[RikudouGoku]

I get moisture straight away.

Wow....

Have you tried this mod?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lz-...nd-review-thread.919056/page-28#post-15738679

 

[katatonicone1]

Wow....

Have you tried this mod?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lz-...nd-review-thread.919056/page-28#post-15738679

I haven't. I don't have screens yet. But will probably pass on that as even with pink I just don't think there is enough bass quantity. Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass. I would love Blon kind of bass (more sub bass though) on A6s, this would make me happy
I see you really like Fiio FH3. I've read your review, good job, man. What I really like about A6 is that it has great ability to make music sound full bodied and immersive. It's like listening to speakers blasting music all around you at a concert. I may be wrong, but I suppose it is because of soundstage. All other IEMs failed to deliver similar experience, even Dunu DK2001 which was in the same price category, and especially Audiosense AQ3 which sounds thin with boomy bass and I'm really trying hard to sell it. So how does FH3 sound? And why haven't you tried ISN H40 yet?

 

[RikudouGoku]

I haven't. I don't have screens yet. But will probably pass on that as even with pink I just don't think there is enough bass quantity. Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass. I would love Blon kind of bass (more sub bass though) on A6s, this would make me happy
I see you really like Fiio FH3. I've read your review, good job, man. What I really like about A6 is that it has great ability to make music sound full bodied and immersive. It's like listening to speakers blasting music all around you at a concert. I may be wrong, but I suppose it is because of soundstage. All other IEMs failed to deliver similar experience, even Dunu DK2001 which was in the same price category, and especially Audiosense AQ3 which sounds thin with boomy bass and I'm really trying hard to sell it. So how does FH3 sound? And why haven't you tried ISN H40 yet?

The soundstage is definitely the reason you feel the music is so immersive.

I was actually about to recommend the FH3 if you want the bass to be more similar to the blon 03 type of bass than the A6 (the FH3 bass is tied with the A6 as my NR 1 bass, cant decide which one I like more as they are so different).

The H40 is just too big for me so I passed on it. I learned that no matter how good the sound is, if fit is uncomfortable I am not going to use it anyway.
Cost is also quite expensive for something I am pretty sure wont fit me, so not worth the risk for me to get it.

 

[Luis1316]

I haven't. I don't have screens yet. But will probably pass on that as even with pink I just don't think there is enough bass quantity. Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass. I would love Blon kind of bass (more sub bass though) on A6s, this would make me happy

Did you make sure that you did get the proper sealing? If you think that it's lacking in bass quantity, you might aswel try some foam tips. I get an overload of bass quantity after having a full ear canal seal with foam tips, and thats why I decided to cut the foam tips in different proportions.
This is a post about foam tips that I made a while ago:

I have tried a lot of different tips. I went from some basic plastic eartips to more expensive ones, but I ended up using a "moded" foam tip.
- Spinfits cp145: the silicon didn't bother me too much, but the insertion is too deep making the bass too prominent for me.
- Final type E tips: quite comfortable, but the narrow design of the tip enhanced bass and mid, and the treble soundstage and clarity got quite cutted.
- Azla Sedna: too much treble, you will need to add a piece of foam into the tip to make it usable; very good for instrumental pieces, but the subbass is so light that you barely feel it.
- Comply foam tips: the best fit of all of them, after adjusting it into my earcanal, It has this kind of "disappeared" type of comfort; my main complain with this is that the insertion is too deep again, it enhances the bass but on the good side it smoothens further the treble.

LZ A6 alredy has a long nozzle, and that affects the insertion depth of the tips as you can see. I decided to try a simple thing that some people in the forum did:
cuttin a foam tip until you see clearly the tip of the nozzle (this mod only works for IEMs with long nozzles). Use a random foam tip to test this, I'm sure you have some around there that you don't use; you don't really need a expensive Comply foam tip to test this since the effect is going to be almost the same, only the material will differ. It's fine to not make a clean cut, it doesn't really affect anything. Also people who has a lot of ear wax, don't clean periodically their ears, or a serious wet-oily wax should be taking care of using this mod, since it exposes the nozzle directly to the ear canal.
This helped a lot, and now is my main preffered option for tips. Basically, the comfort of the foam is still there, and maybe the comfort is even better for some people since cutting the tip in half means that there is less tip-ear canal contact; the quantity of the bass is reduced (one of my main objectives) and the clarity of the treble and soundstage has been maintained because there is less contact with the foam material of the tip.

