[fede.97]

Before


I'd wait a bit and use EQ. I ended up slowly reducing the EQ progressively and now, 2 months later, I don't even EQ them anymore. Brainburn or whatnot I'll have to cross check with my unused KZ ZS6....

I can stand the treble most of the times with classical music or EDM, but with some rock songs (Tom Petty's Free Fallin', Won't Back Down and similar...) they are really annoying: I had to turn down the volume in order to make the tambourine bearable.
I could actually EQ them, but I'd need to EQ every device I use and change EQ settings whenever I change IEM or use my Sennheiser. I prefer to have a flat equalization, if possible, and adjust accordingly the listening device... Thanks for your advice, though

 

[vector84]

you were the first one who dealt with ES3 tinkering and found their QC issues, @vector84 . even after reading your experience, i walked through similar path: oversized the glued vent hole of one driver with a needle, and had to fix it by using your trick: tape + little hole punched with the needle.
agree with your appreciation, playing with the vent hole and with foam at the nozzle, you can tweak bass and 1.5-4kHz area many dBs. if we find them too bassy, just make the hole bigger (carefully); if we want to go back, tape + punch preferred hole size. if we find mids too forwarded or recessed, play with the foam in the nozzle (it tames the mids which come from the dynamic driver).
for the price they cost, i found them more competent (resolution, imaging, etc.) than many other hybrid iems which costed me 4x more, and i like their tonal signature. so they are a very good value, imo.

Yeah, there were a number of people reporting problems with the ES3 with driver flex and considerable channel imbalance around that time too

RE the foam in the nozzle, can you be more specific with the issues there? Mine seem fine, I haven't really even looked that close at the ES3 yet, but looking just now both sides have a little foam in the nozzle next to the BA driver, which seems to indicate it is there to adjust the frequencies of the dynamic driver, so I suppose mids and lower frequencies are affected by that?

Yup, on my pair that piece of foam was around the nozzle of one BA, and along the side of the other... obviously that created a pretty weird mis-match Placement and density of the foam can mess with the mids quite a bit.

RE the bass, there are 2...or 3? vents. There are two obvious small holes, one or both could be covered or widened to affect sound. There's a third hole that seems to have a little white decal or tape on the inside, I imagine piercing that would have an effect as well...so, three possible changes right there without even opening them up.

The one with a white decal over it is the front volume vent, the other two are back volume vents (and as far as I can remember, tampering with them didn't have a huge effect, but I'd need to dig them out to be sure).

The front vent has seen similar problems to the ZST - it can show up clogged with glue, and you can punch it out to fix the issue. But I went a step further and and started tampering with an un-clogged vent - and punching it out most of the way made bass drop off by a huge amount (-30dB roughly), and sizing the hole to get them tuned accurately is a bit of a daunting task, though I believe it was @oyobass that pointed out it can be done a bit easier with some tape wrapped around a needle as a stop-point marker to get a more exact sized hole.

Another quick ES3 observation, they like to be amped a little.
My phone has a pretty good dac/amp, but straight from the phone it's not quite so smooth, but running through the Fiio A3 cleans the sound up and makes it a really pleasurable IEM.

Yeah the ES3 is ~8 ohms nominal - pretty low / hefty current draw (but not as hard to drive as a ZS5v1 either).

 

[Slater]

Has anyone done a mod on the ZS5 V2 similar to the one slater did to the ZST where he added foam to the BA to tame treble?

I just did the mods outlined here to my ZS5 v2 today. Works just as well on the ZS5 v2 as the ZS6.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/kno...essions-thread.698148/page-1673#post-13851098

 

[nadezhda 6004]

I just did the mods outlined here to my ZS5 v2 today. Works just as well on the ZS5 v2 as the ZS6.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/kno...essions-thread.698148/page-1673#post-13851098

Do you mean putting the foam inside?

