The discovery thread!

[r31ya]

Yes the intime Sora, meant to be giant killer from japan, but not quite. The tuning indeed is the best on its class (and above), even to date, the original intime Sora is my best up to $50 IEM, its dual hybrid driver that have great treble extension, 1 of the best piezo implementation I ever heard, not like niceHCK NX7 series, nor bqeyz spring series.
No, i have to import them, quite difficult to get sora variants but worth the price and time, you should get one, the clean bass shelf - perfect pinna gain - extended treble extension is quite rarity on budget class but they have deal breaker as fixed (and prone to tangled) cable










Luckily yes! I documented with all impulse response of each eartips as well, but I lack knowledge about reading the impulse aside from "tail" response. I'm ready to hear your words here, example 2 different impulse from Sony ep-ex11 eartips and spiral dot++ here :












Lol, not sure if I'm gonna get them, I know soundpeats quite decent brand on budget segment TWS, I have the trueair 2 (the earbuds TWS) and have nice soundstage and imaging. Yes I heard about the H1 (now they have successor the H2 with similar configuration 8mmDD + 1 knowles BA) but currently still using my modded Timeless + Fiio UTWS5 as main TWS and modded KZ VX10 as back up TWS (1 original XUN 10mm DD + 4 BA, nice impactful bass)

well, its a bit cheating to use mid-fi to fight against a $80 TWS.
but hows VX10 holding? i heard many older KZ tws have battery life issue.

 

[W0lrince]

Unpopular opinion: CRA driver is better than 7hz Zero driver, that's why CRA is better than Zero

 

[DynamicEars]

well, its a bit cheating to use mid-fi to fight against a $80 TWS.
but hows VX10 holding? i heard many older KZ tws have battery life issue.

lol, I mean i have that combo for TWS purpose so I wont back to pokemon rabbit hole like I did in the past. The VX10 have better battery life, connection is OK, passable. My soundpeats have better battery life and connection. KZ is improving, on "passable" phase as TWS but not leading in the tech. However the VX10 is kinda special for me because they are using original XUN driver that have big impact on bass, they moves air better than other KZ DD from my experience. The only TWS using XUN is KZ Z1 (the first KZ with XUN driver, 2 hours batt life and now only last for 3 minutes on left unit) and this VX10. The cable KZ with XUN drivers are DQ6, DQ6s, ZAS as far as i know.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Something that crin nails is he knows if you want big number, you need it to be entertaining.
Droning about one object only going to invite small niche audience.
Thats why his actual mass review video usually only once per month. And he filled the rest with feature vids

Linus noted it as well as the main channel can't do much in depth review like nexus without tanking the viewership number.
Hence he is going to create separate channel with lttlab for that thing in near future.

Great info. Agree separating mass marketing channels with in-depth channel, apart from hedging accidental warning /ban from youtube for their monetized main channel. There is 3-strike rule on YouTube with certain “probation” period for removal of monitization, so having those sub-channel with different approaches is a smart Youtuber’s move.

In this modern era, you could easily being targeted by malicious false “report”, despite the healthy contents of the video itself, the channel could get banned quite easily. Hope Crin and other succeed in those channels, whatever they do is helping IEM’s publicity and public exposures (I still hope HBB to admit he had wrong choice for Cadenza, though.)

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Yes the intime Sora, meant to be giant killer from japan, but not quite. The tuning indeed is the best on its class (and above), even to date, the original intime Sora is my best up to $50 IEM, its dual hybrid driver that have great treble extension, 1 of the best piezo implementation I ever heard, not like niceHCK NX7 series, nor bqeyz spring series.
No, i have to import them, quite difficult to get sora variants but worth the price and time, you should get one, the clean bass shelf - perfect pinna gain - extended treble extension is quite rarity on budget class but they have deal breaker as fixed (and prone to tangled) cable










Luckily yes! I documented with all impulse response of each eartips as well, but I lack knowledge about reading the impulse aside from "tail" response. I'm ready to hear your words here, example 2 different impulse from Sony ep-ex11 eartips and spiral dot++ here :












