[o0genesis0o]

Thanks for the sub man!! Isabellae is outstanding, I have heard it before, exceptional midrange. Now, this is the planar one, called the Szalayi. Exceptional bass and midrange man. I am drooling over the set since morning.

RS2, Duo, the Audeze thing, and now Szalayi, audio god is good to you this year, mate Enjoy!

 

[gadgetgod]

RS2, Duo, the Audeze thing, and now Szalayi, audio god is good to you this year, mate Enjoy!

I have sold the RS2 recently bro. I actually got the Tempotec V6 and the Astell&Kern SE200. Also sold my Shanling M7. Finding a good time with the SE200(it has two different signatures in a single package). V6 I don't like much but it serves as a good player for day to day rough usage like gym and all.

 

[yaps66]

Congrats on the Szalayi (pronounced “Sally” in case you did not know)! I have subscribed too!

 

[saldsald]

iBasso IT05 - asking for RMB1919

Apparently the diaphragm is chromium plated.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Unfortunate things happened to AKG N5005. I ordered 3 weeks ago and AKG/Harman shipped via UPS mail innovation, the tracking says it reached to my nearest UPS shipping facility but pending acceptance. And it’s been sitting there forever.

I called AKG to see what’s going on the feedback upon their investigation was:

“N5005 is out of stock, so we can’t deliver it to you anymore. We will process a refund to your original payment”

Hmm! Interesting. The actual shipment says arrived at my nearest UPS facility and pending their acceptance scan.
Where did the shipment go?

Anyway, just a heads up for someone who run into same issue like me with AKG/Harman in the future. Good part is I didn’t need to wait 30min to connect to a customer rep, only 30sec or so for the queue which is very good.

Misfortune and fortune came at the same time.

The missing UPS N5005 arrived. Good part.

UPS placed the package directly on a driveway right outside of my garage door…
I stepped over the N5005 with my 2ton car.
Package destroyed.

Lucky part.

AKG packaged N5005 very very well. No wonder it’s called a flagship. Contents seemed still ok, uncertain if that’s functional or not.

I’m not sure about the refund AKG mentioned. If I get, wow thank you as xmas gift! If not fine.

If anyone have same delivery pending situation, it may worth your 10min calling them, if lucky you may get a chance of free gift


[update…] right ear IEM is damaged…

▶︎fit issues (one of weirdest fit, Wu is hard to fit one for me as well, probably need nose extended type like one of those spinfits)
you can see the angle of nozzle is weird, and the way MMCX pin sticking out of shell also didn’t match with mine. A small IEM, but hard to fit for some.
Left is HEXA, right is N5005.

Once you removed MMCX, it’s extremely to put it back. The shape of IEM is too round and there is not point you can add force to click MMCX on to the IEM. Bad design…Harman.

▶︎sound:
clear & reference-y style, but very low in bass, not sure it’s a fit or breakage on right IEM. I hear bass-light. Harman-neutral with primary priority in imaging & Variations like Sub-bass L- lift. I can see crinacle wouldn’t value this coloration for treble.

It’s a bit rough, but reference tuning is that of Variations without 3khz pinna gain peak, and little spice added for staging effect.

What that dip&peak for? It’s to pull out “voice in your head” out, then actually widen the spotlight light area to the whole grand piano on the stage.

The dip/peak is an artistic expression, and of course it will divert from technical accuracy.

Visual Example: Technically Accurate

Visual Example: Artistic

Which one is better?

It’s up to listeners preference, where you like to see the musical with all lights on— technically correct — or You want to see spotlight emphasizing main actors. N5005 belongs to later one.


—Reference Tuning filter
Great balance between thin&thick, note weight isn’t too light nor too heavy.

I see AKG’s “AESTETICA NEUE” here.

I can see this tonality is a little bit warm compared to Moondrop’s Dusk/Variations. Pretty close to Blessing2 in overall tonal weight balance, highlighting around upper-mid but avoiding peaks, which makes sound very pleasant.

After proper sealing, N5005 has sub-bass elevation even with reference tuning, which I do like quite a lot.

N5005 is tuned as gain spot avoiders, it takes evasive actions (dip) around pinna gain area, and harsh sounding area.

That makes N5005 a very pleasant to listen IEM. I loving it.

Not a typical Harman curve coming out of Harman Flagship, wow.

