The discovery thread!

[o0genesis0o]

clarity, inpact, the spatiality (!) and great synergy with few of my favourite all-BAs, likely enhanced/cooked 8+ kHz

Soundstage imaging, you say? Is this the mythical dongle that I have been looking for? Interesting indeed

 

[AmericanSpirit]

TRN have BA8 and BA15 (30095-stuffed 30 BAs in total), you may consider them for broadening your listening experience (as much as I am all-BA and budget fan, not much tempted by those TRN).

On another note, with the great experience with Truthear Shio (clarity, impact, spatiality (!) and great synergy with few of my favourite all-BAs, likely enhanced/cooked 8+ kHz), I caved to get Hexa despite my pledge not to buy any DDs, looking forward to it after it can be shipped following the Lunar New Year celebrations.

P. S. Typo corrections...

Yea that BA15 is all open BA set up that I heard sound not bad but asking price is too much. If TRN decided to wagon sale those I may try it someday

HEXA is very few of IEM on my hand that doesn’t develop much of “hybrid slow DD disjoint” symptom, and may open eyes for All-BA lovers for it’s LCP bass’s capabilities. It’s also highly technical and scalable when properly sourced good input thru SHIO, HEXA will hit very audiophile grade output.

 

[Carpet]

I have seen manufacturers recommending 200 hours burn in LOL!

Smells like a manufacturer "get out of jail card". By the time the burn in is completed, the returns window for the IEM is long closed, or a new hypetrain would have arrived in the mail box haha.



FWIW, I know burn in is a big source of conflict on forums (similar to cable believers versus detractors), and I respect both camps. Personally, I am ambivalent to burn in, but I do as a matter of fact burn in my IEMs before reviewing them, no harm in a way. But 200 hours burn in? Is that a mega overkill? I don't think that 200 hours will make a golden swan out of an ugly duckling, and there won't be huge night and day differences in the tuning.

I don’t believe in absolutes, specific to this hobby, which is open to an individual’s interpretation. That being said I’ve run across many more DD that open up after x amount of hours, versus very few, that don’t benefit from some exercise.

My recent escapades with the JVC HA-FW1800 be a perfect example of a DD that had a disproportionate, splashy, lower bass response, that improved after about 40 hrs. Did the FW1800 become a rockstar ? No, but it did improve.
vs
iKKO OH10, which hit the ground running

200 hours? At that rate you may as well just leave it in the box when it arrives, buy the pro version and wonder what it would have sounded like if you had ever listened to it before buying the upgrade. The only way to ever test the effect of burn in would be to buy multiple sets. Graph them all to eliminate unit variation and then burn in groups of them for various periods. Comparisons between these groups in a double blind test would then be valid (have to have a decent sample size in each group of course).

If anyone ever does this, feel free to send me one of the dozens of spare sets you now have. BEFORE your significant other notices the stack of boxes and the credit card balance!

 

[PhonoPhi]

Soundstage imaging, you say? Is this the mythical dongle that I have been looking for? Interesting indeed

I thought about you exactly.
Shio striked me with its enhanced spatial perception and the impact/energy of every note.
Then my experience with higher-level sources that enhance the stage and layering is very limited to offer a fully competent suggestion.

I do wish Truthear will offer the (mentioned by them) software upgrade to have the independent on-board volume control. I did appreciate Andy's guru wisdom on its importance.

With Shio, there is no more AKM/ESS debate for me, Cirrus-based implementations started to totally win in my experience.

Yea that BA15 is all open BA set up that I heard sound not bad but asking price is too much. If TRN decided to wagon sale those I may try it someday

HEXA is very few of IEM on my hand that doesn’t develop much of “hybrid slow DD disjoint” symptom, and may open eyes for All-BA lovers for it’s LCP bass’s capabilities. It’s also highly technical and scalable when properly sourced good input thru SHIO, HEXA will hit very audiophile grade output.

Great to hear such positive opinion about Hexa. I will patiently wait for them FloAudio Lily, few tips (including Fiio on your recommendation) and those couple (well, couple of couples) cables, as always

 

[FlacFan]

Carpet just volunteered for a brilliant plan!

