[Tzennn]

Having one broad sweeping statement doesn't really work because the rest of the FR curve also matters. That and how said pinna gain is executed also matters.

For instance, The ZAX and Aria can both be said to have a 3khz pinna peak sound way different due to how the peak is done and how high they are relative to the rest of the FR curve.




Doesn't help that different people will have different perceptions and interpretations of how natural sounds like. People used to the more forward vocals of the ZAX may think that the Aria has recessed vocals for example.

And people who love Harman like me will think ZAX slightly foward, think of CRN a little bit lean, think of KZ triple peek kinda round - mic like, think of Harman as the rule of all iem since you miss that 3k a lot. Atleast i do tho

 

[RikudouGoku]

Last 3 hours or so.




Oh and FYI, "500 mesh" is a cheaper alternative to the Tanchjim filters.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002875037663.html


Awaiting my last mod material package before I reveal my thoughts.

 

[kadinh]

Last 3 hours or so.




Oh and FYI, "500 mesh" is a cheaper alternative to the Tanchjim filters.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002875037663.html


Awaiting my last mod material package before I reveal my thoughts.

WOW!!!

I had no idea all of this testing you were doing! Thanks for all your work.

 

[SartWaiting]

Last 3 hours or so.




Oh and FYI, "500 mesh" is a cheaper alternative to the Tanchjim filters.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002875037663.html


Awaiting my last mod material package before I reveal my thoughts.

Can you split it into several screenshots of 3-4 graphs? As such, the result is cool, but hard to read.
It's big work

Upd: I see like nothing can handle the 8k peak. 8k is highlander?

 

[RikudouGoku]

Can you split it into several screenshots of 3-4 graphs? As such, the result is cool, but hard to read.
It's big work

Upd: I see like nothing can handle the 8k peak. 8k is highlander?

The graphs are available here:
https://rg.squig.link/?share=RikudouGoku_Target,CCA_CRA


8k is coupler peak.

 

[jagujetas72]

Finally got around to posting this review, and yeah, I struggled to put more than a hundred hours worth into these. Musicians might have more luck.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/knowledge-zenith-kz-x-crinacle-crn-zex-pro.25580/review/27646/

 

[tgx78]

CRA + Solar =

 

[PhonoPhi]

Speaking of audiophile stuff ... I just switched from Spotify to Qobuz over the holiday break after getting tired of waiting for Spotify's hi-def/res/whatever to show up. In the interest of a complete budget audio chain for KZ lovers, I recommend that you consider a Qobuz subscription to go along with an inexpensive dongle DAC and your mobile phone. I'm using an old Android with BTR3k in tethered mode and it sounds nearly the same as E1DA from my laptop.

First of all - I gotta say this is nothing like Tidal, which I didn't really get along with. It was marginally better than Spotify to my ears and I had to really listen for differences on the MQA tracks. On Qobuz I haven't had a single recording playback at less than cd quality (16bit/44kHz, aka redbook audio), and quite a bit of material has been streaming at 96 kHz sample rate or higher. At least to my ears there is a significant step up in sound quality compared to Spotify's wifi streaming or Tidal in my opinion when hooked into a good DAC. Straight out of my phone is clean and still has good dynamics, but with less texture, loss of microdetail, and reduced imaging and sound stage. Bluetooth SBC is the best my phone supports and it's still better sounding than the onboard DAC and 3.5mm port.

I'm not very good at collecting things and I hate spending time organizing and looking after stuff. Streaming solves all of these problems. When I want to explore someone's catalog, I just search for the artist name and *bam* there it is. Perfect. No RAID array backups. No monster external disk to mess with. Just my 4G / DSL connection and a clean interface, as the Internet deities intended. 16/44 streaming works great over 4G. It takes a few seconds to queue up a new track on the highest "hi-res" setting, but after it starts it's been consistently skip free for me. The thing Ive enjoyed about Qobuz is that it shows you exactly what sampling rate the track was recorded in; it isn't dressed up in MQA's proprietary format. I don't believe that I can hear better than 16 bit / 44 kHz, but the hi-res material is certainly clean and plays back nicely when downsampled on my BTR3k, as redbook is the best it supports in LDAC mode or while tethered. Playback at native sampling rate off my E1DA PowerDAC 2.1 is nearly identical to my ears, but the PowerDAC has better bass texture than the baby FiiO. That has a lot more to do with the DAC signature I think than it does the sampling rate.

