A day later and loving the M9 with these DUNU tips, pretty sure they are their balanced tip. The deeper gap in the nozzle I suspect prevents that suction happening and I think also widens soundstage etc - they sound absolutely incredible anyway... went walking earlier and stayed perfectly in my ears.
A day later and loving the M9 with these DUNU tips, pretty sure they are their balanced tip. The deeper gap in the nozzle I suspect prevents that suction happening and I think also widens soundstage etc - they sound absolutely incredible anyway... went walking earlier and stayed perfectly in my ears.
Looking forward to it!
Crinacle's review of the SA6 makes them sound very interesting and potentially a good complimentary IEM to the M9, but I am really wondering about the technicalities of the SA6. The IMO perfect speed/decay characteristics of the M9, the great imaging, clarity, detail and layering set a standard I don't really want to give up.
Crin rated the QDC 4SS very high as well, and I bought it and found it sound very muffled, with a decay that was way too fast to be natural.
When I sold it the buyer also wrote back that he found them to sound muffled, so it was not just my ears.
For that reason a direct comparsion to the M9 will be invaluable!
I hope to spend time over the weekend doing some considered comparisons vs the S6. Very hard to drag myself away from the M9 though - I adore them. Listening to the below album right now and they sound so incredible - I'm not very familiar with articulating the technical attributes of IEMs but I will say, I really can't imagine how anything could sound better... Kevin Morby's voice, the guitars and all other instruments sound so perfectly positioned, smooth delivery that just feels so intimate - when I close my eyes and focus on the music, the imaging is spectacular.
Someone said they'd get to it this weekend, but I thought I could chime in too!
IER-M9 is a lot warmer with more mid-bass (even with the SA6's atmospheric switch on). Both have above-average BA bass, but the IER-M9 slams harder and decays longer. Some trade-offs: the Sonion woofers have something of a slight blunting to transient attack, whereas the IER-M9 bloats slightly due to too much mid-bass. Both have a lower-treble suckout that's intended to prevent sibilance; the IER-M9's dip is more noticeable to my ears, although the amplitude of the SA6's dip graphs more pronounced. IER-M9 has a lot more crash and sparkle by comparison, plus terrific extension thanks to its super tweeter. Very well-tuned, warmer IEMs in general.
The SA6 is a competent IEM in the technical department, but there's a good gap between the two to my ears. I want to say attack is slightly more aggressive on the SA6 and it definitely decays quicker than the IER-M9. The IER-M9 is very natural in that regard with one of the cleanest decays, if not the cleanest decay I've heard of any BA IEM. Another strong distinction between them is their layering ability. The SA6 doesn't layer as well with a tendency to sort of "overlap" instruments on more complex, quicker tracks. The IER-M9 has excellent positional cues even though its staging doesn't sound much larger to my ears.
Personally, I'm not sure if I would consider these IEMs to be close compliments. If you go by raw tuning, then yes, the SA6 is every bit as well tuned as the IER-M9. But the IER-M9 is more than a couple steps ahead in the technical department - as it should be, given it's almost twice the price. I think the IER-M9 would more closely be the upgrade path if one already owns the SA6 (which I'd consider to be the current $500 benchmark).
Someone said they'd get to it this weekend, but I thought I could chime in too!
IER-M9 is a lot warmer with more mid-bass (even with the SA6's atmospheric switch on). Both have above-average BA bass, but the IER-M9 slams harder and decays longer. Some trade-offs: the Sonion woofers have something of a slight blunting to transient attack, whereas the IER-M9 bloats slightly due to too much mid-bass. Both have a lower-treble suckout that's intended to prevent sibilance; the IER-M9's dip is more noticeable to my ears, although the amplitude of the SA6's dip graphs more pronounced. IER-M9 has a lot more crash and sparkle by comparison, plus terrific extension thanks to its super tweeter. Very well-tuned, warmer IEMs in general.