Thank you kindly.

 

[saldsald]

TRN X7 arrived. It was $29 USD.

wow! Outlook is very highend, and I’m a sucker for full-resin filled IEM because it simply looks great. Faceplate is nice too.

Will update impression notes on this post.


As I read several reports that X7 strangely acts differently by aging which is pretty rare for a BA IEM, but I also see on X7’s instructions recommending 10-72 hours of “warm up”, I may give it a try.

TRN actually provided detailed phase of burn-in sessions I may give it a try.


Initial 30 sec impression,
As expected X7 is red labled “near extinction ” mid-centric IEM!

TL;DR
TRN X7 is tuned to present a “gentle and round touch” coloration, with pretty flat bass floor and mid-centric tonal balance back up by properly placed Bellsing 7BAs, which surprisingly do not show any sign of “grainy” bellsing signature at all. I believe this is what TRN tried to present, but mid-centric full-BA IEMs are less desired from the current market, ended up TRN to conduct a wagon sale for bare minimum
cost of $29. A good and fun IEM to play with for someone got bored of Harman or V-tuned, bass-rolled IEMs

I actually respect TRN’s challenging spirit of presenting some non-mainstream tuning, a mid-centric IEM with bold heart. X7 actually does its Mid-centric specialist job as intended Definitely a great and unique one to keep eyes on.

▶︎Vast majority of people would classify this tuning as “muddy” as X7 has rolled off treble, I actually wanted some Mid-centric IEM that’s not bass-dominant (unlike GS Audio ST10 or KZ AST) , and X7 is exactly exactly I was looking

▶︎Soft touch as majority of tonal balance is mid focused, I will ear tip roll and cable roll to find a best match condition >> Ear Tips (Feaulle Latex H570, opens up diffuse field a bit further pushing down the bass floor to Monitor-flat yet retain bass “thump”)

▶︎Basic technicalities are limited for upper registers, but mid-technical expressions on X7 is quite satisfying

▶︎Bass Floor is very gentle, near monitor like flat when compared to vast majority of sub$100 segment.

▶︎Good collection for odd-ball lover

Thanks to squiink projec, FR is graphed!

I have an interesting IEM with probably a similar tuning like so:

31323+31736+29689 (not all knowles) + 10 mm piezo and 10mm DD. Super revealing for vocal but not too balanced.

 

[Carpet]

Carpet just volunteered for a brilliant plan!

Thank you kindly.

I would love to help, but you will have to find a sucker volunteer with a graphing rig to do justice to this sort of scam experiment!

 

[o0genesis0o]

I would love to help, but you will have to find a sucker volunteer with a graphing rig to do justice to this sort of scam experiment!

Which IEM are we talking about?

 

[r31ya]

I have seen manufacturers recommending 200 hours burn in LOL!

Smells like a manufacturer "get out of jail card". By the time the burn in is completed, the returns window for the IEM is long closed, or a new hypetrain would have arrived in the mail box haha.



FWIW, I know burn in is a big source of conflict on forums (similar to cable believers versus detractors), and I respect both camps. Personally, I am ambivalent to burn in, but I do as a matter of fact burn in my IEMs before reviewing them, no harm in a way. But 200 hours burn in? Is that a mega overkill? I don't think that 200 hours will make a golden swan out of an ugly duckling, and there won't be huge night and day differences in the tuning.

LCP DD have that manufacturer recommendation of 100 hours required burn in. (written down in Moondrop Aria)
apparently it'll sound good once the warranty ran out.

 

[Carpet]

Which IEM are we talking about?

Any IEM. Just making oblique reference to how many IEMs you would need to produce any sort of meaningful result in a double blind experiment to evaluate the effect of burn in. Minimum of 2 groups. Each group needing to be large enough to be able to eliminate unit variance. Enough time and/or identical sources to burn the test group in at same duration and level with the same test signal/tracks. All units graphed before and for the test group after. Run double blind test.

Then the fun begins, you get to present the results to a mixed and thoroughly objective crowd.

