Sea-Elf has completed 30 hours of burn-in.
▶︎I still see somewhat awkward mid-presentation
▶︎Then I noticed that was not Sea-Elf’s native habit, the awkward mid presentation was mainly attributed to its modulated cable!!
I rolled the cables to GS Audio GT12, KZ ZAS, ZEX, AST, DQ6S, DQ6, Moondrop B2/Variations, HEXA, HOLA, ZERO, and some other IEMs and confirmed Hakugei’s Sea-Elf cable does some very weird veiling effect to all of IEMs tested, very hard to explain but here are the cable native habit that I noted.
Sea-Elf cable:
▶︎recude gain level across all spectrum especially for mid range and treble region. As a result only frequency range that retain original gain level is left to mid-bass
▶︎upper mid tamer it can be used, however what makes this cable hard to apply is not only upper mid, it also tones down upper registers and sucking air out of most of IEMs. So I could think this cable would match with extremely upper-mid focused bass thin and ultimately bright tuned IEMs. Many KZ IEMs has upper-mid and bright tuning but sadly they already have very high bass floor, so this Hakugei cable won’t match.
Back to Sea-Elf:
After 30hour of initial run, the driver shall have enough flexibility to perform its potentia, for that I tried with same set up that I use for See Audio Bravery, as they both share some FR similarity.
Ear tips: TRI Clarion
Cable : PW Audio Legend II
Result: Sea Elf does follow what PWA Legend II and TRI Clarion are designed to do, Legend II levels down upper mid floor, Clarion opens up diffusion field and tame mid-bass. Sea-Elf is now closer to “Energetic qdc” tuning which I desired for
Facts: Even after 30 hours of Burn in, dual 10mm LCP drivers on Sea-Elf are not as technical as that of Truthear’s
LCP drivers, I’d day this LCP driver quality is what you may expect from Tripowin Lea, Tinhifi C2, those $20-class LCP IEMs(except HOLA). Good thing is Sea-Elf is double-stacked of those mid-grade LCP and the sound pressures with this dual LCPs singing in unison is actually musically entertainin.
When directly A-B test with Bravery on the same set up, although tuning are fairly close, somewhat mid-grade dual LCP and CIEM-like 4BA configured Bravery has a very different Timbre and technicalities.
As if you are seeing WWII aircraft and Latest Jet fighters. They both has unique taste and I like both, but technically I may say Sea-Elf belongs to C-grade overall, with B+ for bass, but C for rest of the spectrum.
Interesting thing of Sea-Elf is it has dual stacked wings, the dual LCP, and when playing full orchestral you get a sense of multi-BA like layers of instruments with somewhat rough textures, but those are not BA timbre, layers full of energy. And the detail articulation is a lot better than similar dual DD rendered DQ6 series.
For this tuning with given technicalities, I may find Sea-Elf shines in old-recordings, of which modern BA/EST are too revealing of poor recording qualities, Sea-Elf will make those analog records sound lively with layering full of energy.
Sea-Elf also has very good match with Nils Frahm piano tracks