[SomeGuyDude]

I think it's a bit wrong to say most are 'all about that bass, no treble.' Most are listening to modern rock/pop/hip-hop, which will benefit from a v-shaped headphone or a bassy one, but that treble is a bit part as well.

That's the main thing, IMO. Your average audiophile is listening to different music than most consumers. Rae Sremmurd or Avenged Sevenfold don't sound particularly lively with a neutral or mid-centric headphone, nor would I suggest the M100 to someone whose primary musicians are Ella Fitzgerald and classical piano.

Headphones aren't driving the listening preferences, the music is. My collection is built largely because I'm a rap/metal guy, I'm sure if I listened to totally different music I'd have a different collection. No matter how much I understand why the Senn HD800 or Stax are technically stunning products, I don't want to own them because the music I enjoy sounds thin and weak with them.

 

[vector84]

It was my understanding that KZ make their drivers.

So I went digging in this thread because I thought I recalled people saying KZ was the OEM making a lot of those drivers...

What I found was something quite the opposite...
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/knowledge-zenith-kz-impressions-thread.698148/page-564#post-12190697

To me at least, that sounds like KZ is the client and they hire an OEM to produce their foreign trade products...
I wonder if that's part of the mysterious relationship between KZ and QKZ...

 

[BurningSkies]

I've been using ZST's at home in the studio for tracking and more recently on stage for our IEM setup...rather than the Shure SE215's I have on hand. I've been pretty pleased with them...but they really were a test to see if I liked IEMs in general. I figured I'd drop another 20$ on a set of 4-driver ZS5's especially when I saw on GearBest they're listing them with aluminum shells. I was saddened to realize today that they're probably still plastic and they've mis-listed them on the site (they even reply to a question about that, saying they're metal builds). So I ended up grabbing a set of ZS6's on Amazon for 45$.

I guess i'll have 3 sets around.

In other news, even on loud stages the ZST's have done really well...and I'm a bass player so I live in the lows.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

It's also worth mentioning that application and crossovers are a BIG part of a multi-driver IEM. Great drivers with poor placement and badly implemented crossovers will sound far worse than lackluster drivers in a good application.

 

[kokakolia]

Sounds to me like there's probably lots of basshead youtube reviewers around, probably the type who'd say good things about Beats i guess.

Based on my observation and just purely my opinion as well, most but not all youtube reviewers seems to have tendency towards basshead while on head-fi it's like a total opposite where most have high tendency towards bright sound.

That's probably a reason too why Beats are so successful because the general public is all about that bass, no treble. Whereas the head-fi is only such a small community of audiophiles.

Simply ask the person around you, friends, colleagues, relatives what earphones or headphones are they using and the 90% will tell you their phone's bundled earbud, 9% will probably be the riches with branded Beats, JBL etc.. and yea we're the proud 1% lol

Yeah! I wanna rag on the Head-fi community a little bit: you guys are treble heads!

It was evident to me when I ordered the Superlux HD 681 based on overwhelmingly positive recommendations, only to throw them in the garbage because the treble was so exhausting. I couldn't bring myself to sell them. I would be too ashamed. It also makes me wanna hurl when I see threads of people removing filters and cutting foam pads (KSC 75) to elevate the treble on already bright sounding headphones.

At least with Beats products you get a relaxing sound without harshness. The same could be said about Bose.

And yes, I know lots of people with cheap Sony/JVC/Skullcandy earbuds. These things are disgusting mini treble canons! So something like a Bose/Beats headphone feels like therapy after that.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Yeah! I wanna rag on the Head-fi community a little bit: you guys are treble heads!

It was evident to me when I ordered the Superlux HD 681 based on overwhelmingly positive recommendations, only to throw them in the garbage because the treble was so exhausting. I couldn't bring myself to sell them. I would be too ashamed. It also makes me wanna hurl when I see threads of people removing filters and cutting foam pads (KSC 75) to elevate the treble on already bright sounding headphones.

At least with Beats products you get a relaxing sound without harshness. The same could be said about Bose.

And yes, I know lots of people with cheap Sony/JVC/Skullcandy earbuds. These things are disgusting mini treble canons! So something like a Bose/Beats headphone feels like therapy after that.

LMAO I remember hating those little things like the Skullcandy Ink'd because the treble was just piercing. And seeing people do crap like use the se846 without any filter at all just blows my mind.

I have a feeling a lot of people listen to delicate music at very low volumes for only short periods of time, because trying to listen to anything with meat to it for a few hours on "audiophile" headphones is agonizing.

 

[vector84]

It's also worth mentioning that application and crossovers are a BIG part of a multi-driver IEM. Great drivers with poor placement and badly implemented crossovers will sound far worse than lackluster drivers in a good application.

So how do you feel about KZ largely not using crossovers at all in most of their multi-driver IEMs?

Impressive design? or inspiring luck? or maybe a little bit of both?

