[twiceboss]

I admit I haven't put in too much effort for desktop speakers. It will require me to arrange my cluttered room in a way I will have to face the sun and disturb my family members XD. So far I've installed acoustic foam and got a d30pro dac. I might consider a more subjectively well-known favourite dac to see if there might be any improvement, but maybe room is the limiting factor. With iems i don't have to worry about so many things lol

Topping. Yeah.. the least fav I would say for speakers as it doesn't have depth. Everything sounds upfront, center imaging is blur, left and right is not pinpointing as something like some other top end source, i have heard from holo and x sabre, both just sound so much different than how topping delivers music. I have topping d70s myself for headphones, yeah nothing much other than good resolution and tonality (no ringing/glare), probably good r2r mimicking dac I've heard but depth, imaging, staging wise? It is mediocore at best.

 

[eloelo]

Topping. Yeah.. the least fav I would say for speakers as it doesn't have depth. Everything sounds upfront, center imaging is blur, left and right is not pinpointing as something like some other top end source, i have heard from holo and x sabre, both just sound so much different than how topping delivers music. I have topping d70s myself for headphones, yeah nothing much other than good resolution and tonality (no ringing/glare), probably good r2r mimicking dac I've heard but depth, imaging, staging wise? It is mediocore at best.

Any recc for speaker dac if my budget is $1000? XD. Tbh I had thought my active speaker amp would dictate the sound signature. But perhaps dac has a big impact as well, but not sure how I can go about demoing dacs for my speakers.

 

[twiceboss]

Any recc for speaker dac if my budget is $1000? XD. Tbh I had thought my active speaker amp would dictate the sound signature. But perhaps dac has a big impact as well, but not sure how I can go about demoing dacs for my speakers.

I dont have much experience with a lot of gears myself, i have demoed a lot but I dont own as many as I owned headphones and iems.

Though for dacs, i think for budget schitt multibit, modi multibit is the way to go for the depth alone as topping, smsl dacs are just upfront. Very 2D like. For speakers, br03 is a good speaker to start with. Get smsl da9 for the integrated amp (with SDB mode, it makes class D sounds almost like class A amp). It has balanced input, u can upgrade in the future (dac wise, as that has a lot more to go).

I think, modi multibit $250, smsl da9/ao200 $250 ish, triangle br03 $500 ~~~ 1k usd setup.

 

[riverground]

Nothing fancy. Currently with Matrix Audio X Sabre - SMSL DA9 - Triangle Br03.

The depth I get from X Sabre itself changed everything. The source does give significant difference in speakers. Not much for iems.

That is quite a serious DAC! Are you planning on upgrading your AMP and Speakers sometime soon?

I wanna invest more into my system as well, but my IEMs are keeping me busy

 

[twiceboss]

That is quite a serious DAC! Are you planning on upgrading your AMP and Speakers sometime soon?

I wanna invest more into my system as well, but my IEMs are keeping me busy

Haha no plan to upgrade system rather than treating the living room. I pair them with my TV so it's a bit of work to make them sing in the living room. Still playing with treatment and placement still haha.

Iems are okay. Though, things are very underwhelming. Price goes to mountain, yet performance is not something that can impress me. It's very rare for me to find an iem that can really surprise me. Probably less than five ..

 

[toaster]

Some musings on why I'm an IEM guy

I was chatting with @aaf evo the other day and he mentioned how he sold his HiFiMAN Susvara in under a week and how he was an IEM guy at heart. Despite the somewhat tacit hierarchy between IEMs and headphones, I didn't blink an eye when he told me this. Getting to hear all the big dolla headphones at CanJam reinforced something I've known for some time now: I prefer IEMs to headphones too! As a quick disclaimer, yes, I absolutely recognize that headphones sound "better". They are undoubtedly more technical to my ears for traditional metrics of resolution and imaging. Still, I encourage you to hear me out.

The main reasons why one considers an IEM over a headphone are for portability, convenience, and isolation. In terms of isolation, let's establish that closed-back headphones are out of the question here. As Crinacle would say, "the best closed-back headphone is an IEM" because closed-back headphones almost universally sound like garbage. Most diehard audiophiles won't have isolation with headphones; that in mind, let's address portability and convenience. You can't listen to open-back headphones on the bus or while grocery shopping (or yes, feel free to look like a total nerd). A dedicated headphone setup merits use of a desktop AMP/DAC which effectively grounds you to at-home use. More specifically "at home, in a specific room, stuck in a specific chair at a specific desk" use. For someone like myself who's constantly biking around campus to classes and mostly listens in bed, that's far from ideal. And to go back to AMP/DACs, cost is 100% another consideration. If you want to get maximum performance out of your headphone, you'll be shelling out for source components that might cost just as much (or more) as the headphones themselves! Remember - I'm a broke college student here.

