[firesign]

I think these list are interesting but that's all as we all like different sound characteristics, genres and use different sources.

Also, unless your absolutely loaded you won't have owned that many and maybe only had short demo's of some.

For my lot I have Noble K10U, Sony IER-M9 Shure SE-846 and Fiio FD7 still and at the moment I'm really enjoying the FD7 out of my Sony WM1AM2.

Taking price & fit into account my FD7 blows all of them out of the water seeing as I only paid £220.

For pure musical perfection of my limited collection I'd say its K10U then M9 but the M9's excel with certain genres.

No point having the best sound IEM if its too large or un-comfy to wear! I find my K10U's on the large size while the other 3 are comfy all day long.

The FD7 attracts me a lot and its graph up to 8 kHz is very good, but...
Did FiiO run out of budget for the driver after 8 kHz?
The high treble is practically non-existent...

 

[Metalboyy]

Absolutely,

In fact this is a very clever move.

I own the universal version (used with these elite tips : https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/CWU-GECL-Eartips-Isolating-Prevent-Enhanced/dp/B0991RL358?th=1), but the isolation is just excellent (parisian underground = no problem at all).

The design of these iems is very clever...

Nice Its the same with Ambient acoustics. They are filled with acrylic. Feels very solid and gives amazing isolation despite rather short canals (custom Mad24)

 

[DaveStarWalker]

Nice Its the same with Ambient acoustics. They are filled with acrylic. Feels very solid and gives amazing isolation despite rather short canals (custom Mad24)

AA makes very good design too

We just hope it's "all right", about the war in Ukraine... Thez are based in kiev

 

[psikey]

The FD7 attracts me a lot and its graph up to 8 kHz is very good, but...
Did FiiO run out of budget for the driver after 8 kHz?
The high treble is practically non-existent...

With 55yo ears I think its the highs where we lose hearing range so probably a non-issue for me!

 

[Metalboyy]

AA makes very good design too

We just hope it's "all right", about the war in Ukraine... Thez are based in kiev

Yeah its terrible

 

[DaveStarWalker]

First of all, no. The graphs look everything but astonishing and explosive.I know several In-Ear and IEM out of my head that easily outperform these in terms of graph (for the exact same price).

Please enlighten me what is so astonishing about these graphs? The Mid-Bass Bleed? The pushed upper mids (oh my god), or the sharp treble fall off?

This is how an good graph looks like



The only dips and peeks you see are caused by the coupler, that is how it is supposed to be.

Anyhow, i don't trust anyone who trusts graphs to begin with.

I owned too many IEM with excellent graphs that sounded like garbage.

The FR graph only tells you about the Tuning, nothing about how the IEM sounds. And the other graphs pretty much tell you nothing that is even remotely relevant in the real world. A lot of important key factors are not covered by any of the graphs you posted (like air compression which is one of the reasons the IER-Z1R has its unique bass)

I highly doubt that companies without any money for research and development, without any exyperience or Know How can create the best IEM by just buying off-the-shelve hardware and tucking them together. That is basically what all ChiFi companies do, i fail to understand why these unkown brands without experience should just outperform all of them by doing the exact same.

They use acrylic shells because they don't produce the shells themself. They buy them from other companies and these other companies procuces Acrylic Shells. That is the whole reason behind this.

They use BA with nozzles and soundpipes because they don't produce the BAs themself. They buy them from companies and they only offer these.

Thats a surprise huh? The most unkown and rarest brands that can't be bought anywhere (not even at Earphone specialist stores) and are most likely just local subbrands of bigger brands are the best. I see some relation here

@Vamp898

I didn't take the time to answer you, because there are many things in your message.

About me :

What I'm looking for in my hifi listening, are products whose general behaviour, the sound, is as close as possible to the sensations of a live session. It has to be lively, as dynamic as possible, with nuanced transients (from murmur to extreme violence). I'm not interested in whether it's "neutral" or "straight" or "transparent". What I'm looking for is balanced and homogeneous products, both in BP and in texture. I'm also interested in "definition" and "resolution": it has to be as high as possible, but still natural. It's like a TV with too much or too little sharpness. You have to find the right gradient. So I like products that are "on the edge". You also need substance, harmonic richness. I'm not interested in overtly analytical sounds... because they are not realistic. The same goes for the opposite, when I think it's too "round", or too "hot", or lacking in "sparkle" and "bite" (these are purely musical notions by the way). The stories of "musicality" also seem completely abstract to me...

In short, this is what I'm looking for. If a recording, a song, a track is aggressive, then it should sound like that. If it's soft, then it should sound "soft", if it's... we get it.

This is a reminder (always called back before my ranking), thank you for reading and understanding it.