Lol, not sure if I'm gonna get them, I know soundpeats quite decent brand on budget segment TWS, I have the trueair 2 (the earbuds TWS) and have nice soundstage and imaging. Yes I heard about the H1 (now they have successor the H2 with similar configuration 8mmDD + 1 knowles BA) but currently still using my modded Timeless + Fiio UTWS5 as main TWS and modded KZ VX10 as back up TWS (1 original XUN 10mm DD + 4 BA, nice impactful bass)

Amazing!! Let me read those impulse charts it’s one of my best 2022 finding from head-fi contents. Hats off to your passions! Do you happened to have some of SpinFits vs SpiralDots? CP100+ and hopefully CP360.

For SoundPeats, haha yea it’s a one trick pony good for staging / imaging’s slice (only positioning). After all, it’s just rather standard or slightly behind standard driver spec TWS you’ve get.

 

[DynamicEars]

Amazing!! Let me read those impulse charts it’s one of my best 2022 finding from head-fi contents. Hats off to your passions! Do you happened to have some of SpinFits vs SpiralDots? CP100+ and hopefully CP360.

For SoundPeats, haha yea it’s a one trick pony good for staging / imaging’s slice (only positioning). After all, it’s just rather standard or slightly behind standard driver spec TWS you’ve get.

Yes I have almost any kind of eartips actually (I bought almost every eartips release from every company, some from JDM too) except those no brand generics on ali (I tried some also).
will upload it for you here, the CP100+, CP360, Spiral Dot (original). the Spiral dot++ is uploaded on my last post.

*edited : here while I got more time on my desk :

 

[activatorfly]

Thanks to @activatorfly purchasing the Salnotes Zero recently, his pick up made me pull out my Zero and give it another listen while pulling the AKG N5005 out of my ears. This time I'm using the Sony A55 + Mont Blanc Amp rig I've been using with the AKG's. Usually I listen to the Zero with my Cowon J almost exclusively. So the first thing I notice is that the soundstage is vastly wider and taller than most of my other DD IEM's. Hell...than most of my IEM's period. It's not quite but almost like a full-sized can experience. Imaging is also spot on, and provides such a cavernous listening experience. Now coming from the N5005, it's not as holographic though. I think that's what's missing, and it might be a limitation of the cheap driver? Or a combo of that and tuning. It's got some grit in the upper mids/treble region, so it's not smooth or clean, though it does feature some pretty killer detail retrieval for a $20.00 IEM. I think it might be the best of the sub $25.00 IEM's available, but with the caveat that the mids are thin and mid bass presence is practically non-existent unless you EQ (They sound superb on my Cowon J because it has a preset that lifts the mids). If only they had more mid bass and less grain, and they'd certainly be undisputed kings of the under $25 set. Decent listening experience on a budget, but aside from the stage and imaging, the AKG is a superior and more engaging listen.

No worries dude, I'm glad you reappraised them with a different rig - I'm listening via balanced output of Sony NW-ZX300a, with custom firmware. The cool thing is they handle extra amping easily & for a budget pair the Zero have a great stage, build quality & fit...Merry Xmas to all Headfiers !!

 

[RCracer777]

For soundpeats Gamer No.1, nobody back then believed my claim, so that Gamer No.1(silly name) was about to finish its presence without being recognized at western audiophiles community until @Tzennn actually tried it.

SoundPeats, isn’t a random small boutique s, they have tech experts, I’d suspect maybe even few PhDs, let alone Masters in engineering. They’ve applied their theoretical experiments in sound image coordination by tweaking loudness status management, with that 2DD standard quality driver.

I’m not a tech expert, so just take it as a gain of salt. That method is sending 2 different path of signals with different transducers, to give a sense of virtual sense of staging effect.

For MEST, the genius in Unique Melody achieved by using the bone conduction driver to materialize the 3D staging. For Gamer No.1, the genius in SoundPeats executed with that additional dynamic driver. Eureka!

