[Insider K]

If the song has a nasty treble, this won't do you any favours (see my previous post regarding j-pop).

On most other songs the extension makes it special.

As far as all rounders go, this isn't exactly a safe reccomendation. But as a specialty set it's amazing for the price. You can pay much more and get a worse iem (see stellaris)

Ordered HBB PR2 for 35 dollars, seem pretty good deal for a Planar. Now question is how "dampened" HBB tune will compare to PR1 Pro and if driver is actually the same, graph seem actually very good and in general his graph target usually is in my preference range.
My playlist mostly consists of Experimental, Electronic, Synthwave, EDM, Rock, some Djent and some Pop. Usually artists like Jon Hopkins, Lorn, Illenium, Seven Lions, Odesza, Plini, Sleep Token, Breaking Benjamin, London Grammar, PVRIS, Coldplay, sometimes few Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa songs . Will be interesting to sit down and have a listen with what styles and genres it goes well.

 

[ExTubeGamer]

PR1 pro. Sometimes I cannot believe how fast this in ear is. I was a timeless owner but this in ear goes even beyond that.

 

[Podster]

Those were metal? Kind of armour inspired in KZ design.

Holy Crap, I think I was wrong in the ZSX Terminators. Face plate looks to be metal after all They also passed the tooth test for metallics

I've been "Terminated"

I'm still up in the air on which color of this cable I prefer

 

[Insider K]

Holy Crap, I think I was wrong in the ZSX Terminators. Face plate looks to be metal after all They also passed the tooth test for metallics

I've been "Terminated"




I'm still up in the air on which color of this cable I prefer

Yes ZSX faceplate is "Zinc Alloy" as a lot of KZ's.

I was quite a fan when ZSX came out, with kind of awesome and unique design (reminding of armor or actually engine cover) quite nice separation and detail, fun bass, in general lively sound (ZSX was quite perfect for Lorn and Jon Hopkins music, especially Emeral Rush which sounded absolutely sublime) but what was bugging me was unpleasant and fatiguing sibilance, especially on female vocals, also very wide nozzle hurting my ears overtime. It is a forgotten, but still quite awesome set, especially with some EQ.

 

[Podster]

Yes ZSX faceplate is "Zinc Alloy" as a lot of KZ's.

I was quite a fan when ZSX came out, with kind of awesome and unique design (reminding of armor or actually engine cover) quite nice separation and detail, fun bass, in general lively sound (ZSX was quite perfect for Lorn and Jon Hopkins music, especially Emeral Rush which sounded absolutely sublime) but what was bugging me was unpleasant and fatiguing sibilance, especially on female vocals, also very wide nozzle hurting my ears overtime. It is a forgotten, but still quite awesome set, especially with some EQ.

I think if it were not for sibilance KZ would be the premier Chi-Fi iem company (probably the number one issue for most people with KZ was one word and that is "Sizzle") even more so than some of the hit or miss bloaty bass! Just my opinion and we all know what those are like Also some of the best remedies to reduce these issues have been done by this threads members over the years and occasionally KZ has taken right to thread feedback Always thought for companies who listen to their listeners have a one up on the comp. As far as the ZSX design I look straight to Gen. Grievous' chest armor

 

[Insider K]

I think if it were not for sibilance KZ would be the premier Chi-Fi iem company (probably the number one issue for most people with KZ was one word and that is "Sizzle") even more so than some of the hit or miss bloaty bass! Just my opinion and we all know what those are like Also some of the best remedies to reduce these issues have been done by this threads members over the years and occasionally KZ has taken right to thread feedback Always thought for companies who listen to their listeners have a one up on the comp. As far as the ZSX design I look straight to Gen. Grievous' chest armor

True, KZ seemingly changed after that multi drivers and electrostatic driver "scandal" and in the past year KZ is on quite good trajectory going up. Stoked to try new KZ x HBB PR2 after a while.