Diffusion field natural? No. It’s a piano concert stage type, decent spotlighting on the grand piano on the stage (not like moondrop’s spotlight on female vocal’s mouth style, N5005 has wider range of spotlight)

▶︎fit issue adjusted: using spinFit W1, still have little uncomfortableness, but N5005 starts to shine. Great tuning! One of very coherent IEM. Balanced and no sign of distortions that you feel from blessing2’s or any dd+BA dynamic’s “change in driver type” of response speed lag (timbre inconsistencies), I forgot if N5005 is a hybrid or not, but it certainly is very timbre consistent. (Confirmed N5005 is 4BA+1DD.

▶︎How the bass DD? It’s still out of box, so I’m not still sure. Not as fast as LCP ones you find in Variations/HEXA. But not too sloppy as well like the ones you find in blessing2s, Tea, Yume, etc.

▶︎N5005 has one BA directly located inside nozzle camber, like the ones you can find in KBEAR Lark, KZ ZAX.
1BA(probably mid-range to my ear) in the nozzle, 3BA inside housing.

To my ear it sounds like 2BA(supertweeer)+1BA(upper-mid)+1BA(mid- upper bass) + 1DD (subwoofer) 4 way composition. Of which 1BA inside the housing for mid thru upper bass having a coverage for the driver transition from BA to DD, to smooth out timbre consistency. The upper-mid BA in the nozzle for mid body articulation.

But that’s just a wild guess, it also could be the nozzle BA as
super tweeter, and 2BA for upper mid, 1BA for lower mid to bass transitional liaison. Need some time for a detailed listening session for a better understanding.

▶︎acoustic filter test:
-Changed ear tip back to stock, white one(a spinfit copy, with harder silicone). W1 somehow lowers bass floor, so it’s not a particularly good match unless you want a dead flat neutral bass.

Bass boost acoutfilter:
Pretty satisfying warm U-tuned, Modern IEM tuning.


—Is it worth $199+tax? YES. Great! Packages, sound, all flagships premium.

500? Maybe? RSV is 730.

At asking MRSP 1k? Hmm not for me.

I will do a detailed review later on.

▶︎N5005’s cable is better made than W80’s and on top of that, N5005 has 2.5mm balanced MMCX vs 3.5mm SE MMCX of Westone’s. For this alone I’m so happy since I have very few mmcx cables that goes TRRS. Below is W80 with N5005’s 2.5mm stock cable.

—Any change on W80 with this cable? YES HUGE. I see 3-4db of opened up treble (4-7khz) a lot more visibility on W80 than stock cable. I love this tuning on W80. Almost VX like tonality.

 

[nraymond]

Misfortune and fortune came at the same time.

The missing UPS N5005 arrived. Good part.

UPS placed the package directly on a driveway right outside of my garage door…
I stepped over the N5005 with my 2ton car.
Package destroyed.


Lucky part.

AKG packaged N5005 very very well. No wonder it’s called a flagship. Contents seemed still ok, uncertain if that’s functional or not. I will update this post later.

[update…] right ear IEM is damaged…

I’m not sure about the refund AKG mentioned. If I get, wow thank you as xmas gift! If not fine.

If anyone have same delivery pending situation, it may worth your 10min calling them, if lucky you may get a chance of free gift

Ouch! That's a bummer. BTW, do you use UPS My Choice? I find the free membership to be handy since I get alerts about inbound packages, progress updates, if they've been delayed, when they've been delivered, etc. I use meal delivery services (where you get a bunch of fresh produce in a box on ice every week), and especially during the summer it's important I know when those get delivered so the food doesn't spoil, box doesn't get rained on, etc. The basic membership also lets you specify where you want UPS to leave your packages. Sign up is here: https://www.ups.com/us/en/track/ups-my-choice.page

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Ouch! That's a bummer. BTW, do you use UPS My Choice? I find the free membership to be handy since I get alerts about inbound packages, progress updates, if they've been delayed, when they've been delivered, etc. I use meal delivery services (where you get a bunch of fresh produce in a box on ice every week), and especially during the summer it's important I know when those get delivered so the food doesn't spoil, box doesn't get rained on, etc. The basic membership also lets you specify where you want UPS to leave your packages. Sign up is here: https://www.ups.com/us/en/track/ups-my-choice.page

Thanks, i did register UPS for delivery updates, I didn’t got any SMS or notice. AKG now sends with UPS mail innovations (not sure innovative for what, a cost?)