CCA CRA have been glued into my earholes for about a week now. Their excellent treble extension really brings out slightly better soundstage, significantly better microdetails, and much better bass texture of these higher quality recordings. A few of my favorite tracks have not disappointed:

* Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Pharaoh’s Dance - killer track)
* The Beatles self titled "white album" (Happiness is a Warm Gun)
* Pink Floyd's Meddle (all of it).
* There's even a 2016 remaster of Floyd's Pompeii Echoes recording.

The subscription costs around 15 euro on a month-to-month plan. Now what's neat here is that you can still buy the lossless files if you want to and download in the same app, or copy it on over to your favorite player free of any DRM restrictions. I'm a Linux user and the web player works fine in full hi-res, as do downloaded files on my Linux player. Tidal's web player didn't support full MQA, so listening on my android with a tethered DAC was my only option.

I have to access HDTracks from a VPN here from France which is a bit of a pain. It's also a hassle to deal with a lot of big files if you don't have one of the nicer mobile DAC players. I don't hear any difference from Qobuz streaming and my small selection of HDTracks files. If you pay for the more expensive subscription (~ 20/mo iirc), Qobuz claims to offer up to 60% discounts on music purchases. Streaming works better for me, so I stuck with the cheaper option.

I listen to a lot of jazz, indie rock, and classical and coverage seems to be good so far, maybe a bit better than Tidal, but not as expansive as Spotify. The one killer feature that Spotify has is turning a song into a radio station via their recommendations engine. Qobuz has a "keep playing" feature that will queue related material, but it's ultimately not as good as Spotify in that regard.

I have no interest in this company nor am I getting any kind of kickbacks, just passing along my new hookup since it was a lot better than I'd expected.

I thought to finally respond about the "audiophile" files.
I was personally quite shocked that in blind tests, it is nearly impossible to distinguish 256 from 320, let alone 320 from 16/44, 24/96, etc. The "level/loudness matching" is a key.
If you can ask someone to convert your favourite track to different mp3s and then to put them level-matched in a random order in a .flac container - it provides a good unbiased assesment for being able to "hear the difference".

Otherwise, "the loudness war" of high-res is the main game there, including that really sad snake oil of MQA

By the same token, I was quite surprised to realize that the Apple dongle at slightly elevated levels feels as truly top "audiophile" class (with most 16-32 Ohm IEMs) , and it is for mere $8. Apple pun on " hifi".

Understandably, those "hearing" difference in cables and 24/96 vs. mp3 reject the very notions of these possibilities as a blasphemy...
Then there are the "unbiased reviewers" with the notions of mid-fi, totls, etc...
Well, a hobby is a hobby

 

[SpaceOperaVillain]

I thought to finally respond about the "audiophile" files.
I was personally quite shocked that in blind tests, it is nearly impossible to distinguish 256 from 320, let alone 320 from 16/44, 24/96, etc. The "level/loudness matching" is a key.
If you can ask someone to convert your favourite track to different mp3s and then to put them level-matched in a random order in a .flac container - it provides a good unbiased assesment for being able to "hear the difference".

Otherwise, "the loudness war" of high-res is the main game there, including that really sad snake oil of MQA

By the same token, I was quite surprised to realize that the Apple dongle at slightly elevated levels feels as truly top "audiophile" class (with most 16-32 Ohm IEMs) , and it is for mere $8. Apple pun on " hifi".

Understandably, those "hearing" difference in cables and 24/96 vs. mp3 reject the very notions of these possibilities as a blasphemy...
Then there are the "unbiased reviewers" with the notions of mid-fi, totls, etc...
Well, a hobby is a hobby

A) You need to compare the same track or it's a pointless exercise.

B) you're a fan of dark / warm tunings with an emphasis in the mids, if I'm not mistaken. Much of the differences you'll hear in 16/44 over 320 is in the treble range, and things like soundstage, imaging, and harmonics are all due to enhanced treble extension. That's why the 3D buttons in DSP software and DAC's boost the treble.

C) I personally can't hear any improvement on 24/96 over redbook audio's 16/44. But the sampling rate and line level volume are but two variables of the recording process. Garbage sampled at a high bitrate and boosted is still garbage.

Loudness can mean quite a few different things. What's important are the dB range in dynamics. 16bit / 44 kHz audio spans a dynamic range that's better than human hearing. But that's just final playback. Sampling at higher rates and 24 bit gives studio engineers and producers more "headroom" to tweak individual tracks. That's the only legitimate reason really to invoke a higher sampling rate.

All this is why I never upgraded my btr3k to btr5, fwiw. The 8 core, $2k+ dap players are the real snake oil IMO, but dozens of folks will be bristling at the mention of it.

Cheers

 

[PhonoPhi]

A) You need to compare the same track or it's a pointless exercise.

