[zachmal]

I gave away my KC2 a few months back, so this is from memory, no actual A/B testing done, so take it with a pinch of salt.

KC2 is more midcentric than "neutral" per se. The Hexa is neutral with a sub-bass boost. The KC2 has less sub-bass extension. In terms of bass quality, I think the Hexa is tighter and faster, but the mid-bass is lacking on the Hexa, so for certain genres like EDM/hip hop, the KC2 is probably a better fit.

Soundstage if I remember, is bigger on the KC2, but it has less accurate imaging and layering and instrument separation. KC2 has a bit more BA timbre from what I recall.

that's pretty detailed

thanks a lot !

so I guess the Hexa is not really needed at this point (perhaps later when it's discounted or cheaper available).


Anyone know of a cheap portable amp (not necessarily with battery) that can power up planar drivers (like Shuoer S12, Tin Hifi P1 Max, KZ PR1, etc.) ?

I'm currently thinking of the Tempotec Sonata E44 since it has plenty of juice and as a bonus a 3.5 mm adapter cable (no 2.5 mm or 4.4 mm in my collection yet).

Cheaper and AMP-only would be appreciated since I already have quite a few DACs

Thanks in advance

 

[AmericanSpirit]

How do Truthear Hexa compare against the BQEYZ KC2 ?

both are neutral IEMs, right ?

significant upgrade ? or merely a sidegrade ?

From the pricing and composition I believe KC2 uses Bellsing BA (30095 or 30019) x2 and 2DD, of which you can expect an upgrade in all spectrum for spec performance.

 

[lgcubana]

IMHO, there is no more excuse for KZ to keep selling these IEMs in barebone configurations, now that others can pack enough goodies with careful consideration for the same price (look at the NF Audio RA10, for instance). These ear toys are luxury purchases (even more so in many parts of the world), so they should be packed and sold as such. I still remember the first time unboxing the Tanchjim OLA (the OG, not the new bass version). That’s how a budget IEM should be presented.

As a person that likes to accessorize with my own choice of cables and tips, I prefer KZ's approach. It's rare to find a well accessorized IEM in the sub $100 realm. In my opinion, any that you do find, are from relatively new brands, that're trying to give you an incentive, to give them a try.

KZ PR1 Pro $43 + $22 KBEAR Chord 6N Graphene+4N OFC Silver-plated = $65

With FiiO and Dunu being the gold standard, for accessories to (their products) respective pricing bracket; they're the only IEMs where I use the stock cable, if it has interchangeable terminations.

What bugs me is the opposite, a $350 IEM coming with an after thought, for the cable. e.g. the Xenns Mangird Tea 2

Using the wrong 2 pin connector and color mismatch

bonus rant: no way is the stock cable a standard .78 Took me repeated efforts to get the stock cable off. The replacement .78 cable was snug, but seamless to seat

pic

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I find the same thing sometimes with LDAC on BTR3K, so I put it in a pocket on the same side as my belt bag with phone. Not sure if sweating while holding it makes a difference either, but connection seems more stable if I'm not holding it in my hand.

Edit: overall it's usually very stable. Fine in the same room, starts to break up once two rooms away.

I have BTR3K and BTR5 and noted same, signal reception is better on 3K, but BTR5 has a better drivability so it’s a trade off.

 

[PhonoPhi]

Yeah you are right. Actually I think a lot of consumers like huge bass. When you are outdoors and such, the big bass offsets environmental losses. Big bass also equates to fun head banging sound.

But don't get me wrong, I like big bass too, but maybe I am picky that it has to have quality over quantity. Like the bass cannot be a one-noted untextured boomy blob that bleeds into the midrange. I rather take a neutral bass set with good quality bass over outright sheer bass amounts that are low in quality.

One of my observations for so prevailing bass preference is the fact that many (if not most) starting IEM users do not good seal with tips. There can be also some bareer to it, since the good seal often does not fit most comfortable.
My case at point is Sony XB-50. I used them for a year or so "pre- Hi-Fi", and they were good for me.
But then I used them without bothering to change medium stock tips. Returning to them with the properly sealing ones made enhanced bass totally unbearable. Put back comfortable medium tips - and the sound is quite reasonable, even by Hi-Fi standards

Just to touch on dongles again real quick, I think having digital volume control on the device runs the risk of jumping the volume too much between steps due to only being able to push so much power. Couple that with no external battery, it’s probably more ideal not to have a dongle that pushes a lot of volume since it then becomes impractical, draining the source. So I say no volume control on dongle, and no gain switch/high output. Not sure how much more power is drained going balanced so can’t comment there.

