[james444]

Ostry has crafted a fabulous IEM.

 
There's quite a few of us who think that too.

 

[vwinter]

There's quite a few of us who think that too.

I liked it more for the potential Ostry the company shows than it being towards my personal preference, but it is really an excellent earphone with excellent build. Kind of excited to hear that new one I saw a rendering of (don't think it's out yet).

 

[Shawn71]

Yeah, I'll be sending them in tomorrow :/

I'm eager to share my impressions, but I think I'll hold off until I get a proper pair in.
I am very very impressed though. Ostry has crafted a fabulous IEM. The 30$ (BF deal) I paid for it seems unreal.

how does it compare with waterlines?....tho little hiccups on your pair but ootb.....

 

[getclikinagas]

how does it compare with waterlines?....tho little hiccups on your pair but ootb.....

 
OOTB vs RE400:

1. Definitely coloured.
2. Very very sensitive. Very hissy on my laptop.
3. Vocals are more intelligible (more revealing).
4. Mid bass in greater quantity.
5. Channel imbalance was most noticeable in the sub bass, so I cannot comment.
6. Treble is more emphasized; non sibilant but not as smooth as the RE400.
7. Isolation is low. Low enough to be bothersome when environment is mildly noisy.
8. Excellent and strikingly beautiful design that felt better built than the RE400.
9. RE400 is more comfortable. KC06 has a flat profile with a short nozzle.
10. Lot more airier and better soundstage, imaging on par,
11. RE400 is more accurate.
12. It's not similar enough to call it a fun RE400.

 
Subjective opinion:
I love the RE400 to bits. I've spent a better part of the last year rediscovering my music collection with the RE400 and RE272.
But there are some genres and certain songs that require colouration in an IEM for it to be truly enjoyed. It sounded very good and accurate on the RE400 but lacked that fun factor that rounds off the overall enjoyability.
 
I cannot enjoy hot treble and cannot enjoy an IEM where the mids are recessed.
And this is where the KC06 came in. It provided the fun the RE400 lacked without the unforgivable trade-offs.
It will not replace my RE400 but definitely deserves a seat up there alongside it. I wish the isolation was better. It would have undoubtedly been my go-to travel IEM.

 

[james444]

   
OOTB vs RE400:

1. Definitely coloured.
2. Very very sensitive. Very hissy on my laptop.
3. Vocals are more intelligible (more revealing).
4. Mid bass in greater quantity.
5. Channel imbalance was most noticeable in the sub bass, so I cannot comment.
6. Treble is more emphasized; non sibilant but not as smooth as the RE400.
7. Isolation is low. Low enough to be bothersome when environment is mildly noisy.
8. Excellent and strikingly beautiful design that felt better built than the RE400.
9. RE400 is more comfortable. KC06 has a flat profile with a short nozzle.
10. Lot more airier and better soundstage, imaging on par,
11. RE400 is more accurate.
12. It's not similar enough to call it a fun RE400.

 
Subjective opinion:
I love the RE400 to bits. I've spent a better part of the last year rediscovering my music collection with the RE400 and RE272.
But there are some genres and certain songs that require colouration in an IEM for it to be truly enjoyed. It sounded very good and accurate on the RE400 but lacked that fun factor that rounds off the overall enjoyability.
 
I cannot enjoy hot treble and cannot enjoy an IEM where the mids are recessed.
And this is where the KC06 came in. It provided the fun the RE400 lacked without the unforgivable trade-offs.
It will not replace my RE400 but definitely deserves a seat up there alongside it. I wish the isolation was better. It would have undoubtedly been my go-to travel IEM.

 
Interesting observations, and definitely a lot here I agree with (extrapolating from the RE600, that is. I haven't heard the RE400).
 
Subjective opinion: The lack of fun is a gripe I've had with virtually all HiFiMAN IEMs I heard so far. The RE600 are a step up in that regard from some of their prior offerings, but still rather lackluster sounding. Now, some will probably say that's the price you have to pay for accuracy, but I don't agree. I've heard similarly accurate phones that sound a lot more engaging. I personally feel they sound overly damped and lack realism when it comes to portrayal of dynamics. A frequency-accurate speaker, laced into a time domain corset, if you will. A variant of coloring that's different from the ones we usually talk about when we discuss sound signatures. But coloring nevertheless, the skewing of a signal being fed.