 

[MasterDomino]

Hello everyone, as im new to this community please note that im a total newbie.
Im a user of KZ ED9 for quite some time and liked this headphones the most from all of headphones that i have(good to note that i never had any good ones to begin with) and im currently interrested buying more products from KZ, last listing i bought ED9 cuz i had 1 pair already that broke, i guess im really unlucky if it comes to cables(mobile user) and thinking about buying ZS3 or ATE/Pro also bought pair of Boarseman KR25D but im not sure how they will sound like, but so far im happy with those cheap chi-fi, only the channels like to unscrew easily i guess some piece of cloth or pipe sealant can help xD.
Greetings Master.

 

[CoiL]

Hi guys, late comer to the ZS train, started with the ZS6
(potato quality photo)
As said by others, ZS6's trebles are a bit annoying to me, so foam pads are on their way from china. Is there any other way to bring trebles down other than the 75ohm resistor?

Actually I think it is pretty easy to modify ZS6/ZS5v2 treble by messing with the BA resistor(s).

 

[Slater]

Do you mean putting the foam inside?

Yes. On the ZS5 v2 I tried it all of the ways as I tested on the ZS6 to see if there were any differences (or different recommendations for ZS5 v2 vs ZS6).

Nope, everything is still valid between the ZS5 v2 and ZS6.

Note I did not mess with the resistor though. I was only testing mods that the average person could easily perform.

 

[JayceOoi]

For those interested, ZS6 @ $21.99 with this code - ZS6KL
https://www.gearbest.com/earbud-headphones/pp_770863.html

 

[ivo001]

Was just trying to do some tiprolling with the ZST i got, but I found it rather difficult.
Tried to get the Spinfit CP100 on, but it does not really look secure.
Struggling to get it properly over the nozzle, it looks like its just angled. Is their some kind of magic trick to do this? I tried using a toothpick as an aid.

 

[bsoplinger]

Was just trying to do some tiprolling with the ZST i got, but I found it rather difficult.
Tried to get the Spinfit CP100 on, but it does not really look secure.
Struggling to get it properly over the nozzle, it looks like its just angled. Is their some kind of magic trick to do this? I tried using a toothpick as an aid.

Umm does the spinfit numbering scheme match that of the Comply tips? Then I think you want 400/500 size for 4.9mm nozzle diameters instead of 100 size which is 3.0mm nozzles.

 

[ivo001]

Umm does the spinfit numbering scheme match that of the Comply tips? Then I think you want 400/500 size for 4.9mm nozzle diameters instead of 100 size which is 3.0mm nozzles.

I bought them from NiceHCK on Aliexpress. In the description it says it is suitable for nozzles from 4.5-5.5mm.
However Amazon says the nozzle size is only 3.8mm?
And on AE the seller DUNU has isted them as 3.8mm too. Link

 

[Scaven]

I just did the mods outlined here to my ZS5 v2 today. Works just as well on the ZS5 v2 as the ZS6.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/kno...essions-thread.698148/page-1673#post-13851098

I did your mod to my ZS6 today using the same UV light activated glue, worked like a charm!! Now these headphones are nearly perfect!!!

 

[fede.97]

Actually I think it is pretty easy to modify ZS6/ZS5v2 treble by messing with the BA resistor(s).

Has anyone tried to do so?
I'd like not to destroy my brand new toys and my SMD soldering skills are quite terrible (never really worked on it)...

 

[Slater]

I did your mod to my ZS6 today using the same UV light activated glue, worked like a charm!! Now these headphones are nearly perfect!!!

Nice!

Isn’t that UV glue awesome? Gone are the days of sticking your fingers together with super glue!

It’s great for a variety of IEM mods.

And it is removable from plastic if you need to. It scrapes off with a needle, spudger tool, metal guitar pick, etc.

 

[Makahl]

Guys, has someone painted the faceplate of KZ ZST?

I already removed the "ZST Hifi-Armature" with isopropyl alcohol and tried to set a black matte car adhesive onto the faceplate. The first impression it's looks dope and much more expensive aesthetic-wise, but after some days the adhesive starts to lift off so I think painting will be the best solution but I have no clue how to do it. If there are any tips or some product recommendation I'll really appreciate!