[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

It won’t stop it. It is a good, safe, easy to like tuning, with a great build quality in this bracket, so in a vacuum it’s going to deserve praise. But if you’ve bought Chu or Zero, or Wan’er, C2 or C3, or Cadenza, or a KZ/CCA like EDA, CXS, or FLA, or HBB, what is the point of this? What are doing here?

Both parts are true: Hola is a fine $20 set, but it is completely pointless, and 3+ months behind the trends

Beater sets. I'm not gonna call them junk, because one man's junk is another man's treasure, but for me, it's all junk that ends up in my wooden box of forgotten toys. Yeah, every so often I will pull something from the box to reminisce, but these are beater sets for those who don't have much disposable income. YAWN.

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

Sennheiser IE200 pre-order

https://audio46.com/products/sennheiser-ie-200-high-fidelity-earphones

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

I ordered mine. IE200 coming my way. Hopefully it's an upgrade to the IE300 and IE100? If so, it'll be money well spent.

 

[tendou]

What is a good IEM for acoustic, jazz and classical around truthear hexa price?

Is truthear hexa the best for those genre around the price?

 

[AmericanSpirit]

What is a good IEM for acoustic, jazz and classical around truthear hexa price?

Is truthear hexa the best for those genre around the price?

Those genre needs technicalities and HEXA is Bruce Lee of IEM, highly technical set that’s hard to beat, as far as I know there are no other IEMs in sub$100 that hits proper A-grade in Blessing 2 level of technicalities.

In order to get best technicalities , H570 ear tip will have a best result, it reduces distortions and has best air pressure balance for HEXA and HOLA.

 

[tendou]

Those genre needs technicalities and HEXA is Bruce Lee of IEM, highly technical set that’s hard to beat, as far as I know there are no other IEMs in sub$100 that hits proper A-grade in Blessing 2 level of technicalities.

In order to get best technicalities , H570 ear tip will have a best result, it reduces distortions and has best air pressure balance for HEXA and HOLA.

So the hexa is good for those 3 genre without EQ? I don't really want to EQ I think.

If it's good enough without EQ I'm going to get them

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Follow up on Sea-Elf.

Faceplate
▶︎Does it look like you copy and pasted random 3DCG texture? Yes it is. Not a good quality faceplate.


▶︎shell built is somewhat low grade, it looks like whoever made Sea-Elf isn’t experienced in making IEMs, good news and bad news for this.

Good news; Sea-Elf isn’t your ordinary IEM coming out of same ODM with different faceplates and same drivers, it is out of nowhere type brand new IEM.

Bad news: This brand new IEM still has lots of challenges to overcom, especially the build quality, this reminds me of GeekWold GK10. We probably can expect some quality issues

▶︎After 4 hours of runing, the driver starts to shine. Bass is very impactful and enjoyable with H570 ear tips. Mid is a little recessed just like Bravery’s tuning. Enjoyable U-shape with qdc in mind for upper mid presentation

▶︎10khz finally starts to show some presence yet not reaching the level of Truthear ZERO’s performance. Will report back.

Driver’s distortion starts to settle. Sound Image’s focus starts to get better.

It seems this dual driver isn’t too good at handling sub 30hz though.

Tonality isn’t like what Bravery does “Fragile / Transparent and resolving” Sea-elf is more of “Warm and fun-tuned” with main weight on bass.

The main part of Sea-Elf is the fun sounding bass, it has two vent holes that let two of its dual LCP driver to breathe. Sound guide tube is very wide.


They need to do something with faceplate, but the shell’s main part looks very nicely 3D printed. It’s just the socket of 2pin connectors are somewhat loose that worries me a bit in a long run.


What I started to find from Sea-elf is that it has layering capabilities, when played a full orchestra, it rendered a good layers of symphony, of course not a BA/EST like detailed textures, but LCP driver’s inoffensive soft touched layers are some unique features on Sea-elf.


Sea-Elf vs Truthear ZERO.

Both IEM are dual LCP drivers, but ZERO is 10mm woofer + 6mm tweeter set up, as opposed to dual 10mm?

