[Redcarmoose]

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/nf-audio-ra10.26196/reviews#review-29837

The miniature IEM.

 

[PhonoPhi]

Well the more pertinent question is to ask how many IEMs KZ has released in the last 5 weeks! Or 5 days?

Jokes aside, KZ was my first gateway drug into the world of CHIFI IEMs with the KZ ZS6 like 4 - 5 years ago? I thank them for that, cause prior to this, I was still getting my wallet burned on boutique/western IEMs from Shure and Westone. Back then, a western single driver IEM would cost $100 USD, and maybe a multi driver set would set you back $300 USD? I could only afford one western IEM every few years, and to sample another sound signature, I had to sell that IEM to scratch up funds to buy another one.

So KZ kinda made me realize that CHIFI could give good price to performance ratio. Most of the western IEMs were made in China anyways, and CHIFI in recent years has caught up with the western IEMs in the budget/midFI segment at least.

So despite the KZ ZS6 being a treble sawtooth killer, it had quite decent technicalities for the coin. Back then, KZ didn't release sidegrade pokemon spam every week, but maybe once like every few months, and I looked on their releases with anticipation. No doubt, their tuning was mostly V shaped treble banshee types, but at least they were multiples cheaper than the usual Westones/Shures, and the treble could be tamed a bit with foam tips or EQ.

Unfortunately, in recent years, KZ (and sister company CCA) has used a modus operandi of releasing IEMs on an almost weekly basis, with new releases being sidegrades, or marginal upgrades at best. Seems like a case of throwing as much crap on the wall, and hoping something sticks - consumers be beta testers for the next "PRO" or "ULTRA" or "MAX" KZ release. This numbs consumers with their mind-boggling speed of releases, all with confusing alphabet-soup names.

Even ardent KZ fans can't afford every new weekly release, and there's apathy among consumers when they realize - ah, another weekly KZ pokemon hits our shores? Maybe by the time you receive the KZ you just bought in the mail, would a "PRO" version be launched tomorrow? Case in point, the KZ PR1 planar was not even a month old before a "PRO" version was launched. I would be pissed if I were a first adopter of the original!

They were also locked in a driver nuclear race with eternal rivals TRN, and some of their single DD sets to me sounded better than the more expensive multi driver behemoths with coherency issues.

FWIW, I have bought around 15 KZ/CCA pokemons so far, and have stopped patronizing them the past year or so. I learned the hard way that for every 5 - 10 KZ pokemons purchased, it could have contributed to a midFI IEM. And said KZ pokemons mostly end up in the drawer, reselling them is difficult, if not impossible, since a "PRO" version of that KZ would have made the original pokemon obsolete.

Having said that, lately it seems KZ tuning has improved from the usual old-school deep V shaped tonality to something more balanced? KZ were the pioneers of the CHIFI IEMs that opened the floodgate to cheap (but good) IEMs for low price, but I hope they can take the time to fine-tune their releases and slow down on the release cycle. Quality over quantity. I honestly wish them well though!




Respect, you deserve an award!

I thought I have more than half KZ/CCA IEMs, but nope, so less than 50, and I am not sure I deserve the moniker "Prof KZ" (pun in many aspects for sure), this hobby is just for fun

Defining this hobby as journey and not destination, I was/is the happiest with KZ. Them offering numerous IEMs is a great plus - one can try as many as they like - new or tested and proved, no obligation to buy. I have not heard that KZ moves to obligatory "subscription only" sale model

As for several curiosity IEM adding to "mid-fi" - this did not work for me, as well as the promulgated notion that one should "graduate from KZ".

BGVP VG4 would be one of the examples - build around ED29689 and functional switches, the bass and treble BAs are quite inferior to my ears to ones of KZ.
Lesson learned for me - not buying "midline" company products anymore, it is much more interesting and potentially rewarding to buy top of the line of less known companies trying to establish themselves or wildly experimenting with different things like KZ.

Recently for ~$150 I enjoyed so much going back and forth with Celeste, AS16 pro, and PR1 HiFi. Their relative limitations became more apparent in comparison, as well as their strength. T

Trying a broader analogy: the shapes can be round and square, while having round square shape is hard, that would be one possible perspective on TOTLs.
You can read people here on HeadFi whining about TOTLs, as $15 KZ IEMs. The happiness is largely the difference between desirable and achievable.