 

[RikudouGoku]

I haven't. I don't have screens yet. But will probably pass on that as even with pink I just don't think there is enough bass quantity. Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass. I would love Blon kind of bass (more sub bass though) on A6s, this would make me happy
I see you really like Fiio FH3. I've read your review, good job, man. What I really like about A6 is that it has great ability to make music sound full bodied and immersive. It's like listening to speakers blasting music all around you at a concert. I may be wrong, but I suppose it is because of soundstage. All other IEMs failed to deliver similar experience, even Dunu DK2001 which was in the same price category, and especially Audiosense AQ3 which sounds thin with boomy bass and I'm really trying hard to sell it. So how does FH3 sound? And why haven't you tried ISN H40 yet?

" Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass."

While that might be true on graphs, when the treble is lower you will perceive more of the bass.

 

[DJ Core]

" Filters and mods just tame highs, that's all, they don't particularly enhance bass."

While that might be true on graphs, when the treble is lower you will perceive more of the bass.

Very true. My A6 came in Monday. So far, the treble is on another level and not for the faint of heart.

Used my ISN H40 Tips which enhance everything from Bass, Mids, and Treble. Stock tips suck

I have tried some other softer tips I have here that came with the Fiio FH1s or BGVP DMG and they tame the treble alot.
So Tip material will affect the resonance of frequencies differently. Will try the various filters this weekend.

So far, no issues with moisture etc. Maybe they fixed the issue?

 

[Luis1316]

BLON BL-03 MOD MEASUREMENTS

Alright so I spent my 2 days measuring the BL-03 with some mods, hopefully these are useful.
In case you don't know, THe BLON BL-03 also using infamous nylon cloth mesh as a damper underneath the metal nozzle grill. Im into simple modding IEM, not into extreme mod or anything else, but from my experience, this kind of damper have more bad effects rather than its goodness.
The nylon cloth mesh dampers are believed by chifi manufacturer to smoothen upper mids region, while that doing good for the purposes, they also came with bad effect altogether, the main issue is bad airflow especially with IEM containing DD. THis will make bass part become bloated, think of covering vents with something, bass become bigger in quantity but sounded bloated. Other bad issues are reduced clarity, and blurry imaging (reducing imaging quality).
Moondrop lately found a way using similar cloth damper but I have yet to know what material they are using (mine still on the way) that sold separately. THeir damper although using similar cloth, may have different effect. Why? because they made a gap between the the damper and the grill. This is a clever way to avoid air flow blockage, but I need to listen myself if they still make bass bloated.
So some of us tried to remove / change the grill to make the IEM sounded better, but sometimes the default tuning without damper are too peaky, so we have to damper them with different way that better than using nylon cloth mesh.

THank you to @Slater that found this BL-03 are using that infamous cloth mesh damper, I didn't think at all that they are using the cloth mesh damper, you can take a look of his great tutorial few pages back (someone help me find the link, i will post here for easier findout)

So I tried to mod with several materials to find which are the best, I mod and measure every materials that i use hopefully this will be useful for the community.

OK, to begin with, here is my rig, using similar rig with @crinacle because I feel his measurement is one of the best in the world, and I used to see his graph among others. I'm using IEC711 coupler copy, with apple dongle, with REW, calibrated to have similar result with crinacle and always try to keep resonance peak as close as 8khz. Crinacle is using wide bore for measurement, but I'm using medium bore that can fit lot of my IEM, and more important stay inside the coupler with proper seal. So slight differences can be caused of eartips being used, unit variance on IEM themselves, unit variance on dongle, unit variance on coupler, mic, cables etc.


Comparison between My graph and @crinacle 's. His graph as always credits to him with respect.


