[Fox2twenty]

The biggest online shopping day in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles'_Day

Holy crap that's a lot of retail sales.

 

[groucho69]

Holy **** that's a lot of retail sales.

Save your sheckles

 

[Wiljen]

A single BA would be ridiculously lacking. I've heard single DDs that sounded amazing, multi-BA's that sounded amazing, and hybrids that sounded amazing, but I have never heard a good single BA.

Also you're actually 100% incorrect about this making an issue with coherency. Like, completely wrong. Crossovers make it easier to keep the levels even because you're not trying to tune a single driver, you can have a few over a range and basically ratchet each one up or down to level things out. More than that, you're completely off on the overlap region.

There's a reason, a damn good reason, why every single TOTL IEM is either multi-driver or single-DD, and nearly all are going for multi drivers. It's not because no one has had the epiphany you did of how amazing one BA is. It's the same reason home and car audio setups use multiple drivers across the spectrum. Frankly, headphones are the only area that don't, and that's largely because it would be nearly impossible to accomplish thanks to the positioning of everything.

I'll respectfully disagree. Crossovers make it possible to mate levels that would not be possible without using a crossover and regulate impedance but that doesn't mean they are perfect or anywhere close to it. All forms of crossovers come with trade-offs and it is no different in the in-ear world than when dealing with loudspeakers. You can find literally volumes written on the merits and faults of each order of crossover and each design. If a perfect one has been made, there is certainly no consensus as to which design it is.

I do agree that there are plenty of good single dynamic driver headphones out there and I think that we have already seen what KZ can do with a single DD as they have made several models that fit this description. I don't believe that a single BA will be the penultimate earphone, but I would like to see what KZ can do with a single BA as it is not impossible to make a single BA that sounds good. I'd suggest you try the Klipsch X10 or the Etymotics ER4P/S.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I've tried several Etys. Never liked any of them. I'm not going to gamble on the one good single BA out there when the market is absolutely jam packed with other styles that sound orders of magnitude better.

 

[Fox2twenty]

I've tried several Etys. Never liked any of them. I'm not going to gamble on the one good single BA out there when the market is absolutely jam packed with other styles that sound orders of magnitude better.

Yeah.. If they do a single it should be a 15mm dynamic. With some kind of special material.

 

[Wiljen]

I've tried several Etys. Never liked any of them. I'm not going to gamble on the one good single BA out there when the market is absolutely jam packed with other styles that sound orders of magnitude better.

I'll again suggest that I can respect your opinion without agreeing with it. Your statement was very subjective in suggesting there are no good single ba units and I think that is much more a matter of opinion than a statement of fact. I find the X10 to be listenable if not as full as some others and I think Etymotic was one of the pioneers in the development of BA earphones and a lot of what we have today is partially because of the ground work they laid. I'm reasonably sure I am not the only Etymotics fan on the site and many others might argue the point that they are no good.

 

[atmfrank]

Oh Boy. Over 1500 posts for the same topic? FWIW, I just want to contribute my extremely wonderful experience with the QKZ KD2 which I think is the same as the DM8. Fantastic sound from this inexpensive dual-driver design. Well defined and tight bass, rich mid-range and very balanced highs pleasing the ears of an older audiophile listener. The experience so far is nothing but addictive. Driving them with my HTC 10 (24/96 DAC) while commuting to work, at home with a DF RED 1.0 or SMSL iDEA. Very pleasing, detailed and just good sounding. They need to be well burnt-in for at least 20 hours before sounding sweet. My other gear is HD600 and RS2e...so you know where I am coming from.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I'll again suggest that I can respect your opinion without agreeing with it. Your statement was very subjective in suggesting there are no good single ba units and I think that is much more a matter of opinion than a statement of fact. I find the X10 to be listenable if not as full as some others and I think Etymotic was one of the pioneers in the development of BA earphones and a lot of what we have today is partially because of the ground work they laid. I'm reasonably sure I am not the only Etymotics fan on the site and many others might argue the point that they are no good.

Klipsch makes good products, but they're not exactly taking over the industry. As for Ety, just being a pioneer doesn't mean the products they make now have kept up with advancements. It means that they took the first strides and did awesome work. Atari was a pioneer in home video game consoles but I think we can all agree that the Jaguar was a pile of crap.

So okay, there are literally two single-BA examples you can find, and both have fans, but neither are tearing up their price brackets. If anything, that proves my point. There's a reason that Noble, JH, 1964, Mee, 1More, Campfire, and all the others either go with a single DD or a multi-driver setup of some type. You were speaking as if multi-drivers were flawed and a single BA would alleviate that issue, but sorta didn't explain why (nearly) nobody does that. As if they just couldn't figure it out.

A lot of stuff is only done rarely. Final Audio is, as far as I know, the only company to do a BA/DD hybrid in a full-sized headphone. It sounded awesome to me, but there's kind of a reason it's a rarity. I'm saying this because if KZ is going to really go out and try something else, I would vastly prefer they go for either a single DD and try and clone, say, the Campfire Vega instead of trying to clone an X10.

 

[Fahim Foysal]

@Wiljen @SomeGuyDude My understanding is that a single BA driver limits the capability of OEMs to tune the iems properly. It would produce a even frequency response which we don't want from iems since we are bypassing the ear canal. It would be physically impossible to boost certain parts of the frequency (by a good amount) without introducing distortion.

 

[Wiljen]

I think we can drop the conversation as it is obvious to me we are not going to agree. I understand your position and I still think I'd like to see what can be done with a single BA, if for no other reason than if they can do it well, it proves they have the tools to do about anything well as we have already seen a pretty good start in the single dynamic and multi-driver designs.

 

[Fahim Foysal]

I think we can drop the conversation as it is obvious to me we are not going to agree. I understand your position and I still think I'd like to see what can be done with a single BA, if for no other reason than if they can do it well, it proves they have the tools to do about anything well as we have already seen a pretty good start in the single dynamic and multi-driver designs.

This might convince you.

 

[vector84]

@Wiljen @SomeGuyDude My understanding is that a single BA driver limits the capability of OEMs to tune the iems properly. It would produce a even frequency response which we don't want from iems since we are bypassing the ear canal. It would be physically impossible to boost certain parts of the frequency without introducing distortion.

Knowles' line of full range single BAs might surprise you.


I think the issue is more that it's both difficult to produce full range BAs with good response across the entire spectrum, and difficult to tune BAs in general due to their physical size.

 

[fullmoon280]

So im looking for some new iems and the last time i bought a kz item was a few years ago and i was wondering what the current ranking for kz iems are nowadays?

 

[kokakolia]

So im looking for some new iems and the last time i bought a kz item was a few years ago and i was wondering what the current ranking for kz iems are nowadays?

I'm curious too! And very impatient. I ordered the ZSE weeks ago. It was dirt cheap at around ~$6 on sale. That's the price of a pint of beer. It's so ridiculous, considering that the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

From what I've noticed, the ranking is pretty individual, some seem to love the ZSE most, others the 3, 5 v1, 5 v2, the 6.

I've only heard the ZS5 v1 and the ZS6 but I am actually annoyed to admit that I'm spending more time with them now than my Pinnacle P1 or 1More Quad.