The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.

[gLer]

Me neither (no particular issue with Rn6 too ), but I would have been interested to see if there’s some “magical” accessories or settings that could make me appreciate it even more.

BTW thanks for reminding me about it, I just installed V2 filters on RS8 (btw it can be easily done directly from the RS8 itself, that’s great ).

Which setting would you recommend for the Darwin Controller with the Rn6 (filter / harmonic controller / …) ? I’m testing Darwin Ultra right now, sounds promising

I have it on Ultra, Atmosphere Enhanced on, Harmonic 150. Quality has been consistently excellent since the update, even with some previously borderline albums and testy IEMs. Hats off to @Joe Bloggs and @HiByMusic.

PS. There's no change to DSD performance unless you convert to PCM, as filters don't affect DSD (although DSD is inherently smoother already so arguably didn't need much tweaking).

 

[Junmoe62]

Hi guys,


Here is a quick recap of the Shanghai Audio Show from saturday.


I was already seeing myself demoing all those juicy cool stuff they had at the Nanjing Show last weekend, but was a little bummed when I realized this show was going to be a small one with only 13 brands officially on display:

So, my plan to demo L&P E7 and compare it to LP6 just went out of the window and from what I was seeing around, it was mostly gear that were already readily available for demo in the different audio shops of the city. And sadly, no Ragnar Prestige at the Noble booth either…

I was starting to try cheering up myself and see the bright side! The show was taking place in the Peninsula 5 stars hotel, with free flow Champagne and coffee, the crowd was really friendly and the view was pretty cool!

Then, I decided to go check out the Effect Audio booth and boy, what a great idea that was! To my surprise they had the whole lineup from Elysian Acoustic for demo!! It’s been so long I was waiting to demo these, with you guys raving so much about them! But they are extremely hard to find for demo in china. No need to mention that my mood instantly jumped through the roof!!


Diva :

Pretty cool set overall, just wasn’t completely in love with the upper mids/lower treble region… Little too forward for my taste.

Gaea :

sadly, I didn’t demo this one , because the next set that I was after and that was being demoed by someone else got free!! (I let you guess which one I’m talking about… )

Annihilator 2023 :
Ok… Now you probably figured which one I was after!
I must say, it’s not just hype or a legend, these truly sound awesome! Fantastic blend of fun and extremely detailed and airy presentation. Vast soundstage with excellent positioning precision.
Potent mid bass, clean mids and ethereal trebles.
In some ways it makes me think about a funky euphoric naughty Ragnar.
From my short demo, I still feel Ragnar has the edge in terms of control, most notably in the bass where it’s just hard to beat Ragnar on the tightness. But Anni is just so much fun to listen to with its thumpy mid bass , while retaining such incredible amount of details!
Definitely the highlight of the show! I really loved it and I think at some point I could see one joining the team!
They are fairly hard to drive though! They even need more power than my Simphonio P0 for same volume which surprised me.

Effect Audio also had a soon to be released cable for demo, it wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it unfortunately and I forgot the name the rep told me…
All I can say is that it looked like a code 23 with mix of pinkish/orangey and silverish/white wires. The hardware was brass color. Overall it felt nice and sounded good with bass and body improvement.
I think the price should be slightly south of $1000.


Next >


Fitear DC Ti :

That’s definitely the second highlight of the show!
And that must be the hardest IEMs to drive I’ve ever tried! Needs even more power than Annihilator. I think I’ve never pushed my LP6 in high gain that far!
They sound great! Nicer than the Titan I think! Excellent balanced tuning lining towards warmth and analog. Everything felt very coherent. Great Fostex DD bass, beautiful mids and great detail retrieval from the trebles. Soundstage is also huge and precise.
I really liked it a lot! The only downsides are that they are on the larger side (still very comfy), they are custom only and the biggest caveat is that you must be a prior Fitear customer to be able to order it…

Fitear Titan :

Very nice too, just not as nicely tuned than DC Ti. Much smaller though and can be purchased as universal.

Dunu SA6 mkll:

Interesting set! Very good sounding for the price! If you don’t want to break the bank, that’s a solid offering!

And finally, this wasn’t in the show, but a local store just received it for demo, so I went to check it today:


UE Premier 21 BA drivers :

Very warm borderline dark tuning, too muddy for my taste. I mean, sets like Traillii and Phoenix are (very) bright in comparison.
Slightly nasal timber
Big bass quantity but lacking impact and visceral quality.
Pretty good staging size and positioning cues, but separation could be better.
Descent detail retrieval but overshadowed by the bass and warmth of the mids.
Fit is nice even though the shells are on the larger side. Fairly deep insertion with good insulation.

