The discovery thread!

[o0genesis0o]

Thanks @FranQL

Also proves how important it can be to try out gear before buying, not easy to do depending on where you live. Its very subjective what we like.

Bravery is the folks at watercooler who buy multi-kilobuck IEMs blind

 

[AmericanSpirit]

So if some IEM feature best resolution, "focus", "positioning accuracy" and timbre to my ears, I can call it "TOTL"?
Or is it based on common perception, including "unbiased reviewers" of free samples?

Sorry, I am trying to understand here - where are objective facts and where are common perception mantras, akin to "silver vs. copper" cables, "burning" and other facets of crowd mentality.

Everyone has their own preference, if $10 IEM sounds better than anything from ones’s past experience I think someone is entitled to call it TOTL disregarding the facts that’s agreeable by peers. Calling it the best is purely based on personal standpoint.

In a simple english “TOTL sound” of someone can be referred “the Best Sound” of someone, in my understanding.

I guess that’s very subjective thing. Calling it “the best” is free. Agreeability and persuasive reasoning of that “subjective best” is another thing.

P.S.

I have no idea why brought up “self proclaimed unbiased free sample reviewer” topic for perception of sound though. At least I’m not. I leave feedbacks on my personal purchases and I get no kickbacks. So I have no idea where that comment popped up out of nowhere. Even those unbiased freebie reviews have a degree of value, they won’t tell the whole truth of course, but I feel at least 60% are trustable, we just need to apply “Stress Test” to biased outputs.

Those reviews are not binary all or nothing, 0 or 1, junk or perfectly objective NASA grade project, it’s a mixture of “business lies & some trustable feedbacks“

 

[o0genesis0o]

Everyone has their own preference, if $10 IEM sounds better than anything from ones’s past experience I think someone is entitled to call it TOTL disregarding the facts that’s agreeable by peers. Calling it the best is purely based on personal standpoint.

In a simple english “TOTL sound” of someone can be referred “the Best Sound” of someone, in my understanding.

I guess that’s very subjective thing. Calling it “the best” is free. Agreeability and persuasive reasoning of that “subjective best” is another thing.

In my mind, TOTL is not “the best” of individuals, but it’s the upper echelon across the “industry.” To me, it’s the combination of soundstage imaging and resolution (not necessarily timbre of tonality). Why these features? Because they are hard to achieve. Otherwise, all the “snake oil” products wouldn’t advertise better resolution and soundstage as selling features.

Why not timbre and tonality? Because what even is the ideal tonality? Etymotic DF, Moondrop VDSF, Harman IE2019? Looking at the successful IEMs, we need to agree that there is not a single “correct” tonality, but a spectrum of acceptable ones. And if tonality is the only thing you are after, just slap a PEQ on it to whatever house curve you want, and you are done.

Edit: why not bass? Again, what is good bass response? Monarch II sub-bass-only? Harman detached bass? Old school big bass shelf all the way to 1kHz? KZ V-shaped bass? And then there is the “bass quality.” It’s just more undefineable mess.

I think “TOTL” or “mid-fi” is kind of hard to define as “what is quality.” Is it an intrinsic characteristic of a product? Is it defined and assigned by the society (community / reviewers / “shillers”)? Maybe both. And at the end of the day, does it matter, practically? Maybe not. Neither price or prestige helped me when I searched for my “end game.” And now I still have no confidence blind buying any of these TOTL.

Edit2: perhaps respectable top of the line products, not necessarily of today, together set a subjective standard how an excellent IEM should sound. That standard is “TOTL sound”. So when @Leonarfd says upper mid-fi with TOTL sound, it means the IEM stays within middle price bracket of the industry (sub $1000??) but has the sound characteristics of the previous / current TOTL IEMs? I’m thinking too much into this.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

In my mind, TOTL is not “the best” of individuals, but it’s the upper echelon across the “industry.” To me, it’s the combination of soundstage imaging and resolution (not necessarily timbre of tonality). Why these features? Because they are hard to achieve. Otherwise, all the “snake oil” products wouldn’t advertise better resolution and soundstage as selling features.

Why not timbre and tonality? Because what even is the ideal tonality? Etymotic DF, Moondrop VDSF, Harman IE2019? Looking at the successful IEMs, we need to agree that there is not a single “correct” tonality, but a spectrum of acceptable ones. And if tonality is the only thing you are after, just slap a PEQ on it to whatever house curve you want, and you are done.

Edit: why not bass? Again, what is good bass response? Monarch II sub-bass-only? Harman detached bass? Old school big bass shelf all the way to 1kHz? KZ V-shaped bass? And then there is the “bass quality.” It’s just more undefineable mess.

