The discovery thread!

[PROblemdetected]

Agree with this, quite a lot of TOTL stuff are extremely technical, but they have issues like BA timbre or unnatural tonality.

Haha I think the Sony M9 you had is a good balance between decent resolution and nice tonality/timbre.

M9 its a deal-breaker.

Sony (japanese tuning) usually fits my style.
I owned a z7mk2, and later on I get a z1 that still being on my collection.

Btw, I'll quoted you later on a post Im gonna create to talk about measurements

 

[Gesugao]

My GK100 arrived today and I'm currently using them. Couldn't resist the $140 tag so I bought them lol. Insane separation and resolution for the price.

 

[baskingshark]

My GK100 arrived today and I'm currently using them. Couldn't resist the $140 tag so I bought them lol. Insane separation and resolution for the price.

Congrats on your new shiny!

Are you gonna get the new GK200 too?

 

[Gesugao]

Congrats on your new shiny!

Are you gonna get the new GK200 too?

Thank you! I'll wait for the reviews first I think haha

 

[DynamicEars]

Which IEM do you have in mind? I haven’t experienced that many TOTL, so I can’t generalise, but I must have been lucky because most were very normal, tonality wise. The most shocking to me is still VE Phonix. It has no right to be that incisive and detailed given how warm and dark it sounds. No way I’m paying that money for an IEM though, especially when it does not have that exceptional soundstage.

A lot of them actually, if "sacrifice" naturalness and timbre for technicality show seems to bold for words,
Put it this way
When chasing too much resolution and technicalities usually they tend to sounded unnatural by nature

like if you process the image to look sharper, or HDR when too much, it will impress audiences at first look, "Wow!! This image is soo sharp, cool!" They are great but don't sounded natural.

Odin, Fir Audio Xenon Xe6, VE Phonix, UM Mests, etc

maybe on presence region 4-5khz, lower trebles and upper highs play big parts on tonality between resolution and naturalness.

Meanwhile something like Orioulus Traillii feels to safe and "not so hi res" for multikilobucks but they are sounded more natural.

Your u12t is one of the great balance between resolution and tonality / naturalness.

Agree with this, quite a lot of TOTL stuff are extremely technical, but they have issues like BA timbre or unnatural tonality.

Haha I think the Sony M9 you had is a good balance between decent resolution and nice tonality/timbre.

Exactly broo!

And yes the M9 is example of great meet point between tonality / timbre / naturalness and resolution / technicalities.

put on more resolution / technicalities they will sounded more unnatural gradually.

Sigh. I miss the M9.

 

[Redcarmoose]

My GK100 arrived today and I'm currently using them. Couldn't resist the $140 tag so I bought them lol. Insane separation and resolution for the price.

That's a super deal, normally they are $200.00. Great sound per dollar spent!

 

[SynaestheticA]

You are thinking about Hiby Zeta, aren’t you

I'm always thinking about HiBy Zeta

 

[o0genesis0o]

I'll add another information that I believe would support this speed argument.

I remember sennheiser used a specially designed diaphragm for HD800 which has a hole in the center. They designed the diaphragm with a bigger perimeter and they'd try to use a very rigit material like berilium but that'd increase the cost like crazy.



Img source: https://www.theaudiophileworld.net/2011/11/revolutionary-sennheiser-hd800-review.html?m=1

Instead they cut out the center part and moved the location of attachment of the voice coil from the center to close the edges. Eliminating the center had the idea of having less distortion as the diaphragm would have a hard time to maintain its position especially during the production of low frequencies which is bass(Sony link buds has a similar DD design have a hole in middle however struggles with production of bass as the driver is too small comparing it to giant hd800's DD) as the voice coil and magnets moving the diaphragm back and forth. That design made the hd800 have very low THD and one of the legendary headphones in audiophile world.



Img source: http://archimago.blogspot.com/2021/05/measurements-sennheiser-hd650-2010-2012.html?m=1

Speed/transient is about how well the driver controlled.

Great point. But I can offer a counter example: BA drivers are generally more distorted than dynamic drivers. I remember ASR folks mocking the U12t when comparing the graphs with FD5. I don’t think anyone listening to both and say “oh wow, FD5 is more resolving than U12t”, regardless of how they define “resolving”.

Anyhow, my point is: I have no idea

My GK100 arrived today and I'm currently using them. Couldn't resist the $140 tag so I bought them lol. Insane separation and resolution for the price.

Congrats on your shiny! Keep these comments about excellent resolution and imaging coming, and I might blind buy one unit one day.