 

[Shawn71]

OOTB vs RE400:

• Definitely coloured.
• Very very sensitive. Very hissy on my laptop.
• Vocals are more intelligible (more revealing).
• Mid bass in greater quantity.
• Channel imbalance was most noticeable in the sub bass, so I cannot comment.
• Treble is more emphasized; non sibilant but not as smooth as the RE400.
• Isolation is low. Low enough to be bothersome when environment is mildly noisy.
• Excellent and strikingly beautiful design that felt better built than the RE400.
• RE400 is more comfortable. KC06 has a flat profile with a short nozzle.
• Lot more airier and better soundstage, imaging on par,
• RE400 is more accurate.
• It's not similar enough to call it a fun RE400.

Subjective opinion:
I love the RE400 to bits. I've spent a better part of the last year rediscovering my music collection with the RE400 and RE272.
But there are some genres and certain songs that require colouration in an IEM for it to be truly enjoyed. It sounded very good and accurate on the RE400 but lacked that fun factor that rounds off the overall enjoyability.

I cannot enjoy hot treble and cannot enjoy an IEM where the mids are recessed.
And this is where the KC06 came in. It provided the fun the RE400 lacked without the unforgivable trade-offs.
It will not replace my RE400 but definitely deserves a seat up there alongside it. I wish the isolation was better. It would have undoubtedly been my go-to travel IEM.

Well,looking at the mids,mid bass,than 400s,on a ootb kc06 is something most cannot ignore,that includes me.....hope the high's will be mellowed after decent brain/burn-ins......and for that BF deal price its an excellent deal but I was keen on kc06A which unfortunately never happened(deal).......so now a loser of kc06

finally, so you say the 400s mids are bit recessed to ostry's?

Btw,TY for your time and effort, tho you decided to send'em back for replacement.....

 

[getclikinagas]

  Interesting observations, and definitely a lot here I agree with (extrapolating from the RE600, that is. I haven't heard the RE400).
 
Subjective opinion: The lack of fun is a gripe I've had with virtually all HiFiMAN IEMs I heard so far. The RE600 are a step up in that regard from some of their prior offerings, but still rather lackluster sounding. Now, some will probably say that's the price you have to pay for accuracy, but I don't agree. I've heard similarly accurate phones that sound a lot more engaging. I personally feel they sound overly damped and lack realism when it comes to portrayal of dynamics. A frequency-accurate speaker, laced into a time domain corset, if you will. A variant of coloring that's different from the ones we usually talk about when we discuss sound signatures. But coloring nevertheless, the skewing of a signal being fed.

The most variable definitions I've come across, on Head-fi, are of "neutral", "natural" and "accurate". And even more so, in descriptions containing a combination of two or more of these words. 
There are so many factors that contribute to the perception of accuracy or naturalness. Add to that, the fact that most of the music we hear today is tweaked and pieced together, we mostly do not have an idea of what the producer intended it to sound like, and that we mostly do not have an idea of what it sounded like live. So we work with our experiences and what our brain identifies as natural/coloured/accurate.
My understanding/experience of dynamics is severely limited too. 
I still have a lot more to read, learn and experience to gain a better understanding. Thanks for sharing, James.
 
I remember a post of yours from a while back, that got me thinking. Where you compared photography to audio.
Better looking and something one would prefer over the other, doesn't mean it's more accurate or natural.
 
PS: I'm always looking for ward to the next step in my journey. Could you share with us which IEMs you were referring to when you said "I've heard similarly accurate phones that sound a lot more engaging.(than HiFiMAN)". And also which IEM in your opinion performs the best where dynamics is concerned.
 

Well,looking at the mids,mid bass,than 400s,on a ootb kc06 is something most cannot ignore,that includes me.....hope the high's will be mellowed after decent brain/burn-ins......and for that BF deal price its an excellent deal but I was keen on kc06A which unfortunately never happened(deal).......so now a loser of kc06

finally, so you say the 400s mids are bit recessed to ostry's?

Btw,TY for your time and effort, tho you decided to send'em back for replacement.....

I don't know if I would say the RE400's mids are more recessed than the Ostry. Midrange recession is adjudged based on where it sits with the rest of the spectrum. Given the bass and treble presence of the RE400 the mids are slightly forward at normal listening volume. On the Ostry, given it's greater mid bass hump and greater treble presence, the mids still come through clearly. What I mean to say is, extent of midrange forwardness is difficult(for me) to compare because of the difference in the rest of the spectrum between the two. Best I can say is that both are slightly mid forward.
Although, I can say for sure: Greater vocal intelligibility on the KC06 is due to the prominence in the upper mids, whereas the RE400 is linear in the midrange.
 
I haven't A/B'ed them extensively so I will not be able to refine the differences any further :/
Maybe, once my replacement pair comes in.

 

[voicemaster]

The high on kc06 never seems to bright in my experience. It is very smooth, yet sparkly and never shown any sibilance at all.

