[miserybeforethemusic]

that inappropriately tuned Bosendorfer part!
I personally loved Chopin Nocturne with that Bosendorfer, and Steinway/Yamaha for the Saints go march.

Grew up with a Blüthner baby grand in one of our family freinds' houses, so I caught the reference and couldn't resist. Smart way to make a comparison for sure.

Oh and I've got a set of iBasso CF01 incoming along with some MMCX/2-pin adapters. Going to get to play around with making the KPE/B2 a semi-TWS pair soon.

 

[H T T]

For potential Aria buyer and current owner, if you missed, like I did:
Aria’s user guide states “LCP drivers perform poorly in terms of distortion and fidelity right out of box, it needs 100 hours of burn-in” and with burn-in instructions. So people, please do not just post out-of-the-box reflex impressions and leave Aria in the dust, it’s not how it supposed to sound.

it also comes with outer filter(hex iron one) and inner filter (acoustic filter) spares, so you can feel freely to try out removing hex outer filter mod.(note: only outer hex iron filter! The inner white mesh acoustic filter needs to stay, I removed that white mesh and it made sound out of balance, bass got ruined.)

Thanks! From this, your cheerleading, and @PhoenixSong communications I decided to keep my set. They are burning in right now.

The Aria may have cemented the “science” behind some IEMs’ burn in effect. But it is distortion that changes, not FR. That is why sine wave sweeps aren’t finding evidence for burn in in FR graphs.

 

[miserybeforethemusic]

Thanks! From this, your cheerleading, and @PhoenixSong communications I decided to keep my set. They are burning in right now.

The Aria may have cemented the “science” behind some IEMs’ burn in effect. But it is distortion that changes, not FR. That is why sine wave sweeps aren’t finding evidence for burn in in FR graphs.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it "settles" it, but we can see that this particular driver construction serves a potential benefit.

All dynamic drivers are not created equally and, even if they were, I don't know if this particular case would be enough to sway them from a very dogmatic position on the matter. They'll simply ask for the results from your measured analysis and settle for nothing less.

 

[Canabuc]

I ordered my Aria from Shenzen Audio via their Amazon store on 18 April and they were shipped 4px and delivered to me here in the UK yesterday - so less than 2 weeks China to UK. You were absolutely right about the door step delivery; they were left outside without the courier even ringing the bell! Just happened to find them when I went out, no idea how long they were there for...

You won't be surprised to hear that I love the Arias. I mostly fish in the sub-£30 budget chifi pool (with the exception of my ER4P from back in the day) but these are the best I've heard and are ridiculously high value for money.

Wait until you get some break in time as the high end really improved.

 

[Canabuc]

Yes...for Aria I ordered thru Shenzhen audio it was also 4px, some other dealers ship eith DHL even for sub$100 items so I had a hope Shenzhen follow the courtesy of good hearts’.

Good to hear you love Aria! Yes ER4 still have top-notch 4K resolution! It just discomfort and no-sound stage, limited instruments separation with high traffic that kept Etymotic a bit behind.

I’d suggest try remove the first outer iron filter (hex shaped) using a or (pin clip). It will derail the sound signature from harman curve to bright neutral, with a significant improvement in technicalities.
Now even with those kilo buck IEMs, I still prefer to listen Aria for the most of the day.

Why not just use the included tweezers that are designed to swap out the filters?

 

[miserybeforethemusic]

Why not just use the included tweezers that are designed to swap out the filters?

Plastic tweezers will get marred up hardcore when trying to handle metal like that. There's better tools for the job.

That reminds me: i need to replace my iFixIt kit. The ceramic tweezers in that kit are phenomenal for nozzle removal.

 

[H T T]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it "settles" it, but we can see that this particular driver construction serves a potential benefit.

All dynamic drivers are not created equally and, even if they were, I don't know if this particular case would be enough to sway them from a very dogmatic position on the matter. They'll simply ask for the results from your measured analysis and settle for nothing less.

I apologize for the inflammatory words about burn in.

 

[Canabuc]

Plastic tweezers will get marred up hardcore when trying to handle metal like that. There's better tools for the job.

That reminds me: i need to replace my iFixIt kit. The ceramic tweezers in that kit are phenomenal for nozzle removal.

