[aaf evo]

The WM1Z is a very good DAP in terms of the sound & battery. The K-mod with the Mr.Walkman firmware mod bumps it up a notch. I still am holding on to mine.

I've the WM1AM2 too. How do you like it after hearing Cayin N30LE? To me both can exist in my collection despite the N30LE being the superior dap.

I like it quite a bit but I’m also really only evaluating it from a synergy perspective with FW, I tend to move my sources around depending on whatever IEM I am listening to the most.

The Grand Maestro on the other hand.. the N30 was incredible for that. The AM2 doesn’t do that IEM justice unfortunately but it still “sounds good” from the Sony, but I’ve heard it sound much better as well. It starts to sound a tad compressed and closed in from weaker sources :/ I still enjoy it regardless so that’s really all I’m concerned about at this point as my ears are definitely more occupied w FW at the moment.

N30 is definitely the most complete DAP I’ve ever used, but for easy to drive IEMs I feel a lot of the value in owning such a top class device gets lost a little.

 

[fejnomit]

Nice...how are you liking it?

I'm pretty blown away by them tbh. Not even with the caveat "...for $499." They have a wonderfully deep and expansive sub-bass, not quite as much mid-bass/lower-mid fullness as the Bonnevilles but still tilting very nicely in that direction; a very palpable and real-sounding mid-range where male vocals and guitars sound so tactile and full a; and then a lot more treble air and extension than I would have thought. A mini-Bonneville, sort of, with each element a tad dialed back, except the sub-bass... And that is with the stock cable straight out of the box.. I am going to throw on my Liquid Links Evua II and the Clarion tips that made such a difference with the Bonnevilles and see what happens. But I agree, this blows this price bracket wide open in my mind. Hard to think of a sub-$500 set that has brought me this much instant joy. Their new DD driver is surely one of the best made thus far at any price. Possible I'm becoming a bit of a CA fanboy...

 

[Delitia]

Canjam NYC tickets obtained and ready to go.

Also Loki Emerald on its way probably next week. I'll drop some impressions when I have it in hand.

Super excited for my upcoming purchases. My Indigo is current with UM being turned into a CIEM, sound tiger sinfonia next month and the above mentioned Loki Emerald.

Fun times ahead.

 

[Neweymatt]

As we get deeper and deeper into the Silly Season, I thought I’d share my Top Albums from 2023. While not quite up to the same heights as 2022 imho, there were nevertheless plenty of outstanding new Indie/Alternative albums released this year, and I could have easily doubled or even tripled this list. But you have to draw the line somewhere, so I whittled it down to these “31 Flavours” based on how much ear time a given album had and/or whether I bought it on Bandcamp. Of course there’s still lots of great albums I didn’t list, happy to have the argument about what I left out!

Boygenius - The Record
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Bully - Lucky For You
Jen Cloher - I Am The River, The River Is Me
Avalon Emerson - & The Charm
Water From Your Eyes - Everyone’s Crushed
Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
Earl Sweatshirt/The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE
Angel Olsen - Forever Means EP
Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings
The Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
Feist - Multitudes
The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake
Billy Woods - Maps
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
David Holmes/Raven Violet - Blind On A Galloping Horse
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - The Silver Cord
The Orb - Prism
Ratboys - The Window
Mon Laferte - Autopoietica
Sigur Ros - Atta
Cusp - You Can Do It All
Tinariwen - Amatssou
Midwife/Vyva Melinkolya - Orbweaving
Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach
Aesop Rock - Integrated Tech Solutions
The Clientele - I Am Not There Anymore
Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
James Holden - Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
Slow Pulp - Yard

 

[Garney]

Chrimbus come early, courtesy of Lee at Elysian Acoustics




Too early for any impressions… more to come later.

 

[timeslip]

Received these earlier today to try out with the VE x AK Aura:



As others have said, the Baroque tips are extremely comfortable. They're probably the most comfortable tips I've ever used. They add some nice air, treble extension and stage to the Aura's, but you lose quite a bit of bass. I can see these being great for IEMs where you'd be willing to sacrifice some bass to get more air and treble extension.

I honestly didn't like the Coreir tips at all with the Aura's. I feel like every aspect of the Aura's just got worse.

I should be receiving the new Symbio tips soon. I'll be curious to see if they can improve upon the stock Azla SE1500 tips.

Funny! I just received my Coreir and Symbio tips today. I agree with you that the Coreir was not a good match with the Aura at all. I've been using the baroque tips since I got the aura for the past month and those have been my favorite. The bass is adequate for me and they don't come off as too bright.