As you can see, they are absolutely jammed packed, despite their beefy size! It’s actually pretty satisfying to check the guts of these beasts!

Wish you all a nice day,

cheers,

Julien

 

[KelFab]

Not to sound daft but how is this done? How do i know if I already have the V2 filters or not? Thanks

You can download the zip archive and follow the procedure given by @Joe Bloggs : Here

It can be done simply on the device (RS8 by example) using Chrome to download the archive and then some unzip tool like zip extractor to extract the content of the zip file in the device’s “filter” folder. A reboot and it’s done !

 

[Deezel177]

Hi guys,


Here is a quick recap of the Shanghai Audio Show from saturday.


I was already seeing myself demoing all those juicy cool stuff they had at the Nanjing Show last weekend, but was a little bummed when I realized this show was going to be a small one with only 13 brands officially on display:



So, my plan to demo L&P E7 and compare it to LP6 just went out of the window and from what I was seeing around, it was mostly gear that were already readily available for demo in the different audio shops of the city. And sadly, no Ragnar Prestige at the Noble booth either…

I was starting to try cheering up myself and see the bright side! The show was taking place in the Peninsula 5 stars hotel, with free flow Champagne and coffee, the crowd was really friendly and the view was pretty cool!




Then, I decided to go check out the Effect Audio booth and boy, what a great idea that was! To my surprise they had the whole lineup from Elysian Acoustic for demo!! It’s been so long I was waiting to demo these, with you guys raving so much about them! But they are extremely hard to find for demo in china. No need to mention that my mood instantly jumped through the roof!!


Diva :

Pretty cool set overall, just wasn’t completely in love with the upper mids/lower treble region… Little too forward for my taste.



Gaea :

sadly, I didn’t demo this one , because the next set that I was after and that was being demoed by someone else got free!! (I let you guess which one I’m talking about… )



Annihilator 2023 :
Ok… Now you probably figured which one I was after!
I must say, it’s not just hype or a legend, these truly sound awesome! Fantastic blend of fun and extremely detailed and airy presentation. Vast soundstage with excellent positioning precision.
Potent mid bass, clean mids and ethereal trebles.
In some ways it makes me think about a funky euphoric naughty Ragnar.
From my short demo, I still feel Ragnar has the edge in terms of control, most notably in the bass where it’s just hard to beat Ragnar on the tightness. But Anni is just so much fun to listen to with its thumpy mid bass , while retaining such incredible amount of details!
Definitely the highlight of the show! I really loved it and I think at some point I could see one joining the team!
They are fairly hard to drive though! They even need more power than my Simphonio P0 for same volume which surprised me.




Effect Audio also had a soon to be released cable for demo, it wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it unfortunately and I forgot the name the rep told me…
All I can say is that it looked like a code 23 with mix of pinkish/orangey and silverish/white wires. The hardware was brass color. Overall it felt nice and sounded good with bass and body improvement.
I think the price should be slightly south of $1000.


Next >


Fitear DC Ti :

That’s definitely the second highlight of the show!
And that must be the hardest IEMs to drive I’ve ever tried! Needs even more power than Annihilator. I think I’ve never pushed my LP6 in high gain that far!
They sound great! Nicer than the Titan I think! Excellent balanced tuning lining towards warmth and analog. Everything felt very coherent. Great Fostex DD bass, beautiful mids and great detail retrieval from the trebles. Soundstage is also huge and precise.
I really liked it a lot! The only downsides are that they are on the larger side (still very comfy), they are custom only and the biggest caveat is that you must be a prior Fitear customer to be able to order it…





Fitear Titan :

Very nice too, just not as nicely tuned than DC Ti. Much smaller though and can be purchased as universal.




Dunu SR6 : (sorry I’m not sure about the name)

Interesting set! Very good sounding for the price! If you don’t want to break the bank, that’s a solid offering!




And finally, this wasn’t in the show, but a local store just received it for demo, so I went to check it today:


UE Premier 21 BA drivers :

Very warm borderline dark tuning, too muddy for my taste. I mean, sets like Traillii and Phoenix are (very) bright in comparison.
Slightly nasal timber
Big bass quantity but lacking impact and visceral quality.
Pretty good staging size and positioning cues, but separation could be better.
Descent detail retrieval but overshadowed by the bass and warmth of the mids.
Fit is nice even though the shells are on the larger side. Fairly deep insertion with good insulation.






