[Vitaly2017]

My noire are waiting for me at home. Tomorrow I will finally have a good listen of them.
Hope the hype is real and I will hype it even more haha

 

[mwhals]

Weird, I got my 20%, so maybe it's a typo.

Or the agent taking the order misunderstood.

 

[aaf evo]

Or the agent taking the order misunderstood.

possibly, seems unlikely though as Raz also got 20% off his A18s (when he orders?) I believe, and he's an A18t owner himself.

 

[toaster]

Ugh, looking at the A18s right now. Having exchanged some emails with some 64audio reps, I'm gathering it does possess quite a few sound differences relative to the A18t, a side grade perhaps that's still good for audiophiles and not necessarily targeted to musicians only.

My A18t's still fit me perfectly so they've got my ears on file already, uh oh. Plus 20% legacy discount.

they are making this tempting, aren't they?

looking forward to hearing these...

 

[productred]

My noire are waiting for me at home. Tomorrow I will finally have a good listen of them.
Hope the hype is real and I will hype it even more haha

I think there is not as much hype out there as the Noir deserves since: -

1. People like me who were not really impressed with the original Fourte are hesitant in taking the trouble to try these out (I'm glad I did at last), especially as most of the boastable techie stuff remains very much the same, and people using the original Fourte are liekly to be uninterested
2. General availability is rather low.........I think most of the remaining stock out of the 500 units went to Asia and most of those in the States had been sold out in a breeze? Not entirely sure but you certainly won't find it in each and every headfi store

Hope you enjoy yours as much as I do. FYI I listen to mine with my Plussound tri-silver 8-wire balanced and WM1Z.

 

[zachawry]

I think there is not as much hype out there as the Noir deserves since: -

1. People like me who were not really impressed with the original Fourte are hesitant in taking the trouble to try these out (I'm glad I did at last), especially as most of the boastable techie stuff remains very much the same, and people using the original Fourte are liekly to be uninterested
2. General availability is rather low.........I think most of the remaining stock out of the 500 units went to Asia and most of those in the States had been sold out in a breeze? Not entirely sure but you certainly won't find it in each and every headfi store

Hope you enjoy yours as much as I do. FYI I listen to mine with my Plussound tri-silver 8-wire balanced and WM1Z.

I’m in Japan. They’re available at my local store. Maybe I should buy a few to hoard and then resell for a huge profit when the Noirs become a prestige rare luxury, like an old Ferrari hahaha....

 

[Vitaly2017]

I’m in Japan. They’re available at my local store. Maybe I should buy a few to hoard and then resell for a huge profit when the Noirs become a prestige rare luxury, like an old Ferrari hahaha....

Dont be so hyped the new flagship will steal the parade lol

 

[zachawry]

Dont be so hyped the new flagship will steal the parade lol

Actually, I think improvements in IEM quality have leveled out recently. Now they are more like headphones and speakers, which have had a much slower rate of technological improvement. Basically, all the “easy” tech development has been made in the past few years. Low-hanging fruit has all been plucked. Lots of the new “hype” has been around hybrid designs that I think actively suck. Estat tweeters? No thank you, I prefer actual coherency in my sound.

In other words, I think any TOTL model now will still be pretty close to top quality 5 or even 10 years from now.

I just bought a desktop DAC using a rare chip that’s 25 years old, haha. My amp uses vacuum tubes made in the 1950s that beat anything else I’ve heard. In tech newer is hardly always better. Especially when it comes to sound.

 

[Vitaly2017]

Actually, I think improvements in IEM quality have leveled out recently. Now they are more like headphones and speakers, which have had a much slower rate of technological improvement. Basically, all the “easy” tech development has been made in the past few years. Low-hanging fruit has all been plucked. Lots of the new “hype” has been around hybrid designs that I think actively suck. Estat tweeters? No thank you, I prefer actual coherency in my sound.

In other words, I think any TOTL model now will still be pretty close to top quality 5 or even 10 years from now.

I just bought a desktop DAC using a rare chip that’s 25 years old, haha. My amp uses vacuum tubes made in the 1950s that beat anything else I’ve heard. In tech newer is hardly always better. Especially when it comes to sound.

It is possible and if it is that way then yupi I got my self a super treat for ever long hehe.
Wm1z + fourte black and pw1960 4wires is already interstelar amazing just to look at and I own it haha.


When I had the fourte regular I a/b that vs he1 sennheiser 55 000 headphones setup and it is electrostatic!

I still preferred how fourte and wm1z sounded over the he1!

Not I got 1z with custom fw + pw1960 cable and the noire I think I am above he1 now lol


Also prefer the tia high over electrostatic tweeters just a preference quiet honestly.
Electrostatic is way to natural I dont like that

 

[productred]

Actually, I think improvements in IEM quality have leveled out recently. Now they are more like headphones and speakers, which have had a much slower rate of technological improvement. Basically, all the “easy” tech development has been made in the past few years. Low-hanging fruit has all been plucked. Lots of the new “hype” has been around hybrid designs that I think actively suck. Estat tweeters? No thank you, I prefer actual coherency in my sound.

In other words, I think any TOTL model now will still be pretty close to top quality 5 or even 10 years from now.

I just bought a desktop DAC using a rare chip that’s 25 years old, haha. My amp uses vacuum tubes made in the 1950s that beat anything else I’ve heard. In tech newer is hardly always better. Especially when it comes to sound.

I agree. And I'd add that (have said it somewhere else) the TOTL models from different makers are more or less on the same level - and same descriptives can be shared among most of these models. Soundstage, details, extension, deep dynamic bass, the zillion new methods to improve the highs, actually all makers are after the same things with ever so tiny little flavour of their own. You read their reviews and most parts of them look similar (if not the same). Just buy something you like for whatever reasons that pleases you, but dun tell me this flagship is better than that flagship. I still sometimes listen to my ER4 and am still able to enjoy it just like any other flagships from other companies.

