Surf Monkey
Headphoneus Supremus
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Please do. The Ls are just a touch too small.
The discovery thread!
- Thread starter Dsnuts
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Please do. The Ls are just a touch too small.
A little old school but the TRI I3 Pro (tribrid-planar, ba, dd) should be considered...
Bass is off the charts while maintaining pretty good mids & treble.
[FYI they're available on Amazon for $169, but have a $20 discount putting it within striking distance of your $$$ range.
AliExpress has these even cheaper but won't arrive before Xmas]
Definitely worth a go...
AmericanSpirit
Member of the Trade: Night Oblivion
Great! AFUL performer 5(band 5) arrived!
Phew, I didn’t have to go thru a long dispute process.
Out box impression will be updated on this post.
Initial Impressions out of box with stock ear tip(decent bore size.
▶︎Purchased with my own hobby budget, no affiliations as usual
▶︎Faceplate, shell is the one ODM seemed to be coming from Tiendirenhe. It’s Monarch MKII’s model.
Such as this and this.
Hey…just don’t… they are good at shells. Not drivers inside.
For Faceplate design, I’m not a particular fan of this gorgeous style. I hope they change the style to wooden face plate, deep bass is well represented with wooden faceplate, to my personal preference.
If the shell is a transparent one like Blessings2’s it may have become more amusing, because this IEM is full of patents (to be precise 8 of them).
▶︎Trivia | AFUL is not a typical Chi-Fi IEM brands where most them situated near “chinese silicone valley”, Dongguan / Shenzhen, the world’s largest densely urbanized regions in the world “Zhuhai Delta”. Or Zhuhai Megacities.
AFUL is located near my another hometown Shanghai — SuZhou, east coast port city. It’s close to New York (Shanghai) / New Jersey (ShuZhou) relationship in States. An hour of train ride will take you from Shanghai to SuZhou.
▶︎Right after opening the box, I noticed from the stock tips fhat AFUL team knows narrowing bore will alter the signature. From this point alone, a positive impression. This company is not a joke one, that we’ve seen way too many careless shops, just jamming whatever you can find from taobao and resell it with fancy advertisements, AFUL, despite their “awful” naming sense, is solid engineering based company that know what they are dealing with.
▶︎Bass DD sounds like the type that needs initial run. But the “transient” is very impressive…! Very impressive. The acoustic long guide surely is a tech that really works.
Not just a marketing flowery words “EnVisionTec Acoustic Guide”.
Bass that actually diffuses. If a proper ear tips are matched, I’m sure this thing will rock. Even to basshead. No wonder P5 is backed by 8 independent patented technologies.
To elaborate more on one of the unique characteristics that you can find from P5, the way how bass sound. The amplitude of bass’s impluse is larger than I can except from an IEM’s dynamic diaphragm.
The resonance sounds like full-size headphones’ bass.
“Open”, “Deep”, “bouncing”, “high-dimensional” , “High Density”, “High-Sound Pressure”.
—Technical Observations:
IEM’s bass resonance, which usually relies on
Transducers+
Acoustic tube guide / or directly pass-thru + sound outlet nozzle + ear tip’s internal acoustic chamber + ear tip’s membrane (thickness and material ) + ear canal’s acoustic chamber = final sound wave delivery to
①ear drum
②ear canal’s surface
Of which AFUL added extra resonance chamber and long tube guide to have extra amplification of bass wave. When delivered to ②ear canal’s surface, the resonance provides an additional dimension of bass image depth.
▶︎Air Pressure release system confirmed to be working. No pressure build up and feels comfortable and being vented. I guess this venting system serves important role in their “Micro Resonator Technology”. Which helps bass imaging to be more dynamic and with high momentum, imaging positioning, as well as you can feel the direction and speed of how bass wave will travel through your perceived staging space.
▶︎Very instrument-neutral, rendering original mix/mastering very truthfully. BA driver spec is great too. Natural sounding
▶︎Upper registers sounds similar to that of B2’s probably not as extended as “colored” ones. Neutral approach precisely executed
Even with a bit rough out of box DD subwoofer performance, P5 is a thing that I feel “great, my hard earned money spent paid off”.
P5’s bass system is what I will be demanding for the penultimate engame IEM.
A 4EST+ 4BA (upper mid) + 4BA (mid-upper bass) + 1 LCP DD with AFUL’s acoustic technology + full range Bone Conduction Driver to fill the gap between IEM and Full-size can’s Pinna area stimulation.
—Tip Roll Notes
▶︎Stock (Blue) Actually very satisfying balance. No complaints.
