[DaveStarWalker]

U12T dull? With that bass and that 15k peak? Are we even listening to the same IEM?

Not very an "exciting" (vivid ?) sound for my tastes.

Fortunately there is a good bass (BA... ) foundation, but that's it.

The midrange, and the human voices in particular, are not rendered in a very convincing way as I find. Little hollowness, not a lack of density, but presence. At last, the treble is harmless.

Well, an "unexciting allrounder" for my standards.

 

[WAON303]

generic tuning is now an Aria and its gang...

I was almost going to say harman too lol.

Now budget-fi is saturated with single DD IEMs that have some variation of Moondrop's harman curve.

Pretty lame but better than standard v.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

I was almost going to say harman too lol.

Now budget-fi is saturated with single DD IEMs that have some variation of Moondrop's harman curve.

Pretty lame but better than standard v.

Ze same.

 

[SamTan]

Not very an "exciting" (vivid ?) sound for my tastes.

Fortunately there is a good bass (BA... ) foundation, but that's it.

The midrange, and the human voices in particular, are not rendered in a very convincing way as I find. Little hollowness, not a lack of density, but presence. At last, the treble is harmless.

Well, an "unexciting allrounder" for my standards.

I totally agree with this. I just got back from a long 1.5 hours listening session during which I tested out the U12T and the Trio. After the first half an hour, I just stopped giving the U12T a go. It was just too sterile and unexciting for my tastes. I too found it hollow sounding, and more so when I was listening to the same song on the Trio back-to-back. After that, I just kept listening to the Trio for the last hour or so and loved it. The sound was so enjoyable that just I wanted to get up, move, and groove! Time flew. To me, the Trio is indeed a perfect and balanced mix of analytics and enjoyment in my music. Less is clearly more for me in this case.

I now also think that I am one of those who prefers a hybrid's sound signature over an all-BA one.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

The same.

and yes, I found too the Trio's far more enjoyables.

 

[dleblanc343]

Meetup Notes 10/15/2022

Hey everyone, some quick notes from this weekend! We haven't had a meetup in a while, so it was good to get together and see some new faces too. Thanks as usual to @MRSallee for hosting




Audeze MM 500: Wow, an Audeze that's actually got some respectable tuning. These follow in the LCD-5's footsteps (a headphone that I'm not a big fan of), but it sounds like the shouty upper-midrange of its bigger brother has been pulled back a bit. Bass sounds slightly rolled under 50Hz, although I'm fairly certain that, like most planar headphones, these probably have very good extension on paper. In any case, bass notes sound slightly blunted for impact to me. Treble sounded fairly neutral. Decent sense of technicalities; I wouldn't consider these best-in-class for detail, but they're good all-rounders. The build on this headphone is also pretty damn nice. Probably my favorite Audeze headphone to date if we're ignoring the use of DSP (in which case, I wouldn't know which is my favorite).

First off, nice photo and it was great meeting a few of these faces at Canjam

Also regarding MM500 -- right?! The best planar nobody is talking about lately. You can buy more than 2 MM500's for the price of a DCA Expanse, and personally, I think the MM500 is simply a better headphone

Very midrange-focused with a dash of warmth due to upper midrange being a bit relaxed, but also with planar speed and its general underlying tonal quirks. It's a planar that I think could bridge the hate for those less enthusiastic about planars. I find it quite detailed and especially resolving for the price segment while being pretty versatile in its tuning. Kudos to Audeze for improving as they go.

 

[TooPoorForHiFi]

@Precogvision how's the 109 Pro compare to Philphone

 

[WAON303]

Hey Precog, where would you put the Hekili's technicalities at?

The score you gave it would convert to around an A- which is pretty good given the price tag.

Your impressions on it got me interested on picking one up, seems like some Ali sellers still have stock maybe? Thought it was already discontinued given it's DIY-like production run

 

[onlinekute17]

Hey Precog, where would you put the Hekili's technicalities at?

The score you gave it would convert to around an A- which is pretty good given the price tag.

Your impressions on it got me interested on picking one up, seems like some Ali sellers still have stock maybe? Thought it was already discontinued given it's DIY-like production run

I have the same question too. Would be great to know how Hekili's technicalities stack up against Dusk and other $300 benchmarks. Could be a good alternative for people who's into bassier/less mid-forward signatures (myself included).

Linsoul have them in stock btw.