Moving now to KBear Neon and the best impedance adapter for it - it happened to be totally source dependent, which makes all the sense.
For the Apple dongle - it is 28-30 Ohm added for the total of 42-44 Ohm - the golden range of this dongle. Surprisingly, it is not much lowder with lower impedance, and with higher inpedance it hits the loudness limit at 110-120 Ohm with the averaged-sensitive Neon.
For my favourite Sonata E44 - not that much difference with impedance up to 150 Ohm (high gain not triggered) can be heard, perhaphs a bit crispier (?) at higher impedance.
After all, in theory, a perfect source should provide the same signal for any resistive not frequency dependent) load within its specs.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Ha ha! You have not heard my two favourite KZs, BA10 and ZS7. They are long in the tooth now but none of the newer ones I have come close.

Ahh! That BA10, I was set off by its Ironman themed color and squared shaped design, is it good KZ hit? Hmm maybe I will grab it if KZ official decided to do a sale, like they did for ZEX for $13.

ZS7’s fr reminds me of DQ6S, maybe I could try with wagon sale opportunities as well.

Thanks for bring it up

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Xmas gift arrived. Will Update on this post later.

▶︎As usual, this is my private purchase. No biases except my personal pov.

初 on Zero’s subtitle means “the beginning / the first” in Chinese

—Graph observations
I can see from the FR on the backside of the package that Zero is Crin’s tuning. It has his 2.9kHz pinna gain adjustment when compared to 3khz of HEXA’s. Yes Crin is 2.9kHz peak.

What triggered my interest is the sub-bass lift for ZERO is diverting from Crin’s favorite “lift sub-bass from bottom to 150hz straight up” style, it has a dip on very low-end. Will find out later.

—The outlook
To be honest, one thing that had me hold on pressing “go” for Zero was the pictures I see on the internet. My personal view was “ah…it looks cheap and plastic-y, maybe another tripowin Mele”

But when the actual Zero showed up, the impression is now updated.

It has solid build. And actually Zero has UV shift color change from blue to purple, as you can see from Moondrop’s Starfield/Stellaris. Haha, HeyGear

Blue state:

Purple shift state:

I love those gimmicks. It’s great gift option candidates for ladies now. They love thos cosmetics over actual performance.

ZERO and HEXA.

—Accessories
Truthear, knows well about acoustics. Proper bore with ear tips, bass boost / high tame bore, and for formies lover, they’d added a pair. Basically same set you can find from HEXA, same cables/ear tips/ pouch. As someone working with automotive sector, I do see truthear is very “cost-strict” manufacturer. Yes, VW, Toyota, all those world #1,2 groups are applying same concept. So we can obtain a maximum output from minimum investment.


…but as usual why “golden”, If I’m user experience manager, I’d throw following question to product team

“Hey. Your design concept is crystal clear. Black and White. Transparency and adolescence. What’s intention of you adding “gold” here? It doesn’t match with your concept. If users find one tiniest “out of nowhere implications” it will degrade the open box experiences. What, that’s the cheapest pouch procurement team brought up? Call them to my office. I will have Chief Project Manager and CEO hop on the meeting to source a better little pouch. Proposal rejected”

—Out of box impression
Out of box impression
HEXA is a combination of one large DD + tweeter small DD. Nothing groundbreaking as this combination existed with KZ’s ZS5 (2017) not only that KZ added 2BA super-tweeter right near fhe nozzle of ZS5.

What’s making Zero a collaboration-worthy with Crin is that, the driver is LCP backed. Of which I now have no other choice other than LCP to look for any dynamic drivers for a proper modern IEM (& not ridiculously expensive). LCP DD generally takes 30 hours of initial burn-in, from my various past LCP ride experiences, so this impression is could be 80% of what ZERO has to offer.

To summarize, ZERO is surely a very nicely crafted piece of high-performance machine. Clean, lean, a little brighter shifted vocal focused neutral with sub bass boost. Note weight is slightly on leaner side but still very natural. No sign of sibilance but nicely defined details.

ZERO vs Cadenza
I watched a video that HBB set ZERO as one of best $sub 50 aside from his Cadenza push, and having both Cadenza and Zero, I have to say HBB’s evaluation is 90% or above based on tonality alone, not actual performance. There is an undeniable gap between Cadenza and Zero in terms of technical expressions. Great to know that.

