[Rockwell75]

Thanks man! I truly appreciate that and thank you for taking the time to read the review

I still have a place for Isa in my collection. Isa has a different tuning than Eden. Isa is all
About the mids and mid bass presence. Isa concentrates on those two areas in my opinion. Where Eden focuses on pure realism through neutrality. Eden extends deeper into the sub bass and also extends into the treble more so than Isa however the Mid range is much more linear than Isa. It is still a touch forward on Eden but not as much as Isa. Eden is more resolving and just as engaging. I prefer Isa when listening to singer songwriter and intimate soul or jazz. Eden plays everything really well. Eden is a great pallet cleanser of sorts. It gives your the music for what it is…adding very little color if any. Eden being so linear has a balanced and refined note weight, never sounding frail or thin or cold. It resonates with me as well as Isa. I’m happy to have them both. I’m not sure if this helped because I do truly appreciate both for what they give.

Cheers man sounds epic!

In other news I'm feeling more tempted by the "Honey I shrunk the Solaris" than I thought I would be...that and the night sky Holocene are both calling me. Very eager for tonight's announcement though.

 

[Rockwell75]

I received this email-- hopefully I'll get tonight's

 

[mashuto]

Cheers man sounds epic!

In other news I'm feeling more tempted by the "Honey I shrunk the Solaris" than I thought I would be...that and the night sky Holocene are both calling me. Very eager for tonight's announcement though.

Night sky already sold out... Doesn't surprise me though since there was only 8 of them.

 

[drftr]

Fiio FD7

Caveat: These impressions are based off the limited time I've been able to devote to the FD7 over the past few days and are of course subject to my own preferences, biases etc.

For the last few days I've had these generously on loan from @tgx78. The first thing one notices is a tremendous sense of air, spaciousness & clarity top. There is a nice sense of "3dness" to the headspace and detail & nuance just jump out at you. These excel in terms of technicalities & resolution, at least in the top half of the FR. Female vocals are lush, natural and seductive. Another plus for me is that the upper mids/lower treble, though perhaps bordering on being a bit too crisp/vibrant at times are never fatiguing, shouty or anything like that.

Where this set doesn't quite work for me is in the lower half of the FR. While there is a tremendous amount of detail/clarity/resolution etc. up top I feel it achieves this by selling short the lower mids & bass at times-- I often found myself craving more density, dynamics, body & extension down low. Where female vocals were wonderful on the FD7, male vocals were pushed back a wee bit. Jumping over to the Oriolus Reborn, by no means a bassy earphone, and one which I tend to EQ the mid-bass up and the upper mids down, I find it nonetheless has a much more satisfying native sub-bass response than the FD7. The net result of this is that, while in terms of raw detail & resolution up top the FD7 is indeed comparable to something like the Elysium but imho the signature is too cold and clinical on the whole and for me lacks the vibrance, vitality and organic je-ne-sais quoi of Elysium's sound. The top end feels very present and clear, but it doesn't quite have the life & breath that Ely had up top and the emotive pull of the sound as a whole. I would also say that it doesn't have the warmth and emotive factor of something like the Oriolus Isabellae though it likely does excel that IEM in terms of raw technicalities. When I put the Isabellae in my ears for the first time I was immediately swept off my feet and couldn't wait to look through my library to find all sorts of stuff to try-- while the FD7 is certainly impressive it did not give me a similar experience. More clinical is probably the best way to describe it and I'm someone whose bias is strongly towards the emotive. YMMV, and all that.

In a nutshell: there is greatness here, but the signature is too skewed towards the upper half of the FR for me and on the whole didn't give me the sort of emotional engagement I crave with an earphone. It's interesting that I often associate emotional connection with DDs intrinsically but my experience with the FD7 on this front was almost completely the opposite with the Audiosense DT600, which has 6 BAs and no DD at all.

These impressions were based off my listening library which includes a lot of Dire Straits, CCR, mid-bass heavy techno, Morcheeba etc. and does not contain a lot of classical, string instruments etc. so take that for what it's worth.

Hmm... Something just slipped off my shortlist... How short can a shortlist become though? Isn't hesitation an inherent part of this hobby, and quite possibly an essential element to keep us from doing stupid stuff?

The only 2 survivors left on my list are the Isabellae and the Turii. I might end up with zero! Guess @chickenmoon is the only one active on this thread that has both, is that correct from your collective memory?

drftr

 

[Rockwell75]

Night sky already sold out... Doesn't surprise me though since there was only 8 of them.

Oh snap...well so much for that. No big whoop I'm not really interested in a BA IEM beyond as a curiosity...I hope the final 3 all have DDs. 2 of the remaining 3 are limited to 8 so it will be a "now or never" situation when the email comes out I guess.