 

[Precogvision]

Hey everyone, first video in a while:

Hi Precog, regarding your 7u review, how do you think custom art totl relate to the Ier m9?

I think they have very different types of sounds. The IER-M9 is much warmer and more intimate which makes it a better all-rounder. It doesn't really sound like a typical BA IEM. In terms of accessories, the IER-M9 is also nicer. The 7U works better if you're someone who wants a lot of openness and sense of upper-treble air. 7U also has more conventional BA presentation with seemingly lighter, quicker transients.

@Precogvision how's the 109 Pro compare to Philphone

I don't like the 109 Pro very much. It has some upper-treble harshness and IIRC the bass was sort of bloated. It's not really in the same playing field as the PhilPhone, at least not the first version of the PhilPhone I heard. I heard a second version of the PhilPhone at this year's CanJam that was a bit brighter and not as much my cup of tea. I think this version was supposed to be less sensitive? I don't recall 100%.

Hey Precog, where would you put the Hekili's technicalities at?

The score you gave it would convert to around an A- which is pretty good given the price tag.

Your impressions on it got me interested on picking one up, seems like some Ali sellers still have stock maybe? Thought it was already discontinued given it's DIY-like production run

I have the same question too. Would be great to know how Hekili's technicalities stack up against Dusk and other $300 benchmarks. Could be a good alternative for people who's into bassier/less mid-forward signatures (myself included).

Linsoul have them in stock btw.

Hmm, whatever I wrote on the ranking list is pretty much what I think of its technicalities lol. I only had a quick listen, but the technicalities seemed good to me for $300.

 

[goodvibes]

I was almost going to say harman too lol.

Now budget-fi is saturated with single DD IEMs that have some variation of Moondrop's harman curve.

Pretty lame but better than standard v.

I think the rather ‘faultless’ and open character gets it overrated as a music device. For me, I prefer the trio but am more an S8 guy once associations are sorted but I’m used to high end home fi. I can fully understand why many don’t especially like S8s. Complys and a heavy hybrid cable does wonders for them. I may have moved on as well had I not tried comply which I usually don’t care for. Seems to tame the the pinna gain and the technicalities are vg.

 

[TooPoorForHiFi]

@Precogvision You remember how the bass compare between the Meteor and Sony M9?

 

[Fargeg]

Hey everyone, first video in a while:

If I had to pick one sentence from this video to distill into an emoji-filled post to aggressively flame others with, it would absolutely be this one:

The reality is that "audiophile music" is really not a good test of most systems—and I say this in the sense that well–mastered music, by definition, sounds good on most systems already.

(SONGS THAT SOUND GOOD ON EVERYTHING MAKE FOR AWFUL TEST TRACKS)

A lot of poorly tuned headphones and IEMs wouldn't receive as little scrutiny as they do if people stopped taking the attitude that it must be the fault of the music being listened to that they sound bad.

I do believe there's more room for regimentation than simply buying a bunch of budget gear when it comes to figuring out individual preferences. For instance, the 3 kHz pinna compensation region is one of the greatest sources of variation in IEM tuning preferences, and taking a Harman-tuned IEM and simply EQ'ing in a peak filter with a Q factor of 1.8 or so to see how many dB of gain you need to add/subtract to eliminate any shoutiness/harshness/haziness/suckout is a pretty straightforward way to evaluate one's preference in that area. If you have to add, you might want to pass on the U12t, while subtracting means you might prefer a Dusk to a plain Blessing 2.

Also, I think the standard "try-it-for-a-week-and-come-back" advice often told to newcomers should be given alongside the caveat that almost any gear can eventually sound good given enough mental acclimation. It would hopefully cut down on the If this sounds like bloated, claustrophobic, peaky garbage to you, it's because you didn't burn it in past the 30-day return window mentality that's too common amongst certain audiophile segments.

 

[Precogvision]

If I had to pick one sentence from this video to distill into an emoji-filled post to aggressively flame others with, it would absolutely be this one:



(SONGS THAT SOUND GOOD ON EVERYTHING MAKE FOR AWFUL TEST TRACKS)

A lot of poorly tuned headphones and IEMs wouldn't receive as little scrutiny as they do if people stopped taking the attitude that it must be the fault of the music being listened to that they sound bad.