A lot of them actually, if "sacrifice" naturalness and timbre for technicality show seems to bold for words,
Put it this way
When chasing too much resolution and technicalities usually they tend to sounded unnatural by nature

like if you process the image to look sharper, or HDR when too much, it will impress audiences at first look, "Wow!! This image is soo sharp, cool!" They are great but don't sounded natural.

Odin, Fir Audio Xenon Xe6, VE Phonix, UM Mests, etc

maybe on presence region 4-5khz, lower trebles and upper highs play big parts on tonality between resolution and naturalness.

Meanwhile something like Orioulus Traillii feels to safe and "not so hi res" for multikilobucks but they are sounded more natural..

I don’t know. I personally don’t find any of those options, except the Xe6 offensive in terms of timbre when I listen to my classical library. Maybe that “BA” timbre razor thin note size is the essence of that resolving sound that I can’t quite have enough

To be fair, IEMs nowadays don’t feel lacking like the ones back in 2021. I’m A/B AuR Aurora with Moondrop Aria atm. There is like a gulf between them in terms of how nuanced and separate the sound is, despite similar tonality. Even Falcon Ultra and Hype2 is mostly “enough”. I personally never felt “enough” with the Blessing 2 and FD5 back then.

 

[SynaestheticA]

A lot of them actually, if "sacrifice" naturalness and timbre for technicality show seems to bold for words,
Put it this way
When chasing too much resolution and technicalities usually they tend to sounded unnatural by nature

like if you process the image to look sharper, or HDR when too much, it will impress audiences at first look, "Wow!! This image is soo sharp, cool!" They are great but don't sounded natural.

Odin, Fir Audio Xenon Xe6, VE Phonix, UM Mests, etc

maybe on presence region 4-5khz, lower trebles and upper highs play big parts on tonality between resolution and naturalness.

Meanwhile something like Orioulus Traillii feels to safe and "not so hi res" for multikilobucks but they are sounded more natural.

Your u12t is one of the great balance between resolution and tonality / naturalness.




Exactly broo!

And yes the M9 is example of great meet point between tonality / timbre / naturalness and resolution / technicalities.

put on more resolution / technicalities they will sounded more unnatural gradually.

Sigh. I miss the M9.

I've never heard anyone else express this before. I get the same feeling with the Kublai Khan, personally I wouldn't trade it for the world but the only way I can describe the notes in certain tracks is 'sickly'. Like eating too much of a sweet thing.

I'm not after naturalness so it doesn't bother me and I normally only get max 1 hour to listen to music at a time.

But sometimes I wonder if the artist and sound engineer even know how much sound is actually in their music.

 

[Gesugao]

That's a super deal, normally they are $200.00. Great sound per dollar spent!

Indeed! They were originally posted for $150 but good thing I have a $10 discount coupon haha

 

[brsdrgn]

My GK100 arrived today and I'm currently using them. Couldn't resist the $140 tag so I bought them lol. Insane separation and resolution for the price.

How did you manage to get it for 140?

 

[Gesugao]

Congrats on your shiny! Keep these comments about excellent resolution and imaging coming, and I might
blind buy one unit one day.

Thanks! Will do haha

 

[kazinova]

I've seen these Geek Wold sets floating around, seems to fit int he same category as SoundRhyme where they make decent stuff and people on here are familiar with them but they don't have a bunch of hype with reviewers for whatever reason. I do like how all the GeekWold sets look, I didn't realize they could be had for so cheap. Might have to monitor that as a way to get my ears on a piezo driver for relatively cheap.

 

[Gesugao]

How did you manage to get it for 140?

The online shop in my country (PH) has it for $150 + $10 discount coupon

 

[brsdrgn]

Great point. But I can offer a counter example: BA drivers are generally more distorted than dynamic drivers. I remember ASR folks mocking the U12t when comparing the graphs with FD5. I don’t think anyone listening to both and say “oh wow, FD5 is more resolving than U12t”, regardless of how they define “resolving”.

Anyhow, my point is: I have no idea

Well, I'm not that knowledgeable when it comes to BAs as their internals are not usually dissected and exposed in the market. I just see a tiny little metalic box in most of the reviews if smb decided to dissect that expensive items.

If I give some thoughts about it, I believe the BA dedicated to certain range of the frequency handles it better than a single DD delivering the whole range as most IEMs which have multiple BA implemented. There are IEMs a with single BA but not many coming to my mind delivering an exceptional performance comparing them to their elderly friend DD. Also sound pressure play a role there probably. As you know, there's a term called BA bass which lacks that delicious decay that DD delivers to your ears. As DD gives more pressure therefore I should say prone to more distortion than BA even though a BA have more distortion(like you wrote) but handles it well with less strength?


I honestly don't know very well. Any Acoustic Engineers out there, I'd love your inputs on such topics