A good point about either simple moderately-powered dongles, like CX-pro or getting more powerful ones with independent on-board volume control, here Andy is absolutely right.

that's pretty detailed

thanks a lot !

so I guess the Hexa is not really needed at this point (perhaps later when it's discounted or cheaper available).


Anyone know of a cheap portable amp (not necessarily with battery) that can power up planar drivers (like Shuoer S12, Tin Hifi P1 Max, KZ PR1, etc.) ?

I'm currently thinking of the Tempotec Sonata E44 since it has plenty of juice and as a bonus a 3.5 mm adapter cable (no 2.5 mm or 4.4 mm in my collection yet).

Cheaper and AMP-only would be appreciated since I already have quite a few DACs

Thanks in advance

I have not experienced good amps cheaper than dongles (DAC+amp)
With cheaper amps, I would be concerned with the noise.
If I were in the market for n amp, I would possibly look into second-hand Fiio A3 or similar. Fiio started with amps and had some very good products there

E44 is my favourite most universal dongle. Very powerful, really exceeding 30% but it is also great to experiment with the impedance adapters - a lot of power, and it only consumes 62 mA with my nornal listening volumes.
E1DA (I have SG3) would be an absolute power monster, but for it to fully shine, an external battery is really helpful.
For a budget dingles, CX-pro is great, again, especially with single DDs in addition to the Apple one. Moondrop click is powerful and very energy-efficient as well.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

I need the Hi-Fi-Gear anonymous group... Hi, my name is Wolfhawk and I'm a hifi addict. Hi Wolfhawk.

I’m a subscriber of Japanese anonymous threads “5chan” for like 25years now. They do have hifi-communities as well. There are pros and cons about those anonymous style,

▶︎people could tell whatever they want without being concerned about their consistency

Good thing, you get honest voice

Bad thing, hype train get echo chamber sometime, due to the nature of raw opinion voice, more conflicts and confrontations, more trolls

I still value those anonymous threads even all those negative sides considered.

It’s pretty raw voice after all. Emotional/temperamental/impulsive but honest to their feeling at that time.

Online salon style forums are more facebook style, and those anonymous threads are twitter styled ones.

However,Due to the same nature of saturated community, even those 5 chan hifi anonymous threads are becoming super friendly place now. Which is good actually. Very qualitative information sharing.

Overview of thread group for Audio and Visual gadget:

They have similar structure for IEM threads now, sub $50( -5k), med-fi, over $300 (high-end) dedicated general thread. Then each brands’s dedicated threads.

Sample of high-end thread: you see Monarch MKII being frequently mentioned there, different breed, same rabbit hole

Some interesting discussion about drivability of Monarch MKII with USB dongle or DAP:
“
The hipdac2 can do it because it has a battery on board?
No, I'm talking about dongle DACs like GoBar and W2-131 that are bus-powered and powered by the iPhone.
Battery-powered amp-powered hipdac2, Gryphon, and UA5 can play.
UA5 is a dongle DAC, but it has a battery.
I believe the power limit for the Lightning connector and camera adapter is 200mA=1W.
GoBar's power consumption is 4W max.
Power consumption is the problem, not output power.
So, if I try to play Mona2 with bus-powered GoBar, it's not enough.
It's not that the amp can only output up to 25% of the volume, but if you try to play Mona2 with a dongle DAC, it will fall short of what you want to hear.
In the previous thread, there was a suggestion to try a cheap Chinese dongle DAC, but as mentioned above, if you're using a dongle DAC with an iPhone, don't do that, just in case.
I know you expressed interest in GoBar, but I just wanted to say that Mona 2 on an iPhone will be useless and fail.”

HEXA is getting raving comments on 5chan nowadays as well. Different language communities, but hifi gadget speaks only one it seems.

