[Wiljen]

You should probably not put them in your ears either if you want them to sound their best. After all, ear sweat would be trapped and then when it heats up and evaporates it could condense on the metal inside the IEM and corrode the surface. That cant be good for them. You probably need special in-ear anti-perspiratant just to be safe. Of course, this having been my personal specialty, I have the applicators (Cough - Qtip - Cough) and magic dust (Cough - Gold bond) all for the low low price of $49.95. Or you can sign up for our subscription service and get a new kit every month for only $19.95 a month (Billed a decade in advance of course).

 

[Fox2twenty]

You should probably not put them in your ears either if you want them to sound their best. After all, ear sweat would be trapped and then when it heats up and evaporates it could condense on the metal inside the IEM and corrode the surface. That cant be good for them. You probably need special in-ear anti-perspiratant just to be safe. Of course, this having been my personal specialty, I have the applicators (Cough - Qtip - Cough) and magic dust (Cough - Gold bond) all for the low low price of $49.95. Or you can sign up for our subscription service and get a new kit every month for only $19.95 a month (Billed a decade in advance of course).

Sounds like you are a great business man.

 

[kernel8888]

anyone know where I can purchase the silicone tips that come stock with the kz5s? thanks!!

 

[groucho69]

You should probably not put them in your ears either if you want them to sound their best. After all, ear sweat would be trapped and then when it heats up and evaporates it could condense on the metal inside the IEM and corrode the surface. That cant be good for them. You probably need special in-ear anti-perspiratant just to be safe. Of course, this having been my personal specialty, I have the applicators (Cough - Qtip - Cough) and magic dust (Cough - Gold bond) all for the low low price of $49.95. Or you can sign up for our subscription service and get a new kit every month for only $19.95 a month (Billed a decade in advance of course).

Where can I sign up?

 

[Wiljen]

anyone know where I can purchase the silicone tips that come stock with the kz5s? thanks!!

The Kz official store has them on ali express if you can do that.

 

[vector84]

anyone know where I can purchase the silicone tips that come stock with the kz5s? thanks!!

A wide variety of aliexpress stores carry them and you can find a bunch with a search like "kz ear tips", but most don't seem to differentiate between the old (grey/translucent) ones that came with previous KZ IEMs and the new (black/opaque) ones that come with the ZS5.

You could try to message the seller and find out which they have or if they even know. Could also try checking reviews for recent pictures or some such.

The Kz official store has them on ali express if you can do that.

Usually they do - and I would tend to think you'd be more likely to get the black ones there? But unless I'm missing something they seem to have unlisted them at the moment.

 

[Superluc]

Fair warning, those Toppings are absurdly sensitive to EMI. Like... people say airplane mode works for them, and maybe I just got a really bad one... but yeah... nope. I was using it with a pair of ZS5 v1s and the heck with radio transmitters (which are just a big fat NOPE) - touching a touchscreen device that was within a few feet of the NX2 would send it cracking and popping, and I once made the mistake of setting it down on top of my desktop PC... which prompted a near hearing damage level of static to be produced.

That thing scared me. I replaced it with a Fiio Q1 and I'm pretty content so far.

On mine it's never happened to me at this kind of scaring level ( even putting it on the case of my PC ), but yeah, i can confirm that it's not shielded enough. Good to know that the newer version isn't as sensitive to them.

 

[Wiljen]

It would be cool to put together what people think is the best rig they can build for $100. Would have to include DAP and a KZ headphone to stay with forum topic, but you could do a low end dap and an amp etc. as long as one could realistically expect to be able to duplicate it for $100.
(No my buddy sold me his AK380 for $30 bs) My starting point:

Benjie K9 $20
Fiio E07k $40 (sales thread here)
KZ Zs6 $29 Gearbest
Foam tips $2 AliExpress
8gb Micro SD card - $8 biglots


Tell me your best $100 KZ rig.

 

[Fox2twenty]

It would be cool to put together what people think is the best rig they can build for $100. Would have to include DAP and a KZ headphone to stay with forum topic, but you could do a low end dap and an amp etc. as long as one could realistically expect to be able to duplicate it for $100.
(No my buddy sold me his AK380 for $30 bs) My starting point:

Benjie K9 $20
Fiio E07k $40 (sales thread here)
KZ Zs6 $29 Gearbest
Foam tips $2 AliExpress
8gb Micro SD card - $8 biglots


Tell me your best $100 KZ rig.

I need to put this rig together. Lol.

