[audio123]

So what's your favorite TOTL IEM? You got enough in your signature to put a down payment on the Sennheiser HE-1. Impressive.

My favourite TOTL IEM definitely has to be Jewel. It can do everything.

IEMs
First Row: Aroma Jewel, Plussound Allegro, UM Multiverse Mentor, Noble Viking Ragnar
Second Row: Aroma Ace, FitEar Titan, Custom Art FIBAE 7U, Campfire Andromeda MW10
Third Row: Dunu Luna, Acoustune HS1695 TI, Oriolus Traillii
Last slot will go to my FitEar 334SR Custom



Cables
First Row: Toxic Phoenix V2, Toxic Silver Widow V3, Toxic Medusa, Luminox Illuminant
Second Row: Plussound Tri-Hybrid, Plussound Palladium Plated Hybrid, Cross Lambda Stardust 5, Brise Audio Asuha Ref.2
Third Row: PW First Times, AG Nova, Cross Lambda Apollo GB, Cross Lambda Nebula Neo

 

[FranQL]

I’m still waiting Aur Audio Neon Pro, which maybe my personal endgame for 2023 (See Audio Bravery on steroid) and going to offer a sabbatical from ”new IEM” syndrom.

It's just amazing, out of the IEMs I've heard, the best.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Flo Audio Lily arrived today. Not exactly a planned purchase. These had a coupon that was expiring soon and I hadn't minded the Calla, so I exhibited my usual level of self control. Medium sized solid resin IEM with minimal accessories. Initial impressions were bad until I realized I had a bad seal and changed from my usual 07 tips to CP100. Yes, the fit is a little shallow (not quite as bad as a BL-03). Having changed to longer tips they had bass, a lot of bass. Treble is slightly rolled off, not annoyingly boosted to cater to the treble indulgent crowd (think Harmon). The single BA is doing a great job and there's only so much extension you can wring out of it (I'm sure if it was Knowles they would have managed to "casually" mention that amongst the promotional material on their site). A Japanese article on these someone posted a while back, recommended an 80 Ohm impedance adapter for a flatter response. Yuck! If that's what an ER2SE sounds like, I'm glad I've never tried to ram one into my brain. I had a 30 Ohm adapter lying around so I tried that instead. Much more palatable. Still kept some of the bass boost, but cleaned things up and gave a more balanced sound. I haven't had time to A/B it with anything else yet. I'll be interested to see how it matches up to KZ AS16Pro and Audiosense DT100 (when it gets here). I'm glad I picked this up rather than the TRN X7 which was about the same price on special!

Oh, and the following cable works well on it: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004394239656.html

​

Nice deal if you can find ED29689 with full resin filled nice looking shell for around $30! If I had same choice, I’d also picked that one for sure

By the way I just found QoA vesper for around $52 and SPD+BA TRN Xuanwu for around $25, so it’s incomig with sloppy aliexpress standard shipping.

I don’t know if i3 Pro is using SPD or not, if not, Xuanwu is gonna be my first SPD exposure.

For QoA Vesper I noticed it has my HRTF 3khz peak and pretty similar tuning with Sony M9, with knowles BA, it won’t be too bad to give it a try. I may feel a bit edgy for that 6khz area, but it can be tamed with ear tips.

 

[lgcubana]

I guess it’s another new year season, chinese new year. The luckybags(i.e. slow moving / excessive inventory bargaining) is coming again.


https://a.aliexpress.com/_m0vM7MI

$45


$69

$159


Really 1 out of 10 $159 contains $799 TRI Starlight? haha As far as there is No Independent audit, that’s purely sales talk. Maybe 1 out of 100.

Wow, Lucky bag 3 ($159) is sold out already.

Assuming 5x Starshine, plus 1x Starlight, that’s a 12% chance of getting one of them.

I couldn’t find any reviews on the Starshine. But looking at the FR graph and the lack of a DD, would make me guess that these Swedes (neutral) of the IEM world are for a very small target group.

 

[Fat Larry]

This brings me back to the good old days of 2013/2014 when I first got into the deep trenches of the hobby with the VSonic VSD3 …. Oh my. I had a pair of GR07s as well but one side failed on me short after which not only turned me off to the VSonic brand, but the entire audio hobby as a hole. This gives me a little bit of PTSD

I saw they're back and had mixed feelings. I've missed my gr07s and wish I hadn't let them go and then also scepticism.. Because everyones gr07 had a driver fail from what I heard.

Why do iem dynamic drivers fail so reliably? Though they were particularly bad, its not just vsonics issue.

 

[Carpet]

Nice deal if you can find ED29689 with full resin filled nice looking shell for around $30! If I had same choice, I’d also picked that one for sure

By the way I just found QoA vesper for around $52 and SPD+BA TRN Xuanwu for around $25, so it’s incomig with sloppy aliexpress standard shipping.

I don’t know if i3 Pro is using SPD or not, if not, Xuanwu is gonna be my first SPD exposure.

For QoA Vesper I noticed it has my HRTF 3khz peak and pretty similar tuning with Sony M9, with knowles BA, it won’t be too bad to give it a try. I may feel a bit edgy for that 6khz area, but it can be tamed with ear tips.

