[Ace Bee]

The Land May be a safer choice. The Bravado, in its name, is a bold bassy iem. It’s clean enough in the bass that after a while the elevated bass seems more or less normal but if you have other iems it will be apparent. If you like the bass quantity of the 3DT then I suspect the Bravado will be too much.
As far as staging, I don’t think that the Bravado is less intimate that most iems out there but if you’re used to a CA type forward sound then it could seem distant. That changes with gain settings though but never gets up front like CA.
For me this Mk2 version works better as an all arounder where the Mk1 was a much more niche iem.

PS.. probably depends on your music choices too

I love 3DT's mid and highs..but I wished the bass was a little bit more voluminous. That is the single aspet of 3DT I found lacking.

For stage, I do not like intimate. I like wide, tall, and deep expansive soundstage. I like 3DT's soundstage, but would not mind a little more depth.

 

[fzman]

I was thinking about the above observation from my OG Solaris review...this funny "auto suggestion" is one of the first things I noticed when I got into this hobby 3 years go and started reading everything I could. This topic stands right at the nexus of many ideas I've been stewing on in the time since...the plasticity of perception, the importance of consulting as many sources of info as you can and above all trusting your own ears and inclinations. There are all sorts of preferences, tastes, cultural leanings, biases (conscious and unconscious), agendas etc. out there. Even among people I trust and relate to it can be very hard to attain consensus on anything. This hobby represents a microcosm of humanity and a rather interesting one at that.

Edit: Also the tracking info looks promising and with luck I'll have @tgx78 's Isabellae in my hands this evening.

I'm not sure what, if anything is gained by having or lacking concensus..... Trying to do 'online research' on sonic characteristics is a pretty tricky affair for all the reaons you cite, but also for other more philosohphical/conceptual matterss.

If you are not sure whether someone is using a word incorrectly, you can engage them in conversation and get to the truth of the matter pretty quickly. When it comes to word used to describe 'sensations', ie, taste, sound, smell, touch and vision, there is an issue called the Problewm of Invertted Spectra. That is, whenever you are presented with the color red, you actually see it as blue, but have learned to call it red. So, the verbal behavior matches your social context, but the actual perception is completely different. Technically, they are using the word 'red' incorrctly, but you would never be able to find ouot, short of a breakthrough in the sicence of 'mind reading'.....

Ear canal size and shape also affects how we 'hear', making it tough to make accurate comparisons as well. Be curious to see if the bigger-canal-ed folks hear things as less bright, e.g.

 

[blotmouse]

Science time!
Huge wide open ear holes (short canal) 15mm+ tips only. Middle aged, played rock for 25+ years professionally. small and large stages. Never ever used ear plugs as they messed up my tones (punk rock!). My hearing should be dog crap, but these "audiophile" tuned highs are a shrieking nightmare to me. In fact, I never was interested in Hi-fi because I always thought it meant an unnatural Godawful treble assault. Glad there are many flavors to choose from now. Or at least, the web has made shopping for devices that fit my tonality leanings that much easier. I used to just go to a hi-fi shop, get depressed, and then give up for a few years. Rinse repeat.

 

[fzman]

With two-channel speaker-based high end audio, the demographic is aging, and it is not unlikely that stuff is tipped-up to adjust for that. Interestingly, the 50's and 60's gear was warm, smooth, velvety and tubed.

I also think that acoustic instruments have natural bandwith limitations, that synths do not- and that many genres of music are of a thinner, leaner, brighter nature. Clearly some possible permutations could be considered torture under the Geneva Convention!

I also think that the Delta-Sigma dacs contribute to this (can anly once say 'dac named after bladed-weapon'?) There are many good implementations, but when you've heard a ladder-dac done well.......

 

[blotmouse]

With two-channel speaker-based high end audio, the demographic is aging

This may be in direct sync with the populaces ability to own a home or not. Speakers are off for me till I buy, and my market is the most pathetic/ridiculous in the US for 10+ years.

I also think that the Delta-Sigma dacs contribute to this (can anly once say 'dac named after bladed-weapon'?) There are many good implementations, but when you've heard a ladder-dac done well.......

I am stoked for the new Cayin. Hopefully it's "well done". The cost of entry and the feature-less buggy software and bizarrely grandad design (cept LP6, that's sexy as hell) of L&P put me off the r-2r train. But all that was needed was some other company to do one. My (Burr-Brown 1794/Class A) AR-M2 seems to be quite organic and free of the digi-sheen most chips have (also, not as resolving, but you don't care). The M8 gets pretty close too. but yeah, a late 90's hi end CD player + class a tube amp in your pocket is all I want really (shrug) minus the heat and power involved. Not a big ask.