▶︎SpinFit W1 : It recuded P5’s fun part bass. Tonality wise good.
▶︎Softears UC: I was expecting UC to boost P5’s best bass, to further niche, but it didn’t happen. Strangely UC and P5 is a mis-match. It makes P5 to sound a good 4BA+1DD, but a bit boring.
▶︎SpinFit CP360: The resonance match of CP360 and P5 is good. Currently a beat match except the stock tips which actually does very good job.
▶︎SpinFit CP100: Not terrible, but it V-tuned. Mid feel scooped.
▶︎AZLA SednafitLight: Opens up mid-and upper, more transparency. Bass resonance is a little tight but very good match. Currently Best Match over CP360 & Stock.
▶︎TRI CLARION: lowers baas floor, opens up staging and transparency to the highest level. Treble sensitive group with certain gain spot around 5-6khz may start to feel offended depending on the type of genre. Tonal balance is bright-neutral, I actually like this presentation for classical.
▶︎Latex M570: !!! This is a good match. Sub-bass kick, mid-bass resonance, clear visibility. Not too offensive 5-6khz, wide diffusion depending on the source. It will lower bass floor but still retain the “rumble feeling”. I was using M570 on HEXA as my vocal-neutral reference monitor, but I may need to order another pair… It will raise few decibels of mid and upper, so the tonal balance will facing north of neutral.
▶︎AZLA Xelastec Crystal : The M570’s original copy with harder silicone material. Has good synergy with P5 as well, bass floor will be lowered as well, sub-bass timbre will be tight but nimble. Technicalities wise this is very accrued and precise.
▶︎Moondrop Spring Tip : mid-upper mid boost. Bass floor is lowered. Resonance is OK, but lacks “the kick”. Spring Tip is obtainable from Moondrop’s Chu. And it has good synergy with Thieaudio’s dynamic driver if anyone haven’t tried.
▶︎Acostune AER07: similar to stock, but due to wider bore than stock, higher mid and upper, more transparency with a trade off possible fatigue, bass is tight but has good resonance.
▶︎UM BlueCore: Wide Bore x Bass boost thin black silicone, not a good match. Bass is too loose.
▶︎AZLA Zelastec: Very good synergy. Bass transient and silicone resonance point has a good balance. One of final pairing candidates. Mid-upper balance is good as well.
▶︎Final E: small bore, usually used to tame extremely harsh treble. Actually if you push down the tips further down to the steps, Final E and P5 has good synergy, making P5 a warm-neutral with some cost of transparency and air. Westone tuning. Actually a nice match.
Some tracks used to test bass performance. The 4BA part is great as well, but bass is something that needs more digging.
For male voice resonance, this is some oriental wicked but catchy one to test
J-pop with good bass.
Modern instrumental with nice acoustic and fast bass
Jazz
Acoustic Cello Solo
Smooth electronica
Billboard classic
Modern Rock
Human Beatbox
SORRY AFUL FOR MOCKING YOUR BRANDNAMS AS AWFUL.
It is BeautiFUL. Please consider changing name to BFUL Performer 5.
Will update more details later once 100 hours of burn-in run completes. Maybe at head-gear review. This P5 is worth a coverage, something new to IEM.
Phew, I didn’t have to go thru a long dispute process.
Out box impression will be updated on this post.
Initial Impressions out of box with stock ear tip(decent bore size.
▶︎Purchased with my own hobby budget, no affiliations as usual
▶︎Faceplate, shell is the one ODM seemed to be coming from Tiendirenhe. It’s Monarch MKII’s model.
Such as this and this.
Hey…just don’t… they are good at shells. Not drivers inside.
For Faceplate design, I’m not a particular fan of this gorgeous style. I hope they change the style to wooden face plate, deep bass is well represented with wooden faceplate, to my personal preference.
If the shell is a transparent one like Blessings2’s it may have become more amusing, because this IEM is full of patents (to be precise 8 of them).
▶︎Trivia | AFUL is not a typical Chi-Fi IEM brands where most them situated near “chinese silicone valley”, Dongguan / Shenzhen, the world’s largest densely urbanized regions in the world “Zhuhai Delta”. Or Zhuhai Megacities.
AFUL is located near my another hometown Shanghai — SuZhou, east coast port city. It’s close to New York (Shanghai) / New Jersey (ShuZhou) relationship in States. An hour of train ride will take you from Shanghai to SuZhou.
▶︎Right after opening the box, I noticed from the stock tips fhat AFUL team knows narrowing bore will alter the signature. From this point alone, a positive impression. This company is not a joke one, that we’ve seen way too many careless shops, just jamming whatever you can find from taobao and resell it with fancy advertisements, AFUL, despite their “awful” naming sense, is solid engineering based company that know what they are dealing with.