B) you're a fan of dark / warm tunings with an emphasis in the mids, if I'm not mistaken. Much of the differences you'll hear in 16/44 over 320 is in the treble range, and things like soundstage, imaging, and harmonics are all due to enhanced treble extension. That's why the 3D buttons in DSP software and DAC's boost the treble.

C) I personally can't hear any improvement on 24/96 over redbook audio's 16/44. But the sampling rate and line level volume are but two variables of the recording process. Garbage sampled at a high bitrate and boosted is still garbage.

Loudness can mean quite a few different things. What's important are the dB range in dynamics. 16bit / 44 kHz audio spans a dynamic range that's better than human hearing. But that's just final playback. Sampling at higher rates and 24 bit gives studio engineers and producers more "headroom" to tweak individual tracks. That's the only legitimate reason really to invoke a higher sampling rate.

All this is why I never upgraded my btr3k to btr5, fwiw. The 8 core, $2k+ dap players are the real snake oil IMO, but dozens of folks will be bristling at the mention of it.

Cheers

A) Absolutely! The same file with 6-8 different resolution versions in one .flac container. Actually, I was first kindly given such a file of "golden audiophile" classics by a very nice (and equally as opionated, in my limited opinion) contributor of the "science forum" here, @bigshot.
The golden audiophile classics felt so void of treble to me that I opted to use my own files - still 192 is about my boundary.

B) Totally opposite!! I was often ridiculed here for my penchant for "banshee" IEMs, such as KB10 (also known as CCA A10 (my "cable" guinea pig to learn all the differences and "nots") or Tripowin TP10 - just ask @RikudouGoku about it )
So KB10 I used exactly feeling totally empowered in revealing all minor treble differences...
Not to my ears, those differences. the same as with most of the cables...

To my ears though, there is quite a noticeable difference between BTR3K and BTR5.
My simple "conspiracy theory" is that AK47** are "low/mid" not the top range chips compared to AK 49***, then business is the business, hence the "engineering".
I love the utility of BTR3K, a really cute one, but its sound, as well as of Tempotec V1A, is so "plain" and uneventful to my limited ears. Good job, AK, and you are banned out of my universe!

P. S. My favourite IEMs of all time - KZ AS16 and KS ASX (wide nozzle) are far from being treble shy. AS16 were crafted for classical music, and quite amazing indeed for that.

 

[seanwee]

A) You need to compare the same track or it's a pointless exercise.

B) you're a fan of dark / warm tunings with an emphasis in the mids, if I'm not mistaken. Much of the differences you'll hear in 16/44 over 320 is in the treble range, and things like soundstage, imaging, and harmonics are all due to enhanced treble extension. That's why the 3D buttons in DSP software and DAC's boost the treble.

C) I personally can't hear any improvement on 24/96 over redbook audio's 16/44. But the sampling rate and line level volume are but two variables of the recording process. Garbage sampled at a high bitrate and boosted is still garbage.

Loudness can mean quite a few different things. What's important are the dB range in dynamics. 16bit / 44 kHz audio spans a dynamic range that's better than human hearing. But that's just final playback. Sampling at higher rates and 24 bit gives studio engineers and producers more "headroom" to tweak individual tracks. That's the only legitimate reason really to invoke a higher sampling rate.

All this is why I never upgraded my btr3k to btr5, fwiw. The 8 core, $2k+ dap players are the real snake oil IMO, but dozens of folks will be bristling at the mention of it.

Cheers

I've tried numerous daps and even though they measure the same (perfectly flat across the FR as they should), there IS a very audible difference between daps. While I wouldn't say that going up the price range will ALWAYS give you an upgrade, it is way more consistent to expect an upgrade from buying a more expensive dap than say buying more expensive iems because iems can have vastly different tunings but daps generally get better at portraying dynamics, have wider/more holographic soundstage as you go up the price range. See my profile for a tier list of daps I have tried before.

 

[SpaceOperaVillain]

Totally opposite!! I was often ridiculed here for my penchant for "banshee" IEMs, such as KB10

ah - I stand corrected! I've had that link in my sig to ask about treble peaks because it seems silly to me relative to live music to make such a fuss about it. so i have another treble head friend here in headfi, cool. What do you think of the tri starsea?

Regarding the FLAC containers - if you get familiar with Ogg Vorbis and rip different bit and sample rates from a high quality CD recording that's the best way to learn. Makes me nostalgic for my old Turtle Beach sound card. Now look at "streaming" software ... Most of those services are just http chunked downloads of the same kinds of files.

To my ears though, there is quite a noticeable difference between BTR3K and BTR5.
My simple "conspiracy theory" is that AK47** are "low/mid" not the top range chips compared to AK 49***, then business is the business, hence the "engineering".
I love the utility of BTR3K, a really cute one, but its sound, as well as of Tempotec V1A, is so "plain" and uneventful to my limited ears. Good job, AK, and you are banned out of my universe!

