[ma151]

R8 II is a wholesale upgrade over the R6P2 with the Z1R. Synergy is exceptional, and the extra power of the R8 II is immediately noticeable.too.

Would you say the synergy between the R8 II + Z1R is better than the WM1Z (M1) + Z1R combo ?

 

[gLer]

Would you say the synergy between the R8 II + Z1R is better than the WM1Z (M1) + Z1R combo ?

That's a tough one. I'll have to do some proper AB listening, but ragedless I find the Z1R + WM1Z relationship unique to the point where I won't sell either regardless of which other DAPs and IEMs I accumulate.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I think many excellent points have been said, but here's my Top 5 based on my experience:

1. DO NOT RELY ON "TOP 10 BEST IEMS/HEADPHONES OF 2023" LISTS
Whether on Youtube or Google or anywhere else, a lot of these TOP 10 lists that pops up easily are usually not the best place to start looking into the gear that you want. Yes, they may appear informative, but most of these lists are done by "reviewers" that spend most his/her time listening to TWS. Try to do more research, dig deeper, hopefully you will stumble onto a forum like Head-fi and get a better understanding of what you should be looking into and where you should go. (Especially in the Watercooler thread )

2. DEMO THE GEARS, STOP READING FR GRAPHS !!!
This is something that i truly can't understand, since I started my IEM journey from Jaben where I was taught to TRUST MY EARS. Many IEMs these days show FR graphs as an important tool for us to 'understand' how an IEM might sound like. Yes it's an important thing to be mindful of, but I trust the old way of demoing gears as much as I can and come to a conclusion whether it's for me or not, learn by listening not reading. Audio is Aural, meant to be heard and eventually felt, not read. Oh gosh, how many times have I encountered fools who came to an audio store and refuses to listen to a gear because the "fR gRapH dOeSn'T lOoK gOoD" man, I stopped myself from throwing a punch..

3. BIG NAME BRANDS DOES NOT ALWAYS MAKE A GOOD PRODUCT
Just because a brand is popular, doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a good product. Oh boy, where do i start... The first time I fell into this rabbit hole was when stupid innocent younger me was enamoured by 'Beats by Dre' advertising and how it looked cool and every artist wore one.. THANK GOD I accidentally got lost in the Adelphi Building back in 2011, got into a small headphone store called Jaben Network in Singapore, went inside and stupidly, proudly asked "Hey man, do you guys sell 'Beats By Dre' Headphones?" the staff was nice enough not to laugh and proceeded to tell me "No we don't have that here, if you want that headphone you can try the Funan Mall next door, but by any chance do you mind trying better headphones than it?" "Whaa... there are better headphones than Beats? " "Give this a try *handed me a Beyer Dynamic DT 880 Pro*" and the rest is history. I thank Jaben for saving my dear life and ears that day, and to that staff who kindly humbled me, thanks man....

4. AUDIO IS A JOURNEY NOT A DRIVE-THRU
Take your time exploring audio gears whether they are transducers, sources, cables, tips, pads, and what have you. Keep an open mind approach despite of what people say and savour different flavours of sound. Find your taste, your needs, your desires in this endless journey, go for it if you have the means, if you don't, then don't push yourself. Appreciate your gear and find a great synergy for it. Everyone has their own pace, their own rhythm in this audio journey.

5. DON'T TAKE THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY
Audio is an exclusively subjective hobby. So please don't take things seriously. Everyone has their own taste, their own music, their own needs, their own unique ear shape, and also their own financial stability. People may call things trash, hey, even your gear might be trash for them. But remember, trust your ears they are your best judge and because it's YOU who listens to YOUR music and YOU who enjoy YOUR gears mate, not other people, so never take things to the heart, it's not that serious. If you ever encounter such comments, just try to understand why they think so, but thats all, keep loving what you love. Remember, NOTHING should ever stop you from enjoying your music the way you like it, the way you hear it.

Bonus: Please refrain from listening at a high volume for an extended period of time. If you wanna stay in this utopia for a long time, your aural well-being always comes first.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND. TRUST AND BELIEVE IN YOUR EARS. ALWAYS.