"Of course, I already knew that!".
"Those results are faked!"
"That makes perfect sense."
"Sample size too small to be significant!"
"That's Moondrop for you!"
"Of course an EST/piezo/planar tribrid would behave in a completely different fashion..."
"That's a good start, can you do all the others in Crin's database?"
"I watched a video from Sharur and he disagrees with you!"

Easier just to do a moon landing!

 

[o0genesis0o]

Any IEM. Just making oblique reference to how many IEMs you would need to produce any sort of meaningful result in a double blind experiment to evaluate the effect of burn in. Minimum of 2 groups. Each group needing to be large enough to be able to eliminate unit variance. Enough time and/or identical sources to burn the test group in at same duration and level with the same test signal/tracks. All units graphed before and for the test group after. Run double blind test.

Then the fun begins, you get to present the results to a mixed and thoroughly objective crowd.

"Of course, I already knew that!".
"Those results are faked!"
"That makes perfect sense."
"Sample size too small to be significant!"
"That's Moondrop for you!"
"Of course an EST/piezo/planar tribrid would behave in a completely different fashion..."
"That's a good start, can you do all the others in Crin's database?"
"I watched a video from Sharur and he disagrees with you!"

Easier just to do a moon landing!

I put burn-in in the same category as changing cable in the sense that the effect, if exists, is too small for me to reliably detect.

Aural memory fades fast, indeed, so only changes that I can reliably get in my imperfect A/B tests (30 seconds or so to swap sources and balance volume) are reported. Some differences are very hard to spot, such as between a 4.5 and a 5 star resolution so I need to move very fast and repeat the tests many times, sometimes upto 30 minutes to be sure. With both cable and burn-in, I certainly cannot swap to A/B in 30 seconds, so I can never be sure if there is anything there, so I don’t try to make people spend money or time on those.

At the same time, I don’t say conclusively that they are “BS.” I just don’t know for sure and thus see no practical reason to endorse.

 

[Carpet]

I put burn-in in the same category as changing cable in the sense that the effect, if exists, is too small for me to reliably detect.

Aural memory fades fast, indeed, so only changes that I can reliably get in my imperfect A/B tests (30 seconds or so to swap sources and balance volume) are reported. Some differences are very hard to spot, such as between a 4.5 and a 5 star resolution so I need to move very fast and repeat the tests many times, sometimes upto 30 minutes to be sure. With both cable and burn-in, I certainly cannot swap to A/B in 30 seconds, so I can never be sure if there is anything there, so I don’t try to make people spend money or time on those.

At the same time, I don’t say conclusively that they are “BS.” I just don’t know for sure and thus see no practical reason to endorse.

I certainly can't change cables or tips very quickly either (tremors ). As I recall short term auditory memory is only a few seconds anyway. I also have a certain reluctance to test the durability of connectors by repeatedly swapping them back and forth. So it's more a case of figuring out what I find good or lacking, then see if I come to the same conclusion after the change. Tips are way easier to swap than cables and fortunately seem to make more difference to the sound.

 

[Redcarmoose]

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/trn-xuanwu-planar-hybrid-universal-iem.26310/reviews#review-30051

 

[Fat Larry]

Actually the opposite, without high power it returns elevated bass, with high power it becomes more flat just what manufacturer’s FR claims.

I have Tanchijim Tanya, Moondrop Quarks both OG/DSP model, and may recommend Vesna over those. Not sure about little Q of KBEar if it uses 6mm LCP I’m sure that’s as good as Vesna

Cheers, i've ordered some Vesnas. May pick up the Tanya as well to have as a back up. Suddenly finding myself without a beater set was quite disruptive to my listening habits over the last couple of weeks.

Little Q uses a "composite" diaphragm.. could be anything. They don't review as well as the other two. Half the price though.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Cheers, i've ordered some Vesnas. May pick up the Tanya as well to have as a back up. Suddenly fining myself without a beater set was quite disruptive to my listening habits over the last couple of weeks.

Little Q uses a "composite" diaphragm.. could be anything. They don't review as well as the other two. Half the price though.

Sounds like a good choice!

I’ve done some coverage for the bullet IEMs on this post as well.

Please let me know if you find any good bullet IEM, I like bullet IEMs as they are very side sleeping friendly