Sad part is, they are not audiophiles, and that gaming IEM got a joking “gaming mode” that boost bass to kill miraculously crystallized 3D staging.

This is my personal observation from how I perceived UM MEST MKII is materializing a magical “fake pinna” stimulations, which only fullsize headphones could usually do.

SoundPeats has some quite good TWS in their lineup, although I do have a issue with some of them. On the H1 and Truengine 3 SE the right bud is always empty if I want to use them after not having used them for more than 2 days. It will charge when I place them in the case but I guess when it's done it starts searching for a connection. With both using the same shell and charging case it probably has something to do with the shape of them. The sonic didn't do this but the case has failed and it's now unusable.

Been using SoundPeats for years but because of this I've now replaced them all with the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 and none of them come even close in terms of performance, other than battery life that is. But the FreeBuds Pro 2 are also twice the price of even the most expensive SoundPeats TWS so it's not a completely fair comparison. They are also not available in the US either due to the US/China trade war.

While I've never heard the Gamer No.1 or a Mest MK.II for that matter, I do think that the FreeBuds Pro 2 should right up there in terms of imaging and soundstage with the Gamer No.1 and probably beating them by a large margin it in terms of raw sound quality. The imaging is just surreal, being able to accurately pinpoint the exact location of each individual object out of 3 objects hitting the ground at the same time in the same direction is something that very few IEMs can do. Other than the SA6 Ultra, I don't own any IEM, TWS or headphones that can equal it, let alone beat the imaging of the FreeBuds Pro 2.

Using a DD for the low and mid-range and letting a small planar cover the high and ultra high frequencies was a good choice in my opinion. But the battery life does suffer due to that planar, if you're using LDAC or ANC (or god forbid both), the 8hr battery life becomes about 4,5hrs.

 

[PhonoPhi]

Unpopular opinion: CRA driver is better than 7hz Zero driver, that's why CRA is better than Zero

CRA has an amazing driver (I got few copies).
CRA+ adjusted the tuning to be milder (original price tag of twice that of CRA was a bit too much).

I love ESX personally; ESX replaced Blon 03 and Aria for me for my rare DD listening sessions.

Recent AS16 pro and PR1 pro are great.

I am no sure KZ needs to listen to anyone. KZ does not force anyone to buy their many IEMs. One can select what is best for them (or interesting), and it is great to have a choice.

In fact, considering what happened around ZEX pro (CRN), it seemed to be very detrimental to listen to those quasy-influencers with their biased agenda (those who were "exposing" the drivers).

Crin actually did great in my opinion in this tribrid with very limited KZ ("EST/MST" driver that is a rigid magnetic plate sandwiched between two coils).

 

[AmericanSpirit]

CRA has an amazing driver (I got few copies).
CRA+ adjusted the tuning to be milder (original price tag of twice that of CRA was a bit too much).

I love ESX personally; ESX replaced Blon 03 and Aria for me for my rare DD listening sessions.

Recent AS16 pro and PR1 pro are great.

I am no sure KZ needs to listen to anyone. KZ does not force anyone to buy their many IEMs. One can select what is best for them (or interesting), and it is great to have a choice.

In fact, considering what happened around ZEX pro (CRN), it seemed to be very detrimental to listen to those quasy-influencers with their biased agenda (those who were "exposing" the drivers).

Crin actually did great in my opinion in this tribrid with very limited KZ ("EST/MST" driver that is a rigid magnetic plate sandwiched between two coils).

my take on CRN is kinda diverting from yours, the MST’s spec when compared to piezoelectrics, still have long way to go, they could reach the frequency, but distortions are not to the level of a “good” product yet.

Another issues of Zex Pro/CRN was they tried too hard to tame the driver to Crin’s curve, ending up with muffled impluse response when compared to rather “driver-natural” EDX. The timbre took the hit in am exchange of target curve achievement.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Yes I have almost any kind of eartips actually (I bought almost every eartips release from every company, some from JDM too) except those no brand generics on ali (I tried some also).
will upload it for you here, the CP100+, CP360, Spiral Dot (original). the Spiral dot++ is uploaded on my last post.

