The discovery thread!

[DBaldock9]

What I like about this thread, is that nobody looks down on others just because they utilize cheaper IEMs. Be it a $5 IEM or a $5000 one, as long as it has the most eartime, that makes that IEM your favourite daily driver.

We are all united in our love for music and gear (though sometimes the gear takes priority over music haha), so don't be ashamed of your IEMs, cheap or expensive. We are all here to share our discoveries.

If ear-time is the deciding factor - then my Pizen PianoTrio (2018) [$23.65] would be my overall favorite - since this "thin" set of earphones are the ones that I wear nearly every night, connected to my phone, and playing various low Bass "droning" tracks that provide some isolation while sleeping.

I've got a couple of other thin earphones that work well for sleeping (Tennmak Pro, Rose Aurora, Kinera BA05), but most of the others in my collection are too thick.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Graphs are like looking at the picture of a person on a dating site. Sure, she might look like your type from the photo, but then you meet her in real life and can't stand her shoutiness or deep voice. Or something. You fill in the blanks.

So, maybe a good introduction that piques your interest, but not quite the same thing as real life exposure.

Best metaphor of 2023

 

[FreeWheelinAudioLuv2]

A useful video from a while back.

I enjoyed watching this video. Jude seems like a nice guy. I've never met him, but I have had a couple direct conversations with him. It would be cool to meet him, americanspirit, DsNuts, Leanarfd, activatorfly, gadgetgod, o0genesis0o, and a couple others here. That would be a killer "Canjam" for sure.

 

[Zachik]

Graphs are like looking at the picture of a person on a dating site. Sure, she might look like your type from the photo, but then you meet her in real life and can't stand her shoutiness or deep voice. Or something. You fill in the blanks.

Agreed!! Excellent analogy, and I will use it in the future
Graphs paint a partial picture of how something sounds. As always, the devil is in the details...

 

[o0genesis0o]

No. Not everyone needs a coupler or graphs to appease the graphites. I no longer do reviews or get samples because I don't incorporate graphs or graph lingo in my brief reviews, so I don't attract anyone anymore. I don't pay attention to graphs, nor do I care for anyone to post a graph. I find it absolutely useless. I know there are many graph zombies who worship at the squig, but I'd rather hear from someone who has the product FIRST HAND, and describes to me in their best language what the IEM or headphone actually SOUND LIKE, along with air and impact and speed and resolution, all things that have negligible readings on a graph. So @AmericanSpirit, keep doing it like you're doing it, and keep steering us to great value product, and don't worry about couplers or graphs. It truly is pretty useless c*ap.

One thing I came to realise lately is that graph shows a snapshot of just one ear. The stereo imaging depends on two ears at the same time. Phase matching? FR matching, all kinds of things that I don’t know anything to blah blah blah about. I mean, even in the official documentation / tutorial by Sonion, they stated that two designs with same graphs but different drivers and dampeners do not sound the same.

Happy for those who believe that FR matching a good target is all there is about sound quality (in other words, “the 7Hz Zero + Apple Dongle = endgame, people saying otherwise are stupid” crowd). They have saved themselves a lot of time and money. For those of us who realise and appreciate the (currently) immeasurable “technical performance”, the search is on, and the more we hunt the dragon, the more we want to chase the dragon. In my limited experience so far, there is always a bigger fish. Just when I think it can’t get any better, a new component changes everything.

I personally disagree that graphs are useless. They are objective measurement of relative loudness between different frequency bands, and they don’t care if IEMs are cheap or expensive. To use them, you need to (1) relate your subjective listening experience to the measurements frequently enough to detect the “pattern”, and (2) look at the relative balance of the graph, rather than overlaying the graph on top of another or a target. IMHO, that overlaying is why “this IEM sounds different from the graph.”

For example, the SA6II (atmospheric mode) shares almost identical balance with U12T (M15 module), and happen to have nearly identical sensitivity level. So when I swap between them, at a glance, they have almost identical tonality, as they should do due to their measurement. But, the U12T pulls back the 1.5kHz, the SA6 pushes it forward, so the center image of SA6 is more upfront than the U12T. The U12T has twin peaks at 2.5kHz and 5kHz, resulting in snappy edgy note attacks. The SA6 has rounded off 2.5kHz and dip at 5-6kHz, so note attacks are ”rounded”. The bass is above the ear gain with both, so the bass is prominent. Both have strong 15kHz presence, so both have the same “fake air” that I adore. All of these things are visible on the graph.