 

[552609]

I’m a subscriber of Japanese anonymous threads “5chan” for like 25years now. They do have hifi-communities as well. There are pros and cons about those anonymous style,

▶︎people could tell whatever they want without being concerned about their consistency

Good thing, you get honest voice

Bad thing, hype train get echo chamber sometime, due to the nature of raw opinion voice, more conflicts and confrontations, more trolls

I still value those anonymous threads even all those negative sides considered.

It’s pretty raw voice after all. Emotional/temperamental/impulsive but honest to their feeling at that time.

Online salon style forums are more facebook style, and those anonymous threads are twitter styled ones.

However,Due to the same nature of saturated community, even those 5 chan hifi anonymous threads are becoming super friendly place now. Which is good actually. Very qualitative information sharing.

Overview of thread group for Audio and Visual gadget:


They have similar structure for IEM threads now, sub $50( -5k), med-fi, over $300 (high-end) dedicated general thread. Then each brands’s dedicated threads.

Sample of high-end thread: you see Monarch MKII being frequently mentioned there, different breed, same rabbit hole


Some interesting discussion about drivability of Monarch MKII with USB dongle or DAP:
“
The hipdac2 can do it because it has a battery on board?
No, I'm talking about dongle DACs like GoBar and W2-131 that are bus-powered and powered by the iPhone.
Battery-powered amp-powered hipdac2, Gryphon, and UA5 can play.
UA5 is a dongle DAC, but it has a battery.
I believe the power limit for the Lightning connector and camera adapter is 200mA=1W.
GoBar's power consumption is 4W max.
Power consumption is the problem, not output power.
So, if I try to play Mona2 with bus-powered GoBar, it's not enough.
It's not that the amp can only output up to 25% of the volume, but if you try to play Mona2 with a dongle DAC, it will fall short of what you want to hear.
In the previous thread, there was a suggestion to try a cheap Chinese dongle DAC, but as mentioned above, if you're using a dongle DAC with an iPhone, don't do that, just in case.
I know you expressed interest in GoBar, but I just wanted to say that Mona 2 on an iPhone will be useless and fail.”

HEXA is getting raving comments on 5chan nowadays as well. Different language communities, but hifi gadget speaks only one it seems.

Buddy, it was a joke. That just sounds terrible haha. I mean I'll take a headphone addiction over drugs any day of the week.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Buddy, it was a joke. That just sounds terrible haha. I mean I'll take a headphone addiction over drugs any day of the week.

Haha I was wondering that, introducing yourself on anonymous thread, makes sense now

 

[Vonbuddy]

I’m a subscriber of Japanese anonymous threads “5chan” for like 25years now. They do have hifi-communities as well. There are pros and cons about those anonymous style,

▶︎people could tell whatever they want without being concerned about their consistency

Good thing, you get honest voice

Bad thing, hype train get echo chamber sometime, due to the nature of raw opinion voice, more conflicts and confrontations, more trolls

I still value those anonymous threads even all those negative sides considered.

It’s pretty raw voice after all. Emotional/temperamental/impulsive but honest to their feeling at that time.

Online salon style forums are more facebook style, and those anonymous threads are twitter styled ones.

However,Due to the same nature of saturated community, even those 5 chan hifi anonymous threads are becoming super friendly place now. Which is good actually. Very qualitative information sharing.

Overview of thread group for Audio and Visual gadget:


They have similar structure for IEM threads now, sub $50( -5k), med-fi, over $300 (high-end) dedicated general thread. Then each brands’s dedicated threads.

Sample of high-end thread: you see Monarch MKII being frequently mentioned there, different breed, same rabbit hole


Some interesting discussion about drivability of Monarch MKII with USB dongle or DAP:
“
The hipdac2 can do it because it has a battery on board?
No, I'm talking about dongle DACs like GoBar and W2-131 that are bus-powered and powered by the iPhone.
Battery-powered amp-powered hipdac2, Gryphon, and UA5 can play.
UA5 is a dongle DAC, but it has a battery.
I believe the power limit for the Lightning connector and camera adapter is 200mA=1W.
GoBar's power consumption is 4W max.
Power consumption is the problem, not output power.
So, if I try to play Mona2 with bus-powered GoBar, it's not enough.
It's not that the amp can only output up to 25% of the volume, but if you try to play Mona2 with a dongle DAC, it will fall short of what you want to hear.
In the previous thread, there was a suggestion to try a cheap Chinese dongle DAC, but as mentioned above, if you're using a dongle DAC with an iPhone, don't do that, just in case.
I know you expressed interest in GoBar, but I just wanted to say that Mona 2 on an iPhone will be useless and fail.”

