Hey,
I've pretty much stopped using headfi so sorry for the late reply. I'm just going to dump my changes here about a year later with my miracles.
Regarding daps:
I went from J3 to clip zip. About a month ago I found a fuze v1 for 40$ at a shoppers drug mart so I'm using that now. [both are Rockboxed]
I haven't look into the difference between fuze v1 and clip zip, but there is a large difference in sub bass quantity. The clip zip bass became too much for me so I'm sticking with the fuze v1 for as long as I can.
amp:
I'm finding the e17 bass too much as well so I eq it down by one ( -2 because the slider moves in units of 2). I use the e17 only for my computer nowadays.
I have an e11 but it's not all that usable to me. It primarily emphasizes bass. With low impedance iems, the volume is hard to adjust in small amounts (the analogue dial was why I got it in the first place).
My amp buying period predated the e12.
Other things to note:
1. I broke my stock cable and got the unique melody bugle cable. One side cuts out but still works when the stock cable is kept at a certain angle so I could still compare the two. The bugle cable made the Miracles a very tiny amount more bassy; really tiny amount. I got this cable over the cheaper variants because it looked thicker (it just has a thicker sheathing over the actual cable) so I thought it might have more durability. I was told by Stephen Guo (who runs the custom-iems web shop) that the sapphire cable helps emphasize treble, the bugle emphasizes bass, and the silvers in general does a bit of both. I'm not big on cables, I was primarily looking for something durable. The reduction in noise whenever I turned my head was quite nice (I wear them running down my back, clipped to the back collar and cinched up behind my head). I don't know if this can be attributed to the thicker sheath or just the material of it.
2. Very recently, I've found another source of my listening fatigue. The Miracles are making the "center channel" so-to-speak sounds stretched out (i.e. '--' instead of '.'). The Rockbox "simple (meier)" crossfeed setting fixes this and makes the center sound centered. It also reduces the maximum distance between the left and right channels imaging wise by a small amount (a normal consequence of crossfeed feeding to the other channel). I haven't checked yet to see if this issue happens on my Westone 4 as well.
Lastly, I might get a pair of UERMs in the future since the bass is supposed to be flatter (miracle is reported to be slightly U shaped), soundstage perhaps wider and/or have more depth (?), no one seems to own both, and I'm really really curious about the difference. Hopefully I can make some comparisons if/when I get them; It'll still be a while though. My comparison won't be anything really regarding details of sounds though (I'm not experienced in describing that) -- more about utility (i.e. isolation, comfort, noise, microphonics, gaming with them).
Hopefully anyone reading this can comment on this stretched out "center channel" and/or about the UERMs relative to the Miracles.
bye bye for now
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