The discovery thread!

[nikbr]

https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r3-ii

Exciting news! I'm just in the market for something extremely portable, intuitive to use and, hopefully, well-sounding.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Exciting news! I'm just in the market for something extremely portable, intuitive to use and, hopefully, well-sounding.

I may be able to fill you in on this product? Maybe in a week? I’m not exactly sure, but I will post about HiBy products here.

 

[PROblemdetected]

The treble of Hiby zeta was quite nice. Reserved and pulled back, but just nicely resolving in general.

MEST III ESTs are also quite nice.

Monarch II can get away with boosted 10-12kHz likely due to the nature of sonion est drivers as well.

@baskingshark can comment ablut FiiO FX15

Zeta would be my example as well.

I dont like the price-segment, but for Est-treble its really nicely done.

Anyways, I dont get mad about tribird also, recently BA-DD hybrids like KOVABUNGA (okavango sorry ) are example of nice implementation of BA.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Actually the "XUANWU GATE INCIDENT" that this IEM is named after, is an infamous event in ancient China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanwu_Gate_Incident

So Li Yuan (for which Tangzu/Tforce Audio's first IEM was named after as Yuan Li) assassinated his rivals to the throne at this gate, which was leading to the imperial palace. Thereafter, he ascended the throne to become the emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

Haha, pretty dark stuff, like a Game of Thrones backdrop.





The Quartet is arguably the weakest in the Kiwi Ears lineup in terms of price-to-performance ratio, as it has sub-par resolution and technical chops compared to similarly priced rivals. No doubt it has tuning switches but it was retailing at $109 USD and at that price, it is not enough to have good tonality/timbre but inferior technicalities. Consumers expect at least above average scores in all departments once we hit $100ish USD and there's lots of big boys that are kind of gatekeepers (no pun intended with the above Xuanwu Gate incident).

You are the only member that researches every TANGZU release and always has the key to their naming. Cheers for that!

 

[o0genesis0o]

Exciting news! I'm just in the market for something extremely portable, intuitive to use and, hopefully, well-sounding.

I have been daily driving a preproduction unit in the last few days. It’s very portable. Easily slipped into pockets. Battery life is long. I haven’t charged since 7:40 morning two days ago, and it still has 28% left.

It streams tidal well, though there are some software kinks that need to be fixed.

Sound wise, it is lean in the lower midrange, but does not feel bright and mid-forward at the same time like FiiO KA3. It kinda reminds me of the Helios IEM actually. “Neutralish”, “leanish”, without pushing the upper mid. The difference in note weight is noticeable immediately when A/B against Chord Mojo2 and DX300.

Detail retrieval of the midrange was solid with ThieAudio Hype2 and my classical FLAC files. In fact, it was decent enough that made me took the Mojo2 out for A/B last night. The soundstage was also good. It does not has that small-ish or flat-ish impressions that most dongles in my collection has. One step behind the DX300, but can’t complain in isolation. (I remember being so unhappy with the BTR5 via AAC on a trip recently. No such problem here).

There is hiss with Andromeda, regardless of gain mode. Not offensive, but not pitch black like Topping G5. Less hissy than Chord Mojo2 and DX300 though.

 

[saldsald]

Nice! I mean I’m not sure how the Bax was received on debut? It is intense, a little, or a lot intense by how you perceive things. I have always gone back to it to see if I still love it, and I truly do.

It is also kind of a precarious situation with price. Because as I see it you have the EST people that just want to spend more and are not 100% sold on TRN. Then you have the people who are stretching to get the Bax, and it may not be a guarantee for them to take a chance like other more popular (safe) models and name brands. Plus they are big. Ha

In the end I feel the BAX offered listeners a special value. And one of the best values last year.

From their choice of cap I could totally tell they just wanted us to hear that the EST drivers and show they actually work. It's a simple and hard to go wrong setup IMO. One great sounding DD, a hard to go wrong full range BA and then the EST. It's a bit wild in stock form but I am sure there are ear tips and cables for taming it without modding it like how I did.

Anyway, try the bamboo tips, they are really resovling with the modded BAX, so much more resolving than those TangZu tips I bought at the same time.

 

[nikbr]

I have been daily driving a preproduction unit in the last few days. It’s very portable. Easily slipped into pockets. Battery life is long. I haven’t charged since 7:40 morning two days ago, and it still has 28% left.