Albert, I really love this list. I would like to use it as my starting point and then add to it.

Audio is definitely a journey and not a destination. It is every bit as complex and subjective as art. Even so, there are underlying principles that can be generalized and synthesized into a critical examination of the art form. Here are my observations as an observer who has had the opportunity to wind my way through several audio rabbit holes in the past 4 years of critical listening.

1. Audio preferences are subjective and those preferences change over time. They can change over the course of a listening experience, time of day and what you have listened to immediately before or after it, your mood, what's on your mind, what someone told you, etc. Until you have had a minimum of 1000 hours of critical listening time, you probably do not know what you like and even then what you like will probably change over time as you get more experience. It may take up to 10,000 hours of listening to really know what your preferences really are. I am a trained musician and I can honestly say that it's only been this year that I believe I understand my preferences.

2. Audio memory is terrible. Our minds play tricks on us. Even though everyone will tell you to listen to gear before you buy it, it's not a reliable gauge of whether or not you will like something when you first get started. Why? Because our minds can easily convince ourselves that we like something when indeed it is actually not sure. Our perceptions are heavily influenced by our expectations, what we've read, what we think we are hearing. Without a well established benchmark of sound acquired through thousands of hours of listening, we can easily confuse ourselves into believing we like something when we find out after a week we were totally wrong. To avoid this, you need to do a lot of a/b testing and listen over a period of time until you get consistent and repeatable impressions. This takes time to learn.

3. Decide upfront to take the Blue pill or the Red pill. Your life will be easier and your wallet will be best served if you just take the Blue pill, get your Airpods Pro II, Galaxy Buds Pro or Sony WF-1000XM5 truly wireless earphones and be happy. This is what 99.999% of the world has done. If you are unaware of the options available, you won't be tempted to find that last 1% of performance that doesn't matter anyway to your overall listening experience. If you want to experience the what Audiophile gear can offer, but don't want to jump into the deep end of the pool, just have someone experienced listen to what you like in music and provide you with a short list of products to demo. Go to an audio store that has those products or borrow them from someone who has them and buy the one you like the best and move on. If, on the other hand, you want to experience a new universe with multiple divergent paths that provides a social, technical, artistic and even political and business dynamic, then take the Red Pill and we will show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

4. Audio preferences are as much a social construct as an expression of personal taste. Because Audio is subjective, audio memory is terrible, and we do not know what we really like until we have traversed significantly down a specific audio rabbit hole, preferences are highly influenced by whom you know and respect. That could be a reviewer, a friend, an expert, a dealer. It could be the impressions posted on a message board like head fi. It's why when you see rankings in the Watercooler, many new sets will have votes from people who have never heard the product. Definitely use the watercooler rankings to see what is hot at the moment, but look at which IEMs last the test of time and remain at the top of the rankings to see which ones are truly the best.

5. Small changes in sound make a huge difference in preference. On head fi, there is an ongoing religious debate on whether or not cables make a difference to sound. Sound science guys say they don't make a difference until you can measure it or pass a double blind test. Cable believers simply say that all you need to do in listen enough and if you can hear a repeatable change, then cables make a difference in sound. I happen to believe that everything in a chain impacts the sound is some small way. Sometimes those changes are hard to measure. Our ears can detect these small changes and at times those very small differences can make a big difference in our minds about whether or not we like that particular sound. I was a cable believer, then a cable skeptic when I read the arguments from the sound science guys. Now I am once again a cable believer because I have critically listened to scores of IEMs with dozens of cables over thousands of hours and I can fine tune a chain with IEM, cables, DAPs and tips in a matter of hours. This is one of the benefits of going down the many rabbit holes. It's the satisfaction of knowing I got about the best sound I could out of a given set up. This is why I do it. It's why I am an audiophile.