*edited : here while I got more time on my desk :

Very informative. I’m saving every info you’d recaptured.

 

[W0lrince]

By the way my 7hz Zero have peak from 3khz to 4khz, 8khz and 12khz, but other review graph shown 3khz, 8khz and 13khz. Are there diffrent variation that i don't know of ?My set sound like this

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Yes I have almost any kind of eartips actually (I bought almost every eartips release from every company, some from JDM too) except those no brand generics on ali (I tried some also).
will upload it for you here, the CP100+, CP360, Spiral Dot (original). the Spiral dot++ is uploaded on my last post.

*edited : here while I got more time on my desk :

for viewing impluse response:
Frequency Reponse Chart is only a half side story of our perceived “tonality/timbre”. Sound isn’t that simple 1 dimensional thing. It’s a product from a complex system with multi dimensional factors.

My personal understanding(without digging any info) is that, this graph is a recapture of impulse (a single sine wave it looks to me) from -100ms to 0 as attack, 0ms to later as “decay” of the sound wave. The resonance from ear tips are mainly observably noticeable from the decaying phase. But you may see some notable
Changes in attack phase as well.


As we can observe from Sony’s narrow bore & soft balck silicone hybrid

It tames re-echoes of the transients, you see very little peaks/dips, in an exchange of somehow fast-decaying and somewhat unnatural “finish-line” of the sound wave. It helps to tame peaky/edgy transients, but if applied to a regular IEM, it somehow overdoing its work. I could imagine similar impluse response from Final E’s. Japanese mainstream IEMs back in old days were mostly V-tuned, and those ear tips made a good sense to couple with them.

Also, that black silicone material makes a very bounding resonance, I bet that’s mainly contributed by the bass region resonance. For someone value bass resonance, this wobble is a “must”.

While compared to Spiral Dot++ as to what I refer as “diffusing bass”, like extra wide bore with acoustic horn diffuser facing outward, bass region resonance isn’t amplified, this will help to clear up visibility of the whole picture, with a “cost” of meaty bass rumble.

Even to non-ear tip transients, those signatures would impact “perceived bass” a lot, like HEXA vs Yume (they share almost same bass floor slope, while perceived bass tonality is a mile apart. HEXA is better handling the wobble for sure)

One exception is Feaulle Latex H570, it has diffusing bass with that wobbly signature, makes a very unique experience.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mPDFveW

Will update other observations later on this post.

Again, thanks for sharing. That’s ear tip developer-class valuable info.

I bet 90% of IEM boutiques aren’t even aware that ear tip is a very important factors of their final product (Looking at you Westone)

And great job Tangzu, AFUL. You know what ear tips are meant for.

 

[nraymond]

for viewing impluse response:
My personal understanding(without digging any info) is that, this graph is a recapture of impulse (a single sine wave it looks to me) from -100ms to 0 as attack, 0ms to later as “decay” of the sound wave. The resonance from ear tips are mainly observably noticeable from the decaying phase. But you may see some notable
Changes in attack phase as well.


As we can observe from Sony’s narrow bore & soft balck silicone hybrid


It tames re-echoes of the transients, you see very little peaks/dips, in an exchange of somehow fast-decaying and somewhat unnatural “finish-line” of the sound wave. It helps to tame peaky/edgy transients, but if applied to a regular IEM, it somehow overdoing its work. I could imagine similar impluse response from Final E’s. Japanese mainstream IEMs back in old days were mostly V-tuned, and those ear tips made a good sense to couple with them.

Also, that black silicone material makes a very bounding resonance, I bet that’s mainly contributed by the bass region resonance. For someone value bass resonance, this wobble is a “must”.


While compared to Spiral Dot++ as to what I refer as “diffusing bass”, like extra wide bore with acoustic horn diffuser facing outward, bass region resonance isn’t amplified, this will help to clear up visibility of the whole picture, with a “cost” of meaty bass rumble.



One exception is Latex M570, it has diffusing bass with that wobbly signature, makes a very unique experience.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mPDFveW

Will update other observations later on this post.