It streams tidal well, though there are some software kinks that need to be fixed.

Sound wise, it is lean in the lower midrange, but does not feel bright and mid-forward at the same time like FiiO KA3. It kinda reminds me of the Helios IEM actually. “Neutralish”, “leanish”, without pushing the upper mid. The difference in note weight is noticeable immediately when A/B against Chord Mojo2 and DX300.

Detail retrieval of the midrange was solid with ThieAudio Hype2 and my classical FLAC files. In fact, it was decent enough that made me took the Mojo2 out for A/B last night. The soundstage was also good. It does not has that small-ish or flat-ish impressions that most dongles in my collection has. One step behind the DX300, but can’t complain in isolation. (I remember being so unhappy with the BTR5 via AAC on a trip recently. No such problem here).

There is hiss with Andromeda, regardless of gain mode. Not offensive, but not pitch black like Topping G5. Less hissy than Chord Mojo2 and DX300 though.

Thanks for this writeup, it helps! I like what I hear about it. I'm not expecting pitch blackness, expansive soundstage, and authoritative note weight, so those are not deal breakers.

Let's wait for pricing and hopefully software bug fixes, those would certainly drive me insane. I'd rather continue using my phone then.

 

[dharmasteve]

https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ezer1K3

Tiandirenhe Magaosi V3 2BA + 1DD


Tiandirenhe are OEM manufacturers for many brands. These are well reviewed.

 

[Ferdinando1968]

Speaking of the TRN BAX and EST drivers, I have modded it by replacing the stock 0.43uF cap for the EST transformer with a 1.5uF tantalum capacitor. IMO the BAX was tuned such way to let you hear the EST driver but it's done quite aggressively and it's not for me. Anyway with the new replacement cap the mids are less scooped (and not nearly as scooped as the Variations even in stock tuning) and the treble is much more natural. Overall it sounds quite a bit smoother. Very easy mod and very much worth doing it.

But tantalum is polarized... doesn't it create problems there?
Is the voltage at that point only positive?

 

[saldsald]

But tantalum is polarized... doesn't it create problems there?
Is the voltage at that point only positive?

No it doesn't, you can also use film caps coz we are dealing with A/C but those are brighter.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Magaosi nice!

Magaosi

 

[SynaestheticA]

Well, your loss. Well done EST treble sounds awesome. A “soft” requirement for kilobucks going forward for me is having Sonion ESTs (or magnostats or whatever those are technically called).

I for one ain't nevah gon buy a TOTL without EST

 

[praetor47]

Perfomance is easy to test in other "electronic" equipment, like TV o computer parts. But in audio everything is subjective, I think our money should be spend on find the tuning you like the most.

as has already been demonstrated by research, that's not really true. unless you have evidence of your own to support such claims

 

[PROblemdetected]

as has already been demonstrated by research, that's not really true. unless you have evidence of your own to support such claims

I would like to see your research first.


I would like to learn something today, if you don't mind sir


https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-we-hear.html

 

[ericf]

https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ezer1K3

Tiandirenhe Magaosi V3 2BA + 1DD


Tiandirenhe are OEM manufacturers for many brands. These are well reviewed.

Akros does talk about the Tiandirenhe V3 in his QOA Vesper 2 video. You can see the graph there. In real life its bass has a rather small impact. The original Magaosi V3 was supposedly a bass heavy IEM though I've seen 2 very different graphs for it. One can be found at squig.link. That one looks quite ideal. The other one has tons of bass. A bit like ISN EST50. I have two sets of V3 and they do not differ noticably in the bass so I guess they have competent tuners.

What I'd like to know is what quality drivers they use in their own brand IEMs. I have two of them (TD07, I think (It's blue) and the DIY 1DD+2BA that you can make your own faceplate for) and they're quite OK sounding. The TD07 is the better one of them, tuning wise. However, the DIY is the best fit in an IEM I've found so far. The tuning in the mids and treble for the IEM is good, but the mid bass is too prominent so it puts a veil on the upper mids and treble (the pinna gain is quite slow rising, peaking at 4 kHz). If I do a PEQ with -3 db at 200 Hz (Quality 0.7, I believe) the bass looks a lot like Truth Ear Zero. Then it sounds very good. It's up to 12 db from the mids so there's a lot of bass.

They sell most of their IEMs for less than $60. Some cost more but unless there's a graph posted I won't test them. Some of their earphones (flatheads) are quite expensive.