TheMarchingMule
Headphoneus Supremus
Hey guys, I havn't done something like this in awhile, if ever, but I felt like I need to do this comparison, not for kicks and giggles, but mainly because I've been so frustrated with my apparent bad luck with being able to settle down with any kind of IEM, probably because of my pickiness to both fun and detail. So first and foremost I will state that your mileage may (and I guarantee will) vary from mine, so please do keep that in mind as you continue reading.
I have been involved with instruments since I was four years old or so, from piano to clarinet to finally (tenor) saxaphone, and I listen to drums and flutes and pretty much every major insturment you can think of almost daily. So I do have particularly experienced ears with how things should sound. I just wanted to state that ahead of time because I feel that this is a major qualification when critically reviewing anything audio-related.
(Also please disregard any spelling errors; this school computer only uses Internet Explorer, so no built-in spellcheck like Firefox has)
The UE super.fi 5 Pro was my first IEM, and I'm sure many of you have read my dissapointment with it. In a nutshell, the bass was bloated and undefined, the mids were so recessed to a point where the vocals and the great majority of instruments sounded as if they were playing behind a stage curtain and were de-tuned.
My second IEM was the ER4P/S. Yes, it was sharp as everybody says it is, but it lacked something vital: to me, that was a breath of life. It sounded just like the recording, not like something real. I wanted to take a break from all of this IEM stuff, so I sold it.
A few months later, long story short, I bought the Sleek Audio SA6 from SoundEarphones.com. It was halfway on a whim, and with the coupon that let me get $25 off of the retail price, I figured I didn't have much to lose.
After trying out all of the combinations of ports, tips, and plugs, I am ready to state what I truly feel about the SA6, and how I think it compares sonically to the Koss KSC75; nothing more, nothing less; just how the two compare in their presentation of music.
By the way, the KSC75 model I am using is modded in the sense that I manually drilled strategically-placed holes through its plastic cover; the black grill that is between the foam ear pad and the driver. The mod is called the "Kramer" mod, dicovered by Head-Fi member kramer5150, and I know the thread is still around somewhere if you are interested in doing it yourself.
I wrote all this during English class with the needed equipment, so do understand that instead of doing the whole "Treble, Bass, Mids" thing, I have written things as they came to my mind, and after I locked onto it for awhile, I wrote down what I heard and felt.
So without further ado, I'm going to break from storytime and go into review mode.
===
Source: Sansa Clip
Music file quality: LAME VBR V2
Music: Nirvana - Nevermind [MFSL UDCD 666]
Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run [DCC GZS-1030]
Alison Krauss - Stay
Nevermind [KSC75]: Smells Like Teen Spirit -
Immediate first impressions (and still lingered around the whole time) was that the SA6 is too polite with the sound to the point where to me it feels less involving than if I still had my old Sennheiser HD 580 around. When I found the right tips for me (small tips), vocals jumped from muffled and distant (medium tips) to up front and there, but not clear; it sounded unnatural, as if there was a thin piece of cloth or two over the microphone. Some may call this "warm." but I would called this "veiled."
Guitars are wailing away as normal, but again for some reason it never sounds alive, breathing, whatever you want to call it. Even with the Treble ++ tips, it's boring to my ears. Some said the ++ tips are too harsh for them, but to me they didn't even sound as harsh as Sennheisers.
Perhaps the biggest pet peeve I have is when the percussion sounds dead in the water: where the snares start resembling tom toms in their hollow "thump thump" nature. Even the cymbals when they crashed, sizzled, and smashed, sounded unfillfed; it was a strange feeling: I knew it was there, I have heard the music make my head go crazy (in a good way), but right now I just couldn't feel it.
[Band on the Run showed the same observations, and with Alison Krauss, the acoustic guitars were so tangible with their sound, but it was like an invisible thin glass wall was between it and my ears; I could hear it oh so well, and I could see it, but I couldn't hear that needed perk of it, and I couldn't reach out and "touch" the intimate sound. Also, Ms. Krauss' voice sounded muffled and mixed in with the instruments, weaving in and out of them; first time I heard it that way, and it just didn't feel natural to me.]
===
As I close this review, I am sure all who read this will be wanting to vry out, "He's basically bashing the SA6, pointing out only the flaw!' And I honestly do not blame those who wish to do so, because I will admit what spurred me on to write this review was my great dissapointment as soon as I chose the first song to play through these (Nevermind, Nirvana). To me, the SA6 just doesn't work out for my ears, and until now I have never heard an IEM (or any 'phone for this matter) that I can say replicates the sound in such an uninvolving way. It is not a fatiguing effect on either side of the sound spectrum (i.e too much bass, or too much treble), but rather a ho-hum thought and feeling to me as I sat there trying to get into the music.
I used to own the ER4P/S for a few months, and used them exclusively, and if my final word on it was that its sound was as sterile as a hospital examination room, then I would say the SA6 is the hospital waiting room. I am referring to the feeling when you are in either one (and presumably not there to re-attach a limb or get a shot, just to be there for a normal check-up), and at least in the examination room you can have a thrill touching and examining all the strange contraptions in the room when the staff isn't looking, but in the waiting room, you know you really can do nothing but sit and wait for your turn, and I know I would always be waiting for my turn when I listen to music through the SA6.
