[blotmouse]

Your the man I’m looking for
Could you tell me more about their tuning?

Sure, I'll do my best to sum it up as i hear it.

The Ti is brighter, more mid-bass focused, and has less control of the bass. Works for or against it depending on what you need.
The Ti is also less detailed and can sometimes border on reflective (treble) using the sharp filter, which add's the most digital vibe but adds the largest staging and best imaging. You can mitigate this by using the slow filter but the slow filter intimates the presentation quite a bit, and is closer to an NOS implementation. Which I just discovered I LOVE with Fourte and hip-hop albums. The stage on Fourte is big enough it can take the hit on width and it smooths out all the raspy throaty vocals and compressed effects giving them the room to sound like the effect is supposed to in space, instead of a digitized approximation with glare. (AKM and ESS has big problems here)

N8ii is more powerful/muscular, transparent, and has the higher degree of sound tweaking available. Some folks hear it as bright, but I am coming from the Ti, so it is actually less aggressive in treble on my iem's.
It's options are actually almost perfect for my tweaking needs. It maintains it's color and personality but can maneuver in and out of the detail transients (my jam). I don't need a whole new dac and amp, I wont change it becasue its a PITA to mess with physical HW when I need a quick sound alteration. I have yet to not find a setting that works on it (unless the material just does better with completely different tech like r-2r) I use all settings combinations, just some more than others.
The voltage rail swing of P to P+ is by far the most pronounced tweak with a stage stretch horizontally and an added midrange push, approximating more of a "W" sound (within the parameters of keeping things relatively similar sounding)
The ROHM chips are the best DS dac's I've heard if you value musicality, reverbs, and spacial imaging. They do this cleaner than the discreet r-2r in the Ti, even though there are some albums I still prefer the Ti for to get that last bit of analogue roundness.
Class A/AB change is very subtle. A is warmer, sweeter, and pronounces tonal peaks. AB spreads the image by giving it a seemingly larger stage with more even harmonics and smooths those tonal peaks that A highlights.

Of note is the tonal balance of the N8ii. Nothing is weighted higher than anything else. It's flat but extremely musical and thick and textured. At first its a strange listen.
The Ti with fast filter is skewed a bit towards a very gentle "V" shape with it's smooth and effortless treble and big round thumpy mid-bass. The mids are not pushed back but they are less an apparent highlight. The smooth filter has more midrange focus. An "A" shape, if only in spirit.

There are outliers of course, but I use the Ti for Jazz and indy rock/classic rock and singer songwriter stuff. I use the N8ii for metal, electronic, pop, hip hop, ambient, experimental. My iem's are now completely modular and they pair well with all my sources. Just depends on what I think the material is conveyed best on.

Hope that helps a little bit. If you want to know anything else specifically, let me know.

edit; lmao I didn't even talk about the tubes. N8ii has tubes. They are super great. The N8ii tubes are like melted glass that gives you all the syrupy goo but doesn't take away from the overall clean tonality by adding too much distortions and warmth. Not that I don't like tubes that add a warming character, N8ii just goes super hi-fi style tube amp, not the usual token warmth route.

 

[Xinlisupreme]

Sure, I'll do my best to sum it up as i hear it.

The Ti is brighter, more mid-bass focused, and has less control of the bass. Works for or against it depending on what you need.
The Ti is also less detailed and can sometimes border on reflective (treble) using the sharp filter, which add's the most digital vibe but adds the largest staging and best imaging. You can mitigate this by using the slow filter but the slow filter intimates the presentation quite a bit, and is closer to an NOS implementation. Which I just discovered I LOVE with Fourte and hip-hop albums. The stage on Fourte is big enough it can take the hit on width and it smooths out all the raspy throaty vocals and compressed effects giving them the room to sound like the effect is supposed to in space, instead of a digitized approximation with glare. (AKM and ESS has big problems here)

