They look cheap on the outside…https://blog.ear-phone-review.com/entry/news/KZ_PR1 look at the pic from the back - front looks very nice though. I got the planar moondrops but fit was like trying to squeeze a traffic cone into my ear - what were they thinking.
Following up on my previous post - https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/knowledge-zenith-kz-pr1-standard-balanced.26043/reviews meh - if they had made it as one with a tuning switch or bass adjustment + some general improvements and made it more like a $500 IEM then I think they have a winner. Until then I’ll pass.
Well crap.... ordered.7th Acoustics Supernova Impressions
Price: $750 USD
Configuration: 6BA
Unit kindly on loan for review by 7th Acoustics.
Here’s a brand that I doubt will ring many bells. 7th Acoustics is a small Indonesian brand that isn’t even on the fringes of the international market. Similar to South Korean brand Hidition’s early days, 7th Acoustics prefers not to associate with the international market, instead focusing on the domestic market where they know their audience. The brand was originally brought to my attention by my friend Tork, and I expressed my interest in a demo unit to Stephen from 7th Acoustics almost exactly a year ago. Yes, it took a long time to get my ears on a unit. But good things often take time and my interest was merely piqued, so I was in no rush.
Now let me preface my thoughts on the Supernova with the subject of tonal preferences and what qualifies good tuning. When one presents the idea of a tonal “panacea” - something that doesn’t exist, but for the sake of argument we’ll pretend like it does - IEMs like the SoftEars RSV, ThieAudio Clairvoyance, and Blessing 2 Dusk are the usual suspects. These IEMs are mostly renditions of Harman tuning with subtle tweaks that should at least make them sound decent for the majority of listeners. But what if someone thought outside of the box and took the idea of a tonal panacea a step further? To my ears, that is the Supernova.
The bass of the Supernova is about perfectly meshed with the midrange. It’s sub-bass focused, then, with a slight tilt into the lower-midrange that allows for some extra thump and bloom to bass decay. Honestly, it’s a tad too much mid-bass for me coming off the likes of the Elysian Diva; at the very least, I do find myself desiring more sub-bass on runs like Seori’s “Lovers in the Night” where the track demands a deeper bass focus. But overall, I don’t think the Supernova has bad bass. It works well enough for most tracks with mid-bass lines like Lexie Liu's "Holy" and most conventional drums. I don't find myself thinking about it too much after some brain burn-in, which is about as much as most BA bass can ask for.
In any case, the slight dash of mid-bass is critical to creating the Supernova’s midrange which (and this is putting it lightly) is exemplary. I alluded earlier to most “pleasant” sounding IEMs adhering to Harman tuning with subtle tweaks. The Supernova mostly throws the book out the window. In addition to that dash of lower-midrange warmth, after rising at 1kHz, the Supernova is then about dead flat from 2kHz to 7kHz. It’s fairly reigned in these regions too, so vocals are just on the thicker side in terms of note weight. Inherently, there is a slight bias to male vocals and instruments like bass guitar, as we associate these sounds with being richer. But it doesn’t really matter what instruments or vocals fall under the midrange of the Supernova: they consistently sound natural, soulful, and devoid of sibilance. Hell, it’s enough to make even the most shouty of tracks that plague my library, like SNSD’s “Forever 1”, sound palatable.
A lot of this also has to do with the Supernova's treble response. It's not perfect to my ears, but it does have some noteworthy features. For one, it is mostly smoothed in the right regions, not dissimilar to something like the Elysian Diva. One of the four bores at the nozzle of the Supernova is actually a dummy tube. It's effectively a chamber intended to precisely dampen resonance at 8kHz, and it definitely works. I don’t believe the treble comes back up as sharply compared to the Diva, though, and it’s more of a linear path after 8kHz up to the limits of my hearing. This extension is achieved via the use of a horn on the tweeters, a method that is seen on some newer models hitting the market like the Moondrop Variations and CraftEars IEMs. In any case, this all culminates in a softer treble response with excellent extension; it’s almost sweet sounding if that paints a better picture.
Along these lines, a general observation of the Supernova’s tuning is that it is devoid of any egregious peaks or valleys. In tandem with the more relaxed pinna compensation, this facilitates louder and longer listening. I’m not saying this is necessarily desirable, but it's a phenomenon you’ll usually observe with good speakers that measure flat. Listening louder inherently increases perception of dynamic contrast, and - as I’m sure many will attest to - music just sounds better at higher volumes. In any case, the Supernova definitely sounds reasonably dynamic à la 64A’s IEMs.