Outside the context of practicality, let me key you in on some less obvious reasons why I prefer IEMs. First, I find that one of the major distinctions between headphones and IEMs is tonality. Headphones are notoriously difficult to tune, and there are only a small handful of headphones that I have heard that I would consider to have remotely good tonal balance. Even within the scope of the headphones I'd consider to have good tonal balance, they all follow a similar frequency response (think along the lines of the Susvara or HE-1). It's not hard to see why that might get boring. But not so with IEMs. In particular, BA IEMs are easily tuned (at least by comparison to their headphone counterparts), thus catering catering to a variety of different tastes - tastes done well at that. There's good V-shaped, U-shaped, L-shaped, reverse-L shaped - the list goes on - tuned IEMs.

Further along the lines of sound, there's something of a funny dichotomy that headphones suffer from in terms of imaging. They can have great separation, localization, and by extension, layering, that no IEM could ever dream of, but I have not heard a single headphone that has impactful center imaging. Center imaging, or phantom center, is the phenomenon with which one perceives an illusory, "third" speaker coming from the center of the stage with a 2-channel speaker system. Within the context of headphones and IEMs, this is what I qualify as soundstage depth. No headphone I have heard has soundstage depth; positionally, vocals come from inside the head and stay inside the head. However, there are rare IEMs that, when I close my eyes, make it feel like vocalists and instruments on center stage are out-of-head if only by a couple inches. Avid readers and acquaintances are probably guffawing reading this, as I've memed center imaging to death in my writing and various conversations, but it's true! At least for me.

The final reason why I gravitate toward IEMs is because they're fun. As I alluded to earlier, there's just so much variety with IEMs. Every week, every month, you have new IEMs coming out. Sure, there's a ton of turds, but there's always something to look forward to. To be fair, this can definitely be a good or bad thing depending on whether you're trying to quit this scam of a hobby! From a more sentimental aspect, there's also something really satisfying about plugging such a tiny thing into your ear and having music grandly explode to life around you; that juxtaposition is something that I just don't get with headphones.

Anyways, I think that's enough thinking out-loud. At the end of the day, I'm comparing apples and oranges; I don't begrudge anyone who prefers headphones to IEMs. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there's still definitely a natural pecking order between transducers when it comes to sound quality. But I'm not ashamed to admit that I like IEMs more than I do headphones, and here's to being forever "lo-fi" as some friends might affectionally deem IEMs.

Wow, really nice post and writing.

Not sure about the "pecking" order between iems and headphones, particularly with some of the most recent miniature offerings...luckily if we hear something that sounds good (be it iems, headphones, or speakers,) each of us is free to purchase it all (no pecking required.) I haven't heard a pair of headphones that I think sounds better (let alone that I enjoy more,) than the best iems I've heard, and that includes the original orpheus.

I share your preference for iems, and am also particularly keen on the "grand explosion" and "juxtaposition" between size and sound that iems present.

Thanks again for the nice Saturday morning read.

 

[Precogvision]

Some nice thoughts here, but the fundamental premise is needing to have a preference for one over the other. I think we can agree that HPs and IEMs each have strengths that the other does not have. So why limit yourself to one of the two?

Elements I disagree with somewhat are the isolation (closed backs work ok for me in that respect, I can listen to music in the living room while the family is watching TV with the volume cranked up..) and tonality. A Sony MDR-Z1R sounds very different from a Stellia, and again different from a VC. And that is just within the realm of closed backs.

But as I said, my main disagreement here is the premise. No need to choose if you like (and can afford) both!

Haha yea, there's absolutely nothing wrong with owning or liking both! This was more to answer the question I constantly get of "You really prefer IEMs to headphones?" and to break down some of the major distinctions (as I see them) between the transducers.

 

[Deolum]

Why not being a headphone and IEM guy.

