Nocebo and Placebo are real things.
Knowledge Zenith (KZ) impressions thread
- Thread starter bhazard
- Start date
r31ya
Headphoneus Supremus
yeah, kz could survive in the sub$50 market which customer only mostly see value/performance that fits their wallet.
but at $50+ or especially in the $80~150 markets? Its a cutthroat segment that they gonna need good relations with the community and reviewers/influencers.
a lot looks for their go to reviewers before buying one.
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New KZ VXS Pro (1DD, no price yet)
The OG VXS is the KZ with DSP bass tuck back then and quite well reviewed.
now the "pro" version, have new higher end Qualcomm bluetooth chip.
The New chip will give better connection, APTX Lossless, better battery life,
and IF KZ actually could be arsed to build a good application, a better chip supported user custom DSP EQ...
again, a bit fair warning with TWS is the longetivy often be the issue like, battery life got halved after 6~8 months of use.
first gen KZ TWS is notorious for this, it seems they have got better but yeah.
---
when it comes to kilobucks, i only ever tried 2 of them and both are CIEMs only for few songs unfortunately,
they are genuinely awesome, the clarity and one thing that stands out to me at the time is how should i said this, proper note weight, start and decay was something that i haven't get in the sub $100 territory. you could hear the finger move on bass string, plucking it, and clearly hear the vibrations till it slowly stop.
budget iems have tendency didn't have proper clear start, note weight movement, and proper decay.
but value/performance curve is still a thing. illustratively,
a $15 iems have 40% of the quality,
a $50 iems have 60% of the quality,
a $100 iems have 80% of the quality
and you need to spend all the way to $1000+ to get that remaining 20%.
so technically KZ could create a monster $80~$100 IEMs with 85% of the sound quality and call it Kilobuck slayer and still could be true as not all kilobucks are great.
they could do like what they do with CCA Duo and hunt down specific, decently popular but older kilobuck and outperform it in most aspect and price it at $99.
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Hung Tuan
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guys, KZ Castor sale is about to happen in the next hour.
https://www.kztws.com/products/kz-castor?variant=44767753142523
https://www.kztws.com/products/kz-castor?variant=44767753142523
Hung Tuan
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KZ sale says it will be available tomorrow.
I watched the review of Jordan Oki and he finds the CCA Duo not that good - all details are coming together and not spread out over the stage.yeah, kz could survive in the sub$50 market which customer only mostly see value/performance that fits their wallet.
but at $50+ or especially in the $80~150 markets? Its a cutthroat segment that they gonna need good relations with the community and reviewers/influencers.
a lot looks for their go to reviewers before buying one.
---
New KZ VXS Pro (1DD, no price yet)
The OG VXS is the KZ with DSP bass tuck back then and quite well reviewed.
now the "pro" version, have new higher end Qualcomm bluetooth chip.
The New chip will give better connection, APTX Lossless, better battery life,
and IF KZ actually could be arsed to build a good application, a better chip supported user custom DSP EQ...
again, a bit fair warning with TWS is the longetivy often be the issue like, battery life got halved after 6~8 months of use.
first gen KZ TWS is notorious for this, it seems they have got better but yeah.
---
when it comes to kilobucks, i only ever tried 2 of them and both are CIEMs only for few songs unfortunately,
they are genuinely awesome, the clarity and one thing that stands out to me at the time is how should i said this, proper note weight, start and decay was something that i haven't get in the sub $100 territory. you could hear the finger move on bass string, plucking it, and clearly hear the vibrations till it slowly stop.
budget iems have tendency didn't have proper clear start, note weight movement, and proper decay.
but value/performance curve is still a thing. illustratively,
a $15 iems have 40% of the quality,
a $50 iems have 60% of the quality,
a $100 iems have 80% of the quality
and you need to spend all the way to $1000+ to get that remaining 20%.
so technically KZ could create a monster $80~$100 IEMs with 85% of the sound quality and call it Kilobuck slayer and still could be true as not all kilobucks are great.
they could do like what they do with CCA Duo and hunt down specific, decently popular but older kilobuck and outperform it in most aspect and price it at $99.
As I agree with his review of the AS16 Pro, I think I will find the stage also too small.
My best IEM is the AS16 Pro High Imp - and I bought a spare one before its not sold anymore.
I find the soundstage almost holographic and it has enough bass.
The other all BA iems of KZ and TRN (AS24, BA15, BA16, X7) seems to have only one bass BA, even if they have 16 BA's in one iem.
It happens not frequenty, but if the BA timbre is too obvious for some song, I use the KZ PR2.
Good for details, but the voices are so thin. On my KZ ZVX the voices are good but the soundstage is small.
I bought an Simgot EW200 and hope this will be good for songs that are not so good on the AS16 Pro ...
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I hope Simgot brings you as much joy as it did me. They're very nicely balanced IEMs. They're relatively versatile, but they bring me the most enjoyment in the acoustic genres. They could therefore be a good complement to the AS16 PROs, which I find better suited to rock and electronica. I should point out that I have the original version of the AS16 PRO and they pair very well with the KZ AZ09 PRO BT hooks, the original version of which still came with the APTX Adaptive codec ( which the manufacturer didn't even mention).
r31ya
Headphoneus Supremus
two version of Castor
The Bass edition
The Standard edition
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and right now, i'm kinda confused whats the switches are for if there is two physical version with different tuning instead of using the switches for tuning changes
The Bass edition
The Standard edition
---
and right now, i'm kinda confused whats the switches are for if there is two physical version with different tuning instead of using the switches for tuning changes
r31ya
Headphoneus Supremus
-double post-
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Traced...that big boi bass really intrigues me.
Looks like Castor Bass Ed. has a different crossover point compared to the standard.
Hung Tuan
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why they are doing this... I love the standard edition but the bass edition looks better lol.
Hung Tuan
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I think I get the point about why KZ uses 7mm drivers on Duo. Using a bigger driver will affect to 200 - 300 hz region, which tends to mask the sound and make sound output muddy. The KZ Pianist and Castor will sure have worse details/clarity because of this.
r31ya
Headphoneus Supremus
yeah, most review points out of Duo's better clarity and details compared to Zeroes.
tough its still argued that Zeroes have better musicality.
only bass edition has something cool going on, the standard one looks like a normal single dd iem.
Traced...that big boi bass really intrigues me.
Duo has another advantage of using 7mm drivers. Its size is very "normal" for a Dual-DD IEM.
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ext23
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Another day, another two or three KZ models...lol.
The Krila was the first KZ I have bought in years and I like it, I should stop looking at this thread because KZ keep manufacturing FOMO out of thin air.
The Krila was the first KZ I have bought in years and I like it, I should stop looking at this thread because KZ keep manufacturing FOMO out of thin air.