6. Ignore the graphs and the reviews. This is a hot take the will likely upset most objectivists in the hobby. Do not look at graphs until after you listen to an IEM. If you look at it before hand, it will give you an expectation that your mind will use to shape your listening experience. Only look at the graph after you have heard it so that you can see what you like or dislike may look like on a graph. I, too, am completely against the idea of a target curve. That's like giving a piece of art a set of rules for evaluating when it is good. An IEM is great if it lasts the test of time and people still love it. All target curves do is make everything attempt to sound the same. It removes the artistry out of the art of creating a great IEM. It does eliminate the poser from the savants in the tuning world. I would pick a great tuner over a great technology company. Reviews are worse because you have no idea if a reviewer has your preferences and when listening, if you have the bias in your mind that some reviewer ranks this IEM as an S-tier IEM, your mind is going to act as an apologist for that IEM. So, ignore the reviewers and the graphs until you have learned what you really like and can relate them to your situation.

7. There are an infinite number of ways to enjoy this hobby. At the end of the day, it's your money and your preferences. Don't ever let anyone take that away from you. If you like something, state it proudly. If you hate something, let people know why, but don't dwell on it. One man's trash is another man's treasure. The way I enjoy this hobby is as a social, technical, and artistic endeavor. I love the comradery of the community, the great things I can learn from it technically and artistically and seeing great friends in cool places. If you choose the Red pill, buckle up and get ready for the ride of your life.

 

[CodenameBK201]

Just got back from seeing Wonka with my wife, enjoying the last date day we'll get for a while once her parents go back to China next week. 10/10, although it's basically another Harry Potter film by any other name (and I consider myself a fairly hardcore fan of the Gene Wilder original). Definitely going to be picking up the score later off Qobuz.

 

[theintention]

Here’s a weekend survey question I don’t think we’ve done before: What did you sleep on/resist for far too long only for it to become an indispensable part of your life? As a twist give both audio and non audio examples if you want.

audio - getting into this hobby at all. was an expensive first year but i have learned a lot. I should have upgraded to my Audeze sooner... now trying to decide where to land in a similarly priced IEM before I can get to a CanJam.

non-audio - putting myself first in most situations instead of letting people walk all over me, and being too nice about it. learned some hard lessons about that ever since the pandemic.

 

[Damz87]

Today’s bae. The synergy is divine and the sound is pure class.

Glad to see you’re enjoying the WM1Z, Jeff

I was looking through some old photos and came across these two from 2020 that I thought you might appreciate

If you get a chance to try/pick up a Solaris again, I’d highly recc giving it a spin with your Walkman they pair up really well.

 

[Bosk]

What did you sleep on/resist for far too long only for it to become an indispensable part of your life?

Becoming more involved in the hobby.

I've been a Head-Fi member for nearly 20 years and probably spent a year or more browsing the forum before registering an account, yet it was only last year I began meeting up with Head-Fi members in my area, visiting my local audio dealer regularly & writing reviews.

Words can't express the difference it's made to my enjoyment of the hobby. Enough so that I'm willing to overlook the horrific damage it's done to my wallet.

It's so true that the more you put into something the more you get out of it, and I wish I'd poured more of myself into the hobby sooner. Unfortunately it's very intimidating taking the first step towards making a contribution, not knowing how you'll be received. Imposter syndrome is a real and it's so easy to question how much you really know, wondering if there's anything particularly unique or special about what you have to say and whether the world really needs to hear it.

It does though. The world does need to hear what you have to say and will become a richer place for you having said it. Not least because it encourages others take that step forward, following your example of putting yourself out there. I'm not sure there's anything particularly special about the reviews I write or that people couldn't get that information elsewhere, but on some level making a contribution is its' own reward and being able to look back on what you've contributed is hugely satisfying.

The first step for most people is registering a Head-Fi account. There's usually more guests than users viewing at any given time, but simply creating an account makes you feel that little bit more invested. Then it's just a matter of finding the right moment to create your first post, which doesn't have to be a big deal but could be as simple as agreeing with someone who expresses appreciation for something you like. Your presence can grow from there, with every contribution you make increasing the vibrance of the community at large. Ours is a fairly small community & most of us are similarly quirky, and it feels so reassuring knowing there are others out there like me who understand my passion.