I do believe there's more room for regimentation than simply buying a bunch of budget gear when it comes to figuring out individual preferences. For instance, the 3 kHz pinna compensation region is one of the greatest sources of variation in IEM tuning preferences, and taking a Harman-tuned IEM and simply EQ'ing in a peak filter with a Q factor of 1.8 or so to see how many dB of gain you need to add/subtract to eliminate any shoutiness/harshness/haziness/suckout is a pretty straightforward way to evaluate one's preference in that area. If you have to add, you might want to pass on the U12t, while subtracting means you might prefer a Dusk to a plain Blessing 2.

Also, I think the standard "try-it-for-a-week-and-come-back" advice often told to newcomers should be given alongside the caveat that almost any gear can eventually sound good given enough mental acclimation. It would hopefully cut down on the If this sounds like bloated, claustrophobic, peaky garbage to you, it's because you didn't burn it in past the 30-day return window mentality that's too common amongst certain audiophile segments.

Yeah, it totally slipped my mind to talk about EQ! I agree that playing around with EQ can be more fruitful than buying a bunch of budget gear. You'd have to know what you're doing to some degree and how what you're plugging in is corresponding to the resulting changes, though. Perhaps in conjunction with the EQ tool on the Squig link, although that isn't always entirely accurate. There's a lot more I had in the written portion that didn't make the video (or that had to be cut out because it was too spicy), but I do talk about brain burn-in a bit in that and going with your gut if something sounds off.

Re selection of tracks, IEMs that specialize in different genres of music are also mostly a meme in my book (even if I'm guilty of pervading this idea myself sometimes). There are certainly IEMs that might generally work better or worse for certain genres. But it's a massive generalization because within a genre you have different sub-genres, different mastering, and different ranges of instruments being captured between tracks. There is no one IEM that is going to work perfectly for all of them. And all of this is ignoring individual listener preference.

If one is going to bring musical choice into the equation, it really makes more sense - at least to me - to focus on specific tracks and to convey how certain parts of these tracks correspond to frequency response. But even then, I dislike the idea of purchasing IEMs on the idea that specific tracks - not to mention genres entirely - will sound good or bad. In my experience, 'good' sounding IEMs sound good with most all tracks. There are certainly some tracks that they'll do a little better or worse on, but not to a deal-breaking degree. It's really only 'bad' sounding IEMs that can "hide" on certain tracks that have characteristics like slower tempos and poor extension in the extremes of frequency response.

Anyways! It's been a long week; that's my little Friday night rant

 

[DaveStarWalker]

If I had to pick one sentence from this video to distill into an emoji-filled post to aggressively flame others with, it would absolutely be this one:



(SONGS THAT SOUND GOOD ON EVERYTHING MAKE FOR AWFUL TEST TRACKS)

A lot of poorly tuned headphones and IEMs wouldn't receive as little scrutiny as they do if people stopped taking the attitude that it must be the fault of the music being listened to that they sound bad.

I do believe there's more room for regimentation than simply buying a bunch of budget gear when it comes to figuring out individual preferences. For instance, the 3 kHz pinna compensation region is one of the greatest sources of variation in IEM tuning preferences, and taking a Harman-tuned IEM and simply EQ'ing in a peak filter with a Q factor of 1.8 or so to see how many dB of gain you need to add/subtract to eliminate any shoutiness/harshness/haziness/suckout is a pretty straightforward way to evaluate one's preference in that area. If you have to add, you might want to pass on the U12t, while subtracting means you might prefer a Dusk to a plain Blessing 2.

Also, I think the standard "try-it-for-a-week-and-come-back" advice often told to newcomers should be given alongside the caveat that almost any gear can eventually sound good given enough mental acclimation. It would hopefully cut down on the If this sounds like bloated, claustrophobic, peaky garbage to you, it's because you didn't burn it in past the 30-day return window mentality that's too common amongst certain audiophile segments.

There is audiophile music, and audiophile music

Real "audiophile" music, and unforgiving test tracks as I think = only natural reverb, no dynamics compression, no equalization, only 2 mics...

But others very good test tracks... :

1/ historical mono recordings = timbres and tones quality.
2/ extreme musical genre, but well recorded = for instance, "Immortal", the black metal group.
3/ bad recorded tracks, with well known flaws. We all know some.

The most difficult tests : real audiophile opera and orchestra recordings.

No IEM is able to reproduce them accurately and properly (dynamics, timbres, tones, spatial cues, naturalness...).