A nice little present arrived through Yodel this morning. A very well packed, nicely boxed Shuoer ST12 Planar. First thing I noticed was the cable is exactly the same cable that came with my Shuoer Tape Pro. Good to see that because it is a very good solid two core cable. The IEMs themselves are that nice Shuoer industrial style, smaller than expected, and as solid as a brick outhouse. As per usual I put L Spiral Dot's on. My only experience with a planar previously was with the hybrid TRi i3. I learned then that Planar's need some juice to give their best. I got them 4.4mm and have both a HiBy R5 and an iFi Hip-Dac to give them that juice. My first thought was to use the HiBy on high gain. First track I tried was to test sub-bass....Hans Zimmer, The Dark Night 3.20 onwards. Sub-bass is very noticeable and for me very present. On Ornette Coleman, Focus on Sanity, the Double Bass has presence and is in the right position in the mix, and there are good edges of the notes, which have enough solidity and presence. To me that is a very good sign. They do eat up the juice so you will need to turn the wick up, to get some real note edges. On the Stones, Laugh I Nearly Died, the initial drums give a good presence of the skins. Bass has texture, Mids so far seem to be positionally correct as well and not recessed. I'm going to put all else aside and concentrate on these for a month to get brain burn in and any other burn in. So far I think these are a very well tuned set, but that may change over time. I hope not. Fit should not be an issue for anybody as they are not a large IEM. For a well made planar, these are very good value.
