Softears Volume please
I think MRS is getting it, so I'll try and give it a listen the next time I'm back home.
Precog's IEM Reviews & Impressions
- Thread starter Precogvision
- Start date
I think MRS is getting it, so I'll try and give it a listen the next time I'm back home.
o0genesis0o
Headphoneus Supremus
Had the same thoughts the other day.
Because these “audiophile” IEMs do not have that kind of marketing and presence like mainstream product, manufacturers might rely on reviews to spread the news. Thus they might tune their stuffs to please reviewers. And if we have a whole generation of reviewers who want similar harman-ish signature, wouldn’t the industry be skewed in that direction?
It's not really a whole generation of reviewers, just a handful who built up credibility over the years by not riding the numerous short-lived hype trains for gear that turned out to be mediocre or worse in hindsight. There's also the widespread proliferation of measurements that anyone can look at and use as a sanity check on people's (including reviewers') claims of something having clean bass or even treble or whatever.
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o0genesis0o
Headphoneus Supremus
Hi, my point was that many reviewers would learn from others that only a certain kind of sound signature is worthy of A, S or whatever rating. To satisfy those, essentially, would the industry tunes IEM similarly towards those few signatures by “taste maker”? I found that some of the most beautiful sounding IEMs I have heard are not quite harman (Andro 2020, U12t, E3000). Would they exist in the future when we have more target hitter kind of reviewers?
Graph: agree. I do use graph when writing reviews as well, just to keep myself honest. Sometimes I found IEMs that do not quite sound like their graphs though.
The Andromeda 2020 and U12t review better than most Harman or DF IEMs. A lot of the big reviewers personally dislike Harman IE midrange/low treble
Yes, I do not enjoy the Harman in-ear target very much. There are a number of nitpicks I have with it that mainly stem from 1) the slight recession at 200Hz, 2) too much 2-4kHz, 3) too much 5-6kHz, and 4) not enough post-10kHz presence (although I believe the lack of presence past 10kHz is more a product of accounting for listeners' HRTF having a high degree of variability in this region). The Diffuse Field target is subjectively even worse than the Harman target to me.
In any case, I believe both targets are far from ideal. There's a good reason why my "best" IEMs (eg. the U12t, IER-Z1R, Odin, and Annihilator) do not follow the targets very closely. Hell - nothing on my ranking list is really Harman tuned until you get to the Moondrop Variations and Moondrop S8. Why? First, I straight-up believe that the aforementioned, "non-conforming" IEMs sound better. But two, I get a fuzzy feeling inside when I hear something that's colored, yet intentionally colored and done tastefully at that. To me, it takes a lot more skill and artistic vision to pull off that type of tuning than hitting an established target with some slight modifications.
I agree that the market has been seeing trends toward a Harman-oriented sound. I don't think that's a bad thing at all. The Harman IEM target, like it or not, is a good baseline for manufacturers to shoot for; it's certainly better than the sea of mediocre tunings in the IEM market. But Harman target hitting also only gets you so far in my book.
o0genesis0o
Headphoneus Supremus
Agree with this. I also prefer something unorthodox nowadays.
A/B testing my collection against U6t and U12t at a local hifi store recently ruined my collection for me. Now I only want that warm yet resolving sound. Should have gone for that the first time like you did. Ironically, after months of hunting for “transparent” and “analytical” sound, I ended up daily driving Final E3000. It reminds me of the 64 audio somehow.
Btw, keep up the good work. Your reviews were inspirations when I started writing my own. Looking forward for more.
Hey precog, what is the slam stack you mentioned at canjam? "Dc2 bha1" I think bha 1 is bryston I don't know what dc2 is
Dangerous Music Convert-2
TooPoorForHiFi
Previously known as MidNighTempest
SeeAudio x Crinacle Yume Midnight Impressions
Configuration: 1DD/2BA
Price: $200 USD
Right, the Crinacle collaboration IEMs are here, so we might as well start with the one I'm most interested in: the SeeAudio Yume Midnight. Its frequency response has been sitting on the IEF graph tool for the last couple months with me basically salivating to get my ears on it. Let's start the gushing.
...well, at least that's what I'd like to say. But I don't know if I'm sold on the Midnight. For starters, the bass on the Midnight doesn't appeal to me very much. It has a substantial sub-bass shelf (~12db over 1kHz!) on paper, yet practice - what I hear - disagrees. Be it a product of the curvature of the bass shelf or the dynamic driver being employed, I would not classify the Midnight as a particularly bassy IEM. Akin to the KZ CRN, bass is really just...there, lending a "foundation" (in nice reviewer lingo) more than anything to the rest of the sound. In any case, you can tell the driver hasn't changed from the OG Yume because the Midnight seems to slam no harder - which is to say it doesn't really slam at all. Now, my OG Yume is at home, so I couldn't A/B for these impressions, but I'll have it by the time the full review rolls around.
Thankfully, I really like the IEF target's midrange, so it should come as no surprise that I look favorably upon the Midnight's midrange tuning. It's a hair warmer than the OG Yume from memory, but that's not a bad thing. The pinna compensation and upper-midrange are just about perfect too. Where I'll draw the line with my praise, however, is timbre. The BA driver that SeeAudio is using for the midrange is a Knowles. While I'd need to do an A/B comparison, it almost reminds me of the Etymotic ER4XR: the Midnight's midrange is sort of plasticky and smothered over in trailing decay, and not in a pleasant way like Sonion's BAs at that.
