similar to @bluestorm1992That white with bird faceplate looks familiar
The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.
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KuroKitsu
Headphoneus Supremus
On the opposite side, I've been pretty packed with real world stuff since I graduated from uni about 8 years ago and I really didn't have the time and capacity to serve in a capacity besides being one of the audio guys on rotation and doing the weekly bulletin. Since my resignation from a toxic workplace shortly before the pandemic, I've actually had the time to serve in youth ministry due to the free time. Thankfully I'm in a solid spot financially so i can afford to do so. You could probably say I've taken perhaps the opposite path. Like you said, where you are is where you serve.Thank you so, so much, brother. I've always seen this opportunity as a way of serving God as well. My church is family-owned, so, despite the years I've spent in Singapore and the education I've received in audio, I can't help but feel a bit of Imposter Syndrome as to how I got that position behind the mixing console in the first place. So, aside from a chance at being productive, I also saw this gig as an opportunity to prove that I could survive in the "real world", and that I could hold up under the scrutiny of actual industry professionals. To me, that's as much a service to God as working in the church itself. So, yeah, I'll be doing a more balanced mix of both from now on, and I hope you're doing well yourself, man.
Really fell that imposter syndrome myself, have a few friend that are youth pastors and at times I feel like I'm only there because there isn't anyone who wants to do the position at my church. I have no formal theology education beyond that which I've gleaned through my interest in apologetics and philosophy. I spend quite a bit of time preparing a lesson: average 20 hours of research combing through peer review journals and various papers, another 10 putting together the lesson and roughly another 10 to further trim it down and to connect it to the sermon portion handled by the pastor. The audio gear has really helped in making that much less of a slog, since I'm usually going through a rotation of songs to pick for worship.
Likewise Taz
Seriously though, I can't say whether or not Taz would work as well with other headphones and IEMs as it does with the Sony pairings. Sony put the same DNA into its products so they speak the same language. Taz and Walkman instinctively know how the IER and MDR are tuned, and DAC/amps them accordingly. With third-party gear it's going to be hit-and-miss.
Yeah incredibly true. Sony build's their products to work with each other at an incredibly high level. Had I not had fit issues with tips the second time I tried the Z1R, that and the TAZ might actually be in the stable.
*rubs hands* You know who to delegate eastern canada tour duties to.
VE tourkit is soon meaning @riverground will be marching in tow with them to my testing. Found local place giving a great price for fixing my phone until the end of term, so things are slightly more flexible at this point, looking to get a warmer dongle to pair with the W2 to give my demoing setup a second opinion where I don't like the 1A pairing.
Speaking of VE: still on the hunt for a well price Meister
Real progress, instead of coat hangar cables, we're onto elevator cables!Yeah if I have to rank cables in terms of how uncomfortable they are, the Creator cables are in a league on their ownSeriously, they sound great, but the Creator 4 is already stiffer than the Yatono-Ultimate 8 wire, which really is saying a lot. I'd imagine I can use the 16 to hold an elevator.
Or just wait for pricing to get more stratospheric, can't be interested if you can conceivably afford it with your own means
Anxiously waiting for that FR. If it was a Jolene with more treble, hmmmmmI, like @kevin638880 was also gonna say none, but @LabelH just shared this over on Nic's thread...
So, 'looks like my guess of it being a budget model just flew out the window.I'm really curious as to why it looks like JH are omitting their bass dials from this one. The teaser on their IG had a 2-pin connector as well. Maybe, they've figured out how to somehow integrate it into the 2-pin format...? I'm really curious about this one now, but I'll let you all know if I hear more.