N8ii is more powerful/muscular, transparent, and has the higher degree of sound tweaking available. Some folks hear it as bright, but I am coming from the Ti, so it is actually less aggressive in treble on my iem's.
It's options are actually almost perfect for my tweaking needs. It maintains it's color and personality but can maneuver in and out of the detail transients (my jam). I don't need a whole new dac and amp, I wont change it becasue its a PITA to mess with physical HW when I need a quick sound alteration. I have yet to not find a setting that works on it (unless the material just does better with completely different tech like r-2r) I use all settings combinations, just some more than others.
The voltage rail swing of P to P+ is by far the most pronounced tweak with a stage stretch horizontally and an added midrange push, approximating more of a "W" sound (within the parameters of keeping things relatively similar sounding)
The ROHM chips are the best DS dac's I've heard if you value musicality, reverbs, and spacial imaging. They do this cleaner than the discreet r-2r in the Ti, even though there are some albums I still prefer the Ti for to get that last bit of analogue roundness.
Class A/AB change is very subtle. A is warmer, sweeter, and pronounces tonal peaks. AB spreads the image by giving it a seemingly larger stage with more even harmonics and smooths those tonal peaks that A highlights.

Of note is the tonal balance of the N8ii. Nothing is weighted higher than anything else. It's flat but extremely musical and thick and textured. At first its a strange listen.
The Ti with fast filter is skewed a bit towards a very gentle "V" shape with it's smooth and effortless treble and big round thumpy mid-bass. The mids are not pushed back but they are less an apparent highlight. The smooth filter has more midrange focus. An "A" shape, if only in spirit.

There are outliers of course, but I use the Ti for Jazz and indy rock/classic rock and singer songwriter stuff. I use the N8ii for metal, electronic, pop, hip hop, ambient, experimental. My iem's are now completely modular and they pair well with all my sources. Just depends on what I think the material is conveyed best on.

Hope that helps a little bit. If you want to know anything else specifically, let me know.

edit; lmao I didn't even talk about the tubes. N8ii has tubes. They are super great. The N8ii tubes are like melted glass that gives you all the syrupy goo but doesn't take away from the overall clean tonality by adding too much distortions and warmth. Not that I don't like tubes that add a warming character, N8ii just goes super hi-fi style tube amp, not the usual token warmth route.

Looks like N8ii is the natural upgrade over N6ii ti that I really enjoy with Aroma IEMs mostly with classic music and acoustic music, guitar strings and instruments are fantastic, I prefer slow roll off that has a tinge of warmth as you said and looks less digital but it’s far brighter that RS6 even if I noticed it looses a bit of transparency but imaging and detail retrival still incredible good.
I’d like thicker and more transparent sound that isn’t easy to find together but looks like N8ii can do it.
Maybe I try to sell RS6 and N6ii ti and get N8ii
Thanks a lot my friend

 

[blotmouse]

Looks like N8ii is the natural upgrade over N6ii ti that I really enjoy with Aroma IEMs mostly with classic music and acoustic music, guitar strings and instruments are fantastic, I prefer slow roll off that has a tinge of warmth as you said and looks less digital but it’s far brighter that RS6 even if I noticed a lose a bit of transparency but imaging and detail retrival still incredible good.
I’d like thicker and more transparent sound that isn’t easy to find together but looks like N8ii can do it.
Maybe I try to sell RS6 and N6ii ti and get N8ii
Thanks a lot my friend

That's a good way to phrase it. The natural upgrade. In some respects it is, and in others it's not, almost like comparing apples and oranges,
Amps, no doubt, N8ii wipes the floor. The decoding gets a little trickier. The hyper detailing of the ROHM chips can, on occasion, also sound flat and meh. But those same songs I play from the Ti and it gives me exactly what the N8ii couldn't. I love both. But if I could only keep one, it would be the N8ii, and I'd deal with the odd albums here and there that fall flat.

I'll call it an upward pointing natural side-grade.

 

[Rockwell75]

For instance, coherence is something I've always been puzzled about. Generally speaking, if I did a blind test of single driver and multidriver IEMs, unless the multidriver crossover really sucked, or the quality of the different driver types was all over the place, I wouldn't be able to pick out one over the other based on coherence alone.