Again, thanks for sharing. That’s ear tip developer-class valuable info.

I bet 90% of IEM boutiques aren’t even aware that ear tip is a very important factors of their final product (Looking at you Westone)

And great job Tangzu, AFUL. You know what ear tips are meant for.

I've always found eartips have a big impact on the sound of an IEM. Part of that is fit, i.e. you need a good seal to get decent bass, but then all the other factors like material type, shape and volume of the bore, and insertion depth (which impacts resonant peaks). I have eartips with similar shapes and fit but different materials and they sound different. It's one of the big reasons I take anyone's IEM review with a big grain of salt unless they talk about the eartips and how they fit their ear. Most IEM reviewers will say that they only test an IEM with the eartips it comes with, and I can understand how that simplifies the reviewing process a lot, but that is only useful to me if the reviewers ears are physically similar to mine and the eartips the IEM comes with are a good match for their ears (and mine) and the reviewers preferred signature also matches mine. Otherwise, I can't really be sure what my experience will be like. Maybe I'll get a great fit with stock tips when the reviewer didn't, and it will sound better. Maybe I will get a bad fit when the reviewer had a great fit with the stock tips, and it will sound worse. Maybe I have some tips that will improve the fit and how an IEM sounds for my ear beyond the stock tips (for me, and perhaps beyond what the reviewer experienced, depending on what is the ideal sound for the reviewer, which would depend on their ear shape and what is the best sound signature for them). It's a lot of factors, and I always have to smile when some reviewers speak with such definitive authority on how an IEM sounds.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I've always found eartips have a big impact on the sound of an IEM. Part of that is fit, i.e. you need a good seal to get decent bass, but then all the other factors like material type, shape and volume of the bore, and insertion depth (which impacts resonant peaks). I have eartips with similar shapes and fit but different materials and they sound different. It's one of the big reasons I take anyone's IEM review with a big grain of salt unless they talk about the eartips and how they fit their ear. Most IEM reviewers will say that they only test an IEM with the eartips it comes with, and I can understand how that simplifies the reviewing process a lot, but that is only useful to me if the reviewers ears are physically similar to mine and the eartips the IEM comes with are a good match for their ears (and mine) and the reviewers preferred signature also matches mine. Otherwise, I can't really be sure what my experience will be like. Maybe I'll get a great fit with stock tips when the reviewer didn't, and it will sound better. Maybe I will get a bad fit when the reviewer had a great fit with the stock tips, and it will sound worse. Maybe I have some tips that will improve the fit and how an IEM sounds for my ear beyond the stock tips (for me, and perhaps beyond what the reviewer experienced, depending on what is the ideal sound for the reviewer, which would depend on their ear shape and what is the best sound signature for them). It's a lot of factors, and I always have to smile when some reviewers speak with such definitive authority on how an IEM sounds.

Great insights Yes for a serious A-B test, like I did on HEXA’s review. Knowing that as my personal experience, I added ear tip variable notations (used same ear tips, when comparing HEXA to Variations, and knowing that they have different sensitivities, still I tried to perceive the difference by hooking left with Variations, right with HEXA on a same cable That’s just to test coherence. Not a direct A-B test)

Ear tips for IEMs, to me, is as important as Tires for Cars.

When the father of Nissan GTR, Kazutoshi Mizuno —Car journalist, reviwer—reviews cars, he mentions variable mechanical insights from just a short ride, and he sometime put main emphasis on stock-tire match with the car. Taking example of latest gen Mercedes C-class. He mentioned the stock tire equipped with the review unit totally ruined how the car should have behaved, and even commented “this review is invalid because the tires aren’t a match with this car”.

Although we belong to a different field, for someone knows hardcore basis of IEM review, IMO, may be more beneficial to elaborate more about these, especially for the review intended for hardcore audiophiles.

I change review style depending on the audiences. For amazon ones, as vast majority are consumers, I first put “if this IEM is a good option as your gift purchase “ as a first priority. Regular consumer careless of tech jargons as we do.