▶︎Bass DD sounds like the type that needs initial run. But the “transient” is very impressive…! Very impressive. The acoustic long guide surely is a tech that really works.
Not just a marketing flowery words “EnVisionTec Acoustic Guide”.
Bass that actually diffuses. If a proper ear tips are matched, I’m sure this thing will rock. Even to basshead. No wonder P5 is backed by 8 independent patented technologies.
To elaborate more on one of the unique characteristics that you can find from P5, the way how bass sound. The amplitude of bass’s impluse is larger than I can except from an IEM’s dynamic diaphragm.The resonance sounds like full-size headphones’ bass.
“Open”, “Deep”, “bouncing”, “high-dimensional” , “High Density”, “High-Sound Pressure”.
—Technical Observations:
IEM’s bass resonance, which usually relies on
Transducers+
Acoustic tube guide / or directly pass-thru + sound outlet nozzle + ear tip’s internal acoustic chamber + ear tip’s membrane (thickness and material ) + ear canal’s acoustic chamber = final sound wave delivery to
①ear drum
②ear canal’s surface
Of which AFUL added extra resonance chamber and long tube guide to have extra amplification of bass wave. When delivered to ②ear canal’s surface, the resonance provides an additional dimension of bass image depth.
▶︎Air Pressure release system confirmed to be working. No pressure build up and feels comfortable and being vented. I guess this venting system serves important role in their “Micro Resonator Technology”. Which helps bass imaging to be more dynamic and with high momentum, imaging positioning, as well as you can feel the direction and speed of how bass wave will travel through your perceived staging space.
▶︎Very instrument-neutral, rendering original mix/mastering very truthfully. BA driver spec is great too. Natural sounding
▶︎Upper registers sounds similar to that of B2’s probably not as extended as “colored” ones. Neutral approach precisely executed
Even with a bit rough out of box DD subwoofer performance, P5 is a thing that I feel “great, my hard earned money spent paid off”.
P5’s bass system is what I will be demanding for the penultimate engame IEM.
A 4EST+ 4BA (upper mid) + 4BA (mid-upper bass) + 1 LCP DD with AFUL’s acoustic technology + full range Bone Conduction Driver to fill the gap between IEM and Full-size can’s Pinna area stimulation.
—Tip Roll Notes
▶︎Stock (Blue) Actually very satisfying balance. No complaints.
▶︎SpinFit W1 : It recuded P5’s fun part bass. Tonality wise good.
▶︎Softears UC: I was expecting UC to boost P5’s best bass, to further niche, but it didn’t happen. Strangely UC and P5 is a mis-match. It makes P5 to sound a good 4BA+1DD, but a bit boring.
▶︎SpinFit CP360: The resonance match of CP360 and P5 is good. Currently a beat match except the stock tips which actually does very good job.
▶︎SpinFit CP100: Not terrible, but it V-tuned. Mid feel scooped.
▶︎AZLA SednafitLight: Opens up mid-and upper, more transparency. Bass resonance is a little tight but very good match. Currently Best Match over CP360 & Stock.
▶︎TRI CLARION: lowers baas floor, opens up staging and transparency to the highest level. Treble sensitive group with certain gain spot around 5-6khz may start to feel offended depending on the type of genre. Tonal balance is bright-neutral, I actually like this presentation for classical.
▶︎Latex M570: !!! This is a good match. Sub-bass kick, mid-bass resonance, clear visibility. Not too offensive 5-6khz, wide diffusion depending on the source. It will lower bass floor but still retain the “rumble feeling”. I was using M570 on HEXA as my vocal-neutral reference monitor, but I may need to order another pair… It will raise few decibels of mid and upper, so the tonal balance will facing north of neutral.
▶︎AZLA Xelastec Crystal : The M570’s original copy with harder silicone material. Has good synergy with P5 as well, bass floor will be lowered as well, sub-bass timbre will be tight but nimble. Technicalities wise this is very accrued and precise.
▶︎Moondrop Spring Tip : mid-upper mid boost. Bass floor is lowered. Resonance is OK, but lacks “the kick”. Spring Tip is obtainable from Moondrop’s Chu. And it has good synergy with Thieaudio’s dynamic driver if anyone haven’t tried.
▶︎Acostune AER07: similar to stock, but due to wider bore than stock, higher mid and upper, more transparency with a trade off possible fatigue, bass is tight but has good resonance.
▶︎UM BlueCore: Wide Bore x Bass boost thin black silicone, not a good match. Bass is too loose.