What not visible is how resolving, dynamic, separated they sound. The physically open and airy sensation of U12T comparing to SA6II is also not on the graph.

Another benefit of the graph is honesty. Whilst tonal balance can be a bit surprising (“not like the graph”), it’s never the case when an IEM has banshee 15dB ear-gain, and a reviewer can say “laidback” midrange.

 

[Jmop]

One thing I came to realise lately is that graph shows a snapshot of just one ear. The stereo imaging depends on two ears at the same time. Phase matching? FR matching, all kinds of things that I don’t know anything to blah blah blah about. I mean, even in the official documentation / tutorial by Sonion, they stated that two designs with same graphs but different drivers and dampeners do not sound the same.

Happy for those who believe that FR matching a good target is all there is about sound quality (in other words, “the 7Hz Zero + Apple Dongle = endgame, people saying otherwise are stupid” crowd). They have saved themselves a lot of time and money. For those of us who realise and appreciate the (currently) immeasurable “technical performance”, the search is on, and the more we hunt the dragon, the more we want to chase the dragon. In my limited experience so far, there is always a bigger fish. Just when I think it can’t get any better, a new component changes everything.

I personally disagree that graphs are useless. They are objective measurement of relative loudness between different frequency bands, and they don’t care if IEMs are cheap or expensive. To use them, you need to (1) relate your subjective listening experience to the measurements frequently enough to detect the “pattern”, and (2) look at the relative balance of the graph, rather than overlaying the graph on top of another or a target. IMHO, that overlaying is why “this IEM sounds different from the graph.”

For example, the SA6II (atmospheric mode) shares almost identical balance with U12T (M15 module), and happen to have nearly identical sensitivity level. So when I swap between them, at a glance, they have almost identical tonality, as they should do due to their measurement. But, the U12T pulls back the 1.5kHz, the SA6 pushes it forward, so the center image of SA6 is more upfront than the U12T. The U12T has twin peaks at 2.5kHz and 5kHz, resulting in snappy edgy note attacks. The SA6 has rounded off 2.5kHz and dip at 5-6kHz, so note attacks are ”rounded”. The bass is above the ear gain with both, so the bass is prominent. Both have strong 15kHz presence, so both have the same “fake air” that I adore. All of these things are visible on the graph.

What not visible is how resolving, dynamic, separated they sound. The physically open and airy sensation of U12T comparing to SA6II is also not on the graph.

Another benefit of the graph is honesty. Whilst tonal balance can be a bit surprising (“not like the graph”), it’s never the case when an IEM has banshee 15dB ear-gain, and a reviewer can say “laidback” midrange.

100% can’t deny the usefulness of graphs. It’s just annoying when you get backlash and people accuse you of placebo. Like, have you even heard of cross-referencing? Lol

 

[W0lrince]

I really appreciate your honesty in reviewing here the geek 100 even if I imagine that have sent them to you for free . I read all the reviews and you, Leonard and reedcarmoos are my favourite.
For what concern American spirits I'm a little annoyed for the frequency of his post, about his reviewer work, about his Japanese audience, about that he is ambassador of whatever brand, I will love to read about anyone hifi experience "Discovering things" not too much about the market.
American spirits :sr sr8 endless game ba, sr dte500 endless game est hybrid, now aür endless game. Too few and smashing arguments..

He share the discovery that he found, and he'll trying to make you buy it so, understandably you'll see a lot more in the future, buckled up!

No. Not everyone needs a coupler or graphs to appease the graphites. I no longer do reviews or get samples because I don't incorporate graphs or graph lingo in my brief reviews, so I don't attract anyone anymore. I don't pay attention to graphs, nor do I care for anyone to post a graph. I find it absolutely useless. I know there are many graph zombies who worship at the squig, but I'd rather hear from someone who has the product FIRST HAND, and describes to me in their best language what the IEM or headphone actually SOUND LIKE, along with air and impact and speed and resolution, all things that have negligible readings on a graph. So @AmericanSpirit, keep doing it like you're doing it, and keep steering us to great value product, and don't worry about couplers or graphs. It truly is pretty useless c*ap.

Chill chill if you look at his chart you can see he have "gain spot" and "dip spot", if he willing to do the chart again then Coupler is actually helpful. Again Graph is just a gasp of a bigger picture here, always trust your ears, which i do agree

 

[Click]

1 positive thing that the obsession over frequency graphs has done for the IEM industry is it forced manufacturers to focus on carefully tuning IEMs to cater to their target consumers' tastes.