Unfortunately Zero’s pinna peak 2.9khz is 2khz off from 3.07k khz peak, and I do feel Zero is not my cup of tea, at least with stock ear tips.

If any IEM’s pinna peak is off more than 500hz, it will start sounds off tuned. For me HEXA is still within the tolerance interval, not Zero. But I’m not disappointed because you can change the IEM’s gain peak by ear tips. See @DynamicEars post about his great achievements in measuring different types of ear tips and it’s effect on this post.

I will try with SpinFit CP360 to shift pinna peak a bit closer to mine.

—Zero with CP360
Night and day….!
This is how you feel when certain IEM’s vibe collides with your personal HRTF.
Wow, ZERO sounds good. I need to have A-B test with modified Aria now. No need to compare with Lea, there is a easy to tell gap in technicalities between Zero and Lea, at least to someone with pinna gain spot around 3.07k +/- 500hz.

—Subbass handling
After few test runs, I start to comprehend the reasons why Zero has slightly less emphasized 20hz region. Crin, if he really dedicated in tuning, is a pretty trustworthy tuner, that I’d admit.

Due to the fact that Zero is having 2 of dynamic drivers singing in unison, the sound pressure from 2DD is already high enough, a little too much feeling, if he added additional sub-bass boost, it can cross a line of fatigue causing. That balance, from an audiophile’s virtue is well executed.

Great sub-bass arrangement. When you play EDM with Zero, the bass drum’s impact is pleasantly knock you head, not hard slamming, but a soft slam, which feels nice.

—Treble
When coupled with CP360 to match close to my HRTF, Zero has pretty nice diffusion field array toward front, I bet that’s contributed by that independent tweeter DD, the upper air/presence region rendered by independent LCP tonality is very pleasant, unlike CNT/DLC’s solid core high pitch, it’s less fatiguing.

—Mid and Upper Mid
Unlike Crin’s Dusk, there is less emphasized on “female vocal’s “.

Random visual examples on the internet for dusk’s vocal presentation;
▶︎female vocalist’s lip on focus

For ZERO It is more natural focus on the vocal range, from musicians standpoint or upper-mid sensitive, this approach is wrong or bothersome because you want concentrate on your own instrument not staring at vocalist.

Random samples on Internet to visualize ZERO’s approach;
▶︎vocalist on spotlight approach

But for vast majority of listeners, this “vocal” focused approach is optimal approach. I personally refer this tuning as vocal-neutral, and to that extent, ZERO has near perfect tuning executed.

—ZERO vs HEXA
Both has same philosophy of clean tonality with several coloration spots, HEXA is less colored and near perfect in photo-realistic for vocal-backed music genre. It may be felt bright to some with flat preference curve, but it could be perceived as perfect neutral with slight sub-bass lift and spotlight on vocal. Meanwhile ZERO is more energetic U-shape tuned fun set with neutrality and natural timbre, note weight in mind.
For micro-detail dynamism, such as imaging and resolution, I may say HEXA is an upper hand, for macro-dynamism such as sound wave’s passage throughout head room, energy of the transients, are on ZERO’s hand. ZERO and HEXA although being fairly close tuning, can co-exist.

I’m pretty sure, after listening on both HEXA and ZERO you will be oblivious which one you are listening to. They both have excellent performances in different areas.

In fact, after few tracks of test runs, I was thinking “hmmm ZERO is REALLY great” then when I open my eyes, I saw Zero was off-plugged and I was actually listening HEXA. Very high chance that Zero will score 80+/100 IEM category. The LCP of HEXA does sound like the one of ZERO’s.



For this Karajan’s Berliner Philharmoniker, Mussorgsky, With HEXA you can have a better sense of spaces between the conductor, concert-master, better strings nuance expression, drastic change from pianissimo to fortessimo, whereas ZERO will render richer deeper resonating notes from Contrabass, Horn, Oboe —an emotional expression.

For Piano tracks, one of my all time favorites, Hiromi’s debut album Spiral


Of which I prefer ZERO’s expression over rather transparent HEXA’s. Her playing style on this tracks is very dynamic, reminds me of Keith Jarrett, and ZERO’s macro-dynamism oriented focus matches to Spiral very well.