The SA6 is a competent IEM in the technical department, but there's a good gap between the two to my ears. I want to say attack is slightly more aggressive on the SA6 and it definitely decays quicker than the IER-M9. The IER-M9 is very natural in that regard with one of the cleanest decays, if not the cleanest decay I've heard of any BA IEM. Another strong distinction between them is their layering ability. The SA6 doesn't layer as well with a tendency to sort of "overlap" instruments on more complex, quicker tracks. The IER-M9 has excellent positional cues even though its staging doesn't sound much larger to my ears.
Personally, I'm not sure if I would consider these IEMs to be close compliments. If you go by raw tuning, then yes, the SA6 is every bit as well tuned as the IER-M9. But the IER-M9 is more than a couple steps ahead in the technical department - as it should be, given it's almost twice the price. I think the IER-M9 would more closely be the upgrade path if one already owns the SA6 (which I'd consider to be the current $500 benchmark).
Thanks for that excellent analysis! You really packed a lot of information into this comparison.
Did you by any chance also hear the Thieaudio Monarch and Clairvoyance?
They look also very interesting. Based on everything I read I’d expect that they’d slot in between the SA6 and the M9 in terms of technicalities.
Another strong distinction between them is their layering ability. The SA6 doesn't layer as well with a tendency to sort of "overlap" instruments on more complex, quicker tracks. The IER-M9 has excellent positional cues even though its staging doesn't sound much larger to my ears.
Can you tell me which track you used to analyse this?
I currently own UM 3DT, a 3 DD iem, with 2 DD for bass and 1 DD for mid-high. I just got BGVP DM8 as a part of review tour, and have been comparing them. I was using an instrumental (orchestral, may be, not sure) track, Battlestar Galactica Season-2 OST: Prelude To War, for analysing the layering and imaging/positioning. What I found for BGVP DM8 is quite similar to your statement regarding IER-M9: It showed excellent positioning of different instruments from front to rear, stacked neatly one behind another, creating a very good sense of depth, but the staging wasn't very large to my ears. Whereas, on 3DT the different instruments were arranged in an upward sloping plane starting from the lower back of my head: the stage sounded slightly larger - slightly wider and slightly more height than DM8. But none of them sounded one overlapping other, may be because it was not particularly a busy track. Is that how you felt in case of SA6?
Can you tell me which track you used to analyse this?
I currently own UM 3DT, a 3 DD iem, with 2 DD for bass and 1 DD for mid-high. I just got BGVP DM8 as a part of review tour, and have been comparing them. I was using an instrumental (orchestral, may be, not sure) track, Battlestar Galactica Season-2 OST: Prelude To War, for analysing the layering and imaging/positioning. What I found for BGVP DM8 is quite similar to your statement regarding IER-M9: It showed excellent positioning of different instruments from front to rear, stacked neatly one behind another, creating a very good sense of depth, but the staging wasn't very large to my ears. Whereas, on 3DT the different instruments were arranged in an upward sloping plane starting from the lower back of my head: the stage sounded slightly larger - slightly wider and slightly more height than DM8. But none of them sounded one overlapping other, may be because it was not particularly a busy track. Is that how you felt in case of SA6?
I don’t often keep review units, so this comparison was done from memory! In your 3DT description, from your note of an upward sloping plane, it almost sounds like instruments “float” more? Or is it more closely the center image as a whole being pushed upwards? I don't think instruments on the SA6 float or anything of the sort; the soundstage also sounded fairly 2-dimensional to me. As I define layering - or separation - it's the quantity of space between instruments on the stage. Sorry, I might be misunderstanding what you're saying!
Thanks for that excellent analysis! You really packed a lot of information into this comparison.
Did you by any chance also hear the Thieaudio Monarch and Clairvoyance?
They look also very interesting. Based on everything I read I’d expect that they’d slot in between the SA6 and the M9 in terms of technicalities.
No problem! I've reviewed the Monarch, and yes, I would agree with that. The Monarch has really good macro-detail thanks to its tuning, but falls short on the more latent technicalities like imaging, coherency, and sheer detail retrieval. You mentioned one of Crin's reviews earlier, so I'm guessing you've seen his ranking list. While I generally agree with Crin's rankings - and have the utmost respect for what he does - I don't think I'd rank the Monarch at an S for technicalities. It's probably closer to an A+ to my ears, whereas the IER-M9 is indeed an S- as he has it ranked.
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