The discovery thread!

[r31ya]

I'll find out later today after work as I just got the message that mine are ready to pick up. Got a nice deal with extended warranty and a Huawei band 7 for free with them.


Lately I've been focusing on comparing the TRN ST5 and KZ ZS10 Pro. (That and I've started to learn to play guitar)
I'll guess I'll give a quick teaser of that. Keep in mind that the ST5 is almost twice the price of the ZS10 Pro X and that I've only had the ZS10 Pro X for about 3 days.

Bass
It's quality vs quantity here. With the ST5 getting the great DD from the TA1 Max and being tuned more neutral, it should be no surprise the quality of bass is superb here. It has just enough quantity to make it fun without overpowering the rest of the frequency spectrum.
The ZS10 Pro X has the competent "X" driver as seen (heard) in the ZSX, ZAX and ZSN Pro X. If you've heard either of these before you'll know what the ZS10 Pro X bass is like. Quantity with decent texturing, a nice bit of rumble but a little lacking in terms technicality.

Mids
The ST5 has the upper hand here, it's more natural and cleaner than the ZS10 Pro X. Vocals are good for both male an female. The ZS10 Pro X while more refined than the original ZS10 Pro lags behind here. I need more time with them to get a better understanding of their strengths here.

Treble
When switching from the ST5 I feel like I want the ZS10 Pro X to have a higher quantity of treble. But since I like more treble than others I doubt most here would share the same opinion. When switching back to the for the first time ST5 something stood out immediately, the ZS10 Pro X's treble is much more refined compared to the ST5. While the detail retrieval is equal between the two, the quality of the ZS10 Pro X is a few steps ahead of the ST5. I actually prefer the treble of the TA1 Max to the ST5, way more refined than both the ST5 and ZS10 Pro X.

I've got to hand it to KZ, this ZS10 Pro X a big improvement over their original ZS10 Pro. Those who find the original a bit too hot in the treble probably will enjoy this one.

Some quick thoughts on both;
TRN ST5
A very good sounding an wel build option for the price. A nice and balanced IEM with good technical performance. Personally I don't think it's better than the TA1 Max but it's equal. Both have good and bad points and both are a steal at their price points. The build of the ST5 is great, comfortable and sturdy. The cable is nice with the swappable terminations but I would have liked it to be thicker as it feels a little thin.

KZ ZS10 Pro X
It's a more refined take on the ZS10 Pro, still a V-shaped IEM but done in a better way. Sure the bass isn't as punchy as the ZS10 Pro but the quality has improved a lot and the treble is way more refined.
Was kinda sad that it doesn't have the stainless face plate anymore, but with the prices of stainless steel tripling due to the pandemic and the war between Ukraine and Russia I don't blame them. All of the "new" S-type BA's are inside the shell but there is only one cluster for two with the other two being on opposite sides of the DD. And they are actually dark in color compared to the usual silver.



Don't like the new KZ/CCA cables though, it's worse than the braided silver one they used before and this one has a annoying memory bend near the jack on mine.

I've only got the ZS10 Pro X with me at work so I can only snap some quick picks of them atm.

I've added more IEM's to my collection like the CCA PLA13 and Truthear x Crinacle Zero but I haven't had much time for them yet to post something here about them.

If i remember it right
ST5 have better berry DD, but older BA
Zs10prox have budget inhouse DD but new gen BA.

It seems it shows in the sound sigs,
st5 have better bass and good mids but a bit lacking in treble.
Zs10prox have just decent bass and loses the mid battle a bit but it have better treble...

 

[brsdrgn]

The more collaborations the merrier, maybe?

Making a collaboration lost its unique value for me. All they do is just tune the iem to a target and done.

 

[nymz]

Speaking of HBB colabs....

Olina SE is out on Linsoul! Seems you can also upgrade case + cable if you want.

 

[unifutomaki]

For someone who once got burnt by qc issues, he dare to collab with qkz whose known for its unit variance

Since the collab with KZ went so well, obviously Knockoff KZ is a match made in heaven!

 

[Redcarmoose]

Making a collaboration lost its unique value for me. All they do is just tune the iem to a target and done.