The flipside to that is, so many IEMs are now cookiecutter Harmon clones of each other. Not many are willing to deviate too far from that curve in fear of reviewers not hyping up their new releases for them... unless you're someone like Zeos.

 

[lushmelody]

1 positive thing that the obsession over frequency graphs has done for the IEM industry is it forced manufacturers to focus on carefully tuning IEMs to cater to their target consumers' tastes.

The flipside to that is, so many IEMs are now cookiecutter Harmon clones of each other. Not many are willing to deviate too far from that curve in fear of reviewers not hyping up their new releases for them... unless you're someone like Zeos.

If everyone is doing the same tuning, driver innovation~hardware should be the priority then. But no, majority of releases are just sidegrades or mk2, mk3 etc

Honestly, the future is wireless or DSP or whatever is easier to customize sound to a genre or personal preference. A single solution instead of collecting dozens of IEMs

 

[lgcubana]

Anyone else not a fan of remastered albums? I always feel like it strips the originals of dynamics and emotive textures.

Depends. Rock songs from the ‘70s & ‘80s can really benefit; as they were originally cut for the abilities of playback equipment of that era.

 

[W0lrince]

Since i start it, i guess i should end it
I have my point of view on certain things, YOU certainly have your point of view in things, "cable believer", "Dap believer", "dongle madness", "graph-sturbator", etc, they all human, Yes they're all human unsurprisingly and as a human being, i think we should being respectful to others, their view, their vision, their decision, or whatnot even if they're annoying.
In fact i'm not a cable believer myself even if i hear a change in sound quality when i A/B testing, I always think buying a 800$ cable is a freak fun joke, but maybe they can hear a different in sound, maybe i could too, certainly have a deep pocket, that's for sure. I'm into esthetic myself so i'm still buying 4 core silver plate cable or something to color matching.
Your whole Audiophile career can be fit into a 3$ vido earbud or a 9$ MH755 (i doubt it) but I still respect that, not willing to sacrifice 2 bowl of Pho to buy a pair of Truthear Hola is sinful (no I'm joking haha).
Discovery Thread can be mean as new iem, new cable, new tips, introducing new brand, etc... For me Discovery can be You learn something new, anything, as long as you have joy on this off road journey, and being respectful to other journey, that what it meant to discover. Well i would love to see more music discovering in this thread, if possible.
P/s: some rant of me in my Introverted thinking, it's painful to just sit and write so i might aswell do some lap lol. Exercise guys
Edit: oh yeah i forgot to write this in, buying a cable more than 200$ to me is like my family when they saw me buy a 200$ iem, so depend on one's point of view, can be utterly b'llsh't to someone but not to other.
Editv2: also forgot graph is what your mic pick up, please remember our ears also have something call Monsoon curve, so your ears might not be as accurate as the mic. And because of that you can't confirm if that graph is correct or what not so maybe the mic is not so correct after all. So it's still subjective, not only your ears but the graph itself

 

[Jmop]

Since i start it, i guess i should end it
I have my point of view on certain things, YOU certainly have your point of view in things, "cable believer", "Dap believer", "dongle madness", "graph-sturbator", etc, they all human, Yes they're all human unsurprisingly and as a human being, i think we should being respectful to others, their view, their vision, their decision, or whatnot even if they're annoying.
In fact i'm not a cable believer myself even if i hear a change in sound quality when i A/B testing, I always think buying a 800$ cable is a freak fun joke, but maybe they can hear a different in sound, maybe i could too, certainly have a deep pocket, that's for sure. I'm into esthetic myself so i'm still buying 4 core silver plate cable or something to color matching.
Your whole Audiophile career can be fit into a 3$ vido earbud or a 9$ MH755 (i doubt it) but I still respect that, not willing to sacrifice 2 bowl of Pho to buy a pair of Truthear Hola is sinful (no I'm joking haha).
Discovery Thread can be mean as new iem, new cable, new tips, introducing new brand, etc... For me Discovery can be You learn something new, anything, as long as you have joy on this off road journey, and being respectful to other journey, that what it meant to discover. Well i would love to see more music discovering in this thread, if possible.
P/s: some rant of me in my Introverted thinking, it's painful to just sit and write so i might aswell do some lap lol. Exercise guys

Always appreciate some good ole Ti

 

[baskingshark]

One thing I came to realise lately is that graph shows a snapshot of just one ear. The stereo imaging depends on two ears at the same time. Phase matching? FR matching, all kinds of things that I don’t know anything to blah blah blah about. I mean, even in the official documentation / tutorial by Sonion, they stated that two designs with same graphs but different drivers and dampeners do not sound the same.