At the very intro, you will hear very faint drums snare, high tom nuances expressions, of which ZERO with CP360 renders it to the degree that can convince me as a drummer, that small tap on floor tom, on ZERO’s LCP is what I’m expecting from a dynamics driver’s performance. Not CNT, not DLC, not UTL of Kato’s. It’s just that transient response of the floor tom’s little vibrations, is very nicely recasted.

Midrange technicalities:

I’d pick the father of ambient music, Brain Eno’s little brother , Roger Eno’s collaboration with his big brother Brian Eno. They are no amateur in harmonics, all those decades they’ve dedicated for it. I’m pretty sure Brian Eno and Roger Eno have studied hemi-sync as I can cite some of hemi-sync skills taking place in their artworks.

When a certain driver’s midrange technicality falls off from average the harmonics will start to smear, for that I confirmed ZERO is capable of rendering at least 4 layers of full midrange harmonics. Great. Par with HEXA in midrange.



As you can see from the package

Shiroi-chan, she grew up from adolescent ZERO to matured HEXA, that’s what’s happening in tonality and technicalities as well. Matured HEXA or Young ZERO is up to your taste.

Maybe next Model from Truthear, we may see fully grown Shiroi-chan like this on next release.

-Azurelane IJN Shinano


—Overall out of box
After certain burn-in, I will conduct my modded Aria vs ZERO, but as far as from my out of box experience, this Zero is worth your hard earned money to be spent on.

Very immersive feeling when listening to vocal genres, especially female vocal is beautifully done.

As far as I’ve went through this ZERO is best $sub50 experience so far.

Not limited to sub$50, I’d feel Zero is what I could call “great” region of IEMs where you see HEXA, Dusk, Tea, N5005, P5, Modded Aria would be regarded.

ZERO belongs to spot-hitter , spot-seeker type of IEM, where Moondrop, Softears, and many Harman, Ety IEMs are after for. If the gain peak hit with your preference spot , it will sound very spot-on, if not off-tuned.

Regardless of tuning preferences, ZERO has great hardware spec.

Only thing to consider is if you like vocal-focused presentations or not, and if you have gain spots situated 2.8khz-3.1khz (within this range, you can physically adjust gain spot to fit with your personal resonance spot.)

 

[burialcloud]

Just an observation. Trying to find some used Aful performer 5’s and there are precisely zero on the used market. Compared to anything else I search, where there are plenty. People must be really liking these and not wanting to pass them along, eh?
I have the Yanyin moonlight and absolutely love them. Wanting a second neutralish set I feel less bad about taking to the gym and it seems like the Aful is what I’m after. If anyone wants to get rid of theirs let me know! Thought about the cadenza but it looks like way too much treble for my tastes.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Just an observation. Trying to find some used Aful performer 5’s and there are precisely zero on the used market. Compared to anything else I search, where there are plenty. People must be really liking these and not wanting to pass them along, eh?
I have the Yanyin moonlight and absolutely love them. Wanting a second neutralish set I feel less bad about taking to the gym and it seems like the Aful is what I’m after. If anyone wants to get rid of theirs let me know! Thought about the cadenza but it looks like way too much treble for my tastes.

Probably two factors at play here. First, the Performer 5 is turning out to be popular. No doubt about that. But it’s also pretty much brand new, so combined with popularity it may be a bit longer before some sets show up on the second hand market. But don’t give up. As soon as the next big thing comes along some will appear on the sales forum.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Just an observation. Trying to find some used Aful performer 5’s and there are precisely zero on the used market. Compared to anything else I search, where there are plenty. People must be really liking these and not wanting to pass them along, eh?
I have the Yanyin moonlight and absolutely love them. Wanting a second neutralish set I feel less bad about taking to the gym and it seems like the Aful is what I’m after. If anyone wants to get rid of theirs let me know! Thought about the cadenza but it looks like way too much treble for my tastes.

With my full endorsement….
Forget about Casenza. It’s just a little IEM with slightly above average technicality and warm-harman tuned IEM…overrated

AFUL P5 is a smart choice, very neutral IEM with one of a kind bass resonance that you can’t expect from an IEM to recast. There are literally 100s of sample s given to, so for someone with different taste, like precogvision , I saw him bashed about P5, may toss it to secondhand market with “almost new” condition.

 

[o0genesis0o]

Xmas gift arrived. Will Update on this post later.

▶︎As usual, this is my private purchase. No biases except my personal pov.