I hope you have a fantastic 2024 guys, and suspect if you decide to get more involved this year you'll end up thanking yourself.

 

[wolfstar76]

Dear Friends,

Trying to conduct some research. Would love different opinions.

In your opinion what are the top 5-10 mistakes beginner audiophiles make?

Number 1 mistake is to follow YouTube reviewers.
Number 2 mistake is to visit popular websites such as RTings.com
Number 3 mistake is to buy without demoing
Number 4 mistake is keep buying the same level of low-end IEMs

 

[jwilliamhurst]

Here is some of my favorite music that came out this year, in no particular order. Electronic, pop, & metal mainly.

Here is to another incredible year of listening.

This is great! I’ve been working on my list the past few weeks. Ive posted my top albums end of every year I’ve been on this thread, so this will make my third time. I’m doing it a bit different this year hence why it’s Taking so long. Hopefully ya’ll will find some nuggets. I love your list and enjoy many of them! So much good music came out this year! And I have to check out a few on your list that are foreign to me. Thanks so much for sharing!

 

[Rockwell75]

Audio: Elysian Annihilator (declined first offering last March )
Current Non-Audio: Hermann Miller / Vitra Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman. Just ordered today and made use of a great offering. I've been circling this thing for years and now finally took the plunge after a great year at work. This will bring my reading and music listening experience to a new level...

Damn that looks comfy...

If I had to pick between losing access to HeadFi or losing access to YouTube, I would choose the latter, in a heartbeat.

That would be a hard one. I don't consume much if any audio related content on youtube...but I watch a lot of podcasts and as a result I somewhat depend on youtube for a good deal of information and perspectives it would be hard to get elsewhere.

Is it that for some the hobby is being a dick?
Like waking up every day thinking what can I do to piss everyone off and call attention to myself.
Always wondered that.

Most of those folks wind up on Reddit.

I’m back full circle looking at P6 Pro now Fully aware of the UI quirks however. I recall at some point talk of a replacement model?

You should take a look at a used 1Z if you haven't already...you can get one used for about half the price of a used P6 Pro.

I’d love to but I’d say unlikely this year. My wife is keen on a family holiday to the US, not sure where yet! Unless I can convince a different direction of travel…

I hear NYC is nice in March

Demoing is underrated!

drftr

This made me chuckle. I've always appreciated your dry humour @drftr

Interestingly for me, I’ve been pondering this question and instead of me looking back, it has inspired me to look forward and take action on an illness that I was diagnosed with in mid 2020. It’s an autoimmune disease that is mostly irritating at best, and quite uncomfortable at worst at the moment, but has the potential for more serious consequences ultimately if left untreated… the fact that the symptoms are not the worst, and often intermittent, it’s easy to forget the issue even exists, and in the busyness of life, it stupidly gets kicked to touch. It requires significant dietary changes and probably at least annual treatment (which again I’ve chosen to ignore) but I can’t continue to wear blinkers - time to take action.

It’s strange as I look after myself well physically, and while I used to meditate on a regular basis, that also fell off a cliff when I was ill ahead of the diagnosis in 2020 - I firmly believe in the benefits of meditation, both from direct experience for probably 15 years now and the regular accounts I read in various books… yet this fell away I think due to the COVID era and being hit with the illness at around the same time. I gave up smoking about 16 years ago when my kids were very young, a switch flicked in my head to note I now have little people I’m responsible for helping to become bigger people, and ultimately smoking (30 a day) was a selfish act - what had been so difficult to do before with many attempts, became so much easier when framed that way… plus I used to spend the money every week on CDs and vinyl - a nice treat at the end of every week I have that same obvious switch flicking now, and already today took a small step to address the problem - ‘Kaizen’.

All the best in health in 2024 my friend!

Where was your post when I started my audio journey?? Can we please pin this extremely valuable post @Rockwell75? Maybe we find even more such points!

I just saw you already did the later in post #75,969 and @AxLvR in #76,010!