About these graphs, they don't try to prove anything, as if graphs could prove anything but just their curves. In this, I completely agree with you. I speak from personal experience.

Just note that the impedance as well as the phase are impeccable. Which is a very good performance considering that we are talking about a complex design with 12 heterogeneous drivers (1 DD 10mm, 7 balanced armatures and 4 EST). All the electrical efficiencies are very different. Moreover, these Alambic Ears Mentawai are very easy to drive. Whereas most other tribrids design I know require a lot of current and are not very efficient.

Also, the waterfall is particularly clear. This is a sign of a very well thought-out engineering.

The graph otherwise that you indicate is a pure Harman, in the most traditional sense of the term. Why not. But it is not the alpha and omega IMO. I know of many in-ear monitors that do not follow an Harman target and that sound remarkably good. For example the venerable fitear A111. Try it if you can bro.

The rest is listening. Period. I'm not one of those people who listen with the ears of others. When the "reviews" that swarm on the net, and other influencers ... in short ...

For Alambic Ears, this is an interesting case because:

- The shells are all individualy (yes, all individualy) fully produced in house by the artisan behind the brand. 3D printer. Hand finished.
- Better... he can even adapt the shapes and lengths of the noozles for instance, according to the customers demands and morphologies. Universal desgins. Not to mention of course the custom designs.
- For the drivers, only the top of the range models, produced by Sonion or Knowles (for the BA and EST) are used. No low-end copies as unfortunately we can find in some "established" competitors, however very expensive. This is not a rumor, but a statement about certain products that have been studied and stripped down. I know, what a pity...

In short, we are here more in the field of violin making (this is the first job of Aldo40 : luthier ), or even arts and crafts, than in the "established" manufacturers... of which a large part of the production is often subcontracted in China... Not to mention the components and design bought on the shelves, and sometimes simply rebranded.

Also, for the use of tubes : there are not 50 ways to do it, simply, especially for smoothing the responses in the upper audio spectrum. And if we want to avoid acoustic dampers... Or horribly complex filters that eat up power...

The main problem with tube-less designs is that it often involves unwanted resonances, not to mention tortured responses... See the responses with Fir Audio or 64Audio for example : rollercoaster.

Finally, about the scarcity of products...

If you look carefully at my list (https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rank-the-iems-youve-heard.454855/page-294#post-17364127), apart from the first 3 entries, which are relatively rare (actually from local markets), I don't specifically focus on rare products. The Final A8000 and mainly the mighty Fiio FH9 (dsw - it's me yes ! - modded and tuned : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fii...ced-armature-iem.960580/page-49#post-17350901) are in my top 5, even 3 (It's actually very complicated for me to decide between all these excellent products ; but at some point, you have to make a decision, if you want to make a real ranking...)...

Just, I am focused on the products that I consider to be the best. Every prices or technologies. I don't care about that in fact, or about "reputation". Only the result counts. At no time am I
a fanboy. That's for sure.

This being said, I believe that the market is saturated with products that are sometimes very (very, very) expensive, and whose performances (in every sense of the word) leave something to be desired. At least to my ears : lack of coherence, lack of homogeneity, very "marked" and unbalanced tunings...

After that, never forget that the "established brands" started small.

Now, a lot of their efforts... and money... is spent on marketing and advertising.
Thanks for reading...

 

[RIGATIO]

I personally have never heard an iem that sounded correct and was far from Harman target (with just slightly lowered higher midrange- Crinacles target). Im not a fanboy of Harman but what can i do if its the only way to make an iem sound correct in midrange up to trebles. Im talking my ears experience, i can understand that someone likes different tuning. For me even best sounding full sized headphones are those who match the Harman target (Aeon Noire for example).
The higher end iems, like u12t, Andromeda 2020, Mest Mk2 have some scoop in high mids, in 3-5k and i can hear it, there is something off for me there, the luck of extension. The moondrop Chu which is obviously inferior technically has really good harmanish tuning and the vocals shine on them.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

The in-ear monitors that I put in my top 10 are more or less variations of the Harman curve.

But I know some other headphones that are far from the Harman curve and yet are excellent in listening.

Move away? Pinna gain less important. That's the main point.

 

[firesign]

I personally have never heard an iem that sounded correct and was far from Harman target (with just slightly lowered higher midrange- Crinacles target). Im not a fanboy of Harman but what can i do if its the only way to make an iem sound correct in midrange up to trebles. Im talking my ears experience, i can understand that someone likes different tuning. For me even best sounding full sized headphones are those who match the Harman target (Aeon Noire for example).
The higher end iems, like u12t, Andromeda 2020, Mest Mk2 have some scoop in high mids, in 3-5k and i can hear it, there is something off for me there, the luck of extension. The moondrop Chu which is obviously inferior technically has really good harmanish tuning and the vocals shine on them.

