for the music just being there like a sculpture and capturing the dead silent concert hall with it’s static electric tension. —> I think this is all about technicalities, wide soundstage, etc. As the width of the soundstage might be limited by my requirement for intimacy, I think just a lot of detail and precision would make this kind of music sound great.
Popular Music:
Sorry to all popular music experts here for throwing all kinds of non classical genres into one.
In fact I listen to quite a lot of popular music of a wide variety. I would say, half of my listening is classical the other half popular. Some of my favourite genres and artists are: Very warm and intimate duo and trio Jazz, Blues, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Diana Krall, Classic Rock, Art Rock, Dire Straits, Joe Cocker, Soul, Bob Marley, Christina Aguilra, Prince, a lot of Michael Jackson.
I’m much less critical listening to popular music and probably much easier to satisfy in this regard, although I have a few preferences here as well and wouldn’t mnind getting the best that is possible without compromising my solo piano requirements: As all my popular music is vocal focussed I’d like a vocal-focussed presentation, the vocals being as direct, as close, in my face, intimate as possible, maybe somewhat warm. I wan’t it to be very engagning as well, suitable for dancing, with a lot of energy. I don’t mind a wide, deep and high soundstage as long as the vocals are right there in front of me, and the music is presented as engaging as possible.
Music genres I DO NOT listen to:
EDM, Metal, Hip Hop, K-Pop
What I have:
Regarding the two sets I have right now, IE80 and AirPods Pro, I’m not really happy with either of those.
IE80:
Pro: I like their warm v-shaped tonality much much better than the AirPods Pro, I often feel they can be more intimate but also have a wider soundstage in some songs, like Michael Jackson.
Con: They are technically underwhelming, even though a considerable amount of popular music is presented quite well and often better than on the AirPods, they are unbearably bad at solo piano and many other popular songs, as they get very very muddy.
Second problem is that vocals are almost always way too recessed for my taste.
AirPods Pro:
Pro: have a better resolution than the IE80s and get less muddy in the problematic frequency range (probably lower mids, upper bass). For solo piano they are better but by no means good and I don’t enjoy my piano music with them either.
Con: They seem to have a somewhat flat tonality, that is uneganging, outright boring to my ears. Vocals are more present than on the IE80s but the whole presentation is way too laid back and unmusical for me.
What I’m looking for:
I honestly can’t really pinpoint what exactly I need yet in technical terms. Here are some guesses:
- a somewhat warm, maybe slightly V- or U-shaped tonality, that is slight enough to not cause mids to recede but strong enough to not get clinically flat / unegaging / unmusical. (maybe somewhat emphasized upper bass / lower mids to add warmth?)
- Mids as good as possible.
- Technically as good as possible in terms of precision, detail, resolution over the full frequency range, but especially the easily problematic upper bass / lower mid region.
- Intimacy: Hm, what does that mean? Does it have to do anything with soundstage or not? Maybe the soundstage shouldn’t be too wide, but then again, what do I care how wide it is, when my focus (the piano, the singer) is right in the center in front of me? Would a wide soundstage not even benefit the intimacy of solo piano music by wrapping the sound around my head like as if I stuck my head into the piano? Maybe the soundstage shouldn’t be to deep? But then again, what do I care how far back accompanying instruments are, if the singer is right at the front very close to me, singing straight into my face/ear?
- in addition isolation is quite important for me, as I very often listen in not that quiet environments. I don’t know for example how much isolation would be compromised in a vented DD?
What I’m after here:
Obviously I don’t want to make a buying decision for one particular IEM based on this post. Rather I’d like to create a very good short list, that I could then try to demo.
(I’m open to blind buy something below 1.000$ for testing, if I can’t find an opportunity to demo it.)
As there are so many IEMs out there and it’s impossible to demo all of them, I’d like my short list to be as short and as good as possible, oriented at TOTL IEMs, maybe with a cheaper option to check whether it would be enough for me, and maybe some very contrasting expamles to check them out as well.
The IEMs I’ve listed below caught my attention mainly by reading reviews and impressions on this very forum and some other sites. I tried it with graphs, but found that they don’t really correlate with the impressions people post, so I ultimately just read a lot of impressions, rankings, etc.
While reading I could immediately relate to the impressions of some IEMs (like the VE Elysium), not at all to others (like 64Audio IEMs) and about others I just haven't read as much or got the impression from comparisons that they are not as good as the ones on my list. But as impressions are written against a most likely very different musical background than my own, I certainly could be very mislead, and therefore my list so far is somewhat arbitrary.
I hope that you can help me out, given my preferences and requirements, with recommendations for IEMs that I should add to my list or that I should cross out. Also maybe you can tell me much better what, in technical terms, I’m actually looking for, than my guesses above. (Like: Obviously you want to go for an all BA IEM, or: certainly not v-shaped, or something like that)
My current short list
- VE Elysium — This one I could relate to best impression-wise, it seems to fit what I’m looking for quite well, although I’m wondering more and more whether it would be too brigth / not warm enough for me.
- VE Erlkönig — This one seems to be a good match as well, maybe even better than the Elysium, but it’s probably impossible to get by.
- Sony IER-M9 — I’ve read a lot of good impressions especially regarding classical music. The signature is sometimes described as warm, what I would like, and sometimes as neutral, which I would hate.
- Sennheiser IE900 — The announcement of this started my inquiry, I like Sennheiser and so far people seem to be pretty impressed by it, although I didn’t get a clear picture of the signature yet.
- Oriolus Isabellae — Caught my attention as it was here and there compared to the Elysium, although I’m wondering if it would be too bright / not warm enough for me and if a single DD at that price point would be technically good enough.
Some Others (probably not for the short list):
- Oriolus Traillii — I’ve read most of the Traillii thread and the reviews, and praise seems to be almost universal. But people mentioned more laid back mids compared to other IEMs, which would probably not be the best for me. In addition it was mentioned that the only genre, the Traillii isn’t better at than anything else, is classical music.
- Sony IER-Z1R — This one looked great to me first, also almost universal praise, but reading more and more impressions the, mids seem to be very recessed, which I probably wouldn’t like.
One thought/question I have is regarding DDs. Single DDs like IE900 and Isabellae and DD hybrids seem to be the trend recently, but on crinacle for example I saw that those IEMs that rank high on techincalities usually have BAs. Given that my IE80 actually sounds ok with a lot of popular music, but fails at the technically challenging solo piano, I’m wondering if that is an issue with DDs in general, and whether something like Isabellae or IE900 could at all reach a high enough technical level for that kind of challenge.
So far this is a too theoretical endeavour, I know, and I should get to hear some IEMs as soon as possible -- but given the current situation, it's not that easy and I'd like to be as well prepared as possible. I look forward to your recommendations and promise to report back how the process goes!
I especially like playing this song on the Isa