 

[Slater]

Can you tell if this is ZS1 v1
https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10027763/6204100-kz-zs1-hifi-heavy-bass-in-ear-earphones

There's no way to know from a listing or listing photos.

Even when photos show the v1 model, it's still possible the seller just didn't update the photos and/or are just using generic stock KZ photos.

The ONLY way to know 100% is to ask an individual seller to open it up and physically inspect the IEM. You need to pop off 1 of the silicone tips, and if you see a brass/gold ring with NO mesh screen in the nozzle, you have the v1 model. If it's a stainless steel mesh screen, it's the ZS1 v2 (which is junk in comparison).

We're currently experiencing a similar issue with the ZS5 v1 vs v2. The ONLY way to reliably tell is to shine a light through the mesh and look for 1 vs 2 BA drivers. And everyone is looking for the ZS5 v1, which is like searching for gold.

Here's a photo of the difference in the ZS1. It's the same photo I sent to 50 or so Aliexpress sellers, until I got ONE to reply and verify if they indeed had the correct brass ring version. Others may have had it, but either there was some sort of language barrier problem with what I was asking (ie non-English sellers) or some sellers were just too lazy to physically check the IEM and didn't care. The photo shown below (which I sent to sellers) had simplified language, to try and eliminate confusion (using words like golden instead of brass, etc).



I'm sure there are a quite a number of ZS1 v1s still out there on a few seller's shelves. But you'd probably have an easier time finding the lost city of El Dorado or Atlantis haha

If you do go looking, I would recommend trying the smaller more obscure sellers on Aliexpress and also ebay. Any larger seller would have moved more inventory and would have received the v2 upon KZ reorders. But if you had a little mom and pop Chinese shop that is ultra low volume, they might still have 1 still sitting in inventory out of the original 5 they originally ordered.

Heck, it's possible that the Fasttech link you found are the v1 model.

They are worth the time spent searching though. It's like a basshead's dream IEM.

I got lucky and found a seller with 1 - perhaps you will too. It doesn't hurt anything to send out the messages and ask (I just copied and pasted the same message over and over).

I wish KZ would make another batch of the original ZS1 v1 - call it ZS Special Edition or something. They used the same shell ZN1, ZN1 Mini, and the ZS2 (the ZS2 also sucked in comparison). But the ZS1 v1 had a crossover and a brass bass ring in the nozzle. So even if you got a ZS1 v2 or ZS2, removed the stainless mesh screen and somehow rigged up an identical brass ring, you'd still be missing the crossover.

 

[Slater]

Fair warning, those Toppings are absurdly sensitive to EMI. Like... people say airplane mode works for them, and maybe I just got a really bad one... but yeah... nope. I was using it with a pair of ZS5 v1s and the heck with radio transmitters (which are just a big fat NOPE) - touching a touchscreen device that was within a few feet of the NX2 would send it cracking and popping, and I once made the mistake of setting it down on top of my desktop PC... which prompted a near hearing damage level of static to be produced.

That thing scared me. I replaced it with a Fiio Q1 and I'm pretty content so far.

That's pretty sad. Shielding should have been one of the easiest things to engineer in that amp.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

That's pretty sad. Shielding should have been one of the easiest things to engineer in that amp.

You'd think, but even the damn Mojo is bad with it.

 

[Wiljen]

You'd think, but even the damn Mojo is bad with it.

I can forgive a $35 Topping a lot easier than a $500 Chord.

 

[Slater]

Gameboy guitar

Is the screen functional? Can you play games on it?

 

[Slater]

I think the ED3 is only marginally better than the Zs3 or Zst for quantity of bass output. So, I guess in answer to your question I do think there is a difference, but I don't think 2 drivers means double the bass quantity because it just isnt the case. I do think some of the dual dynamics from other brands really do lots for bass quantity and quality. One of my favorite all time basshead in ears is the Denon Urban Raver that was dual 11mm dynamics.

ED3? Do you mean ES3? Because my ED3 has less bass than both the ZS3 and ZST.

Although speaking of the ZST I have yet to try out the bass port mod on the ZST. I wouldn't mind having the ZST be a little harder hitting ZST. I use them while bicycling, and the wind noise causes me to have to bump up the volume. I would rather have lower volume and more bass (similar to the 'loudness' feature found on some [older] audio equipment).

There's also the port mod on the ZS5. Perhaps that is the holy grail for KZ bassheads? I think I need to try those mods out this weekend and do a little head-to-head comparison with the trusty ZS1 v1.