 

[dazzerfong]

I agree. And I'd add that (have said it somewhere else) the TOTL models from different makers are more or less on the same level - and same descriptives can be shared among most of these models. Soundstage, details, extension, deep dynamic bass, the zillion new methods to improve the highs, actually all makers are after the same things with ever so tiny little flavour of their own. You read their reviews and most parts of them look similar (if not the same). Just buy something you like for whatever reasons that pleases you, but dun tell me this flagship is better than that flagship. I still sometimes listen to my ER4 and am still able to enjoy it just like any other flagships from other companies.

While objectively they might be better, subjectively it is not.

That's how we ended up with $10k IEMs: because you can't put a price on taste.

 

[mvvRAZ]

The topic of IEMs improving and where it will go is quite an interesting one - when I was at the Canjam London last year I spoke to Vlad Belonozkhko about it, because the way I see it, we have already surpassed the limits of the human eardrum (notice, I'm not saying hearing) by a fair bit, so improvements in the specifications are already a heavy overkill

- In terms of FR, many IEMs go both much lower and much higher than anything we can perceive
- Soundstage width, depth - pieces like the Fourte and the Solaris are already being dubbed as "too wide" or unnaturally stretched by some, so no matter how far out the IEMs go, that will probably not lead to a better sound experience
- Detail - ehhhh I guess you can pump out even MORE detail out of IEMs, but considering stuff like the A18t where the detail can become overwhelming at times... I doubt more detail would result in a better experience
- Timbre/Texture - this is something I'd like to see being done better. I am hoping the A18s will do that really well considering its warmth, but there are generally few IEMs that really get this right. The Fourte paired with the Iliad and the WM1Z for example does it quite well, though I'd like better. The Elysium and the Z1R are excellent in that respect and that is why they currently hold my top 2 favourite positions. The Fourte is a close third

Back to my conversation with him though, he believes that the next big step for personal audio would be sound systems that let you experience sound with more than your eardrum alone - I am personally imaging we are talking bone conductivity here, and what that will bring to the mix. Having seen what a mixed experience estats were however, I think there's a solid couple of years until that tech becomes mainstream and sounds actually good

I think @zachawry is correct in saying that over the next 5 or 10 years we will be seeing more and more sidegrades though, and the top level of sound won't be making any massive leaps

 

[Modwright01]

Here some fast feedback for what I listened from 64 audio :

I wouldn't put it on my fav list but still important to understand the 64audio evolution : U18T!
i will not say a lot about the u18t except they are truly and purely too much technical/analytical at the huge cost of losing all the musicality. For the same performance with more musicality get yourself a pair of "soundwriter projet K" a mod version of a18t if you can find one or maybe the new a18s..i think the a18s will be very similar to soundwriter. Oh and by the way some people say the u18t soundstage layering are superior to u12t... Well, i didn't have this felling.

U12T :

Well well well. For soundstage/layering and beautifully bass integration lovers.

What 64 audio did here is just something really special. The soundstage is quiet far from the listening position with a lot of air. The layering/stereo separation is also insane, we are talking about audio surgery here haha. We are not far from the hd800 territory but it sounds more realistic (and thanks god they just have this in common)
Tonality sounds incredibly right, true, what make sometimes the listener fascinated with its immensely addictive textures/weight.. We are talking about a kind of reference type signature with musicality.
High is well extended with sparkle.
Mids are really clean.
Both mids and high are super fluid and work in excellent synergy.
Bass are the best on the BA iems market. Period.We are not so far from dd perfs here.Yeap.
For me the soundstage/layering, super spatial sonic performance are unparalled anywhere on the iems market ( As far as i didn't listen to tia trio i cannot say it's the similar or not.. I invite you to state on this..)

Cherry on the cake : it's an all rounder! Splendid on classical baroque opera music.

N8 : this pair is really the best you can expect from a hybrid at this price point. Fleshy sound with Top-notch dynamic bass (can be sometime a bit too much depending of the source/taste/genre), suave mids and well extended high smartly tuned for zero fatigue listening (some would find it lacks a bit of sparkle). N8 are simply a tremendous crossover between high technical level, musicality/fun. Pure win.

Fourté Noir : take all the best skills from 64 audio line up i just wrote about, add even more more technical abilities and musicality, put them in a magic shaker, and voila!
Compared to u12t, the soundstage is closer but incredibly enveloping. The soundstage here is also realistic 3D, never artificial.
The high extension is hard to beat... Lot of sparkling but never aggressive.

Fourté Noir is what i would call an end game and definitely the pinacle in the 64 audio line up. Pure masterpiece. An as far as it's a limited edition 500 units, be prepared to have a kind of "legendary" reputation in a few years (but wait.. it's already the case )

Audio god's grail.

 

[giangp1]

Is there anybody having 64audio iem died driver or other error so it can not use anymore? I spent a lot of money for U12t 2hand and worry about that problem. Hic hic!

 

[tariqi]

I also got that Legacy Upgrade Program email, and I think I've caught the upgrade bug too. Been incredibly happy with my A12, but the allure of the A18s is really calling me. Gonna go visit their shop next month and demo them. Very excited to hear what a tia driver sounds like. Also excited to get to try the Fourte and Noir, but I don't think I could go back to a universal fit.

Side note, what do people do with their old CIEMs? I have a pair of V8 that I'm no longer using, and I assume that the A12 will just sit in a drawer after I get the A18s. 64 Audio doesn't offer re-shelling sadly, and I'd love to be able to gift the V8 to a friend at least.