IEMs can be funtional weapons as well now!
efftee
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On closer inspection, the standard black faceplate is still on the Creator as the DC Ti; a cover over the faceplate is just added to the Creator, as what K2Craft's does, it doesn’t replace the black plastic faceplate with a titanium one. The improvements you are hearing can only be attributed to the Creator cable, which is probably accounting for most of the price differential.
efftee
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Thank you so, so much, brother. I've always seen this opportunity as a way of serving God as well. My church is family-owned, so, despite the years I've spent in Singapore and the education I've received in audio, I can't help but feel a bit of Imposter Syndrome as to how I got that position behind the mixing console in the first place. So, aside from a chance at being productive, I also saw this gig as an opportunity to prove that I could survive in the "real world", and that I could hold up under the scrutiny of actual industry professionals. To me, that's as much a service to God as working in the church itself. So, yeah, I'll be doing a more balanced mix of both from now on, and I hope you're doing well yourself, man.
Quite heartening to find young
not just bearing the faith but serving amidst tight schedules and the distraction of worldly things. Very admirable, no doubt you'll be thoroughly blessed. 
You're one of the most active participants in this thread from out east and you're expressed an interest in hearing the Lime Ears stuff so it seemed a natural call.
It's a different sort of bass imho-- Shichiku Kangen has more oomph & body but it lacks a the sheer liquidity and fathomless extension to the stygian depths that makes the Z1R's bass so tantalizing...they're quite complimentary. If I were ever forced to pick a "one and done" IEM the Shichiku Kangen would be high in the running. Mids are great, it doesn't quite have the transparency and clarity of the Zen Pro but that bass and treble response are so nice.
Never heard of her-- will give her a listen. I don't have a lot of female vocalists in my library oddly.
Feed it as much power as possible. It really loves the juice. Favourite pair up for me with SK was M17 in enhanced over ear mode
The technicalities get a nice jump up with power
I tried the SR25ii first and, while nice I could tell more juice would serve it well. I run it at about the same level as EXT in headphone mode on the M9...sounds wonderful.
Looking forward to your thoughts. Fir kit should be following in a few weeks.
Edit: Speaking of classic tunes...
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Just wrapped up my 4th and final day of listening to the Jewel demo out of the N8ii (high gain/tubes/P+). It went from “this is good but not blown away” on the first day of listening to very impressed by day two and enjoyed it just as much on the final two days. Some impression below...
The treble is very much extended, quite noticeably airy and ethereal with gobs of detail and sparkle. The treble notes have soft/rounded edges, and so it’s a fairly smooth sounding treble, no harshness here at all.
The midrange has tons of clarity and gobs of detail to be heard here. At first, I didn’t think it was more detailed than Odin in the midrange, but I’d have to put the Jewel ahead by a bit now. It was definitely a bit of a trip to hear some things in recordings that I haven’t heard yet, quite surprising really. The instrument timbre is really impressive and certainly eclipses every IEM I’ve heard so far, and vocals are some of the most life-like I’ve heard as well. The upper midrange is certainly elevated but not as aggressively forward as Odin, and so combine that with the wonderful vocal reproduction and lovers of female vocalists should really like this one, and I know I certainly did. Don’t expect big bodied/thick notes and lots of warmth here, it’s more like somewhere between lean and thick, I’d say more towards lean by a bit and just ever so slightly warm. There’s also a really nice amount of air in the midrange notes. A word that often jumped to my mind when I was listening to the vocals / midrange was “Velvety”.
The bass is really quick, well controlled, punchy, and no spilling into the lower midrange. Like Odin, it’s a bass that’s there when the called upon, basically. Don’t expect this to be some bass cannon as it’s not that, but it’s got a pretty good amount of bass for it’s overall tuning and had no problem listening to electronic music with it. The overall bass quantity (i.e. sub + mid bass) is bit more than Odin, but unlike like Odin which goes for a sub bass focus, the Jewel is very evenly balanced between sub and mid bass. I found it very difficult to perceive if either sub or mid bass dominated over the other. Despite the Jewel having more sub bass, I did feel that Odin wins a bit on the feeling of the sub bass rumble, it’s just a bit more visceral with the W9+ DD.