 

[lgcubana]

LZ A7

Currently $162.35 USD (during current sale, ends Dec 9th), pre tax

For anywhere around $165, I would buy them again, without hesitation. The excellent reviews (link to Head-Fi reviews) have covered it all.

The highlights for me:
(above all else) Fit. This shell gives the least amount of discomfort (for long sessions), while not needing repeated adjusting, to keep a good seal.
Detail retrieval
On demand sub bass

 

[nraymond]

Thanks, i did register UPS for delivery updates, I didn’t got any SMS or notice. AKG now sends with UPS mail innovations (not sure innovative for what, a cost?)

Ah, UPS Mail Innovations is a service where UPS does the long-haul transport to a regional UPS hub, and then hands it off to the USPS for the final few miles of delivery. Where it gets inserted into the USPS system depends on where you live, and in my experience tracking and delivery estimates become much less reliable once it's with USPS. And if I had to guess, UPS My Choice preferences like where you want packages left probably don't get communicated to USPS.

There is a similar package alerting service from USPS called "Informed Delivery" which is also free, and probably would have given some information about the package progress once it had been handed off from UPS to USPS: https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Ah, UPS Mail Innovations is a service where UPS does the long-haul transport to a regional UPS hub, and then hands it off to the USPS for the final few miles of delivery. Where it gets inserted into the USPS system depends on where you live, and in my experience tracking and delivery estimates become much less reliable once it's with USPS. And if I had to guess, UPS My Choice preferences like where you want packages left probably don't get communicated to USPS.

Wow thank you for the pro tip!! It helps for future deliveries

 

[PeacockObscura]

Misfortune and fortune came at the same time.

The missing UPS N5005 arrived. Good part.

UPS placed the package directly on a driveway right outside of my garage door…
I stepped over the N5005 with my 2ton car.
Package destroyed.


Lucky part.

AKG packaged N5005 very very well. No wonder it’s called a flagship. Contents seemed still ok, uncertain if that’s functional or not. I will update this post later.

I’m not sure about the refund AKG mentioned. If I get, wow thank you as xmas gift! If not fine.

If anyone have same delivery pending situation, it may worth your 10min calling them, if lucky you may get a chance of free gift


[update…] right ear IEM is damaged…

▶︎fit issues (one of weirdest fit, Wu is hard to fit one for me as well, probably need nose extended type like one of those spinfits)

▶︎sound: clear & reference-y style, great
But very low in bass, not sure it’s a fit or breakage on right IEM. I hear bass-light.

▶︎fit issue adjusted: using spinFit W1, still have little uncomfortableness, but N5005 starts to shine. Great tuning! One of very coherent IEM. Balanced and no sign of distortions that you feel from blessing2’s or any dd+BA dynamic’s “change in driver type” of response speed lag (timbre inconsistencies), I forgot if N5005 is a hybrid or not, but it certainly is very timbre consistent

I found some silicone tips shaped like the new DUNU SS tips not sure which iem they came with maybe 7hz timeless and they really boosted the base and made them overall beautifully balanced and dynamic set. I love my n5005

 

[gadgetgod]

Congrats on the Szalayi (pronounced “Sally” in case you did not know)! I have subscribed too!

Thanks for the sub bro!! Ah my bad, i called it szalayi throughout the unboxing

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I found some silicone tips shaped like the new DUNU SS tips not sure which iem they came with maybe 7hz timeless and they really boosted the base and made them overall beautifully balanced and dynamic set. I love my n5005

Thanks for the tip! Oh Ok so it’s default acoustic tube that’s very flat tuned.

I will try bass-acoustic tube filter later and see if the bass is sufficient then switch to the bass boost ear tips per your suggestions

 

[gadgetgod]

Hello friends, I just dropped my unboxing for Oriolus Szalayi on my channel!! Kindly leave me a like if you like the video!!

Some impressions in short:- The pair is not an IEM, it's a sub-woofer that delivers a bass that will haunt you for the rest of your life. And still manages to treat you with a melodious midrange!!

Enjoy the video here:-


I have tried my best to improve some audio, but I guess the room needs treatment. We might soon start renovating my home so I have to manage for a while like this only I hope you guys don't mind that. Thanks.

 

[szore]

Harman and it's consequences have truly been a disaster for audio.

HC is BS