[kokakolia]

I dont know much about lenovo phones but xiaomi has actually refined their software well. In the super cheap category xiaomi redmi note 5 is amazing. Oneplus is another great example of a well put together chinese phone.

Yeah, I am gonna go on a tangent here and say that all these "flagships" are overspecced for people like me who just text/call, watch YouTube and surf the web. Something like a Redmi 5 makes more sense. I actually rocked an $80 smartphone for 1 year. It was OK for the most part, but it sucked for image heavy sites and was pretty sluggish at times. You don't need a leaf blower to dry your hair LOL.

 

[HungryPanda]

OnePlus are great phones the Xiaomi ones I cannot use as they don't have the international 4G ability

 

[dbaker1981]

And when is are you getting home? Would love to hear whether they feel like treble canons to you

Well I just opened them up and plugged them into my Opus 1 and I’m not at all getting the treble cannon. I have the zs5 v1 and they sound quite similar to me. The zs6 seems to have tighter bass and seems to be a little clearer. The real test will be when I hook them to my Cayin n3. The 4490 dac is Notorious for being V shaped. At least to me.

 

[vector84]

I don't mind the absence of r&d for iems under $25 but when you go above this price companies should definitely invest in r&d. Some of you might say that $25 is way to cheap and it wouldn't be feasible to spend on r&d at such low prices, you have to understand it is china that we are talking about. The labour and material costs are wayyy lower compared to lets say usa. I agree the material cost of good balanced armatures are pretty high but instead of just focusing on ba drivers, a chi-fi company could easily do some r&d and a make great dynamic driver that could compete with iems thrice its price. Dynamic drivers are way cheaper to manufacture. For example if you spend $15 per iem on r&d and 15$ on material and packaging cost. You could easily provide a great iem at $60.

Economies of scale and consumer preference?

If you're only going to attract 1/10th of the number of potential sales because most consumers favor a more V shaped sound, you're going to have to spend 10 times as much per unit to get the same return on investment.


I considered putting a whole lengthy diatribe here, but really if you want something that sounds like your favorite studio monitor, you're going to need to shop around until you hear something that... sounds like your favorite studio monitor... because we hear with our ears.

Have we completely derailed this train yet?

 

[Mdclol]

You have two 500$ IEMs and are asking whether you should save your money when it comes to Chifi? Well, you're not getting anything sounding closer to what was intended by the artists with IEMs other than what you have. You can go closer only with headphones and above that - full sized speakers (or buying a ticket). Chifi IEM sound signatures are way more unrefined and messy, (KZ ZST vs. Westone UM3X vs. Earsonics SM3v2. Other KZ models aren't less messy) not to mention QC problems. But you'll still probably enjoy the sound, human hearing is not that precise. Not to mention the satisfaction that new, interesting stuff brings.

I understand your point, and thank you for your time. However, I highly doubt it was in the artists intention to have their vocals sounding veiled as is in the case of my $500 3-driver earphones. If anything, this make me absolutely sure I overpaid for what the Westones and Earsonics bring to the table.

When I auditioned 1more triples, my thoughts were they sounded fantastic, very musical, especially for their $65 asking price at Costco but they didn't securely fit into my ears. Then I tried some CHEAP dynamic Philips earphones and they really made me want to get groovy! Something that wouldn't happen with my borderline analytical Westone/Earsonics series 'phones. There was a level of richness, fullness and musicality brought forth by the dynamic driver that I found lacking in my BA earphones. I've also owned Westone 4R and Westone ES5 customs. Despite hearing these $500-1000 monsters, I still find myself gravitating to a cheap dynamic driver.

 

[Saoshyant]

@Mdclol Shame about the Earsonics, always was curious about the Velvet, but never really could justify the cost. Your opinion of the costlier BA setups is why I've been apprehensive about trying that route, although the Rose Tech Mini6 could be something worth trying, and it's not horribly expensive. For my expensive IEM I went with IE800 because of this.

 

[randomnin]

I understand your point, and thank you for your time. However, I highly doubt it was in the artists intention to have their vocals sounding veiled as is in the case of my $500 3-driver earphones. If anything, this make me absolutely sure I overpaid for what the Westones and Earsonics bring to the table.

When I auditioned 1more triples, my thoughts were they sounded fantastic, very musical, especially for their $65 asking price at Costco but they didn't securely fit into my ears. Then I tried some CHEAP dynamic Philips earphones and they really made me want to get groovy! Something that wouldn't happen with my borderline analytical Westone/Earsonics series 'phones. There was a level of richness, fullness and musicality brought forth by the dynamic driver that I found lacking in my BA earphones. I've also owned Westone 4R and Westone ES5 customs. Despite hearing these $500-1000 monsters, I still find myself gravitating to a cheap dynamic driver.