That area of the frequency spectrum is very delicate, because it is the one that varies the most as one person or another listens to it.

For me, the Chu or any other IEM with similar high mids (presence zone) are shouty and totally unbearable, and not only for long listening, but for a few seconds. I need that area a little more relaxed (U12t or Mest type).

As Resolve says for example: "too much ear gain, nop! Some ear gain, yep!"

 

[DaveStarWalker]

That area of the frequency spectrum is very delicate, because it is the one that varies the most as one person or another listens to it.

For me, the Chu or any other IEM with similar high mids (presence zone) are shouty and totally unbearable, and not only for long listening, but for a few seconds. I need that area a little more relaxed (U12t or Mest type).

As Resolve says for example: "too much ear gain, nop! Some ear gain, yep!"

Exactly,

This is very tricky to achieve a perfect balance.

Hence my 3 best candidates.

For me, here lies the real difficulty : how to maximise the definition, resolution, vividness, transcients and (real) dynamics with an accurate target curve which will fit the best the human hearing... But in a way not too "intense".

This is why the Final A8000, Rhapsodio Infinity mk2, Fir KR5, as well as the Kaiser Encore or the old but still excellent Zeus XRA (XRA version = important) are not in my (my... it remains purely subjective and personnal) 3 very first places : they are all at the verge of the "too much". According to one criterion or another.

The FH9 "DSW tuned" is another case = this is a Jack of all trades" kind of product, a real steal... but, taken alone, its qualities are (little) less good than my other 4 "firsts" stars.

 

[RIGATIO]

That area of the frequency spectrum is very delicate, because it is the one that varies the most as one person or another listens to it.

For me, the Chu or any other IEM with similar high mids (presence zone) are shouty and totally unbearable, and not only for long listening, but for a few seconds. I need that area a little more relaxed (U12t or Mest type).

As Resolve says for example: "too much ear gain, nop! Some ear gain, yep!"

The Chu was just an example and its not refined enough to be compared with the u12t.
I posted my impressions from the A/B test of the Monarch 2 vs u12t and explained there what was missing on the u12t. Most of it was due to the scoop in 3-4k area which made some part of female vocals slightly off and the treble peaks more pronounced (too bright for my taste). The Monarch 2 have an even gain in this area so the vocals are fuller, less bright and the trebles (hi hats for example) are in a the right place, behind vocalists, when on the u12t they were sweet too but more pronounced and less realistic for me. Of course, we are talking the finest refinement here but these things exist.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

The devil lies in the details.

With the BA design, and EST, we can have some peaks and resonances, 7 to 10khz area.

The challenge is to smooth out these peaks, without turning off the vividness of the treble.

 

[firesign]

The Chu was just an example and its not refined enough to be compared with the u12t.
I posted my impressions from the A/B test of the Monarch 2 vs u12t and explained there what was missing on the u12t. Most of it was due to the scoop in 3-4k area which made some part of female vocals slightly off and the treble peaks more pronounced (too bright for my taste). The Monarch 2 have an even gain in this area so the vocals are fuller, less bright and the trebles (hi hats for example) are in a the right place, behind vocalists, when on the u12t they were sweet too but more pronounced and less realistic for me. Of course, we are talking the finest refinement here but these things exist.

What I'm trying to say is that this frequency area is tricky.

Depending on the ear of each person, that area is much more sensitive, amplified, than for others.

What for you may be a too relaxed and scooped sound, I can hear it totally differently and at the right level due to the shape and sensitivity of my ear.

 

[DenverW]

Truly. I am not a fan of the general size increase of iems due to having more drivers.

Amen, brother!

It’s hard for me to compile a list of my top because…where does comfort lie?

The monarch mk2 was great! But it hurt my ears. Thus I’d put the Yanyin moonlight ahead of it because of comfort even though the mk2 slightly edged it overall in sound quality.

As far as ‘reviews’ and opinions such as on this thread, I always recommend finding someone who’s tastes lie close to yours. If you’re one of those people that didn’t like the mk2 perhaps others that feel the same have a similar preference to you, and vice versa. It just comes down to discovering first what YOU like. Until then reviews are fairly useless, tbh.

I’d use crinacle as an example. His iem tastes are much closer to mine than his over ear rankings. When he raves about an iem I pay attention. When he is mediocre on an over ear I don’t automatically discard it.

 

[DaveStarWalker]

Confort is an essential part of the equation. Confort... Seal and fit !

"Best in ear XY" in the world... Okay, but if it's hurting you, or worse, you can't fit it correctly: pointless...