I read impressions along the lines of how 'it's so obvious the bass and mids are coming from different driver types', and try as I may I can't hear it. Voices sound like voices and drums sound like drums. Imo something needs to be really off in the design to notice any coherence issues. Even if someone pointed out a slight coherence difference to me, I don't think it would jump out when listening to music as a whole, unless I was analysing it, and even then it probably wouldn't bother me.

Second, timbre. That's another wierd one. By definition, timbre is simply the unique sound different types of instruments and vocals make when playing the same tone at the same time. So a guitar and trumpet playing the same tone would each have their own timbre, which should be easily distinguishable by the listener. This seems to be a given using any IEM worth its asking price. I don't think timbre is meant to be qualitative beyond the point of hearing the correct sound made by the instrument or voice. If a drum sounds like an oboe, or a guitar like a violin, it's time to worry. If the timbre of metal instruments sounds like plastic, that's a driver quality issue; likewise if vocals sound metallic or glassy, the timbre is simply off.

Coherence I think of as the extent to which a sound signature manifests as though from a unified whole or single sonic tapestry...for lack of a better way to put it. I'm not trying to say that people are wrong for loving their hybrid & tribrid IEMs or that any specific hybrids are incoherent. On the contrary my use of this term stems more from my trying to capture something I appreciate about single driver or single driver type IEMs like the Zen Pro or Supermoon. There is a real allure for me in single driver sound signatures...I have trouble putting it in words exactly but there is a quality they have that really stands out to me when it's there and is more and more apparent with time. I'm sorry for not being able to explain myself better.

Timbre I relate to the overall feel of the sound. It's quite connected to FR which is why I sometimes closely associate it with tonality-- but imho it is not just FR. In my experience different driver types are characterized by a specific "feel" which I think can be traced back to the speed of the driver and what it is doing-- a DD is a vibrating membrane for example, and a BA is a vibrating reed. There are obviously extremes brought about by different tuning but to my ears DD timbre, in particular in the lows and mids, is characterized by a certain natural body and richness. BAs in the mids often feel unnaturally thin to me after a while. Estats also have a very specific feel-- I wouldn't want them doing my mids or bass.. Done well I don't notice at first but I've yet to embrace a fully BA IEM (or lately an IEM with the BA doing the mids) for any substantial length of time. Planars, for me, are the best of all worlds.

The thing with both of these factors is that neither really jump out at me right away in a quick demo or blind test situation...but over time they tend to jump out at me and be increasingly more important.

So based purely on the above, being two of your three pillars of rating an IEM, there seems to be a whole lot missing, like what is the character of sound you enjoy (warm, bassy, bright, lean, full, etc.). For example, I can listen to two IEMs and immediately pick out which one I prefer based on how impactful the bass is, how clear the vocals are, how pitchy the treble is, or how intimate or wide the stage. All of these are character traits I can quickly put my finger on and articulate, whereas driver coherence would take me quite a while to figure out, and timbre would either be fine or off.

I should have listed tonality as well. Timbre, Tonality, Technicalities and Coherence.

Then again, maybe your definition of those terms is completely different to mine, in which case we're talking cross purposes.

Maybe, but at least we're talking

 

[ceramicears]

Interesting. I'm not sure we're speaking the same language when we discuss what it is we're looking for from an IEM. This isn't anyone's fault, since even though we have more-or-less accepted definitions of terms, there always seems to be wiggle room for interpretation.

For instance, coherence is something I've always been puzzled about. Generally speaking, if I did a blind test of single driver and multidriver IEMs, unless the multidriver crossover really sucked, or the quality of the different driver types was all over the place, I wouldn't be able to pick out one over the other based on coherence alone.

I read impressions along the lines of how 'it's so obvious the bass and mids are coming from different driver types', and try as I may I can't hear it. Voices sound like voices and drums sound like drums. Imo something needs to be really off in the design to notice any coherence issues. Even if someone pointed out a slight coherence difference to me, I don't think it would jump out when listening to music as a whole, unless I was analysing it, and even then it probably wouldn't bother me.

