o0genesis0o
Headphoneus Supremus
Welcome to the next part of this series of never-ending IEM articles. The exercise has worked so far. I have not had the irresistible urge to embark on the journey into the deep and dark depths of the classifieds, Linsoul, Hi-Fi Go, etc. etc.
The Plunder of the Soul which the audio hobby presents is an awe-inspiring thing, isn’t it?
I’m taking some advice I received from HBB and I’m going to focus more so on the music with this one. I realized I didn’t do that with my Cinno article as much as I should have, so this one is a bit more detailed and the result of this is a longer length. I’ll get better at balancing both with time for sure, but I think mentioning music is so very important. So here we go.
Playlist + source breakdown with my disclaimer, as always.
Test tracks
Sources
- Give Life Back to Music - daft punk - Overall clarity
- Infinity Repeating - daft punk - Lower mids control
- Voyager - daft punk - Bass line clarity/busy track layering
- Cthulhu Sleeps - Sub bass texture
- Overnight - Parcels - mid bass punch
- Tieduprightnow - Parcels - bass line/sibilance test
- Everyroad -Parcels - Imaging/Sub bass @ 7 minute mark
- Daytime - Lunar Vacation - Staging/female vocals w/ heavy bass
- Days - No Vacation - Vibe test/treble energy
- Fruiting Body - Goon - Sub bass
- Wavy Maze - Goon - Mid bass
- Together - Maggie Rodgers - Female Vocals
- Slide Tackle - Japanese Breakfast - Sibilance test/consonants harshness
- Decode - Paramore - Vibe test/stage depth
- Vinta - Crumb - Stage depth/layering
- Kim’s Caravan - Courtney Barnett - Female Vocals/resolution test
- Small Poppies - Courtney Barnett - Distorted Guitar
- Lifelong Song - Men I Trust - Sub/mid-bass texture
- One and Only - Adele - Female Vocals/consonants harshness test
- Waves - Wild Painting - Overall Enjoyment and stage depth/width/Bass guitar speed
- Not the One - Highnoon - Female Vocals
- Cowboy Killer - Varsity - Layering
- Alone in My Principles - Varsity - Distorted female vocals
- Summer Madness - Kool & The Gang - Treble Harshness
Disclaimer
- Apple Music Streaming Hi-Res Lossless when available
- Topping D10s + Topping L30
- Moondrop Dawn 4.4
- Dunu DTC 500
- FiiO BTR7 BT
I am not a reviewer. Positively, 100%, confidently, I will never be one or possess the ability to be one. Don’t take anything I say as an objective stance, of course, this is all my opinion, y’all, this hobby should be fun! I’m just having a bit of a laugh with all of this. This is purely my opinion after all! I personally value timbre over everything. If a set has a strange tonality or timbre, it’s an immediate turn-off.
Anyway, enough of the bs, the next IEM on the table is going to be the Truthear Hexa.
The 1+3 hybrid from the brand Truthear. Truthear was looking to take 2023 by storm, that is, until Kiwi Ears and Simgot entered the picture…
The Hexa was a set of IEMs that I set my eyes on from the very beginning, all the way back in 2022 when they were first released, which in this hobby, might as well be forever. I thought the tuning seemed uniquely Harman but with a few twists.
Thank you to @MMag05 for measuring a good majority of my IEMs so I can see exactly what’s going on here. As the graph indicates, my pair has fairly good channel-matching noice.
I enjoy the Hexa, they’re a mighty fine set to my ears and I’m happy I’ve had them as my EDC for the last week or so, it’s reminded me as to why I fell in love with them in the first place. The fit is just impeccable for my ears. I mean, truly, like a glove. Even though the nozzle is quite large, there’s no lip so there’s never any discomfort for me, for reference, I have slightly smaller ear canals according to a random urgent care nurse, and quite large outer ears. Fit is truly hit or miss for me - the EA500 is a set of IEMs that I wish so very badly were a different shape, because they sound incredible, but wearing them is so annoying, that I barely reach for them anymore. The Hexa on the other hand has a medium to large-ish shell, with a lovely industrial/modernist design of sharp corners on the faceplate, with a softer, smooth resin finish on the contact point with your ear. The nozzle is sufficiently long to achieve a nice deep incersion which means isolation is off the charts. Sorry for droning on about fit, but these are super nice to have in your ears for an extended period, at least for me.
In the sound department, I can honestly summarize the Hexa as being a warm neutral, surprise surprise, just like 99% of my collection - but but but, I must say, the Hexa does things a little bit differently and truthfully, outside of the Cinno which I just dove deep on, the Hexa checks off lots of boxes for my preferences except maybe one, but we’ll get to that.
The bass and lower mid-range have a very smooth slope, and this has its strengths and weaknesses of course. I find the overall bass impact, like rumble in the sub-bass region and kick drum slam to be quite softer, not much overall attack in this region, but it is smooth. There is plenty of warmth here that allows the Hexa to avoid becoming thin for most of my library, most of the songs that are in my library tend to be mastered with a warmer tilt anyway. I feel as though some classical could maybe come off as thin in some cases, and maybe some classic rock as well, especially songs recorded in the 60s and early 70s like from Zeppelin 1. There’s a sub-bass emphasis, yes, but with the lack of mid-bass, where these songs emphasized, John Bonham’s drum kit can sound distant and not as authoritative as I’d like.