As for the technical type stuff, the soundstage on Jewel is very enveloping with and out of the head experience that’s got really nice width and especially depth. The soundstage height is a bit taller than Odin but I wouldn’t call it the highest I’ve experienced so far, but still very good. Layering and separation are at an incredibly high level here, best I’ve heard. Detail retrieval, as I’ve already alluded to a bit before, is at a very high level as well throughout the frequency spectrum. Another really nice thing was dynamics, which comes close to the level of the XE6 (just a little behind), which is to say it performs really well in this category too. I also listened to the Jewel with some not-so-great recordings and found it surprisingly forgiving with them.
To sum it up, a fantastic IEM and probably the most "Hi-Fi" one I've heard. It also works really well for lots of different genres, although I mostly focused on various sub-genres in electronic music (house, techno, trance, drum and bass, dubstep) and alternative/indie rock, dream pop, and singer-songwriter type stuff. I’m going to miss the
and wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with one later on after trying some other stuff that’s in the pipeline.
The treble is very much extended, quite noticeably airy and ethereal with gobs of detail and sparkle. The treble notes have soft/rounded edges, and so it’s a fairly smooth sounding treble, no harshness here at all.
The midrange has tons of clarity and gobs of detail to be heard here. At first, I didn’t think it was more detailed than Odin in the midrange, but I’d have to put the Jewel ahead by a bit now. It was definitely a bit of a trip to hear some things in recordings that I haven’t heard yet, quite surprising really. The instrument timbre is really impressive and certainly eclipses every IEM I’ve heard so far, and vocals are some of the most life-like I’ve heard as well. The upper midrange is certainly elevated but not as aggressively forward as Odin, and so combine that with the wonderful vocal reproduction and lovers of female vocalists should really like this one, and I know I certainly did. Don’t expect big bodied/thick notes and lots of warmth here, it’s more like somewhere between lean and thick, I’d say more towards lean by a bit and just ever so slightly warm. There’s also a really nice amount of air in the midrange notes. A word that often jumped to my mind when I was listening to the vocals / midrange was “Velvety”.
The bass is really quick, well controlled, punchy, and no spilling into the lower midrange. Like Odin, it’s a bass that’s there when the called upon, basically. Don’t expect this to be some bass cannon as it’s not that, but it’s got a pretty good amount of bass for it’s overall tuning and had no problem listening to electronic music with it. The overall bass quantity (i.e. sub + mid bass) is bit more than Odin, but unlike like Odin which goes for a sub bass focus, the Jewel is very evenly balanced between sub and mid bass. I found it very difficult to perceive if either sub or mid bass dominated over the other. Despite the Jewel having more sub bass, I did feel that Odin wins a bit on the feeling of the sub bass rumble, it’s just a bit more visceral with the W9+ DD.
As for the technical type stuff, the soundstage on Jewel is very enveloping with and out of the head experience that’s got really nice width and especially depth. The soundstage height is a bit taller than Odin but I wouldn’t call it the highest I’ve experienced so far, but still very good. Layering and separation are at an incredibly high level here, best I’ve heard. Detail retrieval, as I’ve already alluded to a bit before, is at a very high level as well throughout the frequency spectrum. Another really nice thing was dynamics, which comes close to the level of the XE6 (just a little behind), which is to say it performs really well in this category too. I also listened to the Jewel with some not-so-great recordings and found it surprisingly forgiving with them.
To sum it up, a fantastic IEM and probably the most "Hi-Fi" one I've heard. It also works really well for lots of different genres, although I mostly focused on various sub-genres in electronic music (house, techno, trance, drum and bass, dubstep) and alternative/indie rock, dream pop, and singer-songwriter type stuff. I’m going to miss the
and wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with one later on after trying some other stuff that’s in the pipeline.
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'Great share! I haven't gone too far into the AURORA rabbit hole, but I love that record. Her cover of Half The World Away is insane.
