[KuroKitsu]

My turn to hear the Jewel on Monday.

It's gonna be interesting

 

[jwilliamhurst]

My turn to hear the Jewel on Monday.

It's gonna be interesting

Jealous! One day I’ll be able to demo the

 

[KuroKitsu]

Jealous! One day I’ll be able to demo the

I'm falling for the hype @riverground and @Sifo are throwing my way.

There are only 2 outcomes: I utterly lambast it for the price/peformance ratio

I utterly love it and offer my first born to acquire one

Nothing has impressed me since Odin.

 

[twister6]

I liked the Maestro SE the most. The sub-bass rise on it is incredibly controlled, more so than on the Grand Maestro which has more mid-bass warmth. I think the Maestro SE must have like 20 decibels of sub-bass, even more than on the Maestro Mini I have. All three have fairly neutral midranges and smooth treble. I think my only reservation about the SE was the sense of technical performance. When I got home and was able to listen to the Maestro Mini again, I do think the Maestro SE was more technical...but maybe not by a huge amount? Definitely a banger of an IEM anyways haha.




The Hayabusa and Sakura are more neutral monitors with bass boost switches. Not sure how I feel about the switches being used; they're easy to actuate but poke out more than I'd like. Sakura is neutral-warm with a bass shelf like the Blessing 2, less upper-midrange presence, and then a fairly smooth if dark upper-treble response. Hayabusa sounds similar, while adding in more upper-midrange and upper-treble for more clarity. Not entirely sure which I prefer, as Sakura does sound slightly more refined past 1kHz, in terms of tuning, despite the Hayabusa winning out for technicalities.

Table was packed for these guys this weekend - I'm glad their (first?) CanJam was a success. It was great finally meeting Ben in-person, as well as the rest of the crew too!

Yes, that Maestro SE tuning is crazy lol Like I said, the bass made my ears bleed FR is similar to Crin's capture:

 

[wolfstar76]

Before I have to leave on Sunday, I went to the booth of FATfreq, unfortunately I was still intoxicated by Odyssey and the Maestro Mini and Mini V2 failed to impress me with the short time I spent. Wish I had the time to demo more of their higher end IEMs. Yes, the first day FATfreq was always packed whenever I past by.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Before I have to leave on Sunday, I went to the booth of FATfreq, unfortunately I was still intoxicated by Odyssey and the Maestro Mini and Mini V2 failed to impress me with the short time I spent. Wish I had the time to demo more of their higher end IEMs. Yes, the first day FATfreq was always packed whenever I past by.

I was not impressed either. I thought it was an okay low fi/mid fi product. It was different in that it sounded like studio monitors in an IEM form. But, it was certainly nothing to write home about.

 

[fabio19]

Oh yes. Based on what I heard, there is a distinct difference between the MEST, Mason and Mentor lines.

It seems their tuning strategies for these lines are

MEST: Neutral with bass boost
Mason: Mids dominant
Mentor: Bass dominant

Just need a treble dominant set to complete the line.

Thank....

 

[DaveStarWalker]

Yes, that Maestro SE tuning is crazy lol Like I said, the bass made my ears bleed FR is similar to Crin's capture:

Fatfreq?

 

[yaps66]

I had to take a step back. Indigo is the most I've spent on an IEM in a while. Prior to that was the EE LX SE. I realized I had put less than 20 hours on the Indigo (even less on my JH Jolene) and yet I was still looking at what else was out there. I recently reacquired one of my all-time favorites, the Rhapsodio Infinity Mk2 and I've probably put maybe 2 hours on them since.

This is well said. Sometimes when you are caught up with FOMO you just need to take a step back and breathe. This year has been crazy for me. It all started with a post Covid trip to Singapore to catch up with family. While I was there:

Xe6 and Indigo

Then back to Vietnam and:

Traillii
First Times (non shielding)

Got the FOMO:

First Times (shielding)

Supermoon hype:

Supermoon (Universal).

There were other midfi iems also just to see what the fuss was all about.

Now my wish list includes:

RS8, Odyssey and an EE.

I think I have to take a few steps back and just enjoy what I have at the moment and not let life go by!

All that said, love the music and this community! Problem is that it moves so fast and catching up is sometimes a challenge!

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Meanwhile I'm having the biggest crisis of my audio career. I didn't want to like the Jewel, I didn't want to keep the Jewel, but now all the IEMs I used to like sound wrong. Everything is ruined

Welcome to the dark side.

 

[wolfstar76]

In that regard I think Thunder will knock your socks off.



This one seems to be the stillborn of the bunch. It totally slipped my notice and I didn't hear anyone else talking about it.

I demo GT600 and to me it was too bright.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

This is well said. Sometimes when you are caught up with FOMO you just need to take a step back and breathe. This year has been crazy for me. It all started with a post Covid trip to Singapore to catch up with family. While I was there:

Xe6 and Indigo

Then back to Vietnam and:

Traillii
First Times (non shielding)

Got the FOMO:

First Times (shielding)

Supermoon hype:

Supermoon (Universal).

There were other midfi iems also just to see what the fuss was all about.

Now my wish list includes:

RS8, Odyssey and an EE.

I think I have to take a few steps back and just enjoy what I have at the moment and not let life go by!

All that said, love the music and this community! Problem is that it moves so fast and catching up is sometimes a challenge!

This is the path for @Sifo

 

[wolfstar76]

Oh yes. Based on what I heard, there is a distinct difference between the MEST, Mason and Mentor lines.

It seems their tuning strategies for these lines are

MEST: Neutral with bass boost
Mason: Mids dominant
Mentor: Bass dominant

Just need a treble dominant set to complete the line.

Very informative. I just checked the driver configuration of Mason FS and Multiverse Mentor:

Mason: 4 Bass Drivers + 4 Mids Drivers +2 Mid-Treble Drivers + 2 Treble Drivers +Full Range Bone Conduction Driver
Mentor: 4 Bass Drivers + 2 Mids Drivers + 2 Mid-Treble Drivers + 4 Treble Drivers + 1 Frequency Shift Bone Conduction Driver

If number of drivers is one of the indicator, then Mason is indeed Mids dominant with 6 drivers for Mids/Mid-Treble, however, Mentor has more on Treble.

I demoed twice Multiverse Mentor and Mason FS and I found Mentor has slightly more bass impact, probably due to the new bone conductor covers full frequency (from 20 to 20,000 hz) while previous BC driver does not cover bass, for example, Mason's BC covers only from 500 to 20,200 hz.

In that sense, Multiverse Mentor is slightly more treble focused as well.

 

[drftr]

I think I have to take a few steps back and just enjoy what I have at the moment and not let life go by!

All that said, love the music and this community! Problem is that it moves so fast and catching up is sometimes a challenge!

2 months, and I'll help you clean out the house. That's what friends are for!

drftr

 

[drftr]

If number of drivers is one of the indicator, then Mason is indeed Mids dominant with 6 drivers for Mids/Mid-Treble, however, Mentor has more on Treble.

It is not. More drivers often means they are scaled back to get better dynamics, resolution, etcetera. Example: U18t with 8 drivers for the mids, that are not rich at all. I'd wish!

drftr