mvw2
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2007
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Quote:
I disagree with MVW2 thoughts as to the Triple.Fi as I would not consider the Triple.Fi a refined IEM. Fun...maybe. Refined...NO. Likewise, how you can have something close to muddy and detailed at the same time puzzles me. I have always felt the Triple.Fi to be a muddy headphone and I know many a member here who would agree. However, let me once again state that we all hear differently.
I find that they decay on the DBA-02 is quite refined and excellent. It's certainly not as perfect as real life but it comes very, very close. On well recorded material, the decay comes across as refined as any headphone that can be considered a reference. Why?
To me the DBA-02 is full of micro detail and texture. First, let me say that the way sound changes with distance from the source is dependent on the size and shape of the source and also the surrounding environment. This decrease in amplitude when a vibrating force has been removed is called decay. The actual time it takes for a sound to diminish to silence/noise is the decay time. The best way to test this is by recording something yourself with a good quality microphone and a stop watch. Measure the time it takes for the sound to diminish to nothing while recording. Play that back and check with a spectral frequency display to verify that the recording captured the sound accurately. Once that is verified, listen on speakers or headphones and see if you are accurately hearing what you just recorded. Viola! Now test anything you want!!
My verdict with the DBA-02....it's the best universal IEM I have with regards to decay on a proper recording. IMHO, it beats my UE-10 in regards to decay (and micro detail and texture).
As for micro detail and texture...I find it to also be the best universal IEM I have heard with these qualities. On a good source file you can hear chair squeaks that were hard to hear before. You can hear the musicians turning pages that were hard to hear. You can hear the musicians breathe. I can now hear Jackie McLean gasp for air as he plays!!! As for texture...well...texture is often described in regards to the thickness, range and quality of the notes being recorded. If you want to be impressed, pick up Janos Starker's RCA-Victor recording of Bach's Solo Cello Suites and play it on the DBA-02. If you're not impressed then I don't know what else will impress with regards to texture.
Just my 2 cents.
The Triple.fi 10 doesn't sound refined. It's something you don't notice until you go back to it over and over after listening to something else for a while. It's a refinement you don't hear just listening to it. It's what you notice every time you go back to it. That's when you realize how good it does many things.
From a BA perspective, the Triple.Fi 10 is super muddy. The notes are thick, very thick, and details are indeed lost within that thickness. At the same time, there is excellent articulation and definition of sounds. It's sort of the magic trick BA drivers seem to be able to pull off detail, articulation, edge despite also being relatively muddy. A dynamic gets muddy and starts blurring things together. The edge, articulation, etc sort of gets blended out as well. BAs seem to retain those aspects. The Triple.Fi 10 retains these aspects and ends up being pretty well refined. The bass is really the only thing that truly gets muddy. Amping helps a little.
The DBA-02 is not king of micro detail. It does well, certainly. It is highly detailed. However, it also lacks some information. It's not textured. It doesn't quite portray the bits of information during the attack and decay of a note. Part of the problem that arises from this is the earphone loses the ability to create a sense of space, ambient space. I will say the DBA-02 is very revealing, shows a lot if tiny details, sounds in the background, is excellent about dynamics and energy, but to me micro detail is the ability to portray the subtle variations within the notes and not just the notes themselves. The DBA-02 doesn't do this as well as some other options. What the DBA-02 does really well is portray the dynamics and energy of the notes which still do carry a lot of perceptible information. It does this better than a LOT of other products. This is why the DBA-02 shows you a lot of little sounds in the background of a song, This is why you hear those little noises like breaths, turning pages, etc. in the music. It makes the earphone very revealing, but this isn't my term of micro detail. My micro detail is the information within the information, not the main sound but the subtleties within that sound, the ability to articulate meaningful information during the rise and fall of the main sound. The turning of a page of sheet music includes not only the sound but crinkling of the paper and the sliding and grasping of the paper with his/her fingers. To articulate is to show all the little bits and pieces of that sound. Dynamics and energy can bring out the sound so you are aware of it in the recording. Articulation and texture bring that sound to life. Listening to an earphone like the CK10 is a good descriptor of what I mean. It's something earphones like the ER4, Custom 3, and UM3X has over the DBA-02, to articulate and fully define a sound. It's something a lot of BA based earphones don't do well, even very good ones. The Triple.Fi 10 articulates, but it has compressed dynamics (quiet is medium, loud is medium loud) and the notes are too thick to define micro detail well. The SE530 is too short on note to have almost any texture what so ever. It's super dynamic but too squeaky clean too. You get the main note in full force and lose everything in between. The presentation becomes almost ghostly in a sense where the body of the sound, the weight, is largely missing. The UM3X is one of the few that do a whole lot of things really well.
I'll give an example of what it means to show more of the in between information. Since you're familiar with him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtLKjeEssAo
I'm sure it's not a great recording of it, but I'm using it for an example. I'll compare the DBA-02 and Custom 3.
0:03 - He scoots his chair as he's prepping
DBA-02 - squeak
Custom 3 - squeak, and then the echo off the walls of the room, you even get a good sense of the individual feet clomping down on the platform at 0:08.
0:12 - bouncing the bow off the strings
DBA-02 - baa, baa, baa as he taps on them
Custom 2 - fuller, and you actually hear the individual strings hold a vibration after each hit.
1:53 - He starts smacking the neck pretty hard with his fingers while going through the note.
DBA-02 - you hear the fingers hitting with some intensity, and you here a light resonance of the vibration through the cello.
Custom 3 - you hear the fingers hitting hard, you hear the variation of force of the hits, and you hear the vibration of those hits through the body of the cello as a good, drawn out thunk.
3:40 - Smack of the bow
DBA-02 clack, crisp, natural, light
Custom 3 - clack, but there's a deeper sense, a hearty hit, you can hear both the rod and the cello resonate from the smack.
General
DBA-02 - light, quick, excellent energy, does show you most every little sound that is present, doesn't fill out that sound though
Custom 3 - more bodied, drawn out sounds.
I don't even consider the Custom 3 to be top level. I call it half a step down from a lot of others, but it's a really good earphone none the less. It does a lot of things really well. It does sound stage really well. It has full-bodied, textured notes. It's good about portraying subtlety and energy.
An intermediate product that you might like is the RE-ZERO. I don't know if you've used a pair yet, but they are very different from the RE0 and fit nicely between the DBA-02 and Custom 3 in sound signature. You get a number of traits that coincide with what the DBA-02 does but caries a little more presence like the Custom 3 has which sounding very natural and accurate to life. It's a massive step up from the RE0 and a very good product in its own right.
If you want, i could let you demo these to show you want I mean. I do feel these two products (Custom 3 and RE-ZERO) represent some of the best bang for the buck earphones out there today. Now this is nothing against the DBA-02 which actually does really well too. I just feel there are things it can't quite do despite being really good elsewhere.