Surely ZERO has more natural tonal balance, as basically the tuning is a copy from Moondrop’s Variations.
ZERO’s has forward imaging projection vs Sea-Elf’s side projection. ZERO has higher imaging focus, Sea Elf has more layers than ZERO.

I guess I will fully burn-in Sea Elf to see how it would compete with Truthear ZERO, at this moment Sea-Elf is still 1.5 class below Truthear ZERO.


midtange overtone test; hmm not very technical at this moment(6th hour). Harmonic distortion could be easily detected.


If Sea-Elf ever catches up with Truthear ZERO’s technicalities in the future, I guess this will be a one of alternative option to audiences not liking “vocal-forward” styled tuning mainly harman variants. Like @Leonarfd pointed, I also would love to drop mid-bass @200hz ish of Sea elf few decibels down. Bravery has the same level of floor structure but that’s a BA’s woofer, the sound pressure impact of BA woofer vs dual 10mm LCP is night and day.

Sea-Elf has completed 30 hours of burn-in.

▶︎I still see somewhat awkward mid-presentation

▶︎Then I noticed that was not Sea-Elf’s native habit, the awkward mid presentation was mainly attributed to its modulated cable!!

I rolled the cables to GS Audio GT12, KZ ZAS, ZEX, AST, DQ6S, DQ6, Moondrop B2/Variations, HEXA, HOLA, ZERO, and some other IEMs and confirmed Hakugei’s Sea-Elf cable does some very weird veiling effect to all of IEMs tested, very hard to explain but here are the cable native habit that I noted.

Sea-Elf cable:
▶︎recude gain level across all spectrum especially for mid range and treble region. As a result only frequency range that retain original gain level is left to mid-bass

▶︎upper mid tamer it can be used, however what makes this cable hard to apply is not only upper mid, it also tones down upper registers and sucking air out of most of IEMs. So I could think this cable would match with extremely upper-mid focused bass thin and ultimately bright tuned IEMs. Many KZ IEMs has upper-mid and bright tuning but sadly they already have very high bass floor, so this Hakugei cable won’t match.


Back to Sea-Elf:

After 30hour of initial run, the driver shall have enough flexibility to perform its potentia, for that I tried with same set up that I use for See Audio Bravery, as they both share some FR similarity.

Ear tips: TRI Clarion
Cable : PW Audio Legend II

Result: Sea Elf does follow what PWA Legend II and TRI Clarion are designed to do, Legend II levels down upper mid floor, Clarion opens up diffusion field and tame mid-bass. Sea-Elf is now closer to “Energetic qdc” tuning which I desired for

Facts: Even after 30 hours of Burn in, dual 10mm LCP drivers on Sea-Elf are not as technical as that of Truthear’s
LCP drivers, I’d day this LCP driver quality is what you may expect from Tripowin Lea, Tinhifi C2, those $20-class LCP IEMs(except HOLA). Good thing is Sea-Elf is double-stacked of those mid-grade LCP and the sound pressures with this dual LCPs singing in unison is actually musically entertainin.

When directly A-B test with Bravery on the same set up, although tuning are fairly close, somewhat mid-grade dual LCP and CIEM-like 4BA configured Bravery has a very different Timbre and technicalities.

As if you are seeing WWII aircraft and Latest Jet fighters. They both has unique taste and I like both, but technically I may say Sea-Elf belongs to C-grade overall, with B+ for bass, but C for rest of the spectrum.

Interesting thing of Sea-Elf is it has dual stacked wings, the dual LCP, and when playing full orchestral you get a sense of multi-BA like layers of instruments with somewhat rough textures, but those are not BA timbre, layers full of energy. And the detail articulation is a lot better than similar dual DD rendered DQ6 series.

For this tuning with given technicalities, I may find Sea-Elf shines in old-recordings, of which modern BA/EST are too revealing of poor recording qualities, Sea-Elf will make those analog records sound lively with layering full of energy.

Sea-Elf also has very good match with Nils Frahm piano tracks

 

[AmericanSpirit]

So the hexa is good for those 3 genre without EQ? I don't really want to EQ I think.