No problem then, pick up something that people here like or what respected reviewers (audiobudget.com, aproear.co.uk, ChrisHifi and some others) recommend and you'll probably be very happy with both the sound and specs, and your wallet won't be much lighter. But my beef is about that a) Chifi makers definitely pay very little attention to frequency response graphs; b) some members here have said that older Western makers' models sound worse than cutting edge KZ's, which doesn't fit my experience with used, twelve years old Shure E4c that sound no worse than any of the dozen chifi IEMs I've tried + they don't break as often as Chifi stuff does even when used only indoors and stationary.

 

[vector84]

@Fahim Foysal

I feel like that bit above comes of moderately harsh. I'm obviously pretty interested in the mechanics of hearing myself, and I'm certainly not trying to dissuade you from exploring the subject but I feel like you're overthinking your experience a bit and you should take a bit more notice of what you hear, instead of what you think you should hear

An enormous amount of information has been shared in this thread and it can be pretty daunting but like, you shared your experiences only very briefly with the ZS5 so it's really pretty hard to figure out what else you might be looking for.


You've got some ZS6s on the way right? If you're dissatisfied with the ZS5s, why not take them to task with some simple changes?

You mentioned you feel they're particularly lacking in bass, so how does taping the vents treat your experience?
You mentioned some over expression of some frequencies - there's plenty of graphs floating around to give you a general idea of where peaks might lie. What has your experience been like toying with some EQ to bring them in line?
Have you tried some cheap foam tips? How do those treat your experience with the highs?
Tip rolling in general?
Source matching? What's your experiences with sources been like?
Cables? I still feel like this should go at the bottom of the list but?

And then with a better handle on where you might want to make changes, if you feel like it, you can get more drastic or semi-permanent with, for example, things that Viber and Slater have gone into in depth relating to various damping setups.


Maybe you'll find a setup you like, maybe you'll just come away with more information to understand better what you want to hear, either way you come out ahead.

And not really related to this thread so much but I believe you mentioned the Xiaomi Pro HD... tape? tips? Why didn't you like them compared to the ZS5 or w/e else you can compare them to, etc.

 

[Rilke]

Hi guys, someone said here that zs6 needs a good source . I only own a Fiio x1 ( 2nd gen ) Is this considered to be a "good source" ? I can't afford any upgrade right now.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Hi guys, someone said here that zs6 needs a good source . I only own a Fiio x1 ( 2nd gen ) Is this considered to be a "good source" ? I can't afford any upgrade right now.

I've tried it out of a Mojo, a cheap laptop, and an LG G6. I think you'll be a-okay.

 

[Wiljen]

Hi guys, someone said here that zs6 needs a good source . I only own a Fiio x1 ( 2nd gen ) Is this considered to be a "good source" ? I can't afford any upgrade right now.

I think I said it and was referring more to poor source material than to the player itself. Poorly recorded or mastered tracks are going to produce poor results. Some headphones are more forgiving than others of these mistakes. The Zs6 is not particularly forgiving of poor source material.

 

[Skullophile]

I'd suggest using a dremel, with all that bass I think they could take a bit of smoothing. Not exactly a critical listening iem. I couldn't hear a difference after snipping two sets of cables to two drivers on one side.

Well I just opened them up and plugged them into my Opus 1 and I’m not at all getting the treble cannon. I have the zs5 v1 and they sound quite similar to me. The zs6 seems to have tighter bass and seems to be a little clearer. The real test will be when I hook them to my Cayin n3. The 4490 dac is Notorious for being V shaped. At least to me.

Is the treble quality improved over the Zs5V1, i found the Zs5s treble to be not so true to life sounding.

 

[Daemon11]

Hi where did u get it? Amazon?

Yup, here: https://www.amazon.com/VICTOR-JVC-EP-FX9M-B-Spiral-Earpiece/dp/B00JSLXNOC

Amazon prime available in case you don't like em.

 

[dbaker1981]

I'd suggest using a dremel, with all that bass I think they could take a bit of smoothing. Not exactly a critical listening iem. I couldn't hear a difference after snipping two sets of cables to two drivers on one side.

Is the treble quality improved over the Zs5V1, i found the Zs5s treble to be not so true to life sounding.

I’d say it’s more detailed but not by much.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I'd suggest using a dremel, with all that bass I think they could take a bit of smoothing. Not exactly a critical listening iem. I couldn't hear a difference after snipping two sets of cables to two drivers on one side.

Is the treble quality improved over the Zs5V1, i found the Zs5s treble to be not so true to life sounding.

Hard question to answer. There's certainly more treble, but how "true to life" things are could be up to you.