I think “TOTL” or “mid-fi” is kind of hard to define as “what is quality.” Is it an intrinsic characteristic of a product? Is it defined and assigned by the society (community / reviewers / “shillers”)? Maybe both. And at the end of the day, does it matter, practically? Maybe not. Neither price or prestige helped me when I searched for my “end game.” And now I still have no confidence blind buying any of these TOTL.

Yea it you take the word as-is, it’s a pronoun we use for flagship-grade. At least first meaning will be that Top of the line.
As the term has aged, it started to have second meaning of “the best” in broader meaning when used in the context of general discussion. I’m more into broader use of “the best“ way these days, but that’s maybe just me.

Yea we may have TOTL Junk (based on many comments I have Campfire Trifecta in mind for this) and quasi-TOTL (Sound Rhyme SR5, Truthear HEXA, Moondrop Variations etc) which cost significantly less. Blind purchase those without free returns are pure gambles Indeed

 

[baskingshark]

Tempting all in one device. Can you check if it's possible to import peq profiles?

Unfortunately, the EQ doesn't support PEQ. Just some 10 band EQ manual fiddling via their app (which is available on IOS, Android and PC):

 

[freelancr]

That's unfortunate. Thanks for checking.

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

So a member made me an offer I couldn't refuse on my Sands, and so he bought them. Just as I was liking them with the mixed bass tuning switch lol Oh well, I did spend a fair amount of time with them before they got sold, and I'm loving the Cadenza, Orchesta Lite, Star River, and my trusty Shangri-la's. It was fun while I had you, Sands. See ya later!

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

The Cadenza sound sig has truly impressed me to the point where at some point, I'm going to look into a step up IEM that follows a similar SS to the Cadenza, while offering a step up in air and imaging, and maybe a tad more treble extension, which could end up being my personal endgame? Maybe?

 

[gooberbm]

The Cadenza sound sig has truly impressed me to the point where at some point, I'm going to look into a step up IEM that follows a similar SS to the Cadenza, while offering a step up in air and imaging, and maybe a tad more treble extension, which could end up being my personal endgame? Maybe?

Without even breaking the bank, the Simgot EA500 is a straight up upgrade on Cadenza, when you want to make that move

 

[rayliam80]

Hey folks, the day finally came. I heard the difference between cables …

But it’s just with my Andromeda. That IEM changes with anything.The stock cable sounds right, the FiiO’s FH15 cable makes Andromeda sounds ridiculously hollow and odd. The impedance of one of these two cables must be wrong for the Andromeda. I need to find my multimeter.

This creates a pickle: I want a cable with better handling for Andromeda, but any random cable risks ruining the tuning of Andro. So now I am stuck with the stock cable

This has also been my case with the CA Jupiter I bought last year. Every cable I’ve tried with it seems to make it sound worse. The CA Honeydew, on the other hand, has been fine using different cables.

 

[DynamicEars]

Maybe the general understanding about TOTL is like

TOTL = Top of the Line (in IEM world)
Or easily can be similar to IEM ranking, similar like personal ranking of different reviewers, TOTL can be different for one to another.
But acclaimed TOTL such as u12t, z1R, tia trio, elysian Annihilator are nonetheless have TOTL sounds, as they sit on top of many reviewer ranking list.

While "flagship" is the best of their brand, but sometimes even the flagship doesn't have TOTL sound even it cost double or triple than current TOTL list.
Price bias also play big part along with personal preferences.

 

[rayliam80]

Bravery is the folks at watercooler who buy multi-kilobuck IEMs blind

FWIW, in this hobby, if I ever have the disposable income in the future to spend on multi-kilobuck IEMS, I'll make sure to also set aside enough money for vacations to at least 1 or 2 CanJams in cities that also have some specialty portable audio shops (Singapore, New York City, etc) where I can hopefully try out some of these models to get a sense of what I've been missing out on. In my younger years, I've had the pleasure of listening to some very nice audiophile setups and I've been in some very nice control rooms of various recording studios throughout the United States.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Per Japanese attendee of Potafes 2023, where See Audio had first exhibition of prototype of 1DD+1PL. The prototype cable looked very similar to Aur Audio’s stock cable Is this popular cable for them? Yea it sounds pretty good, Tripowin uses lower grade of that, sounds bad in general. A good sample of it’s the plug and connectors that matters.

Good thing: No childish King of Sound logo on it.

Bad thing: Tuning is bad. I had at least 3 reports about “underdeveloped tuning”

Per this attendee’s comment

Bright and peaky.
I think the basic performance is equivalent to 100USD 1DD+1Planar

Had a pretty bad impression with a very rough high range that seems to be out of control of the Planar driver and a weak bass range with no power.

It's a relief that it's a prototype.

 

[W0lrince]

Is this new? Seems like adapter to use DSP on iphone. Is this what you asked for? @AmericanSpirit

 

[ToneDeafMonk]

Anyone see a graph of the New Shimin Li