初 on Zero’s subtitle means “the beginning / the first” in Chinese

—Graph observations
I can see from the FR on the backside of the package that Zero is Crin’s tuning. It has his 2.9kHz pinna gain adjustment when compared to 3khz of HEXA’s. Yes Crin is 2.9kHz peak.

What triggered my interest is the sub-bass lift for ZERO is diverting from Crin’s favorite “lift sub-bass from bottom to 150hz straight up” style, it has a dip on very low-end. Will find out later.

—The outlook
To be honest, one thing that had me hold on pressing “go” for Zero was the pictures I see on the internet. My personal view was “ah…it looks cheap and plastic-y, maybe another tripowin Mele”

But when the actual Zero showed up, the impression is now updated.

It has solid build. And actually Zero has UV shift color change from blue to purple, as you can see from Moondrop’s Starfield/Stellaris. Haha, HeyGear

Blue state:


Purple shift state:


I love those gimmicks. It’s great gift option candidates for ladies now. They love thos cosmetics over actual performance.

ZERO and HEXA.



—Accessories
Truthear, knows well about acoustics. Proper bore with ear tips, bass boost / high tame bore, and for formies lover, they’d added a pair. Basically same set you can find from HEXA, same cables/ear tips/ pouch. As someone working with automotive sector, I do see truthear is very “cost-strict” manufacturer. Yes, VW, Toyota, all those world #1,2 groups are applying same concept. So we can obtain a maximum output from minimum investment.


…but as usual why “golden”, If I’m user experience manager, I’d throw following question to product team

“Hey. Your design concept is crystal clear. Black and White. Transparency and adolescence. What’s intention of you adding “gold” here? It doesn’t match with your concept. If users find one tiniest “out of nowhere implications” it will degrade the open box experiences. What, that’s the cheapest pouch procurement team brought up? Call them to my office. I will have Chief Project Manager and CEO to the meeting to source a better little pouch. Proposal rejected”





—Out of box impression
Out of box impression
HEXA is a combination of one large DD + tweeter small DD. Nothing groundbreaking as this combination existed with KZ’s ZS5 (2017) not only that KZ added 2BA super-tweeter right near fhe nozzle of ZS5.

What’s making Zero a collaboration-worthy with Crin is that, the driver is LCP backed. Of which I now have no other choice other than LCP to look for any dynamic drivers for a proper modern IEM (& not ridiculously expensive). LCP DD generally takes 30 hours of initial burn-in, from my various past LCP ride experiences, so this impression is could be 80% of what ZERO has to offer.

To summarize, ZERO is surely a very nicely crafted piece of high-performance machine. Clean, lean, a little brighter shifted vocal focused neutral with sub bass boost.

ZERO vs Cadenza
I watched a video that HBB set ZERO as one of best $sub 50 aside from his Cadenza push, and having both Cadenza and Zero, I have to say HBB’s evaluation is 90% or above based on tonality alone, not actual performance. There is an undeniable gap between Cadenza and Zero in terms of technical expressions. Great to know that.

Unfortunately Zero’s pinna peak 2.9khz is 2khz off from 3.07k khz peak, and I do feel Zero is not my cup of tea, at least with stock ear tips.

If any IEM’s pinna peak is off more than 500hz, it will start sounds off tuned. For me HEXA is still within the tolerance interval, not Zero. But I’m not disappointed because you can change the IEM’s gain peak by ear tips. See @DynamicEars post about his great achievements in measuring different types of ear tips and it’s effect on this post.



I will try with SpinFit CP360 to shift pinna peak a bit closer to mine.

—Zero with CP360
Night and day….!
This is how you feel when certain IEM’s vibe collides with your personal HRTF.
Wow, ZERO sounds good. I need to have A-B test with modified Aria now. No need to compare with Lea, there is a easy to tell gap in technicalities between Zero and Lea, at least to someone with pinna gain spot around 3.07k +/- 500hz.

—Subbass handling
After few test runs, I start to comprehend the reasons why Zero has slightly less emphasized 20hz region. Crin, if he really dedicated in tuning, is pretty trustworthy tuner, that I’d admit. Due to the fast Zero is having 2 of dynamic drivers singing in unison, the sound pressure from 2DD is already high enough, a little too much feeling, if he added additional sub-bass boost, it can cross a line of fatigue causing. That balance, from an audiophile’s virtue is well executed. Great sub-bass arrangement.