I have both and owned almost all of the triple S headphones and IEMs exluding for HE-1, HE-90, Shangri-La etc but i'm always close before selling my whole headphone rig because i don't see the advantage they have over IEMs. Headphones and IEMs are around even in what they deliver for me but the portability and lesser requirements of a setup make IEMs just way more worth it. Closed backs suck anyway but i can't even see an advantage in the best open backs like Utopia or Susvara over the best IEMs like U12t or (for me) Softears RSV.

The only real reason a headphone setup is really worth it are electrostats imo because there is no way you get that sound portable (except for the KSE1200 but that one has hard tuning problems) and they have the extra technicalities that you won't get with IEMs, reasonably sized speaker systems or a Utopia or Susvara. I also really like my Empyrean for watching movies (maybe even more than with speakers).

 

[frix]

besides sound quality. On some days I really don't feel like sticking stuff in my ears.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Some nice thoughts here, but the fundamental premise is needing to have a preference for one over the other. I think we can agree that HPs and IEMs each have strengths that the other does not have. So why limit yourself to one of the two?

Elements I disagree with somewhat are the isolation (closed backs work ok for me in that respect, I can listen to music in the living room while the family is watching TV with the volume cranked up..) and tonality. A Sony MDR-Z1R sounds very different from a Stellia, and again different from a VC. And that is just within the realm of closed backs.

But as I said, my main disagreement here is the premise. No need to choose if you like (and can afford) both!

I am with you. I like and use both every day. Just picked up an m scaler to go with my TT2. It improves the bass response of my HE1000v2 to be more like the HE1000SE. I prefer the overall tuning of the v2 and only missed the bass of the SE, so it works for me. I am not so sure it is worth the price though.

 

[MatW]

I am with you. I like and use both every day. Just picked up an m scaler to go with my TT2. It improves the bass response of my HE1000v2 to be more like the HE1000SE. I prefer the overall tuning of the v2 and only missed the bass of the SE, so it works for me. I am not so sure it is worth the price though.

Agreed, the impact of the M Scaler is very subtle, in my experience. I bought my chain as a complete set, including expensive BNC cables, and never really looked back. I'm not sure if I would have acquired the M Scaler otherwise. But I'm happy with the chain as it is, so it stays.

 

[ImMcLovin]

I also prefer using IEMs to headphones primarily due to comfort, portability, and engagement to their sound. I've been to a few audio shows including CanJam SoCal, I've listened to majority of the $1000+ USD headphones out there, and I have also personally went through many high end headphones like the Focal Clear, ZMF Auteur, Hifiman Arya Stealth, LCD2 Classic and many more. I very rarely ever heard a headphone where I was like wow I really want to own this. I don't know why. Some headphones sounds really good, some I know this sounds technically better. Even listening to something like the LCD-5 I know is better than many headphones I've heard. But I don't really get the oh my...wow kind of moment. That emotional engagement isn't as strong. Plus it feels like 90% of high end headphones are heavy.

But IEMs though. First time I heard the Andromeda 3 years ago, I was like oh wow. Friend who went to that audio show said no way he'd spend $1000+ on audio, bought the Andromeda S the next day after hearing most of the stuff at the audio show. Now I've heard many great IEMs that each have their own flavor and level of engagement like the IER-Z1R, Legend X, IE900, U12t, N8 demo unit, EVO, Elysium, Monarch, and the list goes on. And I can play them out of my phone if I want to...except maybe IER-Z1R. Certain songs or artists, they hit that right note in an IEM and it's kind of magical in a way. You just get to close your eyes and smile or bop my head back and forth, it's a nice feeling.

 

[Precogvision]

Hey all, I know I haven't been very active here, which is mainly a combination of being bombarded with school work and not really having access to as much stuff as I did before. Anyways, I'm visiting home this weekend so I swung by MRS to catch up on some of the newer stuff that's come out this last month. I have units on the way for most of these IEMs, just on the slow boat as usual so I figured I'd get down my thoughts so y'all don't have to wait haha.

7Hz Timeless: I saw this a while ago and, probably like most people, I didn't really care about it until Crin gave it a cursory ranking of 5/5 in his unboxing video. The general tonality of the Timeless is neutral with bass boost; however, I can't say I'm particularly enamored by the tonality here. Yes, the Timeless is better in the tonal department than any planar I've heard to date, but that doesn't mean it's good tonality either. Noteweight on the Timeless generally skews toward the thinner side, almost like there's too much upper-midrange, and there's a similar phenomenon going on in the treble where the Timeless exhibits a strong peak at 7.5kHz. It's fatiguing to hear despite the perceived detail it lends, and the general timbre of the Timeless is overly dry in tandem with its characteristically planar transients. By this, I mean that notes generally decay a millisecond faster than they should; there's not sufficient "bloom" to notes. This is probably just a limitation of the driver type; however, timbre-heads really need to look elsewhere. I like the bass on this IEM, though, and it hits hard with remarkable control despite decaying a little quicker than I'd like.