Here the default BL-03 FR by Crin :


And here my measurement on BL-03 default :

As you can see, my L (green lines) unit have lower bass quantity, i checked everything, holes, vents, tried different cables etc with no dice. I take that as driver unit variance. Too bad i just give my second BL-03 to my relatives earlier this year.

So i will use the R unit as reference since my L unit seems off with that roll off bass (but hey that is tuned better actually i guess?)


This is measurement to compare between default BL-03 with cloth mesh filter and filterless. Brown is default, Blue is filterless

To my ears, the bass is a lot cleaner due gone of bloated effect caused by that cloth mesh. On graph they cant be really seen, but its very obvious to my ears. same with bass decat, texture that you can't see from an FR graph.

Right, so the filterless BL-03 have peaky +13db pinna gain on roughly 2.2khz, 5.5khz and 8khz. Scariest peak is on that 5.5khz, that shouty sibilances. We did try several method to tame down that peaks so I try to measure a lot of materials for our curiosity.


Dried alcohol swab (red line) rolled on side of nozzle with no blockage at all on center of nozzle tamed the peaks a little bit, the bass still very clean, fast, tight, like filterless which is great result, but the peaks may a bit shouty to some.





Rolled cotton (green line on FR), roughly square 7mm put into nozzle, similar to alcohol swab, more like a "C" in the nozzle rather than full circle donut, because its easier. The result tame the peaks as much as the original filter, but of course with no bloated bass, but the cotton absorb too much upper mids and trebles, extension of the cymbals, decay of snares sounded gone too fast, very minimum resonance.



Next up is Soft foam (bright red line) , its a foam with very soft density, like almost no power to bounce back if you pinch it. I got them from the hard case for IEM. I cut rounghly 5mm in length, with width and depth lower than nozzle diameter, so they still have plenty space of air. Result is pretty good, Bass is tight, no bloat with litlle bit smoother upper mids but without losing of clarity and treble extension. Can be a little shouty, just occasionally happen, but i like a little bit tamed upper mids, at least below 10db increment from 1khz.




With longer soft foam (roughly 10mm) (tosca line) the upper mids is tamed down, very smooth result, similar to original state but better bass (no bloated), 8khz treble resonance peak also tamed down. I like this tonality but maybe i want to cut down the soft foam a little bit more for more aggressive and fun signature, just slightly.


left green foam : animal sponge (capsule animal sponge in 1 dollar store), soft density but not as soft as right one
right black foam : soft foam from IEM case, very soft density with a lot of cavities)


This time, I was using animal sponge (purple line). What the heck is that? that is a sponge that i found quite good that i use in the past for mod, they can be bought on one dollar store, a capsule sponge animal, put into the hot water and the sponge animal will popped out

something like this, image by google.
Result is very good too, with smooth upper mids but still non bloated bass, but the softer density foam (the black one above) do better job on clarity, remember to cut smaller than nozzle diameter so they can be fit without any force, dont put big cut and pinch to insert, they will be too full and muffled the sound.





Alright so next one is our popular mod tool, the 3M micropore, with full cover, covering the entire nozzle (peach line). As you can see and inline with what im hearing, they produce similar result with default BL-03 with that cloth mesh filter, bloated bass, you can see the bass FR there, back to original state, what you can't see is how bad the bloat, the texture. Upper mids also sounded a little bit veiled.


Next is I pinched a hole on that micropore tape, just 1 hole in the center (magenta line), bass is better than full micropore covering entire nozzle, but still have smear, not as clean as other mod.


Then i went crazy, stabbing the micropore on nozzle so they have many holes lol (on purpose) (showed in dark green line), bass become great, non bloated, much better than full micropore or micropore with 1 hole, logically of course make in common sense, better airflow for the DD. The upper mids of course less tamed than full micropore or just 1 hole, as you can see, but this is pretty good result too.



Then I ditch that micropore, changed into new micropore but now I cover only 3/4 of nozzle hole (dark red line), left with roughly 1/4 open, unfiltered. This is a classic mod and now proven this is a very good solution too, and very easy way too for beginner. Bass is clean, non bloated, very nice clean bass like the unfiltered one, the upper mids is similar with micropore with many holes. Great result too!



