[Trogdor]

This is becoming more and more complicated. Man, there are too many choice, K3003, IE800, Togo 334, JH16 and JH13 etc... and now SE846. I wish there is a place/festival in the East coast where you can try them all at once so you can compare/decide. 

The annual New York meet would be the place to start.

 

[LyPForever]

Quote:

This is becoming more and more complicated. Man, there are too many choice, K3003, IE800, Togo 334, JH16 and JH13 etc... and now SE846. I wish there is a place/festival in the East coast where you can try them all at once so you can compare/decide. 

If I am in your situation, definitely SE846 will not be my choice. I have a chance to give the SE846 a try at mook festival. This iem not impress me at all and I quite disappoint when heard it. With my preference, SE846 is the worst among all iem you've listed above. The only thing I found SE846 stand out is the bass

 

[Winegums]

Not sure if this has been asked yet or talked about, but since the low pass filter is esentially a long tube won't the low end frequency be extremely out of phase? I was looking at two pictures of JH16's one freqphase and an original one. It looks like in order to bring the frequencies into phase Jerry had to change the distance the sound travels. The bass has the shortest tube where as the mids have a medium tube and the highs an even longer tube.
 
Not that I'm going to be getting a 846 I'm just expressing a concern that it might not be very phase correct.

 

[myap2328]

If I am in your situation, definitely SE846 will not be my choice. I have a chance to give the SE846 a try at mook festival. This iem not impress me at all and I quite disappoint when heard it. With my preference, SE846 is the worst among all iem you've listed above. The only thing I found SE846 stand out is the bass

Well it's show conditions. But for my case, I can't do CIEMs so the jh13/16 are out.
The K3003 and TG334 is 1599 and 1899 respectively while the 846 is 1299 (1000 for me) and the ie800 is 1139. Sounds like for me, if I were to look at price bracket wise, the ie800 would be the only competitor for the 846 as the next up would be the AKGs that are 600 dollar more, unfair comparison IMO.

 

[arnaud]

One poster made an intelligent remark a few pages back about the phase shift occured by a few inches long duct relative the several meters long acoustic wavelength at that frequency. It's marginal.

A better image of what the low pass filter does is more like an additional mass, spring and damper between the driver and the ear canal. You effectively get a bandpass acoustic filter. It's been over 15 years since I looked into subwoofers so memory fades but, as I recall, the issue here isn't the phase but the transient response. In particular, You don't want to get too much overshoot at the main resonance frequency as it's been related to perceived "uncontrolled / wolly" bass.

From my short audition with the 846, it was more the quantity of bass than the texture I had an issue with while using straight from the iphone 5. It appeared all cleared using the pico power. Now that demos are getting into the stores, I will spend more time to revisit this.

For the comments from the mook festival about it being much worse than all other iems such as jh13, I am at a bit of a loss to understand it. I don't recall such experience from the tokyo show and I was rather partial to start with since I heard the 846, jh13fp, and other westone (top model ciem, can't remember the name) for the first time on that day. At least, compared to the 535, there were very substantial improvements (immediately noticeable on an A/B listen) in terms of cohesiveness and lack of compression / distortion. If it wasn't for the bass excess from the iphone. I'd own one by now I think.

 

[goodvibes]

I think that was me about the wavelength thing. It's not like a hybrid where the dynamic plays into the mids. the smaller offset there would be more noticeable and I didn't notice it on the 1+2 I auditioned. I'm a little disappointed in the comments about bass quantity though it's not quite settled. Anything more than a jh13 or especially the 1+2 would be over the top for me.

 

[dleblanc343]

I think that was me about the wavelength thing. It's not like a hybrid where the dynamic plays into the mids. the smaller offset there would be more noticeable and I didn't notice it on the 1+2 I auditioned. I'm a little disappointed in the comments about bass quantity though it's not quite settled. Anything more than a jh13 or especially the 1+2 would be over the top for me.

I'd be surprised, and also disappointed if the amount of bass is superior to the 1+2, which I find borderline too much for my tastes already. I guess I'll know next week when my Shures get in. If the Shures can beat my K3003, I'll be happy; but I am starting to believe they won't. I'm expecting them to be on the TG334! level or better hopefully, but probably not as accurate as the AKG.