Sorry, just working through the latest 10 pages. This thread is moving fast lately!

You can't pin posts in Head Fi but I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else chimes in and compile a bunch of them on the front page of the thread.

Albert, I really love this list. I would like to use it as my starting point and then add to it.

Audio is definitely a journey and not a destination. It is every bit as complex and subjective as art. Even so, there are underlying principles that can be generalized and synthesized into a critical examination of the art form. Here are my observations as an observer who has had the opportunity to wind my way through several audio rabbit holes in the past 4 years of critical listening.

1. Audio preferences are subjective and those preferences change over time. They can change over the course of a listening experience, time of day and what you have listened to immediately before or after it, your mood, what's on your mind, what someone told you, etc. Until you have had a minimum of 1000 hours of critical listening time, you probably do not know what you like and even then what you like will probably change over time as you get more experience. It may take up to 10,000 hours of listening to really know what your preferences really are. I am a trained musician and I can honestly say that it's only been this year that I believe I understand my preferences.

2. Audio memory is terrible. Our minds play tricks on us. Even though everyone will tell you to listen to gear before you buy it, it's not a reliable gauge of whether or not you will like something when you first get started. Why? Because our minds can easily convince ourselves that we like something when indeed it is actually not sure. Our perceptions are heavily influenced by our expectations, what we've read, what we think we are hearing. Without a well established benchmark of sound acquired through thousands of hours of listening, we can easily confuse ourselves into believing we like something when we find out after a week we were totally wrong. To avoid this, you need to do a lot of a/b testing and listen over a period of time until you get consistent and repeatable impressions. This takes time to learn.

3. Decide upfront to take the Blue pill or the Red pill. Your life will be easier and your wallet will be best served if you just take the Blue pill, get your Airpods Pro II, Galaxy Buds Pro or Sony WF-1000XM5 truly wireless earphones and be happy. This is what 99.999% of the world has done. If you are unaware of the options available, you won't be tempted to find that last 1% of performance that doesn't matter anyway to your overall listening experience. If you want to experience the what Audiophile gear can offer, but don't want to jump into the deep end of the pool, just have someone experienced listen to what you like in music and provide you with a short list of products to demo. Go to an audio store that has those products or borrow them from someone who has them and buy the one you like the best and move on. If, on the other hand, you want to experience a new universe with multiple divergent paths that provides a social, technical, artistic and even political and business dynamic, then take the Red Pill and we will show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

4. Audio preferences are as much a social construct as an expression of personal taste. Because Audio is subjective, audio memory is terrible, and we do not know what we really like until we have traversed significantly down a specific audio rabbit hole, preferences are highly influenced by whom you know and respect. That could be a reviewer, a friend, an expert, a dealer. It could be the impressions posted on a message board like head fi. It's why when you see rankings in the Watercooler, many new sets will have votes from people who have never heard the product. Definitely use the watercooler rankings to see what is hot at the moment, but look at which IEMs last the test of time and remain at the top of the rankings to see which ones are truly the best.

5. Small changes in sound make a huge difference in preference. On head fi, there is an ongoing religious debate on whether or not cables make a difference to sound. Sound science guys say they don't make a difference until you can measure it or pass a double blind test. Cable believers simply say that all you need to do in listen enough and if you can hear a repeatable change, then cables make a difference in sound. I happen to believe that everything in a chain impacts the sound is some small way. Sometimes those changes are hard to measure. Our ears can detect these small changes and at times those very small differences can make a big difference in our minds about whether or not we like that particular sound. I was a cable believer, then a cable skeptic when I read the arguments from the sound science guys. Now I am once again a cable believer because I have critically listened to scores of IEMs with dozens of cables over thousands of hours and I can fine tune a chain with IEM, cables, DAPs and tips in a matter of hours. This is one of the benefits of going down the many rabbit holes. It's the satisfaction of knowing I got about the best sound I could out of a given set up. This is why I do it. It's why I am an audiophile.