HEXA is getting raving comments on 5chan nowadays as well. Different language communities, but hifi gadget speaks only one it seems.

So if you could buy only one dongle and one table top amp/sac what would it be? I mean in degree of functionality.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

So if you could buy only one dongle and one table top amp/sac what would it be? I mean in degree of functionality.

I’m not dongle / dap enthusiasts, so you may ask on their dedicated thread

But when considering battery’s life, I think in a long run, DAC dongle maybe a better investment over DAPs unless you are investing in kilobuck summit-fi IEMs.

For my experience L&P W2 has a good balance for cost to performance.

▶︎ 4.4mm balance,
▶︎good drivability 230mW,
▶︎SNR 131db comparable to flagship class dap,
▶︎at least 2 lowpass filter,
▶︎SPDIF input,
▶︎dual high-end CS43198 (iBasso DX160 uses same CS43198x2, DX300 has quad CS43198)
▶︎The THD performance 0.00012% only, which is even lower than that specified by the chipset manufacturer and is comparable to some high-end DAPs
▶︎High-Gate-Count FPGA Chip

Per headphonics introduction :
“Luxury & Precision will put on their flagship dongle, having in mind that they designed many higher-end DAPs.

The W2 packs in a lot of features in its ‘Doublemint’ size casing. When you compare the internals, you will actually see it is quite similar to some full-sized players.”

Pretty much a good summary for this dongle.

Other than simple solution,

You also may consider investing in car audio. I’ve owned and tested many of offering, JBL, Harman Kardon, Bang & Olufsen, B&W, Bose, Kenwood, Mark Levinson, Burmester. Of which Burmester is the “ultimate” one you may want to consider. I’ve passed opportunities for sell your kidney DAP/IEM, but I’ve sold my kidney for best car audio you could’ve get, that’s my personal decision making as an audiophile in pursuing “best audio experience”.

The home audio segment is there but you have to spend a significant amount of “capital” that you probably can buy a good house, or actually need to reconstruct the listening room with perfect acoustic design for it. That’s beyond what I’m looking for.

 

[552609]

So if you could buy only one dongle and one table top amp/sac what would it be? I mean in degree of functionality.

Dongles are tough, some people love the THX for example, others hate it. The only one that works for me flawlessly is the Google dongle... And it doesn't get loud enough. For a tabletop amp/DAC, you'd really need to be more specific and give a price range/idea of how you'd use it.

 

[ChrisOc]

TRN Xuanwu - Interesting.

A hybrid set, comprising of a single 10mm Square Planar Driver (SPD) and a single TRN in-house Balanced Amature (BA).

What is their form about finish?
Black kidney shaped plasticky earpieces with gold accents. On the inner part the earpieces are well contoured with added wings. In the ear they feel plasticky, bulbous and fat, but more importantly they isolate well.

They protruding two-pin designed to pair with the TRN clear hooded cable with aggressive moulding as earhooks, top with chrome accents but no colour coding or labelling for (L)eft and (R)ight.

The cable is a skinny four strand twisted in pairs and leads to an angled 3.5mm plug, all very plasticky. Past the clear plastic splitter, are the split two pairs of twisted strands, you get no slider. It is all very plasticky but it is malleable and all-in-all acceptable at the £23 they cost me.

How well do they fit?
They fit my ears well enough. The shape and wings make their presence felt after a while, but bearable and as stated earlier, good isolation.

How do they sound like?
My first SPD, yeah! They sound like a Dynamic Drivers (DD) with BA to my ears. All the impactfull qualities of the a good DD bass, plus speed of BAs, but planar can both well, if properly done. In short not bad at all but source compatibility is necessary to get the best out of them.



I put the track, "Over the Horizon" on a loop and tested them on my Littlebear B4X, BTR7 and TRI TK-2 all fed from my Samsung Note 10 Plus, ss source. I also used the Shanling M7. I initially used the original cable, then changed cable to TRN modular cable. I also tested them with stock tips and the tips to TRI Clarion tips.