 

[jelt2359]

For what it's worth, my um3x sound significantly more bassy than the shures. AB testing these two phones gave me a real shock. However the quality of the bass on my shures are much better.

 

[jelt2359]

Quote:

I'm actually scoring the connectit bundle with the alo national amp

Shiok!

 

[Mahay]

Quote:

The annual New York meet would be the place to start.

Cool!!! What the calendar for this year? Otherwise, do you know if there is around Maryland/Virginia?
 
Quote:

If I am in your situation, definitely SE846 will not be my choice. I have a chance to give the SE846 a try at mook festival. This iem not impress me at all and I quite disappoint when heard it. With my preference, SE846 is the worst among all iem you've listed above. The only thing I found SE846 stand out is the bass

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. So according to your taste, which one would you take. Can you sort them by your most favorite? The IE800 seems to be promising and the K3003 sells at lower price on ebay at around $800. This latter makes me wonder if the low price is due to the SQ.

 

[woodcans]

Quote:

Cool!!! What the calendar for this year? Otherwise, do you know if there is around Maryland/Virginia?
 
Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. So according to your taste, which one would you take. Can you sort them by your most favorite? The IE800 seems to be promising and the K3003 sells at lower price on ebay at around $800. This latter makes me wonder if the low price is due to the SQ.

 
Oh boy, I think I hear a sparrow flying this way.

 

[Mahay]

Quote:

 
Oh boy, I think I hear a sparrow flying this way.

 
I mean MSRP of the K3003 is $1300 vs $800 on ebay, there is like $500 difference. To me $800 is still very expensive and hard to justify to buy especially after thinking that may be there won't be that much difference compare to the SE535. But I am just curious about the reason of the price drop. 

 

[dleblanc343]

I had the IE800 and the K3003's at the same time; and I prefer the AKG's (only modern akg product i enjoy a lot). This of course is a matter of preference.

However, the AKG is a better reference, has an overall more coherent sound (I know many would disagree but I disgress) and finally the AKG is overall more transparent. I ultimately kept them over the Senns, as good as I was hoping the IE800's would be.

Now onto the SE846!

 

[Trogdor]

Cool!!! What the calendar for this year? Otherwise, do you know if there is around Maryland/Virginia?

Check the Meets forums please! Plenty of information there.

 

[Nabil]

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[size=9.0pt]Got the SE846 late last week. This is not a review but a quick observation. My main player has been the AK120 and with this pairing I was not happy with the sound. There was extra bass but I thought that was part of the ES846 sound. What really seemed off is that the vocals were harsh in most cases. The vocals were the reason on many songs I would turn the volume down. Since the AK120 has output impedance of 3.3 ohms I thought this could be the source of the issue and I think I was right. I switched to my older RWAK100 which has OI < 1 ohm and the sound is much more balanced. The bass is still strong but not too exaggerated and best of all the vocals are normal again.[/size]
 
[size=9.0pt]So I think the low impedance of the SE846 is going to make one's choice of sources somewhat limited (I have not had issues with any other IEMs straight out of the AK120 such as the WR4 or IE800).[/size]
 
[size=9.0pt]Note: I tried the SE846 on the AK120 via ALO MKIII amp and it was better than straight out of the AK120 but not as good as the RWAk100.[/size]
 
[size=9.0pt]I might have to sell them or get the RWA mod for the AK120.[/size]

I thought I would post an update since I have changed my opinion after trying different tips. I did not like the SE846 with the olive tips or the triple flanges. Finally settled on the grey ones. With these tips the vocals sound great and there is no harshness at all. Wide presentation. Excellent highs and the bass although there is a little extra it is not muddy and quite good. I have been listening to them through the RWAK100.
 
Compared to IE800:
Bass: Great on both. I have a slight preference for the IE800 (which some think has too much bass but I like the effect of the bump in the low end of the bass)
Mids: I expected that I would clearly pick one over the other since they are different but I like both equally. Both are excellent.
Highs: I like the SE846 a little better than the IE800.