Transients on the Supernova even remind me a lot of the 64A U6t. They’re softer around the edges, a combination of the warmer lower-midrange and dampened mid-treble. But because of the excellent treble extension, detail doesn’t seem particularly lacking. Sure, the Supernova is not going to compete with something like the Elysian Gaea for a sense of detail (the Gaea’s transients are noticeably crisper), but it doesn’t necessarily need to. The Supernova’s a set that I can listen to for hours and keep wanting to pop back in because it’s just so pleasing for timbre. On the topic of timbre, I would not hesitate to suggest that the Supernova is superior in timbre to most DDs I’ve heard; after all, I find timbre is mostly just tonality which this absolutely nails. The Supernova is also incredibly coherent with a perceptively even attack and decay to transients from top to bottom. On a high level, some of this is attributable to the way 7th Acoustics has uniquely implemented the crossover network of the Supernova.
The bottom line is that the Supernova is a noteworthy IEM that I feel warrants more attention. It employs multiple novel tuning techniques, and the results speak for themselves both on paper and in my ears. But I don’t blame Stephen for being hesitant to enter the international market. The market is incredibly competitive nowadays at this price range even if I think the Supernova contends at the top of its price bracket. And hey, I have to admit that, in some sense, it’s exciting being one of the few in the know about a gem like this.
Bias Score: 7/10
I did debate between a '7' and a '8' bias score. I think that the Supernova is slightly better than a lot of IEMs I've rated 7 for my preferences in the past, as I definitely prefer it to the Moondrop Variations, SA6 Ultra, and RSV which I all have for direct A/B. I suspect I'd prefer it to the IER-M9 too. The Supernova falls short, however, of some of the recent Elysian stuff I've given an '8'. I feel those IEMs have more character and 'wow' factor in comparison. That would be my main reservation with the Supernova. The tonality of the Supernova is nearly immaculate with so little to criticize; ironically, so much so that I want more ear time to err on the side of caution first. That's no worry because I've purchased my own unit. I suspect I'll just end up splitting the difference between the scores (for a '7.5') eventually.
All critical listening done off of my iPhone 13 Mini and iBasso DX300.
From where? I only find a fb page and not really a store
all i know you can try to DM their fb pages. try it.
+1. For me that comes from owning/hearing several IEMs he’s reviewing and finding I agree on everything, though he does seem to hear more than I can. And he does seem to be one of the most sincere reviewers around; definitely appears to do his best to know what he’s talking about. It also helps that he doesn’t jump on anything for being “the next big thing” and doesn’t get caught up in hype, hid Oracle MKII review being a good example.
), and I think Precog's description on how it sounds tonally are very close to what I am hearing.
@Precogvision just saw your Gaea review in my email. You have finally upgraded your iPhone rig to Questyle M15
Edit: about resolution, these days I have been thinking that we (people / reviewers, etc.) might be talking about different aspects. I agree that the apparent or perceived resolution (i.e., I can hear that tiny detail) strongly dependent on tuning, as you said. If something is loud enough to hear and not masked by others, then you would be able to hear it. However, I think that each IEM configuration also has “internal” or “true” resolution, in terms of how fine-grained it can distinguish similar or overlapping sounds. Some IEMs have a lot of apparent resolution (artificially sharpening by boosting 3k, 5k, and 8k), but still overly smoothened and would falter with dense music.
that was just because the cable on it came terminated in 4.4mm and I couldn't swap it.
Does the perception of increased detail only occur on tracks with high dynamic range? I feel that taking DR into account would be the most straightforward means of differentiating detail perceived simply due to a sound reaching audible thresholds from detail heard due to it not being masked away by other sounds. If one hypothetically wanted to try A/B'ing, they might compare two masters of the same track with different levels of DR compression or even apply DR compression to a test track themselves.
Don't do this to me... I just bought the RSV and SA6 Ultra7th Acoustics Supernova Impressions
Price: $750 USD
Configuration: 6BA
Unit kindly on loan for review by 7th Acoustics.
Here’s a brand that I doubt will ring many bells. 7th Acoustics is a small Indonesian brand that isn’t even on the fringes of the international market. Similar to South Korean brand Hidition’s early days, 7th Acoustics prefers not to associate with the international market, instead focusing on the domestic market where they know their audience. The brand was originally brought to my attention by my friend Tork, and I expressed my interest in a demo unit to Stephen from 7th Acoustics almost exactly a year ago. Yes, it took a long time to get my ears on a unit. But good things often take time and my interest was merely piqued, so I was in no rush.
Now let me preface my thoughts on the Supernova with the subject of tonal preferences and what qualifies good tuning. When one presents the idea of a tonal “panacea” - something that doesn’t exist, but for the sake of argument we’ll pretend like it does - IEMs like the SoftEars RSV, ThieAudio Clairvoyance, and Blessing 2 Dusk are the usual suspects. These IEMs are mostly renditions of Harman tuning with subtle tweaks that should at least make them sound decent for the majority of listeners. But what if someone thought outside of the box and took the idea of a tonal panacea a step further? To my ears, that is the Supernova.