Just to kill curiosity, i reduce the micropore into half, covering only half of nozzle opening (green line). Bass of course great like filterless, but the upper mids also similar like filterless, too shouty. Hence, I didn't bother to try with 1/4 cover nozzle with micropore.



So out of few experiments with different materials, I like the 3/4 micropore cover and soft foam as the best result among all. As a note, sony is using soft foam as a damper, its no joke, they put soft density foam on the nozzle without any grill, but keep in mind that they did their homework, they tuned the Z1R for example with crazy bosst high mids but then put the foam, or the other way, they tune and measure with foam attached.

Conclusion, chifi manufacturer need to stop put this nylon cloth mesh glued together with grill as damper. They will bloat the bass. My H40 have similar effects too, and with the mod, the H40 is crazy, much better result than the BL-03 mod.

I'm sorry for super duper long post, but i feel its necessary to post everything in 1 post. Thanks for reading, sorry for your bandwidth.

@DynamicEars made an incredible post about using different materials as filters mainly for taming down high mids and highs, which pretty much goes in line with the one I have been mentioning. He uses a lot of variety of materials and I think that those measurements are very useful for getting an idea of how those materials affects with the graph, since my measurements weren't that clear and well prepaired.

 

[finalstan]

Very true. My A6 came in Monday. So far, the treble is on another level and not for the faint of heart.

I've received my set earlier today, been listening ever since. Blimey, that treble... makes for an intense listen. I will give them the time to break in and play around with filters. Quick listen of the same song over and over helped me determine that purple is the way to go for me but red also sounded interesting, more extended in both directions so I will experiment with it as well.

All my usual go-to tips were no good, so for now I've settled on Xelastecs. Fit is iffy either way. Once they're in, I am ok. The filters are quite wide and have to go in deep, depth is always an issue for me as I like shallower insertions. But I think I will be able to make them work without too much compromise. Once dust settles on that, I'll post impressions and do some comparisons maybe.

 

[DJ Core]

I've received my set earlier today, been listening ever since. Blimey, that treble... makes for an intense listen. I will give them the time to break in and play around with filters. Quick listen of the same song over and over helped me determine that purple is the way to go for me but red also sounded interesting, more extended in both directions so I will experiment with it as well.

All my usual go-to tips were no good, so for now I've settled on Xelastecs. Fit is iffy either way. Once they're in, I am ok. The filters are quite wide and have to go in deep, depth is always an issue for me as I like shallower insertions. But I think I will be able to make them work without too much compromise. Once dust settles on that, I'll post impressions and do some comparisons maybe.

I settled on the -3db red filter(40,000kHz) + my ISN H40 silver-plated cable + stock H40 stock tips. It's perfect for me that way. Smokes everything in my arsenal.Very happy with this setup paired with the Sony ZX500 walkman.

 

[finalstan]

I've received my set earlier today, been listening ever since. Blimey, that treble... makes for an intense listen. I will give them the time to break in and play around with filters. Quick listen of the same song over and over helped me determine that purple is the way to go for me but red also sounded interesting, more extended in both directions so I will experiment with it as well.

All my usual go-to tips were no good, so for now I've settled on Xelastecs. Fit is iffy either way. Once they're in, I am ok. The filters are quite wide and have to go in deep, depth is always an issue for me as I like shallower insertions. But I think I will be able to make them work without too much compromise. Once dust settles on that, I'll post impressions and do some comparisons maybe.

I've been listening all weekend, appreciate it's not the 100 hours recommended but the sound has settled for me. I've changed Xelastecs to Spiral dots, which were the better fit in the end. Still using purple filter, also modded red. Loud button engaged (disengaging it is a mistake, don't do it). Source is DX160 (balanced) and LG V50s. Music-wise, I listen to EDM 90% of the time, which I read was the perfect match for these so that's worked out well. Or has it?