I hate the symbio and regret buying these.

 

[FooFighter]

Funny! I just received my Coreir and Symbio tips today. I agree with you that the Coreir was not a good match with the Aura at all. I've been using the baroque tips since I got the aura for the past month and those have been my favorite. The bass is adequate for me and they don't come off as too bright.

I hate the symbio and regret buying these.

Wdyt about the Baroques upon the AP IEMs?
Have been happily using Spiral Dots ++ lately for the same reason as the Baroques signature is described here: more open upper mids and treble - therefore also better holografy, tamed bass and in case of Spiral Dots ++ more pronounced mids

 

[RonaldS86]

@Ike1985 so here's my 3 minute comparison between Jewel and Fei Wan using same Orphy Shielding and same Spiral Dot++ eartips with matching volume on 45 from my N30 AP with H gain settings, Classic tube, and Hyper mode.

TLDR;
If what you seek is vocals then Jewel is your answer because Fei Wan sounds like a V shape to me. The vocals on Jewel are more pronounced when compared to Fei Wan because I think Jewel is W shaped but the gap between the bass, mid, treble are not too far off so the vocals are still more pronounced but not too much. For me the treble on Fei Wan are quite hot and borderline sibilance to me even when using the OrphyS which is known to tame the treble. Can't imagine if I pair FW with a silver based cable

There you go brother. I'm not too good when describing sounds but I guess you get the gist of it. For me Jewel is the winner in the battle of vocals vs the Fei Wan

 

[Exekuhtor]

The S15 is fan-freaking-tastic. Warm planar, extremely detailed, never ever shouting / sibiliant / sharp, ever. They sound like an LCD-2 with a bigger soundstage and a bass EQ. Extremely natural voices, very pleasing overall sound. I doubt there is anyone who will dislike them. I may like them more than the Supermoon i had, it's shocking how fast (planar) IEM's are improving. They are highly resolving, perfectly tuned and have very nice dynamics. I love their big planar sound. Oh, and they are 10/10 comfortable, i'm very happy that i chose the S15 over the Timeless 2 since the Timeless AE was never that comfortable. I put on my Moondrop Springtips and use a slightly different cable because (and that's my #1 gripe with them) they have a 90° connector. URGH! I HATE 90° CONNECTORS!
Extremely recommended!

 

[zikarus]

As we get deeper and deeper into the Silly Season, I thought I’d share my Top Albums from 2023. While not quite up to the same heights as 2022 imho, there were nevertheless plenty of outstanding new Indie/Alternative albums released this year, and I could have easily doubled or even tripled this list. But you have to draw the line somewhere, so I whittled it down to these “31 Flavours” based on how much ear time a given album had and/or whether I bought it on Bandcamp. Of course there’s still lots of great albums I didn’t list, happy to have the argument about what I left out!

Boygenius - The Record
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Bully - Lucky For You
Jen Cloher - I Am The River, The River Is Me
Avalon Emerson - & The Charm
Water From Your Eyes - Everyone’s Crushed
Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
Earl Sweatshirt/The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE
Angel Olsen - Forever Means EP
Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings
The Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
Feist - Multitudes
The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake
Billy Woods - Maps
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
David Holmes/Raven Violet - Blind On A Galloping Horse
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - The Silver Cord
The Orb - Prism
Ratboys - The Window
Mon Laferte - Autopoietica
Sigur Ros - Atta
Cusp - You Can Do It All
Tinariwen - Amatssou
Midwife/Vyva Melinkolya - Orbweaving
Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach
Aesop Rock - Integrated Tech Solutions
The Clientele - I Am Not There Anymore
Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
James Holden - Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
Slow Pulp - Yard

You were quick.
I too thought it should be fun to collect a Watercooler Top 10 albums of 2023? So what are your picks?

Mine would be

Bibiza - Wiener Schickeria
Grian Chatten - Chaos For The Fly
Roisin Murphy - Hit Parade
Yussef Dayes - Black Classical Music
Slowdive - Everything Is Alive
Blur - Ballad Of Darren
Bipolar Feminin - Ein Fragiles System
Jason Isbell - Weathervanes
Barry Can't Swim - When Will We Land
Nation Of Language - Strange Disciple

PS @Neweymatt funny enough there ain't no duplications between our lists although 3/4th of yours could have made it onto mine too

 

[fejnomit]

Yussef Dayes - Black Classical Music

YES. +1

 

[psklrdk]

I finally received my Cascara today:



I'm loving the sound so far-- lots of top end air and detail, no harshness or evident peaks, decently large stage, great timbre, fantastic bass and forward clear mids. As with Bonneville the bass is really something on these...early days but I would be surprised if there was another single DD below $1k that could offer the total package in a bass driven IEM that this does. No small amount of my decision to purchase these was excitement about being able to connect them to this cable.