Conversely, there are a lot of folks here on headfi that refuse to use ESS Sabre DAC's, which is what's in the BTR5 on account of them being perceived as
bright. The new 2021 model has the "pro" chip in it w/ MQA unwrapping or whatever.

In contrast the little BTR3K has dual AKMs and some have said it has a warmer profile than the Sabre chip of the BTR5. I would rather sample an Earmen or E1DA 9038 variant at this point to try ESS since they are so similar, but i would maintain that btr3k is one of the highest quality DAC/amps available for the price.

My only other dac's are my desktop Behringer uphoria unit for work, which has a good DAC but substandard amp (for now. Im looking for a good amp to pair with it) and this PowerDAC v2.1. PDV21 has a really solid bottom end on it and is an amazing piece of gear for its price point. I've ordered a 30 ohm impedance plug to lower the line level hiss on my chifi IEM, but at moderately loud volumes it's not really an issue.

The clarity and instrument separation is incredible on this unit. For us tweakers, the HPToy app is great. Heart Mirror is an example where the "loudness" function is a dry/wet slider that let's you adjust a target frequency. I usually drop to 60 and set it to ~ 40% wet, which fixes all the issues on HM being clinical. On the BTR3k I need more out of the EQ for them to be enjoyable.

P. S. My favourite IEMs of all time - KZ AS16 and KS ASX (wide nozzle) are far from being treble shy. AS16 were crafted for classical music, and quite amazing indeed for that.

ASF/ASX/AST are dark out of the box, which we've beat to death already. Having said that you've convinced me a while ago that I should get a pair and hear for myself.

I was deciding between A16 and C12 when I got my first KZ pair after a brief disappointment with BL-03. I don't think AS16 has anything on the top end that my C12's do not. Do they? Curiosity has had me second guessing all year. The C12 are still my favorites. They are so detailed and so accurate, and I've figured out how to tame the bottom end for most genres by now. I still love 'em, especially for jazz and classical. But it's 45 min max before reaching for one of these other cheap hybrids. They set my tinnitus on edge.

daps generally get better at portraying dynamics, have wider/more holographic soundstage as you go up the price range. See my profile for a tier list of daps I have tried before.

Looking forward to testing a few more out this year.

I grant you that great components and good design are going to sound better than the highest bitrates on cheap dongles. But it's the multi-processor / quad redundant nonsense of FiiO's top model and others like it that drive me a bit batty. 2 large for a glorified iPod is way beyond my threshold for an acceptable cost/performance ratio.

Since I'm in mucking around with the EQ so often, a perfect amp for me is the rather boring "wire with gain". The THX 789 models, iFi's iDSD rigs, and this new TK2 from Tri all appeal to me on that criteria. I totally get that good iem/amp pairings exist that don't need EQ, it's just not quite my thing.

This new xDSD Gryphon from iFi looks good on paper and is retailing for about 600 or $700 which seems correct for a high-end device. The iDSD Diablo is also tempting. And who doesn't want a Cayin C9 with hybrid tube goodness? That might be my weak spot on the high end, but I've got other addictions to feed!

 

[voicemaster]

So, just received my AptX adaptive usb bluetooth dongle from AE. Paired it up with my UTWS5 and it paired up really fast and the LED turn red means it is connected using AptX adaptive. Then I, out of curiosity, connected the AZ09 pro and lo and behold the LED turn solid red which mean it is connected using AptX adaptive instead of regular AptX. Is KZ not knowing that their qc3040 chip is AptX adaptive capable but not advertising it? I also tried my BT20s pro and BT30, both connected using regular AptX. I tried to connect the AZ09 pro again and it is still connected using AptX adaptive. This is really surprising and amazing at the same time.

 

[TheVortex]

So, just received my AptX adaptive usb bluetooth dongle from AE. Paired it up with my UTWS5 and it paired up really fast and the LED turn red means it is connected using AptX adaptive. Then I, out of curiosity, connected the AZ09 pro and lo and behold the LED turn solid red which mean it is connected using AptX adaptive instead of regular AptX. Is KZ not knowing that their qc3040 chip is AptX adaptive capable but not advertising it? I also tried my BT20s pro and BT30, both connected using regular AptX. I tried to connect the AZ09 pro again and it is still connected using AptX adaptive. This is really surprising and amazing at the same time.

Sounds promising. You got a link for that adapter?

 

[voicemaster]

Sounds promising. You got a link for that adapter?

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mt3bUIk