 

[Rockwell75]

I'm not sure what, if anything is gained by having or lacking concensus

I think some degree of consensus is important within any sphere of human interaction-- the question is where to draw the line. Too much consensus brings sterility, not enough and you have no community There are many similarities between my hobbies of listening to music and eating food. You can travel and taste food all over the world, or even different areas in one part of the world, and everywhere you go there will be both variations in what is considered delicious, preferable, edible, and so on as well as things everyone in general can agree on, like a delicious mango or an orange. Similarly with audio gear there will be some things the majority can agree on and other things specific to different people, tastes, preferences, cultures etc. I interact with people who like different gear than me all the time, and I know that, even when I like something a lot more (or a lot less) than someone it's generally always possible to deduce from our relative impressions that we're describing the same piece of gear, and trace the disparity in opinion back to personal preferences. When I am not able to do this, when it sounds like they're talking about a fundamentally different piece of gear, I consider that a mystery and file it away in my file of things I don't understand, or don't know all the variables to.

I am stoked for the new Cayin. Hopefully it's "well done". The cost of entry and the feature-less buggy software and bizarrely grandad design (cept LP6, that's sexy as hell) of L&P put me off the r-2r train. But all that was needed was some other company to do one. My (Burr-Brown 1794/Class A) AR-M2 seems to be quite organic and free of the digi-sheen most chips have (also, not as resolving, but you don't care). The M8 gets pretty close too. but yeah, a late 90's hi end CD player + class a tube amp in your pocket is all I want really (shrug) minus the heat and power involved. Not a big ask.

OMG I'm more stoked about this than anything else I'm aware of coming down the pipeline right now. The M8 has opened my eyes to how much a good source can bring to the overall listening experience. If anyone can make something like this worth it's Cayin and my experience with the company in general and with the OG n6ii has me leaning heavily towards taking the blind on this one.

I mean look at this sexy beast:



In other news I just got a shipping notification that the tour sample of Cayin's new Fantasy IEM just shipped out of HK via DHL to me...this means I'll have both it and the Isabellae this weekend.

Or at least, the web has made shopping for devices that fit my tonality leanings that much easier. I used to just go to a hi-fi shop, get depressed, and then give up for a few years. Rinse repeat.

100%...I am so grateful for audio communities like this one and to people who take the time to share their experiences-- we'd all be stumbling around in the dark without it.

 

[blotmouse]

OMG I'm more stoked about this than anything else I'm aware of coming down the pipeline. The M8 has opened my eyes to how much a good source can bring to the overall listening experience. If anyone can make something like this worth it's Cayin and my experience with the company in general and with the OG n6ii has me leaning heavily towards taking the blind on this one.

I am totally blind on this. It’ll be my 1st Cayin purchase. They seemed like a company I needed to familiarize myself with.
I was looking at the LGPT Ti, but was on the fence due to possibly paying a ridiculous amount of money for a mid-treble highlighted “natural” source, that doesn’t work for my tastes as much as the M8 already does. I am going with the idea I like a warm/flavored source and a rather natural w/ slight slam increase and rolled off treble peaks for an iem. That idea could change tomorrow.
Then I saw it!
Ti looks, analog style brains+streaming. And a dif tech to familiarize myself with, nice. I don’t need it, but I want it!

Very interested in your Isa thoughts. I got the pre order cause I was already opened up on other audio purchases (see above), why not keep it flowing? I know there is some waning after seeing the charts, but I am hoping the sum is more than the what the graphs say.

 

[Rockwell75]

Very interested in your Isa thoughts. I got the pre order cause I was already opened up on other audio purchases (see above), why not keep it flowing? I know there is some waning after seeing the charts, but I am hoping the sum is more than the what the graphs say.

I am looking forward to it too. I cancelled my pre-order because the graphs and some reports I've heard suggested it might not be my ideal tuning. I'm going to be careful to frame my impressions in the proper context though. We have a saying in education along the lines that we shouldn't judge a fish according to its ability to climb a tree. I think a similar philosophy should be adhered to when describing & reviewing IEMs-- everything deserves to be judged on its own merits, intentions and strengths and should not be criticized merely for manifesting a different tuning ideal or target curve than is beholden to a specific preference or orthodoxy. My experience with IEMs has taught me that, in addition to varous shades of neutral and "reference," IEMs can manifest what could be termed as "eastern" and "western" coloration. Eastern tuning tends to emphasize sub bass over mid bass and upper mids over lower and western tuning tends to emphasize mid-bass and lower mids, and so on. Not surprisingly western tuning tends to sound better with western pop music. R&B, blues, rock etc. and eastern tends to sound better with Asian & female vocal pop. I was initially quite excited about the Isa because I heard it had a decent lower mid/mid bass presence, which is something I often find lacking in IEMs with a more Eastern flavor. The graphs & early impressions have left me wondering if it may have too much of an upper mid/lower treble emphasis...something that has been a deal breaker on a few IEMs for me lately, even when it's not that pronounced as on something like an un-modded 3DT.