Second, timbre. That's another wierd one. By definition, timbre is simply the unique sound different types of instruments and vocals make when playing the same tone at the same time. So a guitar and trumpet playing the same tone would each have their own timbre, which should be easily distinguishable by the listener. This seems to be a given using any IEM worth its asking price. I don't think timbre is meant to be qualitative beyond the point of hearing the correct sound made by the instrument or voice. If a drum sounds like an oboe, or a guitar like a violin, it's time to worry. If the timbre of metal instruments sounds like plastic, that's a driver quality issue; likewise if vocals sound metallic or glassy, the timbre is simply off.

So based purely on the above, being two of your three pillars of rating an IEM, there seems to be a whole lot missing, like what is the character of sound you enjoy (warm, bassy, bright, lean, full, etc.). For example, I can listen to two IEMs and immediately pick out which one I prefer based on how impactful the bass is, how clear the vocals are, how pitchy the treble is, or how intimate or wide the stage. All of these are character traits I can quickly put my finger on and articulate, whereas driver coherence would take me quite a while to figure out, and timbre would either be fine or off.

Then again, maybe your definition of those terms is completely different to mine, in which case we're talking cross purposes.


Very well said gents. These are absolutely valid points, and goes to the heart of why each of us enjoys (or not) different things about the same IEMs for different reasons.

The only 'problem' with this emotive approach is that it doesn't really lend itself to understanding what it is you're enjoying. It's all good and well to say you enjoy an IEM because it gives you an emotional response, but the obvious question that follows is: what? As in, what is the IEM doing - tonally or technically or both - that speaks to you?

Only by digging into the what can we debate and compare in the same vernacular. Otherwise we may as well just say 'I like this IEM because I like it' and call it a day.

I guess it's not that easy when we have different emotive responses to almost every different song we hear, using different gear. But if we assume that part of the reason we're active on these forums is to learn, understand, articulate and share, then it's incumbent on us to dig a little deeper to express what we're hearing and why it makes us feel the way it does.

As always, YMMV, and for all I know, most people couldn't be bothered. That's ok too.

Coherency is how the overall sound melds together and is major component of resolving ability. With a high quality driver handling the entire spectrum, coherency shouldn't be an issue but it can definitely be affected by the speed of the driver and its ability to handle all the info being thrown at it every second. A single driver has to produce slower bass notes and cram all the treble and mids in between almost simultaneously. In a way, a competent driver acting alone has more control in producing a seemless sound since it's literally doing all of its own work. A high res driver is inherently more coherent than a low res one. In IEMs, a well designed crossover should eliminate phase issues and the perception of there being multiple drivers, and for the most part that's true, but it's not always that simple. With the LX, one gripe was that the bass seemed to permeate the rest of the sound and not in the usual "bass bleeding into the mids" way. I figured it was because the sound is literally coming out of different tubes at the same time. When I switch over to the Vega 2020, which has a comparable quantity of bass, I don't get the same effect. With hybrid designs, you also introduce the issue of mixing DD timbre with BA/EST timbre.

Moving on to timbre, I understand it to be the distinct character of the sound. Sound is characteristically different depending on the material by which it's produced, what it's bouncing off of, or travelling through. A biocellulose driver has a unique timbre and decay compared to a beryllium driver. BAs can be extremely articulate with an unnaturally fast decay that can sound dull and plasticky, or metallic meaning raspy, wobbly, or searing, as if you were listening through a metal tube. Open backs may have an airier timbre compared to closed backs, which may be more reverberent. I remember when I tried the Utopia and it made saxophones sound raspy and weirdly resonant. I was super disappointed and wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that it's a metal driver.

Emotional engagement just means you're getting into the groove. It doesn't replace or negate describing how and why you got there

 

[Rockwell75]

Looks like N8ii is the natural upgrade over N6ii ti

I tihnk the most natural upgrade of n6ii TI (that is to say a flagship R2R DAP) isn't out yet

A high end R2R dap from anyone would be a treat.

 

[AnalogandDigital]

I tihnk the most natural upgrade of n6ii TI (that is to say a flagship R2R DAP) isn't out yet

A high end R2R dap from anyone would be a treat.

There's a R2R module for the N6II ...

 

[Rockwell75]

There's a R2R module for the N6II ...