 

[james444]

 
PS: I'm always looking for ward to the next step in my journey. Could you share with us which IEMs you were referring to when you said "I've heard similarly accurate phones that sound a lot more engaging.(than HiFiMAN)". And also which IEM in your opinion performs the best where dynamics is concerned.

 
There's quite a few. Of course the first that come to mind are always the UERM, very accurate, but still dynamic and engaging. The K3003, FAD Heaven VII, Ortofon e-Q8, all of them not very colored and yet more dynamic than the HiFiMANs I've heard.
 
And if we don't limit ourselves to IEMs, the Sennheiser Orpheus is a paramount example of flatness and at the same time highly euphonic and engaging. Its closest relatives in the IEM world are imo the wooden JVCs, as far as timbre and dynamics are concerned - but sadly not in bass (that's why I'm spending so much time trying to mod them . Can't really say which one's the absolute best IEM regarding dynamics, but as a rule of thumb I've found that more sensitive IEMs are usually also better in conveying dynamics. The KC06, for instance, are very sensitive and I think pretty good in that regard.

 

[eke2k6]

   
There's quite a few. Of course the first that come to mind are always the UERM, very accurate, but still dynamic and engaging. The K3003, FAD Heaven VII, Ortofon e-Q8, all of them not very colored and yet more dynamic than the HiFiMANs I've heard.

 
 
Don't forget the Flat-4! It's slightly treble tilted, but I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the more engaging listens I've ever had.
 
 
I wrote this about it over a year ago, and I still think lovingly about it from time to time.
 

  What I hear from the Flat-4 is...detail. Straightforward detail. I can't really pin down a sound signature that would make sense. All I know is that the Flat-4 is probably the most ruthless iem I've listened to. Every last detail is shown, every rise and fall in the track, every parting of lips, every slight shift in the pianist chair, every page turn in an orchestral piece, and every shift in the sound stage. This is a radically analytical phone, but with a very powerful low end. You won't get any warm caresses, nor any lingering shimmer of a cymbal. Just pure detail. If the song is recorded well, awesome. If not, sorry.
 
But what truly defines the Flat-4 for me, and the reason I'm so firmly planted on the fence about it, is just how raw it sounds. For me, an important hallmark of a top of the line headphone or iem is the level of refinement it can produce. The Flat-4, however, is a detail monster that doesn't have the last touches of smoothness on the edges of notes, yet it's an extremely engaging listen. Aside from the standard well mastered files, I'm finding that I also have to listen to music I actually like for me to enjoy the Flat-4. It's almost as if it presents me the details, then uses my emotional attachment to the songs as the glue that binds the experience together. A very popular phrase I see around here is "OMG, this song sounds amazing on X headphone." I haven't had that experience even once with the Flat-4. Instead, all I think is "I really do love this song." An example of this was last night when I was laying down with the lights off, and Gavin DeGraw's "We Belong Together" (the stripped version) came around on shuffle. All at once, while listening to the F4, the lyrics took on deeper meaning, and the song really touched me. I almost called my girlfriend up to tell her I love her. Almost.
 
I usually try not to wax poetic about iems, and I generally succeed. Only the Piano Forte VIII and Flat-4 have managed to pull this out of me. 
 
While typing this up, I thought of a way to describe the Flat-4. I imagine it as sitting on an outside terrace at 6 am on a cold spring morning. There's nothing out there but you and your thoughts, and it's at that time, in that moment, that you think most clearly.
 
As for comparing it to the ASG-2, I don't think I really can. What I will say is this...
 
The Sennheiser IE800 is probably my favorite IEM to date. I'll probably own one down the line. However if someone were to offer me a choice between it and the Flat-4, given that I already own the ASG-2, I would take the Flat-4. It would probably sit in a drawer most of the time, but every once in a while I'd listen to it...maybe while sitting on an outside terrace on a cold winter spring morning with a cup of green tea in my hands.

 

[james444]

  The most variable definitions I've come across, on Head-fi, are of "neutral", "natural" and "accurate". And even more so, in descriptions containing a combination of two or more of these words. 
There are so many factors that contribute to the perception of accuracy or naturalness. Add to that, the fact that most of the music we hear today is tweaked and pieced together, we mostly do not have an idea of what the producer intended it to sound like, and that we mostly do not have an idea of what it sounded like live. So we work with our experiences and what our brain identifies as natural/coloured/accurate.
  ...
 
I remember a post of yours from a while back, that got me thinking. Where you compared photography to audio.
Better looking and something one would prefer over the other, doesn't mean it's more accurate or natural.