—Treble
When coupled with CP360 to match close to my HRTF, Zero has pretty nice diffusion field array toward front, I bet that’s contributed by that independent tweeter DD, the upper air/presence region rendered by independent LCP tonality is very pleasant, unlike CNT/DLC’s solid core high pitch, it’s less fatiguing.

—Mid and Upper Mid
Unlike Crin’s Dusk, there is less emphasized on “female vocal’s “. It is more natural focus on the vocal range, from musicians standpoint this approach is wrong because you want concentrate on your own instrument not staring at vocalist. But for vast majority of listeners, this “vocal” focused approach is optimal approach. I personally refer this tuning as vocal-neutral, and to that extent, ZERO has near perfect tuning executed.

—Overall out of box
After certain burn-in, I will conduct my modded Aria vs ZERO, but as far as from my out of box experience, this Zero is worth your hard earned money to be spent on.

Very immersive feeling when listening to vocal genres, especially female vocal is beautifully done.

As far as I’ve went through this ZERO is best $sub50 experience so far.

The Zero looks good in your photos. I didn’t pay much attention to the faceplate, but the body of the IEM. Many (KZ, CCA, etc.) have pretty faceplate and hollow, plasticky body. Zero seems to have the same kind of resin-filled body as B2, Monarch II and the likes.

I remember Crinacle likes Zero because two DDs have a precise cross-over setup so that one (the bass hump) is handled by one DD and everything else is handled by the other. Seems like an interesting concept, executed by capable team, released at a good price. I haven’t heard either, but I think they should be quite nice. Congrats on your shiny!

Btw, you definitely need a personal blog for all of these articles.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

The Zero looks good in your photos. I didn’t pay much attention to the faceplate, but the body of the IEM. Many (KZ, CCA, etc.) have pretty faceplate and hollow, plasticky body. Zero seems to have the same kind of resin-filled body as B2, Monarch II and the likes.

I remember Crinacle likes Zero because two DDs have a precise cross-over setup so that one (the bass hump) is handled by one DD and everything else is handled by the other. Seems like an interesting concept, executed by capable team, released at a good price. I haven’t heard either, but I think they should be quite nice. Congrats on your shiny!

Btw, you definitely need a personal blog for all of these articles.

Haha thanks, maybe I will re-open my blogger life with medium.

And great info! Hope you have a chance to audition Zero, it’s a nice experience, a properly executed 2 LCP DD. handling different spectrums. I feel internal enjoyment from that new sensation. Much higher return than I expected from dynamic driver based IEM.

 

[Carpet]

Just an observation. Trying to find some used Aful performer 5’s and there are precisely zero on the used market. Compared to anything else I search, where there are plenty. People must be really liking these and not wanting to pass them along, eh?
I have the Yanyin moonlight and absolutely love them. Wanting a second neutralish set I feel less bad about taking to the gym and it seems like the Aful is what I’m after. If anyone wants to get rid of theirs let me know! Thought about the cadenza but it looks like way too much treble for my tastes.

I suspect it's still at the "shiny new thing stage" before our community gets distracted by something else. Just wait until the Rly Aful performer comes out!

 

[Surf Monkey]

I suspect it's still at the "shiny new thing stage" before our community gets distracted by something else. Just wait until the Rly Aful performer comes out!

Great minds!

Once the P5 novelty wears off they’ll show up in the sales forum.

 

[helloh3adfi]

Xmas gift arrived. Will Update on this post later.

As always your articles are great! Weeb stuff is also included. Well, Shiroi could also mature into Reisen when I look at those bunny ears. I only tried Zeros for a short time and only had the stock tips which were far from comfortable. The nozzle is around 7 mm in diameter. Wondering if you can wear them long after the burn-in, lets's say with your Spinfit CP360? They seem to have a smaller bore size than W1 so it would alter the treble area? Is that the reason you put them on instead of W1?

Afaik 7Hz will release a 2 DD IEM. Looking forward to know how they will perform vs Truthear Zero.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

As always your articles are great! Weeb stuff is also included. Well, Shiroi could also mature into Reisen when I look at those bunny ears. I only tried Zeros for a short time and only had the stock tips which were far from comfortable. The nozzle is around 7 mm in diameter. Wondering if you can wear them long after the burn-in, lets's say with your Spinfit CP360? They seem to have a smaller bore size than W1 so it would alter the treble area? Is that the reason you put them on instead of W1?