If it's good enough without EQ I'm going to get them

Yea with out EQ. HEXA has 3khz pinna gain spot of which can be pulled lower with Final E, and pushed upper with many other ear tips.

It’s “great” level as far as you are not asking TOTL grade ultimate layering and texuring.

 

[Carpet]

Those genre needs technicalities and HEXA is Bruce Lee of IEM, highly technical set that’s hard to beat, as far as I know there are no other IEMs in sub$100 that hits proper A-grade in Blessing 2 level of technicalities.

In order to get best technicalities , H570 ear tip will have a best result, it reduces distortions and has best air pressure balance for HEXA and HOLA.

Sadly the H570 is Latex, which I'm allergic to!

When I first saw these I thought "Why couldn't they have made them out of something more ear friendly? Like brick dust or donkey poop!".

Of course, now they turn out to be useful...

 

[helloh3adfi]

Yeah, the change is minimal and stays way above the resonance peak, where the coupler is already inaccurate, so I decided to leave the calibration out.

If I were to appeal to authority, I would say Mr Super*Review does the same

Fun fact, I bought the coupler because I wanted to develop my own EQ profiles. It was when I believe that with the power of EQ and apple dongle, I can match any kilobuck

Did you buy your IEC711 coupler from AE? There are so many shops selling it and I don't even know where I should buy from :/
What parts do I need to buy exactly? On AE there are various prices.

 

[Carpet]

What is a good IEM for acoustic, jazz and classical around truthear hexa price?

Is truthear hexa the best for those genre around the price?

Those genre needs technicalities and HEXA is Bruce Lee of IEM, highly technical set that’s hard to beat, as far as I know there are no other IEMs in sub$100 that hits proper A-grade in Blessing 2 level of technicalities

Definitely agree on the technicalities being top notch. Where it doesn't do so well is music that suffers with the scooped mid-bass, R&B and Rock don't do so well. I definitely prefer a warmer set for male (and some female) vocals too. Mine have only had about 40 hours, but they have opened up a little in the bass.

For someone who doesn't want a V signature, these and Salnotes Zero are amazing value.

 

[Sunstealer]

Definitely agree on the technicalities being top notch. Where it doesn't do so well is music that suffers with the scooped mid-bass, R&B and Rock don't do so well. I definitely prefer a warmer set for male (and some female) vocals too. Mine have only had about 40 hours, but they have opened up a little in the bass.

For someone who doesn't want a V signature, these and Salnotes Zero are amazing value.

Hopefully they'll respond to some cable rolling - balanced copper might help?

 

[Carpet]

Hopefully they'll respond to some cable rolling - balanced copper might help?

I think mine ended up with an SE NiceHCK BlackCat on it, which is copper/zinc alloy. I wasn't a fan of Spring Tips on them and settled for KBEAR07 tips.

 

[helloh3adfi]

Nitpicking aside, Apple dongle is a feat of engineering to be sure. The audio input side is an unsung hero that enable the entire IEM measurement hobby, IMHO. I was shocked when realising that not every audio input interface has flat 20Hz to 20000kHz response like Apple dongle, making FR measurement impossible.

That's new to me. I was hoping to just use one of my current dongles to use with 711 coupler. Where can I see the whole response of e.g. Fiio KA3? I would like to use 4,4 mm plugs for measuring as the Apple dongle only got 3,5 mm SE. And then there's Truthear SHIO on the way but some people say it's colouring the sound.

 

[o0genesis0o]

That's new to me. I was hoping to just use one of my current dongles to use with 711 coupler. Where can I see the whole response of e.g. Fiio KA3? I would like to use 4,4 mm plugs for measuring as the Apple dongle only got 3,5 mm SE. And then there's Truthear SHIO on the way but some people say it's colouring the sound.

I’m talking about analog-digital conversion within the dongle (microphone input), not the DAC. All dongles can respond more or less flat from 20 to 40000hz nowadays.

I don’t think KA3 has mic input. The only dongle with mic input in my collection is the creative X1, but the mic input rolls off every thing below 200 and above 10000.