All of this said I want to emphasize the point that the graphs, if it turns out that Isa sounds to my ears like it graphs, don't necessarily indicate a flaw or lack with the IEM-- just that it might not be ideal for me personally. It shouldn't be all that surprising that an Eastern master craftsman like the Old Man would tune some of his IEMs with a more eastern flavor just as it should not be surprising that a western mastern craftsman like Ken Ball would tune some his IEMs to a more western flavor. I am going to do my best to report on the Isa on its own terms even my Creedence tapes don't sound the best with it. Recently thanks to @ranfan and @8481 I've come across some great J-Pop and I can't wait to hear this divine voice through the Isa (and the Fantasy for that matter...an IEM I suspect has a similar tuning bias as the Isa).

 

[chickenmcnug]

The Eastern vs Western tuning is quite interesting to me as well and Ive also noticed that. Though Im from Asia most of the media and music I consume is Western and I tend to favour midbass and lower mids as @Rockwell75 has mentioned.

I think this also holds true for some daps. Sony for example, has different tunings for different regions on their 1Z and 1A.

I also have another random observation I’ve noticed about myself. When I listen to music I mainly tend to focus on instruments (drums/bass mainly as I used to play) and never really pay attention to lyrics.

This could be why I don’t like forward upper mids and weird treble peaks (Forte, In looking at you) as it cuts through the nether regions and I find that uncomfortable.

 

[ranfan]

All of this said I want to emphasize the point that the graphs, if it turns out that Isa sounds to my ears like it graphs, don't necessarily indicate a flaw or lack with the IEM-- just that it might not be ideal for me personally. It shouldn't be all that surprising that an Eastern master craftsman like the Old Man would tune some of his IEMs with a more eastern flavor just as it should not be surprising that a western mastern craftsman like Ken Ball would tune some his IEMs to a more western flavor. I am going to do my best to report on the Isa on its own terms even my Creedence tapes don't sound the best with it. Recently thanks to @ranfan and @8481 I've come across some great J-Pop and I can't wait to hear this divine voice through the Isa (and the Fantasy for that matter...an IEM I suspect has a similar tuning bias as the Isa).

Currently listening to it. The treble gave me goosebumps. It captures that faint reverie-like feel quite well It's a beautiful song indeed. I'm glad you liked it. There is also this song which I recently found and liked


It makes you want to just listen and tune out everything else (graphs, IEMs, etc.). And simply enjoy the sound

 

[Rockwell75]

I also have another random observation I’ve noticed about myself. When I listen to music I mainly tend to focus on instruments (drums/bass mainly as I used to play) and never really pay attention to lyrics.

I'm kind of the same way...I appreciate vocals but it's never been one of the main considerations for me, whereas for some it's the first thing they look for.

 

[Rockwell75]

Notice Card Left...which means the Isa is currently waiting for me at the Post Office...can't wait

 

[fzman]

most truth ever!

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I am looking forward to it too. I cancelled my pre-order because the graphs and some reports I've heard suggested it might not be my ideal tuning. I'm going to be careful to frame my impressions in the proper context though. We have a saying in education along the lines that we shouldn't judge a fish according to its ability to climb a tree. I think a similar philosophy should be adhered to when describing & reviewing IEMs-- everything deserves to be judged on its own merits, intentions and strengths and should not be criticized merely for manifesting a different tuning ideal or target curve than is beholden to a specific preference or orthodoxy. My experience with IEMs has taught me that, in addition to varous shades of neutral and "reference," IEMs can manifest what could be termed as "eastern" and "western" coloration. Eastern tuning tends to emphasize sub bass over mid bass and upper mids over lower and western tuning tends to emphasize mid-bass and lower mids, and so on. Not surprisingly western tuning tends to sound better with western pop music. R&B, blues, rock etc. and eastern tends to sound better with Asian & female vocal pop. I was initially quite excited about the Isa because I heard it had a decent lower mid/mid bass presence, which is something I often find lacking in IEMs with a more Eastern flavor. The graphs & early impressions have left me wondering if it may have too much of an upper mid/lower treble emphasis...something that has been a deal breaker on a few IEMs for me lately, even when it's not that pronounced as on something like an un-modded 3DT.

All of this said I want to emphasize the point that the graphs, if it turns out that Isa sounds to my ears like it graphs, don't necessarily indicate a flaw or lack with the IEM-- just that it might not be ideal for me personally. It shouldn't be all that surprising that an Eastern master craftsman like the Old Man would tune some of his IEMs with a more eastern flavor just as it should not be surprising that a western mastern craftsman like Ken Ball would tune some his IEMs to a more western flavor. I am going to do my best to report on the Isa on its own terms even my Creedence tapes don't sound the best with it. Recently thanks to @ranfan and @8481 I've come across some great J-Pop and I can't wait to hear this divine voice through the Isa (and the Fantasy for that matter...an IEM I suspect has a similar tuning bias as the Isa).

The silverlined mudskipper thinks you should reconsider judging fish by their ability to climb trees.

 

[fzman]

The silverlined mudskipper thinks you should reconsider judging fish by their ability to climb trees.

Is it scale-ing that tree on gill-igan's Isle, which is off the coast of fin-land?! that's 3 in a roe (pun-wise)