TRI I3 Pro was standard planar that came out in late 2021. AFAIK the whole SPD thing started with the Kinera Celest Gumiho in late 2022. They appear to be multiplying now, maybe these are going to be the craze for 2023?

 

[Tzennn]

Wow, Lucky bag 3 ($159) is sold out already.

Assuming 5x Starshine, plus 1x Starlight, that’s a 12% chance of getting one of them.

I couldn’t find any reviews on the Starshine. But looking at the FR graph and the lack of a DD, would make me guess that these Swedes (neutral) of the IEM world are for a very small target group.

Double post

 

[Tzennn]

Wow, Lucky bag 3 ($159) is sold out already.

Assuming 5x Starshine, plus 1x Starlight, that’s a 12% chance of getting one of them.

I couldn’t find any reviews on the Starshine. But looking at the FR graph and the lack of a DD, would make me guess that these Swedes (neutral) of the IEM world are for a very small target group.

Well not a neutral iem, more like an w shape which lean toward bright, if you like cymbal, these hit pretty hard, slight edgy to what i like, these are one of those when you pick up the first time, you go "these is pretty darn good", put it down and never listen to it again. Not necessary bad, just not for my vocal based library

 

[552609]

Well not a neutral iem, more like an w shape which lean toward bright, if you like cymbal, these hit pretty hard, slight edgy to what i like, these are one of those when you pick up the first time, you go "these is pretty darn good", put it down and never listen to it again. Not necessary bad, just not for my vocal based library

Have you tried the Monarch Mk2? Currently the best vocals I've heard from an IEM.

 

[Tzennn]

Have you tried the Monarch Mk2? Currently the best vocals I've heard from an IEM.

I have not but i'd love to try. My taste is quite similar to Crinacle or Timmy (gizaudio) so will try when i have a chance

 

[Vonbuddy]

Cheers mate. It's just lately I only play TOTL gears so have moved from this thread to another thread. I am happy to see everyone still doing great!

I have read some of your reviews on Penon site.

 

[r31ya]

TRI I3 Pro was standard planar that came out in late 2021. AFAIK the whole SPD thing started with the Kinera Celest Gumiho in late 2022. They appear to be multiplying now, maybe these are going to be the craze for 2023?

Possibly, Gumiho is an excellent example of SPD usage with added BA to cover first gen SPD treble weakness.
Kinera and others seems keen to improve SPD performance and Kinera Gen 2 SPD (that panda something) that supposedly have better treble performance and able to be released without BA to support the treble.
but TRN XuanWu seems to show that SPD still need works and fine tuning to make it sing good.

the OG Planar is also being improved and some of it have been released at sub $100 price, thats also interesting.

So yeah, 2023 should be interesting with more driver options available in sub $100 price.

 

[ChrisOc]

Wow, Lucky bag 3 ($159) is sold out already.

Assuming 5x Starshine, plus 1x Starlight, that’s a 12% chance of getting one of them.

I couldn’t find any reviews on the Starshine. But looking at the FR graph and the lack of a DD, would make me guess that these Swedes (neutral) of the IEM world are for a very small target group.

There are four TRI Starshine reviews here, if you want to find out a bit more about them.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/tri-starshine.25172/

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I have not but i'd love to try. My taste is quite similar to Crinacle or Timmy (gizaudio) so will try when i have a chance

Technically, I can tell from Audiophile’s hunch that the main “love“ that Crin and Timmy have is in favor of J-POP genre.

I‘m pretty familiar with Crin’s taste and his recommendations are very good fit to J-POP, especially mainstream high spectrum —1khz-20khz+ —female vocal type (Suis/Minami/Reol/Reona/LiSa/Dazbee/Ado/Aimer).

There are more technically talented J-Pop female singers like MISIA/Utada Hikaru/KOKIA, and they have wider octaves in singing, “Western style singing” which contains mid-bass elements.

And yes Monarch is indeed specialized for J-POP or other Asian major scenes

That mid-bass limited tuning of Monarchs may not suitable as a all rounder for Billboards tracks though, Billboard top runners have rhythm sections with heavy bass elements in focus. Those needs that “bass bleed” in order to sound engaged.

That’s where Thieaudio divided their product line into Monarch / Clairvoyance. Clairvoyance is tuned better fit with Billboards, Rock, those genre those need “mid-bass” and more “musicality“.

Although the only nitpicking for Thieaudio’s decision is that they set Clairvoyance as lower-grade set when compared to Monarch, means lower price, less hardware spec. It’s to avoid direct competition among their own product line ups, but that’s a bad call.

They should have set those two line up equally and let people decide which one their preference… and Monarch MKII is somewhat mixture of Monarch OG and Clairvoyance’s mid-point(actually more toward Clairvoyance) now, the identity in both tunings virtue is lost and it became more universally all rounder, simpler manufacturing process, more cost efficient, to the extent I see even a downgrade in carrying pouch shifted from original leather case to fabric generic one that comes with XINHS’s $20 cable purchase..

Thieaudio could offer more, and now the prestige seemed to be targeting what Monarch OG was pursuing.

 

[Ultrainferno]

Today we take a close look at the -AFUL Performer 5 on Headfonia!

https://www.headfonia.com/aful-performer-5-review/

It's also a new recommended buy. A review by @Virtu Fortuna