Well, true.........myself anyway, I see every IEM as unique, which means that I don't EQ, but let whatever sound it has be it. I do understand how after judging IEMs for years and years how they would have an idea of what would be an optimal sound. Still the very nature of every driver offers a new and different challenge. Where it may be a fix, but then what happens (totally) globally as the result of a change? I do see how it could start to get old, with so many in the works, they are like designer hand-bags, that they have gone on to make each IEM slightly their own, because they are the experts so to speak. Still this goes back to either your into the IEM or you are not. Everyone has the right to like or dislike an influencers (sound design) tone. It's also fascinating from a marketing concept as now the IEMs have a face, or the symbol of a face, that represents human interaction. There is this living, breathing thing that's associated with the collaboration IEMs. They are not just printed-up at some factory, but have maybe the character of the creator. Again though, you need to buy into what the creator is selling for acceptance to take place. While often this "treatment" that is achieved has a special level of (sonic) sophistication, how many no-name sound designers are there? Answer is, most of them. I see it as both marketing and results, but again the results need to blend with whatever your own take on how an IEM should sound, and every IEM is slightly different.

"All they do is just tune the iem to a target and done."
They may do that, but I've only heard one collaboration, so I will be curious if they truly all sound the same, by the same tuner? Meaning even though they (the IEMs) are their target curves, an IEM has a level of character that is emitted from the intrinsic sound factors of driver methodology.......shell resonance ect....ect.

Basically I am guessing every IEM has a different sound no matter how much it gets tugged on. But also how much do we as listeners buy into that designer hand-bag? Do we all-of-a-sudden like the sound because they made it, or are we identifying with it because they and we share the same sound design philosophies? Are we just simply getting the IEM due to it being stylish, or is it truly better than the rest? Probably a little of each of these ideas? But it is ramping-up so it seems?

 

[saldsald]

Making a collaboration lost its unique value for me. All they do is just tune the iem to a target and done.

Can't agree more. I bought a few collabs and I find them all sound unfinished when compared to non-collabs.

 

[brsdrgn]

Since the collab with KZ went so well, obviously Knockoff KZ is a match made in heaven!

That was a good one!

 

[SartWaiting]

I'll take it at that price

I'll wait for discount

 

[ToneDeafMonk]

Wait for 11:11 on those QKZ

 

[DynamicEars]

Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 - Stunned!

I can’t believe this is not butter a wired IEM. 15 min. listening time in, very pleasing synergy between dynamic and planar driver.














Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 frequency

Exactly! DD with planar is great (if well implemented and tuned great)
That's why I'm curious about the new Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 (TWS)
11mm DD + all range planar and the tuning is superb
As cherry on top, they support LDAC codec (up to 990kbps). Think I'm gonna grab one

Speaking of the devil, today i was passing by Huawei store and took a quick u turn to try the Freebuds Pro 2. I was so happy and having great expectations


And there is demo unit there. Connected to my non huawei phone (samsung) flawlessly

They are light, made of plastic
Fit is great even with default eartips
I listen to spotify and flac files, a bit uncomfortable since the store clerk were staring at me all the time, I didn't care much, I just closed my eyes and focus to the music
And I was disappointed.. They are good for tws, just not as my huge expectation with great FR and planar driver.
My quick impressions:
The Bass is clean as they have nice bass shelf, but the big boosted mid and sub bass on 60hz lower are too big, clean deep but too overwhelming for me made the mids and highs dialed back, performing L shaped tuning. The sub bass dig deep, but the quality isn't that great and the mid bass while having clean cut, they smeared a lot, so they aren't tight.
I would give the bass score 6 / 10
(Z1R bass 9.5, Kato bass 7, Hana 2021 bass 6 for comparison). They are not perform better than KZ XUN driver sadly.

Mids have great tuning, have good details and smooth without weird peaks but still the bass is shadowing mids, not in muddy way of 100-300hz, clean bass but just too big in quantity. Not shouty, have neutral note weight, not thin that is good. Clear voices if we focus otherwise the big bass take the authority.
Mids score 7 / 10

Trebles is mediocre, not sibilance, smooth presentation, not enough bite for me, extension is hardly heard but i wasn't sure because ambient was quite noisy too. But nothing on trebles has impressed me.
Treble score 6 / 10

Details are under my expectation since i was hoping planar details. They are nothing like my Timeless, even though only connected to Fiio UTWS5, leave alone 4.4 balance cable + M11 plus ESS. Details are little bit distant and nothing special here. 6 or 7 / 10 cant be sure from short listening session.

