My subjective experience is that adding foam takes an edge off using ANY filter (including blue), and turns A5 into a very comfortable sounding monitors. But I do have over-sensitive hearing (or auditory perception), so this may not apply universally to everyone.
Where in NZ are you Ivan. Because you are reasonably local (I'm in Invercargill), I may be able to help you fine-tune (and balance) both sides if you need to. I'd just need a couple of days with your A5, and an idea of what frequency changes you want. Might cost a bit of postage.
USB Audio Player Pro Parametric EQ. I had to go through about 5 sets of tips before settling on the JVCs. I'll give this a shot later with the stocks and JVCs. (I love the extra sub-bass energy though so 50hz stays.)
I'm loving this IEM. While it's not my first 5-driver IEM, It's surely the first time I'm completely satisfied with my purchase, the most expensive having been an $1100 Westone ES5 CIEM. I usually found myself wishing certain frequencies were stronger or weaker despite the excessive mental masturbation that took place when researching and reading up on impressions. Descriptions like "the bass rumbles like a sub" and "luscious, rich mids" left me excited and filled with anticipation that in the end left me feeling utterly disappointed when they weren't met in my reality. Especially compared to my car audio that has me fully enveloped in all its dynamics. The A5 changed all that.
It literally ticks all my boxes:
Super comfortable.
Bass goes DEEP and tickles my pickle.
Mids dont get pooped on (to me their position in space is perfect, ES SM3v2 was too close & intimate, BGVP dm5 was too thin and far away, LZ-A4 was closer but much thinner-sounding than the A5. This has taught me that how we perceive audio is ALL relative to what the person describing has actually experienced themselves, in addition to their subjective taste/preferance.
When an IEM had bass deep enough to satisfy me, the mids and treble were severely compromised. IEMs that touted mids and highs (pioneer ch#t) had exaggerated highs (sh1tty cymbals) and bloated midbass rather than my preferred sub-bass. I was starting to think my ideal preferance was limited by the physical nature of our tiny drivers trying to output frequencies manageable by full-sized speakers and subwoofers.. No way something so tiny could rumble in the nether regions while still maintaining accurate mids & highs. Mr. Lao Zhong proved me wrong for under $270.
I even find myself loving the cable after some fiddling around with the memory wires. Perfect length.. Others are too long for walking around. Enough stiffness to prevent it from ever tangling, but pliable enough to be comfortable and manageable.
For me: END. GAME. See ya guys when the LZ-A6 with a (hopefully) graphene dynamic driver comes out.
Ok, so regarding that harshness i reported earlier..
My fix was to PROPERLY SCREW THE FILTERS IN.
Turns out left filter wasnt screwed tightly. Right wasn't screwed perfectly either. Now that I've done the job properly, A5 with red filters sound MARVELOUS. No harshness whatsoever. Bass is also a bit tighter now.
Now excuse me while I go listen to them for ~6 hours of my entire free time.
Where in NZ are you Ivan. Because you are reasonably local (I'm in Invercargill), I may be able to help you fine-tune (and balance) both sides if you need to. I'd just need a couple of days with your A5, and an idea of what frequency changes you want. Might cost a bit of postage.
Thank you for your kind offer, let my just listen to the and experiment a bit more, but it would definitely be nice to tweak them using proper analyser!
Right now I'm quite content with the combination I found, reminds me of all the best qualities of Tennmak Pro's that I like + open highs and tamed down lower mids, very enjoyable!
I also notice that I experience harshness mainly with mojo, need to try other sources more soroughly...
So my Cayin N5II has returned to useful life after a factory reset and complete microSD card rebuild. And the balanced cable arrived for my key comparison, the FLC8S.
So now its mano a mano. And neither product is a knock out winner. The FLC8S is more efficient and more comfortable, by a small amount. The frequency response with my preferred tuning is pretty darned close. And the differences in bass that I was anticipating turn out to be much smaller than I would have anticipated. I really thought the A5 was going to put the FLC8S into the doghouse when it comes to bass. But no such thing. More to follow but so far I would say both the A5 and the FLC8S are excellent choices.
For the person wondering if this is a step up from the A4, I would say yes. In particular the comfort factor is a big deal.
Oh yeah, the A2 still has a residual charm and is worth keeping around.
Looking forward to some reviews for the A5's, I've been wanting a more comfortable alternative to the A4's, and these sound like the perfect alternative.
The a5s I got have a bad hiss on then. It’s not the music, tried two different sets of high end headphones with no hiss. Anyone else have this issue? Easy fix or return?
The a5s I got have a bad hiss on then. It’s not the music, tried two different sets of high end headphones with no hiss. Anyone else have this issue? Easy fix or return?
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