 
There's a lot of truth in this first paragraph. And it goes without saying that my own take on the HiFiMAN IEMs is definitely subjective and influenced by the recordings and live music I listen to. Tweaking is imo less of a concern with classical and acoustic music, which comprises the majority of stuff I listen to. But that doesn't change the fact that my judgment is no less subjective than everybody else's.
 
As for your second paragraph, I think you mean this post:
 

  You know what? I'd even agree with whoever said that. But sadly clarity and detail resolution are only part of the picture.
 
Take a look at these photos. Click on the first one, then click on the right / left arrows to toggle between them. Which one looks clearer and more detailed?
 

 
Correct: the second one. But in reality it's over-sharpened, over-saturated, and its tone curve is way off. The first shot is actually a lot more true to the original scene.

 
Now, this is something I'm really concerned about, because so many people mistake perceived clarity for detail resolution. Isn't it interesting that the second picture looks clearer and more detailed, but was in fact created by deleting information from the first one? And it's exactly the same thing that bothers me about IEMs with overly thin and sharp treble (like those T-PEOS and Samsungs), because they were obviously tuned for fake detail, and people fall for it.
 

  Don't forget the Flat-4! It's slightly treble tilted, but I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the more engaging listens I've ever had.

 
Granted, but to my ears they were quite colored. Actually, another good example for detail resolution that sounded, ahem, a bit "unreal".

 

[james444]

Poor man's K3003?

  K3003 with reference filter vs. Ostry KC06
 

(source: Innerfidelity)

 

[Joe Bloggs]

 
You know what? I'd even agree with whoever said that. But sadly clarity and detail resolution are only part of the picture.

Take a look at these photos. Click on the first one, then click on the right / left arrows to toggle between them. Which one looks clearer and more detailed?





Correct: the second one. But in reality it's over-sharpened, over-saturated, and its tone curve is way off. The first shot is actually a lot more true to the original scene.

Now, this is something I'm really concerned about, because so many people mistake perceived clarity for detail resolution. Isn't it interesting that the second picture looks clearer and more detailed, but was in fact created by deleting information from the first one? And it's exactly the same thing that bothers me about IEMs with overly thin and sharp treble (like those T-PEOS and Samsungs), because they were obviously tuned for fake detail, and people fall for it.

I get that you're trying to illustrate a point here, but I don't see how the second picture is "fake". As far as I can see, the first picture doesn't even cover the whole gamut with its histogram, and even the foilage in the second picture is a featureless mush. And its histogram isn't cliped either, so I don't know about any information being thrown away Even the jpg file size is larger...

 

[vwinter]

I get that you're trying to illustrate a point here, but I don't see how the second picture is "fake". As far as I can see, the first picture doesn't even cover the whole gamut with its histogram, and even the foilage in the second picture is a featureless mush. And its histogram isn't cliped either, so I don't know about any information being thrown away Even the jpg file size is larger...

Unfortunately, histograms don't work like FR graphs. It shows what was captured by the camera in the photo. You can easily overexpose or adjust the digital processing to hit a wider color representation. Whereas a FR graph would more show what could be captured by the camera. The equivalent would be those gamut graphs that show the full gamut and then what each standard (eg Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGB) or device (eg Canon 5D MKIII) can display or use or capture.

So there are a few points here to consider:

1. Digital color is an additive medium, so you start with red green blue and you combine them to approach white because you are combining light. Whereas say acrylic paint (physical color if you will) is a subtractive medium, adding colors moves toward black.

2. Given point 1, if you have a digital photo that is dark and you tweak it with software to "brighten" it, the software literally needs to "add color" to attain what is closer to white. What this translates to is additional instructions in the file for the monitor to use more of it's color light(s) to display lighter colors. That would account for the increased filesize. Unless it's just a white canvas, which is likely a simplified more efficient instruction.

3. Natural scenes (ie real life) don't necessarily have to cover the whole color gamut or all values. Take for example a dark red card on an almost black background. Your histogram of a true to life photo will accurately show the a red bump on the left side of the histogram and no information on the right because there just isn't that level of light intensity in the scene. So what James was getting at and I alluded to before is that his first image is more true to life based on his being able to see the scene personally than the second image which he artificially edited for sharpness and contrast and brightness. He could have also overexposed the shot to get a potentially more even histogram but that wouldn't be accurate.

Translating it to sonic terms, nature is the musician, James's eyes are the producer and the first image shows what headphones or earphones James used to create the final mix that he felt best represented what the musician played would best recreate.

I think that last part is mostly accurate...

 

[mdiogofs]

How are these compared to VSONIC VC1000? If anyone can do a very brief comparison just about lows, mids and highs i would apreciate. I believe they are "quite" similar in signature...Tks