Soundstage is medium, with good enough imaging, layering is minimum since depth also.

Actually i did my homework and maybe they just use planar for marketing wording since their planar is small closed planar that looked like BA here :


@freelancr hey man with full respect I really don't questioning your impressions nor your FR graph.
Not sure if I heard everything in great settings but ANC was off (tried to on for 1 or 2 minutes) and my short listening session of course won't be accurate. In fact, i was ready to grab one, graph looked very great although i know the bass will be too much, but i didn't expect that overwhelming
And the real dealbreaker for me is the volume level. I was listening on max volume, and that wasn't loud enough for me.
I know I'm very picky with bass quality but I was hoping great clean bass presentation there, and they do have clean bass but the boosted frequencies are too much. Anyway thank you and appreciate your impressions before

Cheers buddy!

 

[JAnonymous5150]

Speaking of the devil, today i was passing by Huawei store and took a quick u turn to try the Freebuds Pro 2. I was so happy and having great expectations


And there is demo unit there. Connected to my non huawei phone (samsung) flawlessly

They are light, made of plastic
Fit is great even with default eartips
I listen to spotify and flac files, a bit uncomfortable since the store clerk were staring at me all the time, I didn't care much, I just closed my eyes and focus to the music
And I was disappointed.. They are good for tws, just not as my huge expectation with great FR and planar driver.
My quick impressions:
The Bass is clean as they have nice bass shelf, but the big boosted mid and sub bass on 60hz lower are too big, clean deep but too overwhelming for me made the mids and highs dialed back, performing L shaped tuning. The sub bass dig deep, but the quality isn't that great and the mid bass while having clean cut, they smeared a lot, so they aren't tight.
I would give the bass score 6 / 10
(Z1R bass 9.5, Kato bass 7, Hana 2021 bass 6 for comparison). They are not perform better than KZ XUN driver sadly.

Mids have great tuning, have good details and smooth without weird peaks but still the bass is shadowing mids, not in muddy way of 100-300hz, clean bass but just too big in quantity. Not shouty, have neutral note weight, not thin that is good. Clear voices if we focus otherwise the big bass take the authority.
Mids score 7 / 10

Trebles is mediocre, not sibilance, smooth presentation, not enough bite for me, extension is hardly heard but i wasn't sure because ambient was quite noisy too. But nothing on trebles has impressed me.
Treble score 6 / 10

Details are under my expectation since i was hoping planar details. They are nothing like my Timeless, even though only connected to Fiio UTWS5, leave alone 4.4 balance cable + M11 plus ESS. Details are little bit distant and nothing special here. 6 or 7 / 10 cant be sure from short listening session.

Soundstage is medium, with good enough imaging, layering is minimum since depth also.

Actually i did my homework and maybe they just use planar for marketing wording since their planar is small closed planar that looked like BA here :


@freelancr hey man with full respect I really don't questioning your impressions nor your FR graph.
Not sure if I heard everything in great settings but ANC was off (tried to on for 1 or 2 minutes) and my short listening session of course won't be accurate. In fact, i was ready to grab one, graph looked very great although i know the bass will be too much, but i didn't expect that overwhelming
And the real dealbreaker for me is the volume level. I was listening on max volume, and that wasn't loud enough for me.
I know I'm very picky with bass quality but I was hoping great clean bass presentation there, and they do have clean bass but the boosted frequencies are too much. Anyway thank you and appreciate your impressions before

Cheers buddy!

Nice write up!