6. Ignore the graphs and the reviews. This is a hot take the will likely upset most objectivists in the hobby. Do not look at graphs until after you listen to an IEM. If you look at it before hand, it will give you an expectation that your mind will use to shape your listening experience. Only look at the graph after you have heard it so that you can see what you like or dislike may look like on a graph. I, too, am completely against the idea of a target curve. That's like giving a piece of art a set of rules for evaluating when it is good. An IEM is great if it lasts the test of time and people still love it. All target curves do is make everything attempt to sound the same. It removes the artistry out of the art of creating a great IEM. It does eliminate the poser from the savants in the tuning world. I would pick a great tuner over a great technology company. Reviews are worse because you have no idea if a reviewer has your preferences and when listening, if you have the bias in your mind that some reviewer ranks this IEM as an S-tier IEM, your mind is going to act as an apologist for that IEM. So, ignore the reviewers and the graphs until you have learned what you really like and can relate them to your situation.

7. There are an infinite number of ways to enjoy this hobby. At the end of the day, it's your money and your preferences. Don't ever let anyone take that away from you. If you like something, state it proudly. If you hate something, let people know why, but don't dwell on it. One man's trash is another man's treasure. The way I enjoy this hobby is as a social, technical, and artistic endeavor. I love the comradery of the community, the great things I can learn from it technically and artistically and seeing great friends in cool places. If you choose the Red pill, buckle up and get ready for the ride of your life.

Epic post that is brimming with wisdom. Agreed with all points.

Glad to see you’re enjoying the WM1Z, Jeff

I was looking through some old photos and came across these two from 2020 that I thought you might appreciate



If you get a chance to try/pick up a Solaris again, I’d highly recc giving it a spin with your Walkman they pair up really well.

Stunning photos. Incidentally when my Amber Radiance was on the way i started searching around to see if any MMCX ALO Gold 16 cables still existed in 4.4mm...and I coudn't find any. I've got a list of a few IEMs I'd love to "re buy" at some point just to hear them with fresh ears. Solaris is definitely one of them-- as is the IER Z1R which I'm especially excited to hear through the 1Z finally.

 

[Kiats]

Having a last spin with the APX this morning before I pack it away. With something slightly less rare than the APX: the Luxury & Precision P6Pro Ti.

Sterling work that @piotrus-g has done with the APX. I have enjoyed my time with the APX very much. Very innovative drivers and use of the drivers to create the sound and sensations that I did not expect. The fit is of course excellent for a universal IEM. The soundstage is impressive while the timbre on the APX is first rate. Because of the way the drivers are deployed, you can actually feel the timbre of the mids, be it vocals or strings.

Will listen to one last album and then it goes back in its nice presentation box. And back to @Uncle Wilson at Jaben SG on Tuesday afternoon.

 

[linux4ever]

Most of those folks wind up on Reddit.

Thanks for the laugh buddy

 

[LFC_SL]

Here’s a weekend survey question I don’t think we’ve done before: What did you sleep on/resist for far too long only for it to become an indispensable part of your life? As a twist give both audio and non audio examples if you want.

Eyeglasses stands. Deceptively useful

 

[Ike1985]

I thought of a few off the top of my head. This better not show up in a future video of yours without due credit.

1) Assume you hear the same way someone else does, and vice-versa: Audio is massively subjective. What’s perfect to someone else may not be perfect to you, and what’s trash to them might appeal to you. That’s not even mentioning the different music you may listen to, different sources you may have, etc.

2) Only read one or two reviews before making a purchase: Going off no. 1, it’s best to gather as many data points as you can before buying anything, so bias is as minimized as possible.

3) Think a brand’s flagship is the one you “have to” buy: This is a mistake I’ve even seen veterans make. Sometimes, the flagship may have better technical performance, but also a tone you may not agree with. So, never discount a brand’s cheaper offerings. They might happen to be the best ones for you.

4) Think reference sound is the ultimate sound: It’s not. Just like warm, bright, punchy or relaxed, it’s just one of many sounds. You might love it, you might hate it. Don’t let marketing fool you. A lot of the products that brands call reference would be laughed out of the studio by actual engineers anyway.