The bass of the Supernova is about perfectly meshed with the midrange. It’s sub-bass focused, then, with a slight tilt into the lower-midrange that allows for some extra thump and bloom to bass decay. Honestly, it’s a tad too much mid-bass for me coming off the likes of the Elysian Diva; at the very least, I do find myself desiring more sub-bass on runs like Seori’s “Lovers in the Night” where the track demands a deeper bass focus. But overall, I don’t think the Supernova has bad bass. It works well enough for most tracks with mid-bass lines like Lexie Liu's "Holy" and most conventional drums. I don't find myself thinking about it too much after some brain burn-in, which is about as much as most BA bass can ask for.
In any case, the slight dash of mid-bass is critical to creating the Supernova’s midrange which (and this is putting it lightly) is exemplary. I alluded earlier to most “pleasant” sounding IEMs adhering to Harman tuning with subtle tweaks. The Supernova mostly throws the book out the window. In addition to that dash of lower-midrange warmth, after rising at 1kHz, the Supernova is then about dead flat from 2kHz to 7kHz. It’s fairly reigned in these regions too, so vocals are just on the thicker side in terms of note weight. Inherently, there is a slight bias to male vocals and instruments like bass guitar, as we associate these sounds with being richer. But it doesn’t really matter what instruments or vocals fall under the midrange of the Supernova: they consistently sound natural, soulful, and devoid of sibilance. Hell, it’s enough to make even the most shouty of tracks that plague my library, like SNSD’s “Forever 1”, sound palatable.
A lot of this also has to do with the Supernova's treble response. It's not perfect to my ears, but it does have some noteworthy features. For one, it is mostly smoothed in the right regions, not dissimilar to something like the Elysian Diva. One of the four bores at the nozzle of the Supernova is actually a dummy tube. It's effectively a chamber intended to precisely dampen resonance at 8kHz, and it definitely works. I don’t believe the treble comes back up as sharply compared to the Diva, though, and it’s more of a linear path after 8kHz up to the limits of my hearing. This extension is achieved via the use of a horn on the tweeters, a method that is seen on some newer models hitting the market like the Moondrop Variations and CraftEars IEMs. In any case, this all culminates in a softer treble response with excellent extension; it’s almost sweet sounding if that paints a better picture.
Along these lines, a general observation of the Supernova’s tuning is that it is devoid of any egregious peaks or valleys. In tandem with the more relaxed pinna compensation, this facilitates louder and longer listening. I’m not saying this is necessarily desirable, but it's a phenomenon you’ll usually observe with good speakers that measure flat. Listening louder inherently increases perception of dynamic contrast, and - as I’m sure many will attest to - music just sounds better at higher volumes. In any case, the Supernova definitely sounds reasonably dynamic à la 64A’s IEMs.
Transients on the Supernova even remind me a lot of the 64A U6t. They’re softer around the edges, a combination of the warmer lower-midrange and dampened mid-treble. But because of the excellent treble extension, detail doesn’t seem particularly lacking. Sure, the Supernova is not going to compete with something like the Elysian Gaea for a sense of detail (the Gaea’s transients are noticeably crisper), but it doesn’t necessarily need to. The Supernova’s a set that I can listen to for hours and keep wanting to pop back in because it’s just so pleasing for timbre. On the topic of timbre, I would not hesitate to suggest that the Supernova is superior in timbre to most DDs I’ve heard; after all, I find timbre is mostly just tonality which this absolutely nails. The Supernova is also incredibly coherent with a perceptively even attack and decay to transients from top to bottom. On a high level, some of this is attributable to the way 7th Acoustics has uniquely implemented the crossover network of the Supernova.
The bottom line is that the Supernova is a noteworthy IEM that I feel warrants more attention. It employs multiple novel tuning techniques, and the results speak for themselves both on paper and in my ears. But I don’t blame Stephen for being hesitant to enter the international market. The market is incredibly competitive nowadays at this price range even if I think the Supernova contends at the top of its price bracket. And hey, I have to admit that, in some sense, it’s exciting being one of the few in the know about a gem like this.
Bias Score: 7/10
I did debate between a '7' and a '8' bias score. I think that the Supernova is slightly better than a lot of IEMs I've rated 7 for my preferences in the past, as I definitely prefer it to the Moondrop Variations, SA6 Ultra, and RSV which I all have for direct A/B. I suspect I'd prefer it to the IER-M9 too. The Supernova falls short, however, of some of the recent Elysian stuff I've given an '8'. I feel those IEMs have more character and 'wow' factor in comparison. That would be my main reservation with the Supernova. The tonality of the Supernova is nearly immaculate with so little to criticize; ironically, so much so that I want more ear time to err on the side of caution first. That's no worry because I've purchased my own unit. I suspect I'll just end up splitting the difference between the scores (for a '7.5') eventually.
All critical listening done off of my iPhone 13 Mini and iBasso DX300.
