Have to run, so combined posts.
Glad you found it interesting and appreciated the personal side of it. Thank you for the kind comments
It's the subjective experiences that I personally enjoy reading about most, even if I don't agree with them at all, and as such that carries over heavily into my impressions and reviews. That may mean my comments won't match up with others and will not be 100% accurate, but I'm okay with that. Individual experiences hold a lot more value imo and I'm not surprised that they are often as varied and unique as the people writing them. Some legendary iems measured like absolute trash (ex. Havi B3 Pro I), yet they are treasured because it all came together to produce an amazing experience. The more time I spend in this hobby the less I care about measurements since they tell such a small part of the story, rarely line up with my experiences or add significant value to them, and often end up detracting from and/or overriding what an individual user actually experiences. I miss discussion about what we hear as opposed to the "this is what the graph says" mentality that is becoming more prominent. Even if what we hear is "wrong". The measurement side of the hobby undeniably has value and seems to be a direction the hobby is heading, it's just not an aspect that jells with me personally and why I've moved to more of an observer than participant in the forums.
I for one can't wait for Slater's in-depth KZ coverage. Would also love to see
@DocHoliday 's reviews/impressions complied since he has covered a slew of them too. KZs aren't giant killers, but they are inexpensive and excellent products for helping people find a signature they like so they can move on to bigger and better things. That said, I've tried plenty of bigger and better things and I'm still happy to be firmly stuck in KZ hell
Micro Ring Love
You’re most welcome. The personal side of the listening experience together with the shared love and affection (and annoyance and exasperation) for the headphones and related audio products of this improbably successful Knowledge Zenith brand form a strong and interesting bond among us who frequent or are residents of this thread, that much I’ve perceived in the relatively short time I’ve been here, despite the differences of opinions present, and that by the way run the gamut from the very slight and tangential to contrarian to polar opposites.
It’s noticeable, too, when such bond is weak because the discussions take a turn towards silliness or the ludicrous. But I don’t mind silliness or irreverence—I enjoy it. What I mind is condescension, an attitude that I intensely hate. And which attitude, when you think about it is ironic, misplaced and ridiculous since how we listen to music is defined by subjective impressions, which are uniquely personal, to say the least.
As for the over-reliance on frequency response (FR) graphs, I can relate to how you feel since I was sideswiped with a snarky comment then was drawn into a preposterous running discussion with a fluid point of argument that was ultimately hinged on some graph. There’s nothing wrong with FR graphs; I believe they do have immense value if the measuring equipment used and methods are indicated; or if such graphs were part of a large enough database wherein identical, standardized and carefully calibrated equipment is used. There are at least 2 that I know here in head-fi: its very own slowly growing collection measured through its own SOTA
measurement lab and that of
crinacle. As for comparison overlays I find them useful where 2 or more of those in-ears measured are known to me, for at least they provide a
rough idea of how the one I’m interested in
might sound. A solitary FR graph could only give some
approximation of the magnitude of a headphone’s reproduction in the audible frequency range; but, if it’s presented by someone whom I trust and whose ears more or less coincide with my own hearing then it’s more than welcome. Ultimately what I hear is paramount. Anyhow here’s the complete quote from the Preface and Introduction to Peter Damaske’s
Acoustics and Hearing (Springer, 2008) that I’m currently trying to read and that I surprisingly could now understand, with some help:
“
However, powerful measuring techniques should not be allowed to mislead us to forget that acoustical quality is basically defined by subjective sound impressions.”
I almost forgot. You have the C10 coming, right? It’s very exciting to read that the enthusiasm for this KZ cousin is growing and that those who have it recognize its abilities, admit that it indeed is a superlative IEM and place it among their top list of favorites. For a while even after I posted my C10 impressions update I thought the AS06 betters it in the bass department but for the last couple of days, going through my music library and listening to my reference songs many, many times, I’ve changed my mind.
The CCA C10 is It.