Also, I've been looking forward to this for a while:



As an added bonus and nice touch the CFA team sent me this signed letter:



And included bonus set of infinity pouches:



Nicely done.

Can you stand the fit without issues?
The Bonneville was so unpleaseant for me that i could not concentrate on music.
It was even worse then on etymotic.
No problem with Supermoon and other Capmpfire products so far.
How is Cascara int this regard?
Cheers

 

[aaf evo]

For me the treble on Fei Wan are quite hot and borderline sibilance to me even when using the OrphyS which is known to tame the treble. Can't imagine if I pair FW with a silver based cable

I know you sold your RN6 for the Fei Wan blindly and I feel some of my impressions/posts may have had some influence to this. I’m really sorry if what I shared may have mislead you into making the wrong choice. While it’s obviously not my fault or responsibility, I do feel a small sense of guilt if it’s not up to your expectations even though we all hear differently.

With that said, over the years I have accumulated a playlist of “torture tracks” for things like harshness, sibilance, poor treble quality, etc., and I have had no issues with Fei Wan on these tracks.

I have another friend at the moment who’s demo’ing Fei Wan and is having the same issues you are. We shared some tracks and while I could understand what he is hearing I also took these same tracks and played them on other IEMs that don’t have majorly dipped treble (like Jewel) or heavily colored mid ranges and the same tracks were also problematic on these IEMs. To my ears and brain this just tells me that Fei Wan is quite revealing, detailed, and less forgiving of certain tracks, which understandably will not be for everyone.

I hope you find a way to make them more enjoyable

 

[Rockwell75]

I'm pretty blown away by them tbh. Not even with the caveat "...for $499." They have a wonderfully deep and expansive sub-bass, not quite as much mid-bass/lower-mid fullness as the Bonnevilles but still tilting very nicely in that direction; a very palpable and real-sounding mid-range where male vocals and guitars sound so tactile and full a; and then a lot more treble air and extension than I would have thought. A mini-Bonneville, sort of, with each element a tad dialed back, except the sub-bass... And that is with the stock cable straight out of the box.. I am going to throw on my Liquid Links Evua II and the Clarion tips that made such a difference with the Bonnevilles and see what happens. But I agree, this blows this price bracket wide open in my mind. Hard to think of a sub-$500 set that has brought me this much instant joy. Their new DD driver is surely one of the best made thus far at any price.

There is definitely a lot of similarity with Bonneville, given they share the same bass driver. They're obviously a bit of a step down technically, which is not surprising given that you're going from a hybrid set to a single DD. But the Cascara is actually pretty impressive in its own right-- decent top end extension, resolution and air, great deep stage etc. Timbre is excellent but this is one area CFA has always excelled. Compared to the Bonneville people who have issues with the upper end energy, won't have any issues here-- it sounds quite smooth top to bottom. Where Cascara stands out for me relative to other CFA single DDs is that you get great midrange/vocal presence despite a rather bombastic bass presentation. Having just received the Perpetua this past week I'd have to admit that the Cascara is a step down across most metrics (as you'd expect)...however for a great "grab and go" single DD that is super fun to listen to and doesn't hit any real false notes I gotta say Cascara is pure win for me so far. And I'm sure the aesthetic synergy with my Victoria enhances the sound.

Possible I'm becoming a bit of a CA fanboy...

Join the club . But don't forget your sword and shield.

Canjam NYC tickets obtained and ready to go.

Also Loki Emerald on its way probably next week. I'll drop some impressions when I have it in hand.

Super excited for my upcoming purchases. My Indigo is current with UM being turned into a CIEM, sound tiger sinfonia next month and the above mentioned Loki Emerald.

Fun times ahead.

Excellent! There is quite a gang of us assembling this time...looking forward to meeting the new faces and reconnecting with the old.

Can you stand the fit without issues?
The Bonneville was so unpleaseant for me that i could not concentrate on music.
It was even worse then on etymotic.
No problem with Supermoon and other Capmpfire products so far.
How is Cascara int this regard?
Cheers

That's interesting-- no fit issues for me whasoever with either Bonneville or Cascara. They're definitely cut from the same cloth fit-wise...and honestly they're some of the best fitting IEMs I've ever tried.

 

[stacey]

Is everyone staying at the Marriott for Canjam NYC?