Afaik 7Hz will release a 2 DD IEM. Looking forward to know how they will perform vs Truthear Zero.

Thanks for the feedback!

I tried both with W1 and CP360, and for my ear, the CP360’s product was more suitable than W1’s.

CP360 will tone down treble a bit, when compared to W1, in an exchange of “perfect internal chamber harmonics”.

I value harmony of their resonance over anything, and for that Zero x CP360 was a right click. Of course it’s personal HRTF dependent too, you may have better resonance with W1 too. Rather try each one, I found dynamicear’s measurements very helpful. I knew I had to shift peak by 1.5khz ish and on his chart CP360 did that.

Good to know 7Hz’s 2DD. That’s interesting.

 

[lushmelody]

Thanks for the feedback!

I tried both with W1 and CP360, and for my ear, the CP360’s product was more suitable than W1’s.

CP360 will tone down treble a bit, when compared to W1, in an exchange of “perfect internal chamber harmonics”.

I value harmony of their resonance over anything, and for that Zero x CP360 was a right click. Of course it’s personal HRTF dependent too, you may have better resonance with W1 too. Rather try each one, I found dynamicear’s measurements very helpful. I knew I had to shift peak by 1.5khz ish and on his chart CP360 did that.

Good to know 7Hz’s 2DD. That’s interesting.

NF Audio MS42 may be the new treble melting benchmark.. From the impressions I read. Cant wait my order to arrive

 

[PhonoPhi]

Since KZ was my “fun and easygoing” for IEMs after UE pulled the plug for serious capital investment and sold them to Logitech, I’ve been purchased almost all releases of their offering, including CCA’s.

If there is a mileage system of KZ, I will be their diamond rank by now I guess. I’ve missed a few for those I had zero interests, but still maybe you can call me Mr.KZ

For further KZ knowledge you may hit up Prof. KZ @PhonoPhi

Here I can leave a narrative for their products and you can see the reason I stopped buying.

I still have some hope.

Knowledge Zenith
ZST Pro: old pair nothing stands out

ZS5:
2BA+2DD, you can see DQ6’s
Dual DD spirit from this ancient model. A V-tuned, very fun IEM that piqued my interest in Chi-fi. Still to date, I find ZS6’s 2BA+2DD a fun set to listen to. The shell is undoubtedly copy from campfire’s.

ZS6 :
ZS5’s successor with 2BA and 2DD.

ZS10: another hybrids, but fun 2DD is gone. Remaining typical KZ-V. Dry and energetic but somehow old school tuning now.

ZS10Pro: couldn’t find anything special
ZSN: sounds like down-sized ZS10
ZSN ProX: nothing special
AS10: KZ’s full BA attempt, actually pretty good.
AS12: 2nd attempt in full BA. Pretty amusing at a time.
AS16: 8BA model of full-BA series, actually well tuned and pretty low in distortions. A new AS16 Pro is out. But not competitive enough as you see HEXA’s shadow around competing range.

ASX: Extremely bass heavy V-tuned 10BA. Yes I complained about treble to be too edgy, and KZ completely cut that for AST while retaining extremely (ridiculously) high bass shelf.

AST: Bass dominant, hard to drive, ultimately listener picking IEM of KZ. If I see someone in love of AST, I can see it’s
a knucklehead-in-a-positive-way of KZ. It takes a great effort to make AST to make a great performance, pretty fun IEM to play with.

DQ6: one of KZ’s breakthrough. Fun and nice sounding W-tuned 3DD. Still one of my favorite, there are tracks only DQ6 is capable of reproducing the “feeling”. Your younger days, rough, but energetic days that DQ6 is programmed to recast.

DQ6S: not sure why HBB copied U12t, but it’s basically inoffensively tuned DQ6 with u12t’s FR + HBB’s high bass floor. Pretty good IEM that still scores great sonic output for HBB’s favorite rock/classic rocks. Yes, many old rock had terrible recoding/mix, the roughness matched with DQ6, and this DQ6S. This is a tuning I can say well done by HBB, not just his copy and paste warm-harmans we see being thrown to the market every week.

ZAX : V-tuned 7BA(old generation)+ 1DD(old gen), vented shell, but crossover design was not ideal. It let single DD to handle full sprectrum, and let all 7BA to add Layers to it. Imaging took hit as a result of this Disney’s electrical parade. It was pretty good at a time, but now, it’s outdated performance.