The n6ii is a swiss army knife. I'd love to see an updated n6ii level dedicated R2R dap from Cayin. I'd be all over it.

 

[Neweymatt]

I always look at Campfire but i didn't have one or demoed also.
Andromeda and Solaris in every variants has a lot of review/impressions and i followed also @audio123 impressions https://audio123reviews.com/?s=campfire
Andro Gold Ti was another iem very tempting to find used now, OFC
https://campfireaudio.com/shop/andromeda-gold-ti/
Gold Ti sounds as older Gold?

Solaris OG and SE always tempted me, but i read somewhere LE is even better and lastest Solaris Shrink Ray?
https://campfireaudio.com/shop/solaris-shrink-ray/

https://campfireaudio.com/shop/campfire-audio-atlas/

Any impressions suggestions from campfire fan boy?

Wow, with all your other IEM experience I'm a little surprised you've not at least demoed any CFA. Andro2020 is kind of a no-brainer imho, I've had mine a year now and it still never fails to deliver with it's musicality and engagement.

You've got an RS6, right? That is an absolute dream pairing with the Andro, I sometimes wonder why I have anything else when I'm using it. Andro2020 is often described as 'bass-lite', but with the low OI of the RS6 coupled with it's rich R2R sound, I find Andro2020 almost transformed, esp with heavily electronic music.

I've demoed Solaris a few times, but each time I just haven't been able to get a decent fit, despite trying several different tips, so I've given up on them unfortunately.

Dorado2020's balls-to-the-wall bass is right up my alley, but with some of the other basshead-leaning gear I've got, I haven't found a place for it.

the advantage of planars seems to be that they give me enough of everything I love that I don't feel I'm making any sort of sacrifices

I swear there's an Empyrean out there with your name on it somewhere.

I want audio equipment to move me or seduce me, be it exuberant and grand or relaxing and soothing. If the concoction is done right, I achieve emotional engagement and truly enjoy the music. Campfire and Meze manage to give me that moreso than any other company for whatever reason and I'm grateful they exist to do something different.

I'm with you there bro. Think I posted something much like this just now in the Empy thread..

Your restraint is admirable.

Um, have you been following @AnalogandDigital exploits of the last few weeks/months? "Restraint" is not the term I would have used..

 

[Rockwell75]

Some treasures in the mail for demo from @DanielListening. Can't wait to try the MEST again and the Eletech Socrates on my Supermoon

 

[DanielListening]

Some treasures in the mail for demo from @DanielListening. Can't wait to try the MEST again and the Eletech Socrates on my Supermoon

The Moondrop Chu is pretty impressive.

Enjoy! Courtesy of @Blanchot

 

[blotmouse]

There's a R2R module for the N6II ...

Yes, it's the R01 module or the Cayin N6ii Ti (w/ R01 preinstalled in a titanium chassis) The one we've been talking about.

I'd love to see an updated n6ii level dedicated R2R dap from Cayin. I'd be all over it.

Do you mean N8ii level r-2r or do you want an updated middle weight just like the current R01 N6ii?

 

[fiascogarcia]

A high end R2R dap from anyone would be a treat.

Guess you're not into L&P? I know their firmware leaves a lot to be desired, maybe that's it?

 

[Rockwell75]

Guess you're not into L&P? I know their firmware leaves a lot to be desired, maybe that's it?

I've never tried one. I had a QP2R once and loved the sound but couldn't handle the UI so I sold it. If L&P has a UI anything like that it would probably be a deal breaker for me. It's the cost that's kept me from seriously considering L&P so far.

 

[Steranko]

I've never tried one. I had a QP2R once and loved the sound but couldn't handle the UI so I sold it. If L&P has a UI anything like that it would probably be a deal breaker for me. It's the cost that's kept me from seriously considering L&P so far.

Don't let the UI affect you since there are Pros and Cons. One thing for me is that it's fast and 3 clicks to play the song. It's functional. Try and listen to one first
But I know it's getting harder to get hold of one since the LP7 will be delayed and not even confirmed to come out hence people are holding onto their current ones and even people snapping up the old ones.