As you can see, they are absolutely jammed packed, despite their beefy size! It’s actually pretty satisfying to check the guts of these beasts!

Wish you all a nice day,

cheers,

Julien

Great coverage, man! 'Disappointed to hear about the UE Premier. Dark + Nasally was pretty much how the UE Live sounded as well. It looks like they still have that tuning philosophy, and the UE18+ Pro/UERR era is well-and-truly gone.

 

[Gustavo1976]

My top 3 now: 1) Aür Neon Pro 2) Qdc Tiger 3) Dunu SA6 Mk2

 

[tyrael]

My current top 3:
1. Multiverse Mentor
2. Ragnar
3. U12t

 

[FullCircle]

My current top 3:
1. Multiverse Mentor
2. Ragnar
3. U12t

 

[tfenton02]

My current top 3:
1. Multiverse Mentor
2. Ragnar
3. U12t

A12T is borderline 4 for me, almost made it into my top 3. I pulled it out and will give it some good listening time over next few days

 

[acuinus]

My current top 3:

1. Turii Ti
2. Impact
3. MA Eclipse

 

[briantrinh86]

1. Only Odin for now
I don’t know why I can’t collect many iem used to own ( bird, jewel, z1r, ragnar, mentor, xe6) but none of them bring to me the satisfaction of listening like odin at least for now. The bass and resolution are freaking incredible with hugo 2 paring. This new album is fantastic with odin ( vocal and instruments are extremely well seperation)

 

[Beh0lder]

1. Xe6
2. Kublai Khan
3. Supermoon

Supermoon fell pretty hard this year in the polls

 

[emdeevee]

CJ Socal booked! Excited, the list of brands is insane! I think I bring both DAPs, P6Pro and Cayin N6ii, but not sure which iems to bring (maybe all of them!). Will definitely have a few cables! Will avoid ZMF and hopefully get some time with Trifecta, Storm, Raven, Bellos, Mest MkIII, and others, iems, not headphones for this, my first show.

If anyone wants to try out any of my sets, happy to meet up!

 

[Neweymatt]

Singularity is just on the edge of being too small for my big ears and needs occasional adjustments to stay in my ears sometimes. If the nozzles were just slightly longer allowing for a deeper insertion it would benefit me.

Bugger, too-small-shells is what killed Advar for me, just couldn't get a consistent seal, and they sat very shallow in my ear canals which exacerbated the treble peakiness.

Any chance you can share a photo of Singularity next to one of the FiR Uni's?

I'd say metal and rock are especially genres that don't work for me on the Xe6 (at alll). While my favorite genres for Xe6 are pop, EDM, trance, and vocal-centric music. So for example, the Xe6 would probably be my favorite IEM, out of my collection, for the last Dua Lipa, Miley and Ellie Goulding albums.

But if I'm listening to, say, Metallica, I'd turn to the Rn6 or Ronin. And if I'm listening to Dream Theater, I'm definitely reaching for the Ragnar so I can hear all the layers, and all the detail in the rhythm guitars.

Agree EDM, along with most other electronic, rap & hip-hop are a real sweet spot for Xe6.

I don't listen to much if any metal, so I wouldn't be aware of any issues there. But I do listen to a lot of classic, and especially indie/alternative rock and find Xe6 to work very well with things like Spiritualized or Queens of the Stone Age for example. I guess there's no such thing as 'too much' midbass for my ears.

 

[Damz87]

MEST OG indeed super underrated.
@Damz87 now has mine and I think he came away equally surprised!

Yes indeed the MEST OG really took me by surprise and I now understand why some still consider it their favourite MEST. I prefer it to MK2 and I feel it’s about on par with MK3 & Indigo for overall enjoyment. I like how it’s not as warm, and tuned more for clarity/resolution without going too far in that direction to the point of sounding thin. I hope UM bring out a true successor to the OG with updated drivers/BCD

 

[fejnomit]

You can download the zip archive and follow the procedure given by @Joe Bloggs : Here

It can be done simply on the device (RS8 by example) using Chrome to download the archive and then some unzip tool like zip extractor to extract the content of the zip file in the device’s “filter” folder. A reboot and it’s done !

Thank you!!