Still, the Timeless' biggest strength would lie in its technical performance. It definitely sounds like a planar should in a good way. Notes are crisp - hell, more crisp than they have any right to be for $220 - and dynamics on the front of macro-contrast are strong. Imaging is really only the department with which the Timeless lacks. While localization is slightly above average, the general staging and ambiance of the Timeless sit somewhere within the realm of average. It stands that layering suffers as a result. So what are my concluding thoughts after demoing this IEM for about an hour? First, I definitely think it has a place in the $200 bracket, as it is probably the most technical IEM I've heard for the price. Second, props to 7Hz for making the world's first competent planar IEM. But third, I also don't find myself completely sold on it, and there's a nagging feeling that it's a tad unrefined.

Moondrop Kato: Moondrop's proclaimed successor to the Moondrop KXXS. I haven't shilled that IEM in a while, but I hope it's no secret that the Moondrop KXXS is one of my favorite single DDs (my first real IEM at that) so I had high expectations for the Kato. Let's see. It's definitely a slight technical improvement all-round while maintaining the general tonality of the KXXS. Slightly better resolution, bass slam, imaging, etc. The Kato's treble doesn't sound particularly more extended; however, it's eschewed the 13kHz peak of its predecessor for a less hazy response. So it's better than the KXXS; that was to be expected. Now how does the Kato stack up against its closest competitor, the Tanchjim Hana 2021? Well, I'm not a fan of the Kato's dynamics. They sound sluggish, as is typical of most DD IEMs of this price caliber, but most notably they lack aplomb - they sound slightly soft - in the macro-contrast department relative to the Hana 2021. Generally I get the impression that the Hana 2021 uses a slightly higher-quality driver; outside of this, I could see it going either way even if I prefer the stronger sub-bass focus of the Hana 2021.

Nicehck TopGuy: I got the review unit for this about a month ago and simply couldn't find the motivation to take it with me back to college. Why? Well, when you look at the FR of this IEM, it actually tracks scarily close to the dreaded Shuoer Tape Pro. I think that about says it all, but to be fair, I don't think the TopGuy's that bad. It's just really mediocre. The mid-bass is trash and the sub-bass rolls-off audibly, it's got what sounds like a weird, immeasurable dip the upper-midrange that makes everything sound veiled and slightly edgy, and the treble sounds like it has all sorts of tonal imbalances. Now, I feel like the imaging on this set is not bad at least in terms of diffusion; however, notes are blunted and there is nothing else remarkable (scratch that, acceptable for $250) about the TopGuy's technical performance. This thing needs to go back to the drawing board if it's being touted as a flagship IEM because it's not even playing in the $50 category for sound quality to be perfectly frank.

HarmonicDyne Poseidon: LOL. Sorry, these are not good. They sound like they roll-off under 100Hz; there's no sub-bass at all to this headphone. Seriously, if you think the Sennheiser open-backs are bad for bass extension, this is way worse. This headphone also has an upper-midrange recession right around 3-4kHz which isn't doing resolution any favors. Now, I think treble would be OK if it weren't for the contrast of this recession to 5kHz which doesn't seem to work as well with headphones. The Poseidon's treble sounds overly sharp in the initial impact of percussive hits whereas, as I alluded to just above, the midrange sounds plain hazy. Don't get me wrong, there's still nothing really outright offensive about the Poseidon's tonality, but it's sooo far from sounding good. This is basically the textbook example of what mediocrity sounds like.

Scores:

7Hz Timeless	6/10
Moondrop Kato	6/10
Nicehck TopGuy	3/10
HarmonicDyne Poseidon	3/10

 

[WAON303]

Very nice take on the 7hz Timeless! I guessed your score would be around a 6/10. Do these require a ton of power? I'm torn on getting the Timeless or the JVC HA-FDX1 as my next IEM given that both are arguably the two most technical IEMs under $200ish and I currently want a technical set that doesn't break the bank.

 

[hi-fi amateur]

@Precogvision Would you take the Kato over the Falcon Pro?