This is the pair that came with the iem designed specifically for that purpose.

 

[430633]

This is the pair that came with the iem designed specifically for that purpose.

I found the provided tweezers too large and cumbersome/unwieldy. For me it was easier removing the hex filter by sticking a name badge pin slightly through one of its holes and lifting it out. Any fine needle will do, really

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Grew up with a Blüthner baby grand in one of our family freinds' houses, so I caught the reference and couldn't resist. Smart way to make a comparison for sure.

Oh and I've got a set of iBasso CF01 incoming along with some MMCX/2-pin adapters. Going to get to play around with making the KPE/B2 a semi-TWS pair soon.

Let us know how TWS works
For me I grew up with Yamaha’s piano, so maybe thats why generally I prefer the cleaner sound for Aria haha

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I found the provided tweezers too large and cumbersome/unwieldy. For me it was easier removing the hex filter by sticking a name badge pin slightly through one of its holes and lifting it out. Any fine needle will do, really

Yea I tried included tweezers, it only worked to placing not removing.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Thanks! From this, your cheerleading, and @PhoenixSong communications I decided to keep my set. They are burning in right now.

The Aria may have cemented the “science” behind some IEMs’ burn in effect. But it is distortion that changes, not FR. That is why sine wave sweeps aren’t finding evidence for burn in in FR graphs.

The after burn-in, the distortion of misrange still remains, it’s caused by the newly adopted hex filter, Moondrop had to shape the sound to harman, so they used that to handcuff, with a cost of already weak midrange to take further burden though... I wouldn’t use Aria with that filter on.

 

[430633]

I apologize for the inflammatory words about burn in.

Eh, I don't remember you saying such words though- you merely mentioned that you were disappointed with the Aria prior to any burn in and would be returning them right? It was more of a personal choice from my perspective anyway

I attached an old test by Tyll from the old Innerfidelity measuring the effects of burn in on a pair of AKG Q701 headphones. If you duplicate the tabs and magnify them identically on your pc, align the starting distortion and impulse measurements with that from the 100 hour mark. You will see that the fine hair/grass-like distortion spikes in the bass section would have disappeared, and the impulse response to be sharper. It's really minor changes though, the overall levels and frequency response remains the same.

Different drivers possess different burn in potential. The Q701 above is one of the more notorious ones, well known to have a definite change in sound after a _long_ burn in period (100+ to 200 hours). A pair of JVC HA-FX40 carbon nanotube diaphragm IEMs I tried in the past changed drastically with burn in (to my untrained ears then) at high volume levels for a significant amount of time; some other IEMs didn't change at all even until their drivers were blown/voice coils were melted through extreme burn in experiments I conducted (Fiio EX1 gen 2, Ostry KC09) Most changed a little after just a short burn in duration (<1 hour) and remained that way.

What I believe though, is that frequency response shouldn't be altered by burn in unless the drivers are inherently flawed/lacking integrity/structurally compromised. Although the impulse response can change with burn in, the new degree to which the drivers can flex (amplitude) should apply and remain constant no matter the rate of the driver propagation (frequency), which means that the frequency response measurement should ultimately remain the same. Something would have to be very out of control for the driver to experience uneven gains in flex amplitude when propagating at different frequencies

 

[miserybeforethemusic]

I apologize for the inflammatory words about burn in.

Oh I apologize if you thought i was trying to be defensive. Absolutely wasn't what I meant. I've just seen people come into these threads, see comments about burn-in being conclusively anything, and start to go off the rails. Just wanted to get ahead of any of that.

I, personally, didn't find your statement inflammatory at all. Congratulations on being able to enjoy them more!

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I apologize for the inflammatory words about burn in.

To be honest, I was disappointed too right out of the box too. I just couldn’t believe Moondrop will ever let that happen to any of their product from all those line ups, they got good pride.

Still I was listening KXXS yesterday, and for vocal song and piano songs I still prefer KXXS handling it. Other genres Aria is a very nice gem, we need to forgive the some notes in midrange to go off-harmonics though...that’s Aria’s limit it could get with other great capabilities such as “fast and clean” bass and treble responses as well as great dynamic range presentation capability.