 

[brsdrgn]

Speaking of the devil, today i was passing by Huawei store and took a quick u turn to try the Freebuds Pro 2. I was so happy and having great expectations


And there is demo unit there. Connected to my non huawei phone (samsung) flawlessly

They are light, made of plastic
Fit is great even with default eartips
I listen to spotify and flac files, a bit uncomfortable since the store clerk were staring at me all the time, I didn't care much, I just closed my eyes and focus to the music
And I was disappointed.. They are good for tws, just not as my huge expectation with great FR and planar driver.
My quick impressions:
The Bass is clean as they have nice bass shelf, but the big boosted mid and sub bass on 60hz lower are too big, clean deep but too overwhelming for me made the mids and highs dialed back, performing L shaped tuning. The sub bass dig deep, but the quality isn't that great and the mid bass while having clean cut, they smeared a lot, so they aren't tight.
I would give the bass score 6 / 10
(Z1R bass 9.5, Kato bass 7, Hana 2021 bass 6 for comparison). They are not perform better than KZ XUN driver sadly.

Mids have great tuning, have good details and smooth without weird peaks but still the bass is shadowing mids, not in muddy way of 100-300hz, clean bass but just too big in quantity. Not shouty, have neutral note weight, not thin that is good. Clear voices if we focus otherwise the big bass take the authority.
Mids score 7 / 10

Trebles is mediocre, not sibilance, smooth presentation, not enough bite for me, extension is hardly heard but i wasn't sure because ambient was quite noisy too. But nothing on trebles has impressed me.
Treble score 6 / 10

Details are under my expectation since i was hoping planar details. They are nothing like my Timeless, even though only connected to Fiio UTWS5, leave alone 4.4 balance cable + M11 plus ESS. Details are little bit distant and nothing special here. 6 or 7 / 10 cant be sure from short listening session.

Soundstage is medium, with good enough imaging, layering is minimum since depth also.

Actually i did my homework and maybe they just use planar for marketing wording since their planar is small closed planar that looked like BA here :


@freelancr hey man with full respect I really don't questioning your impressions nor your FR graph.
Not sure if I heard everything in great settings but ANC was off (tried to on for 1 or 2 minutes) and my short listening session of course won't be accurate. In fact, i was ready to grab one, graph looked very great although i know the bass will be too much, but i didn't expect that overwhelming
And the real dealbreaker for me is the volume level. I was listening on max volume, and that wasn't loud enough for me.
I know I'm very picky with bass quality but I was hoping great clean bass presentation there, and they do have clean bass but the boosted frequencies are too much. Anyway thank you and appreciate your impressions before

Cheers buddy!

Thanks for the impressions. It'd be great if smb compares them with the new galaxy buds pro 2.

I'll check if there's any huawei store. I wanna try them also.

 

[freelancr]

Speaking of the devil, today i was passing by Huawei store and took a quick u turn to try the Freebuds Pro 2. I was so happy and having great expectations


And there is demo unit there. Connected to my non huawei phone (samsung) flawlessly

They are light, made of plastic
Fit is great even with default eartips
I listen to spotify and flac files, a bit uncomfortable since the store clerk were staring at me all the time, I didn't care much, I just closed my eyes and focus to the music
And I was disappointed.. They are good for tws, just not as my huge expectation with great FR and planar driver.
My quick impressions:
The Bass is clean as they have nice bass shelf, but the big boosted mid and sub bass on 60hz lower are too big, clean deep but too overwhelming for me made the mids and highs dialed back, performing L shaped tuning. The sub bass dig deep, but the quality isn't that great and the mid bass while having clean cut, they smeared a lot, so they aren't tight.
I would give the bass score 6 / 10
(Z1R bass 9.5, Kato bass 7, Hana 2021 bass 6 for comparison). They are not perform better than KZ XUN driver sadly.

Mids have great tuning, have good details and smooth without weird peaks but still the bass is shadowing mids, not in muddy way of 100-300hz, clean bass but just too big in quantity. Not shouty, have neutral note weight, not thin that is good. Clear voices if we focus otherwise the big bass take the authority.
Mids score 7 / 10

Trebles is mediocre, not sibilance, smooth presentation, not enough bite for me, extension is hardly heard but i wasn't sure because ambient was quite noisy too. But nothing on trebles has impressed me.
Treble score 6 / 10

Details are under my expectation since i was hoping planar details. They are nothing like my Timeless, even though only connected to Fiio UTWS5, leave alone 4.4 balance cable + M11 plus ESS. Details are little bit distant and nothing special here. 6 or 7 / 10 cant be sure from short listening session.