 

[SomeGuyDude]

So how do you feel about KZ largely not using crossovers at all in most of their multi-driver IEMs?

Impressive design? or inspiring luck? or maybe a little bit of both?

Is there any evidence of this? Because that sounds more than a little bizarre that they'd have 4 drivers in there all doing the full spectrum. If anything, it would risk some serious cancellation.

 

[vector84]

Is there any evidence of this? Because that sounds more than a little bizarre that they'd have 4 drivers in there all doing the full spectrum. If anything, it would risk some serious cancellation.

I guess you missed the whole "2 driver" ZS5 thing?

Plenty of people have opened up ZS5s and commented on the lack of a crossover - and KZs own product briefs about the ZS5 v2 vs ZS6 note "fine tuned driver placement" (ZS5) vs "electronic frequency division" (ZS6)

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I guess you missed the whole "2 driver" ZS5 thing?

Plenty of people have opened up ZS5s and commented on the lack of a crossover - and KZs own product briefs about the ZS5 v2 vs ZS6 note "fine tuned driver placement" (ZS5) vs "electronic frequency division" (ZS6)

I remember the "2 driver" thing, didn't recall the lack of crossover.

That's definitely curious. I'm surprised there are no cancellation issues, but I guess that means they were careful with the placement instead. Might lead to extra cohesion when there's no crossing, but that IS curious indeed. I would never have expected a multi-driver hybrid to have everything firing from top to bottom.

 

[Sylmar]

Sounds to me like there's probably lots of basshead youtube reviewers around, probably the type who'd say good things about Beats i guess.

Based on my observation and just purely my opinion as well, most but not all youtube reviewers seems to have tendency towards basshead while on head-fi it's like a total opposite where most have high tendency towards bright sound.

That's probably a reason too why Beats are so successful because the general public is all about that bass, no treble. Whereas the head-fi is only such a small community of audiophiles.

Simply ask the person around you, friends, colleagues, relatives what earphones or headphones are they using and the 90% will tell you their phone's bundled earbud, 9% will probably be the riches with branded Beats, JBL etc.. and yea we're the proud 1% lol

I think that with audiophiles it's not so much a case of bass vs. treble. I guess it's true that most non-audiophile listeners rate bass above treble but audiophiles can like warm IEMS just as much. It seems to me it's more that we audiophiles like our little details in what we hear. Detail retrieval is important. And a lot of other subjective stuff of course.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I think that with audiophiles it's not so much a case of bass vs. treble. I guess it's true that most non-audiophile listeners rate bass above treble but audiophiles can like warm IEMS just as much. It seems to me it's more that we audiophiles like our little details in what we hear. Detail retrieval is important. And a lot of other subjective stuff of course.

I often think the detail hunting is a fallacy, TBH.

Details are important, but the question is how much detail was the recording intended to reveal? I've read reviewers like Tyll rave about being able to hear spit on the singer's lips or the tap of fingernails on a piano key. That strikes me as the same as cranking up the sharpness on a photograph and raving about how "detailed" it is. Just because it happened in the recording room doesn't mean it was supposed to be audible. It's not at all a coincidence that every headphone people laud for its "detail" is also a treble cannon.

 

[Sylmar]

I often think the detail hunting is a fallacy, TBH.

Details are important, but the question is how much detail was the recording intended to reveal? I've read reviewers like Tyll rave about being able to hear spit on the singer's lips or the tap of fingernails on a piano key. That strikes me as the same as cranking up the sharpness on a photograph and raving about how "detailed" it is. Just because it happened in the recording room doesn't mean it was supposed to be audible. It's not at all a coincidence that every headphone people laud for its "detail" is also a treble cannon.

Fair point. I must say that at the moment I'm enjoying cheapo chinese IEMS that are not detailed at all but have a lowfi analog-ish sound to them. I can enjoy these as well at times. Depends on my mood and the music I'm listening to.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Fair point. I must say that at the moment I'm enjoying cheapo chinese IEMS that are not detailed at all but have a lowfi analog-ish sound to them. I can enjoy these as well at times. Depends on my mood and the music I'm listening to.

I definitely don't want to sound like a basshead who DGAF about details (I definitely do, I picked the LCD-X over the 3 because it's less dark/warm), I just sometimes feel like in the same way many consumers rate bass too highly, so too do audiophiles rave too much about treble.

It's also possible that I'm grumpy because the #$%^ USPS guy isn't here yet and I want my ZS6.

 

[Sylmar]

I definitely don't want to sound like a basshead who DGAF about details (I definitely do, I picked the LCD-X over the 3 because it's less dark/warm), I just sometimes feel like in the same way many consumers rate bass too highly, so too do audiophiles rave too much about treble.

It's also possible that I'm grumpy because the #$%^ USPS guy isn't here yet and I want my ZS6.

Hope you'll give an impression about them when you get them. Still haven't ordered them, mostly because I went on a KZ shopping spree (mainly the older ones).