Moisture issue reared its ugly head when I went out and about for the first time. At home it is mostly ok. Expose them to sudden changes of temperature and they go quiet. This alone makes them very hard to recommend for someone like me who is very active, out and about a lot in a humid country (UK). I will try the different mods recommended here to see if this can be remedied (I've done the foam mod but it only helped taming the treble, not moisture). Any more tips appreciated.

Sound-wise this IEM is a hit and miss. Some songs suit it really well, everything comes through clear, very engaging. Loving the extension into bass and treble. In other, it sounds shrill, sibilant with boomy, uncontrolled bass rescued only by the fact that its quantity is restrained (they are not bass light, though). I am quite a flexible listener and enjoy various signatures, the amount of treble doesn't put me off or tire me, but I can see how some could suffer from it. Heed the warning, to quote what DJ Core said above: this treble is 'not for the faint of heart'.

Here's my biggest problem with this IEM. Tonality-wise it is coherent enough, but timbre is all over the place. The technical presentation from all the driver types is quite different and I can't get used to that (not yet anyway). Bass is even throughout (same sub-bass as mid), not great in quantity but still quite boomy. Attack and decay are not particularly tight either side. Despite that, bass is acceptable. Mids are dominated by upper registers where you will be attacked by s and t sibilance on a lot of tracks. Lower mids I have nothing to say about at this moment in time. Treble is in a world of its own, bright, extended but suffering the most timbral issues. Most sounds on that side of the spectrum just sound metallic. Not as bad as Tinhifi P1 to me, but it's noticeable.

I would lie if I said I don't have my enjoyable moments with them, and they're not few and far in between, but this IEM is picky. It's a shame that the opportunity that the tuning filters presented had largely been wasted - mods in this thread alone show that more could've been done with them.

Love their stage and all the air in it.

All in all, I don't know if I like them just a little or if I am indifferent. I appreciate the effort that went into these, I can see what they were trying to achieve. Full, extended sound via implementing different driver technologies on a budget, basically. The result is an IEM that is high maintenance and moody. I'll put the work in to try and make them happy, I am a patient man

 

[DJ Core]

Sound-wise this IEM is a hit and miss. Some songs suit it really well, everything comes through clear, very engaging. Loving the extension into bass and treble. In other, it sounds shrill, sibilant with boomy, uncontrolled bass rescued only by the fact that its quantity is restrained (they are not bass light, though). I am quite a flexible listener and enjoy various signatures, the amount of treble doesn't put me off or tire me, but I can see how some could suffer from it. Heed the warning, to quote what DJ Core said above: this treble is 'not for the faint of heart'.

The insane treble has settled down a lot. I was using the Red 40,000kHz filter but went back to the stock 40,000kHz filter that sounded harsh at first. This is with no mod to the filter. The more hours I put into this IEM the better it sounds. I also have silver cables to tame and the smooth treble + pairing with Sony ZX500 walkman helps as well.

It sounds very clear, detailed like nothing else I have. Bass is also the best vs the 5 or so IEMs I have. I use the stock ISN H40 tips as mentioned before. Brings out the best of this IEM.

24Bit/44,1kHz FLAC Studio Masters especially Modern ones like James Blunt - Once upon a Mind (Time Suspend Edition) sound really amazing. Quality is DSD like. I guess Mastering is really where it is vs whether a file is FLAC, DSD, or MQA.

 

[finalstan]

The more hours I put into this IEM the better it sounds.

I will soldier on

 

[RikudouGoku]

I will soldier on

Which filter do you use? Have you tried the pink?

 

[finalstan]

Which filter do you use? Have you tried the pink?

Listening on pink ones right now. I am rotating the filters because even at home after 10-15 minutes they start going quiet so I am taking the opportunity to try others. This family of filters is definitely the best (purple-pink-red). They're not that far apart from each other.

 

[RikudouGoku]

Listening on pink ones right now. I am rotating the filters because even at home after 10-15 minutes they start going quiet so I am taking the opportunity to try others. This family of filters is definitely the best (purple-pink-red). They're not that far apart from each other.

Sorry that you got the moisture issue.....

Not sure if the issue is present on just some units or if it is on every unit and that my environment isnt moist enough to trigger it....