I have been involved with instruments since I was four years old or so, from piano to clarinet to finally (tenor) saxaphone, and I listen to drums and flutes and pretty much every major insturment you can think of almost daily. So I do have particularly experienced ears with how things should sound. I just wanted to state that ahead of time because I feel that this is a major qualification when critically reviewing anything audio-related.
(Also please disregard any spelling errors; this school computer only uses Internet Explorer, so no built-in spellcheck like Firefox has)
The UE super.fi 5 Pro was my first IEM, and I'm sure many of you have read my dissapointment with it. In a nutshell, the bass was bloated and undefined, the mids were so recessed to a point where the vocals and the great majority of instruments sounded as if they were playing behind a stage curtain and were de-tuned.
My second IEM was the ER4P/S. Yes, it was sharp as everybody says it is, but it lacked something vital: to me, that was a breath of life. It sounded just like the recording, not like something real. I wanted to take a break from all of this IEM stuff, so I sold it.
A few months later, long story short, I bought the Sleek Audio SA6 from SoundEarphones.com. It was halfway on a whim, and with the coupon that let me get $25 off of the retail price, I figured I didn't have much to lose.
After trying out all of the combinations of ports, tips, and plugs, I am ready to state what I truly feel about the SA6, and how I think it compares sonically to the Koss KSC75; nothing more, nothing less; just how the two compare in their presentation of music.
By the way, the KSC75 model I am using is modded in the sense that I manually drilled strategically-placed holes through its plastic cover; the black grill that is between the foam ear pad and the driver. The mod is called the "Kramer" mod, dicovered by Head-Fi member kramer5150, and I know the thread is still around somewhere if you are interested in doing it yourself.
I wrote all this during English class with the needed equipment, so do understand that instead of doing the whole "Treble, Bass, Mids" thing, I have written things as they came to my mind, and after I locked onto it for awhile, I wrote down what I heard and felt.
So without further ado, I'm going to break from storytime and go into review mode.
===
Source: Sansa Clip
Music file quality: LAME VBR V2
Music: Nirvana - Nevermind [MFSL UDCD 666]
Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run [DCC GZS-1030]
Alison Krauss - Stay
Nevermind [KSC75]: Smells Like Teen Spirit -
- Not overly bright
- Plenty of well-rounded (but definately not defined) bass
- Vocals center and simply "there;" neither too forward or recessed
- Guitars have energy to them; raw and crunching
- Drums have reliable and believable; a bit mellow on the hits though
- Cymblas have noticeable warbling and wavering, sounds like artifacting, but even with the original CD it is like that, so I'll blame it on the original mastering
- When multiple tom toms are involved, bass does become quite thunderous, and the defintions of it slips down a notch or two, but it's nothing so drastic as to make your face look like it just had a lemon
Immediate first impressions (and still lingered around the whole time) was that the SA6 is too polite with the sound to the point where to me it feels less involving than if I still had my old Sennheiser HD 580 around. When I found the right tips for me (small tips), vocals jumped from muffled and distant (medium tips) to up front and there, but not clear; it sounded unnatural, as if there was a thin piece of cloth or two over the microphone. Some may call this "warm." but I would called this "veiled."
Guitars are wailing away as normal, but again for some reason it never sounds alive, breathing, whatever you want to call it. Even with the Treble ++ tips, it's boring to my ears. Some said the ++ tips are too harsh for them, but to me they didn't even sound as harsh as Sennheisers.
Perhaps the biggest pet peeve I have is when the percussion sounds dead in the water: where the snares start resembling tom toms in their hollow "thump thump" nature. Even the cymbals when they crashed, sizzled, and smashed, sounded unfillfed; it was a strange feeling: I knew it was there, I have heard the music make my head go crazy (in a good way), but right now I just couldn't feel it.
[Band on the Run showed the same observations, and with Alison Krauss, the acoustic guitars were so tangible with their sound, but it was like an invisible thin glass wall was between it and my ears; I could hear it oh so well, and I could see it, but I couldn't hear that needed perk of it, and I couldn't reach out and "touch" the intimate sound. Also, Ms. Krauss' voice sounded muffled and mixed in with the instruments, weaving in and out of them; first time I heard it that way, and it just didn't feel natural to me.]
===
As I close this review, I am sure all who read this will be wanting to vry out, "He's basically bashing the SA6, pointing out only the flaw!' And I honestly do not blame those who wish to do so, because I will admit what spurred me on to write this review was my great dissapointment as soon as I chose the first song to play through these (Nevermind, Nirvana). To me, the SA6 just doesn't work out for my ears, and until now I have never heard an IEM (or any 'phone for this matter) that I can say replicates the sound in such an uninvolving way. It is not a fatiguing effect on either side of the sound spectrum (i.e too much bass, or too much treble), but rather a ho-hum thought and feeling to me as I sat there trying to get into the music.
I used to own the ER4P/S for a few months, and used them exclusively, and if my final word on it was that its sound was as sterile as a hospital examination room, then I would say the SA6 is the hospital waiting room. I am referring to the feeling when you are in either one (and presumably not there to re-attach a limb or get a shot, just to be there for a normal check-up), and at least in the examination room you can have a thrill touching and examining all the strange contraptions in the room when the staff isn't looking, but in the waiting room, you know you really can do nothing but sit and wait for your turn, and I know I would always be waiting for my turn when I listen to music through the SA6.