 

[rantng]

Andromeda Gold-Ti sold out as well. Oh well, I don't need to keep visiting the page now.

 

[mashuto]

Oh snap...well so much for that. No big whoop I'm not really interested in a BA IEM beyond as a curiosity...I hope the final 3 all have DDs. 2 of the remaining 3 are limited to 8 so it will be a "now or never" situation when the email comes out I guess.

Indeed. No real interest on that one for me besides the color scheme. Will be interesting to see if they have a new ceramic shelled iem in the bunch.

 

[Rockwell75]

Hmm... Something just slipped off my shortlist... How short can a shortlist become though? Isn't hesitation an inherent part of this hobby, and quite possibly an essential element to keep us from doing stupid stuff?

The only 2 survivors left on my list are the Isabellae and the Turii. I might end up with zero! Guess @chickenmoon is the only one active on this thread that has both, is that correct from your collective memory?

drftr

I think @blotmouse may have both... @jwilliamhurst has heard both I believe and compared them in his review. His description of Turii sounds exactly like what I would expect from Softears given my limited experience and knowledge of the brand...ie., technically excellent but too clinical for my tastes.

Andromeda Gold-Ti sold out as well. Oh well, I don't need to keep visiting the page now.

Not surprised actually. I was never a fan of the AG so that one posed no real temptation for me...it sure is purrty though. I'm quite excited to see what the final 3 releases are. My money is on the ISE being a SolarIS SE...really not sure about the other two tho.

 

[Rockwell75]

Will be interesting to see if they have a new ceramic shelled iem in the bunch.

That's my #1 hope and it will be pretty much an instabuy for me if they do.

 

[drftr]

I think @blotmouse may have both... @jwilliamhurst has heard both I believe and compared them in his review. His description of Turii sounds exactly like what I would expect from Softears given my limited experience and knowledge of the brand...ie., technically excellent but too clinical for my tastes.

I had read the latter's review but wasn't aware the former would be or at least could be an untapped source, so tnx for that...

I share your worries about the Turii's slightly elevated highs but Isa is not shy in that area either and I may even like it! Not sure which one would suit me best for my library though which is pretty much all-inclusive. Think about 3,000 popular/rock/prog/metal + 1,000 world music + 600 classical + 400 jazz, with the last 2 genres growing fastest over the past years. So I'm really looking at omnivores. On top of that I don't like bass boosts, forward mids, treble boosts, and prefere high PRaT factors and musical engagement above anything else. So the easiest way to go is to simply pick another hobby!

Obviously it doesn't help Softears is being extremely vague on Turii availability for months already and Isa can't be auditioned anywhere, so I'm at a point where I have started to look into the least offensive hybrids. Currently reading up on the 64 Audio Nio but used with the FIR N0 module instead to reduce its base and bring it down to just above Turii and Isa levels. That may be more to my preference than the U12t but I have some other interesting contenders to read up on waiting.

drftr

 

[Rockwell75]

I had read the latter's review but wasn't aware the former would be or at leadt could be an untapped source, so tnx for that...

I share your worries about the Turii's slightly elevated highs but Isa is not shy in that area either and I may even like it! Not sure which one would suit me best for my library though which is pretty much all-inclusive. Think about 3,000 popular/rock/prog/metal + 1,000 world music + 600 classical + 400 jazz, with the last 2 genres growing fastest over the past years. So I'm really looking at omnivores. On top of that I don't like bass boosts, forward mids, treble boosts, and prefere high PRaT factors and musical engagement above anything else. So the easiest way to go is to simply pick another hobby!

Obviously it doesn't help Softears is being extremely vague on Turii availability for months already and Isa can't be auditioned anywhere, so I'm at a point where I have started to look into the least offensive hybrids. Currently reading up on the 64 Audio Nio but used with the FIR N0 module instead to reduce its base and bring it down to just above Turii and Isa levels. That may be more to my preference than the U12t but I have some other interesting contenders to read up on waiting.

drftr

Can you specify what sort of sound sig you're looking for and what your sonic priorities are?

 

[blotmouse]

I think @blotmouse may have both... @jwilliamhurst has heard both I believe and compared them in his review. His description of Turii sounds exactly like what I would expect from Softears given my limited experience and knowledge of the brand...ie., technically excellent but too clinical for my tastes.

Yeah, I currently own both and will be keeping both for the foreseeable future. They are very complimentary to one another. If you have any specific questions you'd like answered @drftr, ask away? I use them for different purposes. They are quite different. It depends on what's most important to you. The styles you listed would tell me to use both of them. If only one, then it'll be a matter of varying concession.

 

[drftr]

Can you specify what sort of sound sig you're looking for and what your sonic priorities are?