Referencing my test tracks, the first few daft punk songs sound fantastic, clear, and crisp. Give Life Back to Music and Infinity Repeating have awesome grove-ability, with the ending of GLBTM having plenty of spacial cues with the crowd noises representing some space in the mix, adding to the enjoyment. Voyager, my favorite daft punk track, has probably graced my ears thousands of times by now and I know how this song is supposed to sound. It’s an interesting track because The Robots really flex their musical prowess here - the beginning of the song is fairly straight forward and the star of the show is that bassline. It needs to be heard clearly but also felt as well. The Hexa does a decent job. The bassline is heard very clearly, with enough texture, but it doesn’t have as much force as I’d like. Instead, my brain focuses heavily on the artificial snare hit and clap on the 2 beat. That 3k peak from the Hexa comes into play here, it can be too harsh at higher volume for me, so I have to keep it a mid to even low volume at times. As the song goes on, Thomas and Guy add more elements to the song, stopping the drum kit and the rest of the synths to introduce us to these new elements, forcing our brains to almost focus on them before adding the rest of the songs back in the mix all at once. It gets very busy towards the end of the song and some IEMs that have messy technicalities stumble here, all the instruments sound mushed together with little to no separation. The Hexa doesn’t fail here, in fact, I’d say it accomplishes separating and layering all these different components very well. There’s plenty of air to help it feel open, and even though that 3k peak can come across as harsh at times, it seems to add some weight to the synths. It’s all very clear, crisp, and just warm enough to be a good experience.
Cthulhu Sleeps by the Mau5 is next and this is the song I use to test EDM sub-bass. The bass line in this song is not just one blob of bass, it’s a pulsating line with plenty of texture behind all those nutso synths and distortion. The Hexa does an okay job here, I give it a C, maybe a C+. EDM is not this IEMs strong suit. This song is fatiguing within about 20 seconds and the sub-bass rumble is heard, but you gotta focus on it. 3k is just pushed up too much for this song to sound balanced, however, the mid-bass hits are quite nice. It does have a rounder body on the individual hits but it’s just enough to pass.
The Parcels are next on the playlist, and they really know how to master and produce their tracks. All of their songs are fantastic on the Hexas, very enjoyable, and very groovy. But again, when things get a touch busy in the track, the upper mids knocks on the proverbial door right in the middle of disco night and reminds you there’s something not quite right. It’s too boosted and there isn’t quite enough mid-bass to get the party passed the living room. You’re not spilling into the streets, waiting for the cops to arrive. The volume stays at a respectable, inner-city level.
Using the next few tracks, Daytime by Lunar Vacation, and Days by No Vacation, I can say that female vocals are very clear with proper timbre. There’s also plenty of texture as well, they aren’t the most forward and I believe that is due to the little divot between 2-3k. Masking is the name of the game here, ssss and tssss are emphasized so my brain starts to focus on them a bit more, not to mention the god damned snare hits… Layering and separation are very good and imaging is a strong suit of the Hexas. Starting at around 3:10 in the song Daytime, there’s this revolving synth that circles your head going counterclockwise. I can pretty easily track the sound with the Hexas, whereas other sets can sometimes sound 2 dimensional, only going from the left channel and immediately to the right channel.
Fruiting Body by Goon is one of my favorite songs from the past year, it’s an amazingly haunting song with airy female vocals, busy instrumentation, and a nasty ass sub-bass line that hits during the chorus. I have been obsessed with this song for months, along with the rest of their discography, and while the Hexas does an okay job with this song, the sub-bass just ain’t hitting the way I expect it to. Wavy Maze is the next song by them on the playlist and I expect a pretty hard-hitting kick drum on this one and again, while it’s there, it ain’t rocking my world as I’d expect. There’s also a hint of BA timbre present in the vocalist’s vocals. There’s something to the way it’s been produced for sure, but I can clearly hear a BA sheen when the note is stretched a little.
There isn’t much notable that’s any different going through the rest of my playlist here, so I think I’ll wrap this up here in an effort not to drone on here too much longer.
I can summarize the Hexa this way;
They are an extremely comfortable, well built and well-designed Hybrid IEM in the under $100 price-point for anyone who’d like something Harmen-ish tuned, but with a better body to the lower mids, no tuck in the mid-bass, and an emphasis on being accurate. They stumble a bit in some areas like the upper-mid refinement and a lack of mid-bass punch. The DD in this unit is of decent quality, but it isn’t anything special. The same goes for the BAs - I can tell Truthear put some thought into this tuning and I still enjoy them being in my collection, but I think the Cinno replaces these quite handily, with more natural upper-mids, a stronger mid-bass slam and less BA timbre, although, it’s present on both IEMs. I know this isn’t a totally fair comparison, with one being a whole year newer and $20 more expensive, but it’s helpful for me to finally conclude that the Hexa can be put on the chopping block. What I have now in the under $100 range makes them obsolete for me and I’d almost say, for a majority of the market.
It’s bittersweet, I love the Hexa, it has a soft spot for me because I acquired them somewhat early on in my friendship with @Sonofholhorse.
I can only appreciate looking back on the listening time but accept it’s time for them to go.
Thanks so much for reading again, have an incredible day, Gentleman
Ey, Mr “not-a-reviewer” is back with another kickass review. Good job mate!
Interesting that you like the tuning of Cinno more than the Truthear. If you get you hands on Hidizs MS5 one day, I would be very curious to hear your thoughts.
ThieAudio's Hype series:
Try ddHifi. They are affordable with enough bling bling. However, I have only seen 50cm version, so you might need to check if there is a longer one. Apple is kinda (very) annoying about MFI stuffs, so I had some random lightning to USB C that does not work with DAC.