On the BTR7, both the sub-bass and mid-bass bass were good, mids, fine and highs nice and sparkly.

On the Littlebear, the bass lost a bit of the impact displayed on the BTR7 but the mids and highs perked up to aound more Planar-like.

A digression
I pause here to say, "Over the Horizon" is an orchestral piece, commissioned by Samsung. It has a bit of everything across the frequency spectrum, plus dynamic range, plus a bit of stage, as a standard it is a good test of the capabilities of earphones and headphones. I dread to find out the budget allocated to the composition and rendition of this track by an orchestra, all for what is essentially a ringtone! Seriously, heard in full, it is a good piece of music.

On the TK-2, the bass became bloated and lost much of its definition. It was a "splodge" of bass. The midrange and highs stood up to the TK-2 DAC/Amp quite well. I am not sure if it would benefit from an impedance adaptor.

On other tracks the Xuanwu stood up to the test quite well.

Another digression.
Where is the line between authenticity and fakery (I had to make sure the spelling was right to avoid a strike from the Mods)?

As I understand it a Planar Magnetic driver can be defined as having an array of magnets which move the diaphragm in response to an electro on-off stimulation, to reproduce sound.

Is the SPD an innovative approach to Planar Magnetic tech or is it fake? When does innovation and and fakery begin?

Are they worth buying?
My view, most definitely at the price, definitely. Currently, there is an economic downturn in most countries, earphone manufacturers are not blind to it, they are keeping us in the habit by raising the level of inexpensive sets by a notch or two, while keeping prices low. Add to that the Planar boom, and you have some serious competitors. The only caveat is make sure they are compatible with your source. Source compatibility = synergy!

Enjoy Your Music!

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

other than laptop use (via wired),
i use BTR5 most of the time via Bluetooth connection with my phone.
yes, direct connection might sound better but the convinience that nothing dangling on my phone wins it.

---
HiFri recently promote Canpur iem that went on 80% discount (great value on discount, not worth it on og price)
He dissect the iem and found out,

Problem is that the Heart Mirror is a single DD and the Canpur is a hybrid, so completely different implementation, despite having the same driver. Apples and oranges when it comes to sound and implementation.

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

Many people like bass that goes boom, boom. boom and doof. doof. doof. Does not matter if you cannot hear the bass note being played or the instrument playing them as long as the bass makes a big sound then bass is good. It i a very common way of measuring bass quality - how big is sounds not how articulate it sounds. Possibly because lofi gear is just not very good at capturing the detail and nuances at the bass end so that is what people expect bass to sound like. And good bass is more power in that boom and doof sound

Yep. That's how the average consumer hears it. That's why the bass driven Sennheiser CX300, Klipsch s4, and Beats IEMs were the most popular buys for YEARS, before the advent of the wireless craze.

 

[Carpet]

Another digression.
Where is the line between authenticity and fakery (I had to make sure the spelling was right to avoid a strike from the Mods)?

As I understand it a Planar Magnetic driver can be defined as having an array of magnets which move the diaphragm in response to an electro on-off stimulation, to reproduce sound.

Is the SPD an innovative approach to Planar Magnetic tech or is it fake? When does innovation and and fakery begin?

The diapragm is in a single plane rather than being conical or domed, it is also held stretched taught rather than in a surround that allows it to telescope backwards and forwards. The array of magnets are arranged to exert a magnetic field across the diaphragm, rather than just through it's central axis. The coil is flat rather than cylindrical.

The only difference is that the voice coil is wire rather than photoetched onto the surface of the diaphragm. A conventional planar is also "square" (or rectangular) in the area where it's coil interacts with the magnet array. The shape and size of the free portion beyond the coil and magnets may affect the tension in the diaphragm. Other than that it is a matter of how small you can make the external dimensions of the driver. What if an SPD used a photoetched voice coil? How about OoA deciding to make a heart or star shaped planar? #

People have become distracted by a detail that does not alter the fundamental nature of the device. Much the same as refusing to believe that any engine with fuel injection is a real internal combustion engine, due to the lack of a carburetor. SPD is not fake, it is an alternative implementation that took people by surprise.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is obviously still an aquatic duck-billed avian!

# Purely hypothetical example, so I am NOT responsible for any rumors it will release in August!