Sound-wise I value a balanced sound above anything else, so that for instance with large orchestral pieces no instrument group attract more attention than the composer aimed for, while this also works best when listening to for instance piano recitals without one specific part of the frequency range standing out with the rest getting far less attention. I think this approach would still work well enough with the rest of my collection. I'd rather want my IEMs to be on the polite side at both ends of the frequency range but without throwing out the sometimes unpleasant but essential natural shrillness of violins, woodwinds, cymbals, etcetera. Given the diversity of my library I thought it would be wise to aim for a reference monitor kind of style for mids and highs with a little bit of fullness added to (mostly) sub-bass, think +3/5 dB max, and maybe a little bit of warmth to the mids in a way that it doesn't clog up the midrange while still having enough support for male vocals.

The main reason that I prefer DD-only setups over hybrids and all-BA or planar setups is that they seem to have the best coherency, timbre, texture, note weight, etcetera, and therefore should represent acoustic instruments best while still delivering enough foundation, bite, and dynamics for amplified delights. I haven't heard all-BA setups yet that I found to be tonally correct BUT haven't heard any above $1,000 and I would love to find the most natural sounding BA setups sub $2,000 with a natural tonality, note weight, etcetera, as I would possibly value their level of detail in the bass region where DD oompf can easily mask a lot of detail and micro dynamics in cello, acoustic bass, etcetera. But I'm afraid I will have to choose between texture and detail in this regard.

drftr

 

[Toom]

Sound-wise I value a balanced sound above anything else, so that for instance with large orchestral pieces no instrument group attract more attention than the composer aimed for, while this also works best when listening to for instance piano recitals without one specific part of the frequency range standing out with the rest getting far less attention. I think this approach would still work well enough with the rest of my collection. I'd rather want my IEMs to be on the polite side at both ends of the frequency range but without throwing out the sometimes unpleasant but essential natural shrillness of violins, woodwinds, cymbals, etcetera. Given the diversity of my library I thought it would be wise to aim for a reference monitor kind of style for mids and highs with a little bit of fullness added to (mostly) sub-bass, think +3/5 dB max, and maybe a little bit of warmth to the mids in a way that it doesn't clog up the midrange while still having enough support for male vocals.

The main reason that I prefer DD-only setups over hybrids and all-BA or planar setups is that they seem to have the best coherency, timbre, texture, note weight, etcetera, and therefore should represent acoustic instruments best while still delivering enough foundation, bite, and dynamics for amplified delights. I haven't heard all-BA setups yet that I found to be tonally correct BUT haven't heard any above $1,000 and I would love to find the most natural sounding BA setups sub $2,000 with a natural tonality, note weight, etcetera, as I would possibly value their level of detail in the bass region where DD oompf can easily mask a lot of detail and micro dynamics in cello, acoustic bass, etcetera. But I'm afraid I will have to choose between texture and detail in this regard.

drftr

64 Audio u12t springs to mind.

 

[Rockwell75]

Sound-wise I value a balanced sound above anything else, so that for instance with large orchestral pieces no instrument group attract more attention than the composer aimed for, while this also works best when listening to for instance piano recitals without one specific part of the frequency range standing out with the rest getting far less attention. I think this approach would still work well enough with the rest of my collection. I'd rather want my IEMs to be on the polite side at both ends of the frequency range but without throwing out the sometimes unpleasant but essential natural shrillness of violins, woodwinds, cymbals, etcetera. Given the diversity of my library I thought it would be wise to aim for a reference monitor kind of style for mids and highs with a little bit of fullness added to (mostly) sub-bass, think +3/5 dB max, and maybe a little bit of warmth to the mids in a way that it doesn't clog up the midrange while still having enough support for male vocals.

The main reason that I prefer DD-only setups over hybrids and all-BA or planar setups is that they seem to have the best coherency, timbre, texture, note weight, etcetera, and therefore should represent acoustic instruments best while still delivering enough foundation, bite, and dynamics for amplified delights. I haven't heard all-BA setups yet that I found to be tonally correct BUT haven't heard any above $1,000 and I would love to find the most natural sounding BA setups sub $2,000 with a natural tonality, note weight, etcetera, as I would possibly value their level of detail in the bass region where DD oompf can easily mask a lot of detail and micro dynamics in cello, acoustic bass, etcetera. But I'm afraid I will have to choose between texture and detail in this regard.

drftr

Honestly based on @jwilliamhurst's review & comments it sounds like what you're looking for is the Rhapsodio Eden. I see the appeal of the u12t in terms of balance and mild sub-bass lift but the sound is on the whole on the thin & clinical side and lacks the heft, weight and oomph it sounds like you're after alongside the natural & balanced sound.