So I've been listening to this Gen1 set for the whole week and have quite a few things to share:
1. This is probably a more than 10 year old IEM and my guess was that it would never stand to even compete against chi-fi, sing-fi or other exotic competitors. WRONG. It not only compares but even excels. Of course there are better IEMs but even at it's MRP it can trade blows with similarly priced products and still come out on top. I'll do an extensive comparo with my sets soon.
2. The tuning filters definitely change the sound. In fact I did my own crude filters to see what's what and had some surprising results.
3. The bass is what's still most impressive on this set. That and the mids. Extremely cohesive and organic. No forced tuning or aggressive impact. Just supple and full.
That's the thing too, because the XO is done so well, there is no clouding or muddying of any frequencies which often takes away detail and realism.
4. I'm still undecided on what to say about the treble. It surely isn't this sets' strength but it isn't a weakness either. I've always heard that the treble on this rolled off quite soon and that it lacked shimmer but I guess a better way to put it would be that the treble isn't emphasized. Maybe it's the bass and mid-dominant tuning that makes the treble unremarkable but it's definitely not rolled off. Especially if you've got your source matched right and the filters configured correctly.
If I had to nit-pick then I'd say that maybe the lower treble and upper mids could've been more emphasized to make it appear more "shiny" or "resolving". To this effect it came to me to compare this with older sets from its time and see how they were tuned. So I pulled out my UE Triple-fi, Vsonic GR07 Classic, Sennheiser IE800.
Believe it or not, I think all the above have a very similar sound profile when it comes to treble. Except for the IE800 (which does get hot at times), all of them have this very "neutralish" / " unemphasized" sort of treble presentation. It's not in your face but it's not absent either.
Going back to some contemporary IEMs (Monarch MkII, U12T, Andromeda 2020, VE EXT, etc), things start to make sense. The market has moved from a neutral sound to something more embellished and "emphasized" in tuning. It makes sense because most of the older TOTLs were also studio tools and not just for high fidelity audio and were thus tuned as such.
To be frank, it was a nice change of pace with the SE846. It is a far more comfortable listen than almost all my new sets. I can't listen to the Monarch MKII for more than two hours at a go. The Shure I definitely can. I'll make some detailed comparisons in a future post.
5. Something also needs to be said about source pairings. It's all over the place. There's no right answer. For example the BTR17 makes it sound hollow and unnatural (stock settings, no EQ), very bassy and top-centric. The same IEM becomes the poster boy for "balance" with my Xduoo XD05PRO (low gain, ROHM DAC, Trulis OP-Amps). On the Quloos QA390LE it was very similar (albeit less energetic and slightly loose bass).
Most surprising (and satisfying) was the pairing with the Apos Gremlin. That's right, it was the best sounding with this tiny hybrid amp. Extremely detailed yet very musical and not a hint of noise.
I also plugged this into my headphone station: (Violectric V281FE+ Denafrips Terminator 1) and it was quite good but noisy, although in all fairness the amp was way too powerful to provide any sensible volume control. At -24dB and pot at 8 O'clock, I was already worried I might blow the drivers.
So there you have it, my week long journey with this forgotten gem of an IEM is almost done. I'll be getting a set for sure. But I'd also like to hear gen2 before I grab either.
Care to share more information like the cable you used and the tips you have, i got both the Aonic 5 and SE846 probably the Gen 1 version, going to check with Shure if they can sell me the Red filter included in the newer version
TIA
I used a 4.4 balanced cable terminated in MMCX made from 24guage 6N OCC Furukawa cable.
I used the white filter and glass wool fibre pellets as filters (most of the listening was on the white filter). I'll try to discuss filters too in a future post.