5) Base purchases off a specs sheet: More drivers does not mean better. More crossovers does not mean better. They just give the tuner more options to craft the IEM’s sound with. Whether or not they did a good job crafting is another matter entirely. Not all drivers and crossovers are made the same either. A single-driver IEM with 5 years of R&D can leave a slapped-together, 10-driver hybrid in the dust. So, don’t be shocked if the former turns out pricier and better.

6) Listen way too loud: Not only can this give you a bad impression of an IEM, but it’s bad for your long-term hearing as well. Train yourself to listen quieter, and I guarantee you’ll get more out of IEMs; even the ones you already have.

7) Settle for a lesser product, rather than save a bit more for the one you actually want: I’ve seen people do this countless times, and it only leads to disappointment. After a while, they end up selling off the IEM they settled for at a loss, then saving up again to get what they originally wanted anyway. Save yourself the hassle, just wait a bit longer for the next paycheck or two, and spend it on something you truly desire.

8) Overestimate the differences cables, burn-in, etc. can make: I’ve seen salespeople snake beginners into buying a product they don’t really want by telling them 100 hours of burn-in or swapping out the cable will fix all its problems. In reality, the changes those bring are completely situational, and they won’t turn an IEM into something it’s not. This is especially true if you’re a beginner and you can barely hear those differences anyway.

The last one’s the most situational, but I feel it’s the most crucial one too.

9) Buying without trying: I know, in 70-80% of the world, this is simply down to unavailability. Not everyone lives in SG, HK or JPN, where auditioning every IEM in the world is a car or subway ride away. But, rather than gambling, buying blind and potentially incurring massive losses, I’d always recommend spending the money to go to your nearest CanJam or audio meet, if possible. It’s money you’re likely to lose if you’re blind buying anyway, and you’re at least guaranteed the chance to meet fellow Head-Fi’ers, explore a new city and meet the people behind the products you love. The dozens of products you get to try are almost a bonus, and just those 2 days should be enough to give you a base vocabulary of IEMs that you can then interpret reviews or comparisons better with. For example, maybe you heard the Fei Wan at a CanJam and loved it, but wanted less treble. The next time a respected poster calls an IEM a “warmer Fei Wan,” you’ll know to look out for that IEM.

Yes cable differences can be subtle, however the Orpheus is insane. It's night and day. It's by far the biggest change I've ever experienced with a cable. Agree with everything you said.

@Sajid Amit mine and the only piece I own. I also really want the 1970's seiko Morpho color changing dial, amazing piece(https://shorturl.at/npHPR) and yes that's all the same dial. The watch market is out of control and needs about a -60% correction, I am much more interested in micro brands and simultaneously high horology because of the absurdity. The big names that everyone wants; once you dig a little deeper you discover that you are just paying for a name, nothing more and most of the time it's worse than many microbrands 1/5th their price.

 

[timeslip]

All of that said what happens if your channel goes through the stratosphere like some others have? Then who knows. A couple folks have approached me recently about the idea of a Watercooler Youtube channel and to be perfectly frank this is an idea I'm biased against for the most part. A large part of the appeal of this community to me is that it's grass-roots and made up exclusively of hobbyists and all sorts of folks from all levels of the industry gathered simply for the joy of fellowship and community. I am afraid that if we were to go down the path of monetizing, or otherwise trying to cash in the Watercooler name as a "brand" or start chasing likes, clicks, affiliations and sponsorship- then a good deal of what makes this place great would be lost.

There are a lot of really knowledgeable and interesting people here. What if you were to create a YT channel or medium blog that was sourced from volunteers from this thread? Some ideas that I would personally have interest in watching or reading...

1) How do you review IEMs? Panel to debate words that are used to describe what you hear. I remember a few weeks ago, there was several replies about the definition of "SLAM".

2) Demo playlist and what someone looks for in specific songs

3) What is the perfect mobile setup for travelers vs office workers or wfh

If you aren't in it for the $, then there is low pressure to produce content weekly, which IMO leads to low quality material.