It is difficult to stay away from this hype train! Although I'd skip C16s and keep my vow of purchasing only sub $30 IEMs
**** and N3 are tantalizing to say the least
Welcome aboard! Glad to have some nice company in this wonderful fast-moving sub-$30 realm.
Maybe I’m naive or don’t hang out in the right threads, but I’ve never seen ChiFi used as a derogatory term to mean cheap and inferior.
I’ve always just known it as referring to Chinese HiFi. In other words, when someone mentions ChiFi, everyone knows what they’re talking about. It’s like a shorthand way to refer to it.
Kind of like when we say “Google it”, that means do a web search even if not using the Google search engine. Or if someone says they “flew from New York to Chicago”, everyone knows they meant fly on an airplane and not a helicopter, hit air balloon, jet pack, or zeppelin.
In today’s world, literally 70-80% of all consumer products produced are made in China. It’s just a fact of life nowadays; I don’t think there’s anything inherently derogatory in it.
Of course there’s the occasional stereotype that pokes fun at some crawlity control problems. But products can have QC issues no matter where they are manufactured.
I guess you might be referring to the type of person that spends $6k on a set of IEMs. But those are the kind of people that have a derogatory outlook on everything, such as flying on a commuter airplane instead of a private Gulfstream IV, or driving a Toyota Camry instead of a chauffeured Rolls Royce, or eating Pho and a beer instead of lobster and caviar with Cristal.
The ironic thing about those type of people is that even if their $6k IEM isn’t “made in China”, guess where most of the raw components are made? The plastic pellets or aluminum used to make the shells, the silicone eartips, the nozzle screens, the litz wiring, the crossover circuit board, the individual crossover components, the mmcx or 2-pin sockets, the wire for the cable, the foam insert for the packaging, the printing ink for the labels, the adhesive for any stickers, the shrink wrap for the retail box, etc? Yup, you guessed it...
Well… I could name a few in this thread, mostly transients but where KZ is concerned one very recently gave a valedictory comment and ironically it took someone who’s supposed to have already left to remind that person that what was delivered was an insult.
Lately I’ve been spending more time as a guest in the other threads and forums, including the so-called high-end threads in my quest for the perfect gift and frankly I was taken aback with the gradations of shade tossed about when “Chi-Fi” is mentioned. I won’t even talk about the ones my beloved KZ is receiving. I couldn’t help it; precision and the ability to discern nuances and submerged subtleties are crucial in my profession. It does seem that there are more of those stereotypes than are previously thought.
You are right, though; Chi-Fi should be taken to mean exactly as it should, nothing more, nothing less.
Whoa! But can surely understand why your wife snatched them away from you
Heck, I may just buy another pair of C10 just to have a backup in case anything goes awry with this pair. If you can help, just wanted to know whether foam tips do significantly alter C10's signature? As they do smoothen out treble in my ZSNs. If they do, then I'd go for larger silicone tips.
The best one for me is a pair of old, slow-rebound, medium-sized, wide-bore ball-shaped foam tips. The ones I've been using and through which my impressions in my C10 update were obtained. If the foam tips are not the right size and not wide-bore they'll definitely affect the sound for the worse. SpinFits didn't work. I believe BadReligionPunk uses JVC Spiral Dots on his, which I'd like to try but the right size (M or MS) is difficult to get in our part of the world.
My top three at the moment are:
1. ****
2. CCA C10
3. V2
C16 coming, though!
Mine:
1. CCA C10
2. CCA C10
3. CCA C10
Also:
KZ ZSN - for those perk-me-up mornings
AS06 - exclusively for cellos, string chamber music and double bass sessions
yup, a few certain groups use it as such, sadly. Its hard to be objective when people have a hard-on for hating anything chi-fi. Almost as bad as people having a hard-on for hating a particular brand like KZ.
qdc, Moondrop, Ibasso "oh those doesn't count"
+1 (Although I wouldn't put it in such terms)