 

[lushmelody]

I think if it were not for sibilance KZ would be the premier Chi-Fi iem company (probably the number one issue for most people with KZ was one word and that is "Sizzle") even more so than some of the hit or miss bloaty bass! Just my opinion and we all know what those are like Also some of the best remedies to reduce these issues have been done by this threads members over the years and occasionally KZ has taken right to thread feedback Always thought for companies who listen to their listeners have a one up on the comp. As far as the ZSX design I look straight to Gen. Grievous' chest armor

They tackled the sibilance issue, but went too dark. Now they elevated the tuning and its being respectable and competitive

 

[Barusu Lamperouge]

It's been a long time since I've been here and all of a sudden I'm intrigued by this KZ D-fi. It looks interesting and I'm a huge fan of DDs as I love how they sound in general. At ~$30 this looks like a punt worth having. Have missed so many unicorn dust plated and unobtainium iems. Would be interesting to catchup on all the latest developments!

Even if 16 signatures are gimmicky, I'm actually amazed by what KZ is offering these days. From ATE, ED9 to DFI, KZ indeed has come a long way.

 

[seanwee]

ItHave missed so many unicorn dust plated and unobtainium iems. Would be interesting to catchup on all the latest developments!

I've tried a lot of them in my years in this hobby, both coated and being actually that material.

Tldr, there is almost no correlation between driver material/coating and sound. Tuning is all over the place, with the only somewhat "consistent" sounding ones being the JVC wood domes which sound muddy and dark but even then there are exceptions (FW10000). Sure having a stiffer diaphragm is all well and good, technicality wise there seems to be a trend of PET<paper<wood<Titanium coating<DLC coating=Titanium=LCP<Beryllium (no I haven't demoed the fiio fd1 yet) but what good is that when the overall tuning of the iem is terrible?

And with the audio market having a two steps forward, one step back trend theres no telling how good an iem just by looking at things like driver material, the tuning can always be messed up.

 

[r31ya]

PR1b or PR1h?

If the driver used in the PR2 is indeed just a PR1 Pro 2nd gen driver with a tuning pcb on it, the driver technical improvements alone would be worth it imo.

That said, I feel like the PR1 Pro may be a better choice if you like airier treble. The PR2 does take away the 10khz boost and which in my time using the Elysian Annihilators are the factor that makes it airy sounding.

From KZ marketing rep,

It seems to be the same driver with PR1 Pro (KZ 2nd gen planar), new damper, also another slight difference to make it graph a bit more consistently.

 

[r31ya]

I've tried a lot of them in my years in this hobby, both coated and being actually that material.

Tldr, there is almost no correlation between driver material/coating and sound. Tuning is all over the place, with the only somewhat "consistent" sounding ones being the JVC wood domes which sound muddy and dark but even then there are exceptions (FW10000). Sure having a stiffer diaphragm is all well and good, technicality wise there seems to be a trend of PET<paper<wood<Titanium coating<DLC coating=Titanium=LCP<Beryllium (no I haven't demoed the fiio fd1 yet) but what good is that when the overall tuning of the iem is terrible?

And with the audio market having a two steps forward, one step back trend theres no telling how good an iem just by looking at things like driver material, the tuning can always be messed up.

KZ have used multiple different membrane but only advertise the ESX LCP.
It have uses Titanium before, it's not advertised much, but after being found out, their word being, "It was used to achieve Driver architectural need".
it seems to be the space for the membrane is smaller and need stiffer membrane for it.

Even their recent driver have pretty interesting latticed membrane (which is unique enough that when other company used the same dd it was immediately found out)
Hifri compared their new DD membrane (ZVX) and noted that its new material considering how stiff it is, but its not part of any of the marketing.
---
like expected, Ianfann got his early review unit

 

[Atek2019]

 

[requal]

And here are few graphs for comparison from Ian's squig.link

 

[ScrofulousBinturong]

Several of the new KZ reviews involve free review items. Those are invariably bogus. Are there actually unbiased reviews of the PR1 pro and PR2?

 

[requal]

Several of the new KZ reviews involve free review items. Those are invariably bogus. Are there actually unbiased reviews of the PR1 pro and PR2?

For me sample reviews should be banned, but overall every review is somewhat biased: based on subjective experience and brain "burn in" habit. Nobody is making blind tests. So everything must be taken with grain of salt

Most of users said that planar tech used in PR1 etc is fine, and more or less in pair with S12. Graph is also nice so we can expect good set imo.

S12 wasn't best set which I hard. It has dry midrange and sharp highs. Also technically it was not the totl level, but not the worst, even better then most of less priced iems at the moment of release. So I'm excited to get my PR2, hope this set is going to avoid problems of S12