Soundstage is medium, with good enough imaging, layering is minimum since depth also.

Actually i did my homework and maybe they just use planar for marketing wording since their planar is small closed planar that looked like BA here :


@freelancr hey man with full respect I really don't questioning your impressions nor your FR graph.
Not sure if I heard everything in great settings but ANC was off (tried to on for 1 or 2 minutes) and my short listening session of course won't be accurate. In fact, i was ready to grab one, graph looked very great although i know the bass will be too much, but i didn't expect that overwhelming
And the real dealbreaker for me is the volume level. I was listening on max volume, and that wasn't loud enough for me.
I know I'm very picky with bass quality but I was hoping great clean bass presentation there, and they do have clean bass but the boosted frequencies are too much. Anyway thank you and appreciate your impressions before

Cheers buddy!

Ok. I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If I go to max volume on my LG V30 it almost hurts. I switched to the big tips immediately due to better seal. did you use the AI app? Which sound profile did you use?
If the max volume was too low something wasn't right.

 

[DynamicEars]

Ok. I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If I go to max volume on my LG V30 it almost hurts. I switched to the big tips immediately due to better seal. did you use the AI app? Which sound profile did you use?
If the max volume was too low something wasn't right.

Not too low, but just not loud enough for me (i like to hear music loud, around 75-85/120 on balance, high gain on M11 plus depends on the IEM, or around 55-65 / 100 on balance, high gain on ibasso DX160. Timeless with UTWS5 is on 1 or 2 volume step below max.

I didn't use Huawei AI app on my phone since i don't have it installed but I did try with store clerk's phone since I was asking about this maximum volume thing, playing with settings but couldn't find any more volume setting beside swipe up and down for volume level which is bind to the phone volume level too.

Sound profile is set on dynamic on his phone, I didn't play around.

One thing I forgot to try is I was busy focusing on the sound quality and tonality and left the phone picked up default codec which i didn't know what codec it was. I assume it will be AAC? Or they will automatically go to the best supported codec automatically?

Maybe I'll try to have another session on another store since I don't think the store clerk will be happy see a weird picky guy and asking much and spending half an hour on the accessories section while mostly people looking and asking about phones lol.

 

[drewbadour]

Hello!

Thought this might be a discovery worth sharing but after spending the recent months searching for the perfect IEM to replace the UE TF10 I bought over 10 years ago, I've tried almost 40 IEMs from cheap (MH750/755) to high end (U12T) and have found that the perfect IEM for me is...

Drum roll please....

Not an IEM!

I bought a Yincrow X6 on a whim because I heard someone say it was better than the VE Monks I tossed years ago, or the Yuin PK3 I gave away. And I was blown away. How does something that cost me $8 sound better than the $100+ IEMs that always had some flaw that made me not like them?

That led me down the rabbit hole of discovering @RikudouGoku's RikuBud collection and @tgx78's Serratus and Alpha and I can just say that I am a convert!

I had Mest MK2 and Moondrop Variations on my desk for 2 weeks and I barely listened to them - instead spending 99% of my listening time with an earbud in my ears.

Now I admit, I don't have the best ears so I can't say I hear a lot of the things that a lot of people say they pick up about sound but I do care a lot about timbre - my wife is a concert violinist and has spent more time honing her craft to this point than most people will spend working a regular job over their lifetime - which also means that I have become intimately familiar with how instruments (especially violin) should sound. And I haven't found a single IEM that can reproduce such real and natural timbre and tone. When using IEMs I found myself avoiding classical music because most just sounded off to me. I had to gravitate to more modern music that doesn't rely so heavily on tone color and timbre. With the Serratus (or any other bud I now own for that), I'm finding myself getting lost in Gil Shaham performing Bach's Violin Sonatas and Partitas, or Hilary Hahn methodically nailing the Sibelius Violin Concerto without so much as missing a beat, etc.

I've now sold off all my IEMs except for the one I found to be most natural (the Kinda Lava) and have happily converted over to the flathead earbud club.

For those of you uninitiated and don't need the isolation of IEMs, I would highly recommend giving earbuds a shot!