Singularity initial listening notes & review
this portion is done on fiio k7 with semi clear tips included with singularity
The singularity is a fun and interesting departure from the neutral to a given target chasing trend that has almost consumed the iem space in the past couple of years, and its done extremely well. As to be expected from the graph, there is an insane amount of bass, and it is quite dominant above all else, although not quite to the extent that is shown on the graph. It sounds well controlled on tracks that are bass focused. This altough does start to fall apart in tracks that do have sub bass prescensse but arent quite meant to be bass focused like the first minute of Besides April by BADBADNOTGOOD. The violins and guitar almost sound like they are being held hostage by the subbass. The single dd also strugles and distorts a bit on some tracks that have mutlipe basses going at once, like in Move by dreamer Isioma. The kick drums distort quite noticably when the droning bassline goes on in the background, starting at 0:20. Although this isnt true for most songs, and it handles multiple basslines quite well most of the time given the amount of bass. Where this set shines the most is with rnb, indie and rap with women. Tracks like ayayai by Daniela Andrade,Femme du crepuiscule by Lablue and Boggie by Tia corine sound better on this than they ever have to me. Extremely involving, entrancing and lively. Lower mids, especially deep male vocals, can come off muddy at times depending on the track, but not to the extent of detracting from the rest of the track when not focusing on it most of the time. This is exemplified by Bistro by madvillian, where MFs voice isn't quite muddy but overly husky to my tastes compared to other sets like my ie600 and timeless. The central and upper mids are near perfectly done, with the only caveat being that central mids are slightly scooped out compared to upper and lower mids although no where near hollow sounding. vocals besides very deep male vocals come off as very natural and effortless if ever so slightly veiled, and while the timbre isnt quite as natural sounding as my hd6xx, it actually comes very close, and closer than the rest of my collection. This is genuinely be a phenomenal set for orchestral and jazz when paired with a -8db 0.2 Q filter at 25 hz. This change in bass doesnt seem to impact punch or texture much, with the bass sounding much faster compared to stock tuning. The treble definition is quite good but nothing outstanding. The upper treble seems to be a bit bumpy when doing a sine sweep, with my unit having a minor elevation at 11500-13k hz but is otherwise quite smooth up until the treble starts to roll off quite aggressively at 15500hz, with 17khz being about the limit of relevancy relative to volume of the rest of the fr (i can hear into 19.5k currently), although this wont really impact music much at all. In practice, the bumpy treble and roll off are not noticed much at all barring some electronic music, where synths could come off as slightly unnatural and chopped off but most other instruments didnt suffer much from this. It isnt as detailed as my ie600, even when the ie600 is eqed to delta 4 (my preferred tuning for that set) and treble is smoothed out. All in all, I believe this to be THE gold standards for hip hop, pop, rnb, and indie tuning and should be what single dd units aim for. Will be doing some source switching, tip rolling and a more indepth comparison to ie600, kato and timeless tomorrow