Treble on the Midnight struck me as odd on first listen, and it required some closer listening to understand why. When percussive hits connect, the initial sense of crack that should be there sounds undefined, almost missing. This phenomenon is not unlike my 64A A4S which has a 3-4dB recession at around 5-6kHz. This results in a similar sort of airy, feathery response on the Midnight where it sounds like high-frequency stuff flits in and out. As a matter of distinction between the IEMs (aside from the Midnight having noticeably more mid-treble), however, it feels like there is an artificial strain to the Midnight's treble transients that falls somewhere between brittle in timbre and flat for micro-contrast. Of course, I wouldn't consider this a big deal in the grand scheme of things given that the Midnight has really impressive treble extension for $200.
Okay - technicalities - the part everyone's itching to know about. Why? Because the OG Yume had a serious lack of note definition and basically sounded like a $50 IEM in terms of technicalities despite its class-leading tonality. By comparison, I can confirm Midnight's note attack is noticeably less blunted on first listen; however, it's still not quite pulling weight in terms of other intangible metrics either. As I alluded to above, transients on the Midnight come across fairly compressed, thus neutering perceived detail retrieval. Large gradations in volume, too, sound sputtered and don't really scale all that nicely. I won't talk about imaging other than to comment that the Midnight's staging is probably a tad larger than the OG Yume's. All told, I think you'd be looking at "B-/B" level technicalities if the OG Yume was a "C+". The Midnight's a decent technical performer but not necessarily impressive for $200, especially relative to technical frontrunners like the 7Hz Timeless or the Shuoer S12.
It's strange; generally, I find myself somewhat indifferent about the Midnight. The Midnight is a textbook example - for better or worse - of why I've become increasingly convinced that frequency response is not the final authority on what we hear. The Midnight sports beautiful extension on both ends of the spectrum and an ideal frequency response, yet it does not sound hi-fidelity to me. Of course, I'm a perpetual critic and my sentiments on the Midnight could also be attributed to the very high bar that the Moondrop B2 Dusk set for these collaborations. The Midnight is, at the very least, certainly competitive and offers a compelling package on paper for listeners indexing for balanced tuning and impressive treble extension.
Score: 5/10
All critical listening was done off of the iBasso DX300 and my iPhone 13 Mini.
Impressions on the FHE Eclipse tomorrow if I have time.
I'm not vibing w/ the MidNight's Bass for some reason, Hows the Hana 2021 in comparison to the Midnight in all? I'm considering the Hana 2021 but the aesthetic is turning me off.
I really like my E3000 as well! I only initially bought it for the tips! A pleasant surprise!
o0genesis0o
Headphoneus Supremus
That’s a high praise from someone with a MEST II in their collection!
I also bought the E3000 only for the eartips at first. Now I am tempted by the TWS version of E3000 (ZE3000 or something?).
I prefer the Hana 2021 from memory, but I have not A/B-d them directly. I feel like they are two IEMs with very different priorities. Hana 2021 sounds more natural and musical, whereas Midnight seems to be indexing very strongly for hitting treble air and, as a result, sacrifices that sense of musicality. If you're not keen on the Hana 2021's aesthetic, perhaps you could consider the HBB Olina. I read somewhere it's supposed to be using the same driver as the Oxygen/Hana 2021. I should have one on the way for review soon.
For anyone interested, I got around to A/B-ing the Midnight and the OG Yume today. My comparisons from memory hold. They sound about identical in terms of detail retrieval and slam; the Midnight's imaging chops are slightly better in terms of separation. Treble actually sounds more natural to me on the OG Yume. It carries more weight and doesn't sound artificially strained even if it doesn't have as much extension. While the Midnight is probably better on paper, I honestly don't really find myself reaching for one over the other. There are clearly some limitations to this type of low driver count, hybrid IEM despite the appeal of the idea.
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Look forward to your Olina versus Oxygen impressions!
The Tripowin Olina is on a massive hype-train on Facebook and social media, purportedly it graphs similarly and uses the same driver as the Oxygen (I think this driver part was claimed by BGGAR). Well the same driver claim needs to be verified independently, as a lot of CHIFI are claiming beryllium drivers or the latest hyped materials, but on the shell being taken apart, some were noted to have fake claims: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bgv...d-new-ba-series.894331/page-327#post-15987274
Okay, even if the drivers and graphs are similar, between the Oxygen and the Olina, the shells are totally different. The shell size, nozzle sizing, shell material, dampers etc all affect resonances and will affect the sound. The Oxygen has a very short nozzle for instance, which supposedly has a part in the sound (the guy who tuned the Oxygen also tuned the BLON BL-03 which has a short nozzle).
Even if 2 graphs look the same, graphs don't tell the full story. There are some components such as timbral accuracy, imaging, dynamics, micro-details, instrument separation that cannot be gleaned from a standard FR graph.
Case in point: KZ ZSN Pro X and the TOTL Final Audio A8000 graph similarly but sound miles apart.
I realize some of the folks posting reviews of the Olina on social media haven't even heard the Oxygen before, so I'm taking this one with a huge pinch of salt. Look forward to your review once you get the Olina!
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