Happy for those who believe that FR matching a good target is all there is about sound quality (in other words, “the 7Hz Zero + Apple Dongle = endgame, people saying otherwise are stupid” crowd). They have saved themselves a lot of time and money. For those of us who realise and appreciate the (currently) immeasurable “technical performance”, the search is on, and the more we hunt the dragon, the more we want to chase the dragon. In my limited experience so far, there is always a bigger fish. Just when I think it can’t get any better, a new component changes everything.

I personally disagree that graphs are useless. They are objective measurement of relative loudness between different frequency bands, and they don’t care if IEMs are cheap or expensive. To use them, you need to (1) relate your subjective listening experience to the measurements frequently enough to detect the “pattern”, and (2) look at the relative balance of the graph, rather than overlaying the graph on top of another or a target. IMHO, that overlaying is why “this IEM sounds different from the graph.”

For example, the SA6II (atmospheric mode) shares almost identical balance with U12T (M15 module), and happen to have nearly identical sensitivity level. So when I swap between them, at a glance, they have almost identical tonality, as they should do due to their measurement. But, the U12T pulls back the 1.5kHz, the SA6 pushes it forward, so the center image of SA6 is more upfront than the U12T. The U12T has twin peaks at 2.5kHz and 5kHz, resulting in snappy edgy note attacks. The SA6 has rounded off 2.5kHz and dip at 5-6kHz, so note attacks are ”rounded”. The bass is above the ear gain with both, so the bass is prominent. Both have strong 15kHz presence, so both have the same “fake air” that I adore. All of these things are visible on the graph.

What not visible is how resolving, dynamic, separated they sound. The physically open and airy sensation of U12T comparing to SA6II is also not on the graph.

Another benefit of the graph is honesty. Whilst tonal balance can be a bit surprising (“not like the graph”), it’s never the case when an IEM has banshee 15dB ear-gain, and a reviewer can say “laidback” midrange.

Graphs are a useful tool IMHO, they give a good gauge of an IEM's tonality. It is a useful gatekeeper to tell if you would enjoy or dislike the tuning. So for example, a basshead sees a neutral bass or a bass roll off on the graph, or someone who is sensitive to shouty sets sees a 15 dB cat ear pinna gain, then you know this IEM is not for you (unless you are open to EQ or mods).

Graphs are definitely not the be all and end all - while they may hint at timbral accuracy and technicalities, they don't tell the full story on a standard FR graph. Transients, soundstage, imaging, instrument separation can't be fully gleaned. Even if two IEMs appear similar in graphs for bass quantity, between a BA bass and a DD bass, they may sound different, with the latter generally moving more air and having more decay.

So as per all things in this hobby, there is an objective and subjective element. The objective being measurements, specs and graphs, and the subjective one being actual listening, experience, psychoacoustic phenomena etc. By combining these two aspects, that combines the strengths of both camps, and you get a fuller picture, and perhaps understand an IEM better.

FWIW, I have seen some nihilists on forums who use graphs as the total gospel truth, and there's even a famous youtube reviewer who reviews IEMs by EQing the graph to that IEM LOL. So he doesn't actually hear the IEM in question, but reviews it based on an EQed graph?! I have also seen some posters saying they can EQ any cheap IEM to sound as good as a TOTL IEM. In that case, why not buy a dollar store IEM, EQ it to a QDC Anole VX and leave the hobby?

 

[WAON303]

1 positive thing that the obsession over frequency graphs has done for the IEM industry is it forced manufacturers to focus on carefully tuning IEMs to cater to their target consumers' tastes.

The flipside to that is, so many IEMs are now cookiecutter Harmon clones of each other. Not many are willing to deviate too far from that curve in fear of reviewers not hyping up their new releases for them... unless you're someone like Zeos.

Zeos will hype your product 100% just give him enough

#Commissionsearned
#Shill101
#Pizzaparty

Paytreon links in the description, buy my merch, anime wallpapers here:

 

[Jmop]

Af

Zeos will hype your product 100% just give him enough

#Commissionsearned
#Shill101
#Pizzaparty

Paytreon links in the description, buy my merch, anime wallpapers here:

Lol if only we all weren’t waifu simps. So anyway what’s next on the horizon for Moondrop and Tanchjim?