▶︎AZLA Zelastec: Very good synergy. Bass transient and silicone resonance point has a good balance. One of final pairing candidates. Mid-upper balance is good as well.
▶︎Final E: small bore, usually used to tame extremely harsh treble. Actually if you push down the tips further down to the steps, Final E and P5 has good synergy, making P5 a warm-neutral with some cost of transparency and air. Westone tuning. Actually a nice match.
Some tracks used to test bass performance. The 4BA part is great as well, but bass is something that needs more digging.
For male voice resonance, this is some oriental wicked but catchy one to test
J-pop with good bass.
Modern instrumental with nice acoustic and fast bass
Jazz
Acoustic Cello Solo
Smooth electronica
Billboard classic
Modern Rock
Human Beatbox
SORRY AFUL FOR MOCKING YOUR BRANDNAMS AS AWFUL.
It is BeautiFUL. Please consider changing name to BFUL Performer 5.
Will update more details later once 100 hours of burn-in run completes. Maybe at head-gear review. This P5 is worth a coverage, something new to IEM.
Last edited:
Jmop
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Posts
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- 2,317
KiiBOOM Allure has a great fit (for me) and is a warmer set with a strong bass response but maybe not ideal if you want something that does pacing extremely well, Allure can be a bit sleepy.
Surf Monkey
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2011
- Posts
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- 7,310
I bought an i3 Pro on the 11:11 sale. It’s a great set. It sounds amazingly analogue. Smooth, bassy, warm. I really like it.
AmericanSpirit
Member of the Trade: Night Oblivion
Now…I may recommend AFUL Performer 5, if you fit it with some bass enhancing ear tips, the quality of bass is very basshead satisfying. I can call myself part-time basshead, because I also love joining night club’s “BASS” dominated EDM parties. Of which, I could say one of the best Club in North American Continent, is “Rebel” Toronto, Canada. Performer 5 can simulate EDM’s deep reaching bass very well. Only let down is that it’s $220, $70 over run from your budget range.
But the good news is that HiFiGo literally throw 100s of free samples to reviewers of which I can see some of them will not like instrument-neutral approach and will sell those sample on second hand market, an almost brand new one. You may be able to find those around $150.
Last edited:
nihil23
Head-Fier
So-so, as I see it, for HBB these collab projects are just a way to milk his fan base. Now it has become more obvious than before. All-aluminum housing? But the inside is the same plastic covered with aluminum, electroplated, I supposeLook at the new Zetian Wu Heyday packaging:
Even the waifu for the Heydey looks more badass compared to the original Wu Zetian.
https://www.facebook.com/tangzuaudi...sDrtaadjAjyqBdGzpHyXkftZ36VYZW6XKxs524UZQ2xyl
Carpet
Headphoneus Supremus
+1 for TRI I3PRO
Tribrid planar that predates all the recent planar/BA hybrids. Certainly keeps a place on my top picks.
What is peoples favorite bass enhancing tips? I'm guessing mostly small bore tips that helps.
Jmop
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Posts
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I use those stiff Azlas sometimes, they aren’t the worst feeling tips and they really pump the bass.
nraymond
500+ Head-Fier
I'm generally not a fan of small bore... my favorite bass enhancing tips are the Acoustune AET08a and the New Bee Premium Replacement Earbud Tips. I'm not sure either are available for purchase anymore though.
AmericanSpirit
Member of the Trade: Night Oblivion
Small bore is kinda old school to my impression. It boost bass simply by reducing treble, but bass resonance will take damage going thru the small bore.
I’d pick Softears UC for bass transient improvement.
And KZ’s proprietary Ear tips for AST. It has ultra short Nozzle to end distances with extra thin (almost non-existent thickness) white silicone. A very unique ear tip that actually put nozzle outlet next to your ear drum, and let bass resonate well with that extra thin silicone. I wish KZ sells that tip separately, as it has one and the only functionality to tune any IEMs.
Moondrop’s SpringTip’ wide bore, thin latest gen silicone resonates well with many dynamic driver’s bass as well. For dynamic driver with rough transient, Spring Tip will tame it well.
Last edited:
Same, from my experience the sound is always nicest with wide bore. Personal favorite due to comfort, good seal and full sound is Kbear 07 Yellow, the Azla Crystal is also good on IEMs that's harder to get a good seal.
Last edited:
PeacockObscura
1000+ Head-Fier
Tonight I've experienced audio nirvana with the CAYIN N3pro, Meze Audio Advar and a fabulous hi rez Honky Dory
The depth of musicality and shear enjoyment has turned me in to a pool of mush.
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