ZAS : ZAX’s successor, W-tuned 7BA+1DD, best of KZ IEM in terms of performance (except those new Planars which I haven’t touched yet). If I see successor of ZAS, I’ll buy.

EDX : $6 single DD, has internal plastic shell resonance that Tangzu managed to tune it as a part of final product, where LZ left it as a weak point. Price to performance wise, a pass, not too bad. But has competitors like TRN’s MT series, KBEARS KS series. There are latest gen of EDX but I have no interest trying those.

S1D : TWS with 1BA + 1DD, predecessor of SKS, OK level

SKS : TWS with 1BA + 1DD, actually best tuned TWS of KZ, quite good.

SK10 : TWS with 4BA+1DD, not too bad besides tuning

Z1Pro : TWS with XUN single DD, not bad

ZEX : Pretty Good, still stands out with its resolving capabilities for being $sub 20. Typical KZ V-tuning, but good part is it is less dampened, the driver’s output is directly rendered to the final output.

ZEX Pro : Avoid
CRN : Avoid
T10 : Avoid

CCA
CS10 : OK
C10 Pro : Hmm, ok
CA16 : pretty good, somehow non-KZ tuned, V-shape with mid-focus.
CS16 : Hmm, ok. Nothing special.
CSN: actually fun tuned 1BA+1DD, simple enough, no hard tech to make it sound bad.
NRA : Avoid
CRA+: quite impressive driver spec, tuning is W shape specialized for pops, pretty good, the golden shinny shell is a let down to me.

Above all, KZ ZAS, ZEX, SKS, DQ6S, and an odd ball ZS5, CCA CRA+ and CSN are what I consider as KZ/CCA’s IEMs that are still comparable to modern market of IEMs.

For ZAS, it is near HEXA ($79)’s line, so maybe not competitive anymore. My score for ZAS from my memory was in 70s/100 while HEXA is 85/100.

Other than ZAS, they are still worth a time to try.

My personal favorite is still the first KZ that I was interested with its fun V-shaped tuning. ZS5.
It is discontinued but still can find from third party retailers. It’s just a belsing 2BA + old KZ’s DDx2, but pretty fun in V-tuning.

That is a very nice KZ/CCA collection you've amassed!

I promised to compare ZEX and ZEX pro, getting there slowly, I could not help comparing two more KZ IEMs, where my impressions are quite notably different from yours: ZS10 (my first KZ) and ZS10 pro (an epitome of KZ rambunctious V).

For the readers of this thread -sorry that it is not about new discoveries but of the memories as distant as 2018/2019. I'll try to be brief.

Here are those four:

I used Sonata E44 for this comparison as a transparent revealing source.

1. ZS10 - marking KZ departure from copied shells of ZS5/ZS6 - cute but too large shells to fit comfortably. The sound is dominated by loose honky bass not saved by some bright treble. ZS10 and AS10 both started at $45. I have not seen AS10 much below $40, while ZS10 went to $25 and below, as the factual evidence of being much less popular.

2. ZS10 pro on the other hand achieved a very nice balance of quite rampant fairly loose bass and very prominent flamboyant 30095-rich treble. Most prominent V of KZ; KZ started to move to more balanced signatures thereafter. While this sound signature is not my cup of tea, I experienced some magic moments with ZS10 pro with electric guitar sound mighty captivating. I can beleive ZS10 pro sold as many copies, as KZ claims.

3. ZEX - a very nicely built blue shell, a good hybrid. The "MST" largely compliments DD well, some disjoints can be perceived similar to piezo hybrids. "MST" rougness is more tamed compared to NRA. For my personal preference, I would take CCA CA4 or CRN (for more bass) over ZEX

4. ZEX pro are superior in every sense to me sonically. More objectively, the bass is more contained and better shaped - leaner, but still prominent, and "MST" are very much there, and more subtle BA contribution (mounted on a side) can be discerened. If anything - it may be too much treble for many, and the collection of budget drivers do not deliver overly smooth sound.
Comparing to NRA, ZEX and DD-BA hybrids, Crin did a really good job! Those claims of detuned/non-functional drivers are such a gibberish in a retrospective...

Lastly, I treasure and cherish my KZs, ZSN pro X was the only one that went for parts donating its wide nozzles to one of the ASX pairs- my favourite IEM of all.