'Beautiful to hear about your service, man. Speaking of comparing the Sharone to the Jolene, I actually found a comment about that from Jerry Harvey, himself:
Just based on that description alone, I'm neither hot nor cold. The increased bass and flatter centre-midrange both sound appealing, but I don't know about adding even more air up top than the Jolene. Perhaps, the added low-end will even it out. In any case, we'll have to see how the tuning ends up coming together.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering on my K2Craft post.On closer inspection, the standard black faceplate is still on the Creator as the DC Ti; a cover over the faceplate is just added to the Creator, as what K2Craft's does, it doesn’t replace the black plastic faceplate with a titanium one. The improvements you are hearing can only be attributed to the Creator cable, which is probably accounting for most of the price differential.
Quite heartening to find youngpunks, I mean, boys
KuroKitsu
Headphoneus Supremus
My punk phase was declaring myself an agnostic and reading Bart Erhman. I think that's pretty blessed compare to what others have gone through in their journeyQuite heartening to find youngpunks, I mean, boys
. My review delays are mostly related to working on the lessons for youth. We're resuming in-person services soon, so hopefully that doesn't cut into my time for the demo tour reviews.Same, I found it pretty cool that you started serving in a way tied to your interests.'Beautiful to hear about your service, man. Speaking of comparing the Sharone to the Jolene, I actually found a comment about that from Jerry Harvey, himself:
Just based on that description alone, I'm neither hot nor cold. The increased bass and flatter centre-midrange both sound appealing, but I don't know about adding even more air up top than the Jolene. Perhaps, the added low-end will even it out. In any case, we'll have to see how the tuning ends up coming together.
That's an interesting description. It's not what I would think would align to my tastes, but maybe I'll be surprised, JH has been tweaking with the upper mid region in a way that I do like. I also got to revisit the Jolene, since I really think the Fourte in the same session threw me off (as well as the issues I've been told with that demo unit).
riverground
Headphoneus Supremus
I'm down for it haha
I try to be as active as I could. It's such a fun forum to be on. And I'm addicted to browsing the classifieds even though I'm so broke...
That was the thing about what made me say the SK had "better" bass. It's because of the overall tonality of it that made me love it so much more that I decided to let go of my Z1R for the SK in a crazy trade that happened last year lmao
While I do love The Z1R's Bass and Treble... The more present mids coming from the SK and those gorgeous lacquered faceplates just shout "Marry Me" to my aesthetically forward brain. Not to say the Z1R's weren't pretty, it's just a different type of elegance. But yeah, I agree with having them complement each other though. That's why I've never fully erased the Z1R in my sig since I'm still on a hunt to get one back. I love both of these IEMs. The Z1R is the sole reason my passion for the hobby ignited once again. After being away from the hobby for 4 years since I got the Layla way back in 2015, nothing seemed to attract my ears(and my eyes) as much as the Z1R did. I've tried the S-EM9 and Grace (this was pretty close tho lol) from Earsonics, Noble's Khan, LX and Valky from EE (I'm not gonna include the Wraith, since that did tug my heartstrings but the price scared me away at the time since it was even more expensive than the Layla when I bought it new/I could actually put the KSE1500 on this category too since both these IEMs impressed me hard but the fact that they cost so much and the KSE needing the energizer would make my transit commutes quite a bit harder), Meze's Rai Penta, Audeze's LCD-i4 (while I was pretty impressed, the form factor just didn't do it for me since I use my IEMs during transit, it would've been just an in the house kinda IEM if so I'd rather have an open-back headphone system instead). None of those really did it for me. After getting the Z1R, I decided to open my account back and finally join in the talks lol
I've been a lurker since 2008, but I felt my "know-how" was still quite a bit lacking at the time when I was very much more into full-sized cans and speakers to actually join the conversations.
But hey, here I am now, almost 3 years being back on the forums with a Headphoneus Supremus badge. Quite an accomplishment in my books haha
Yeah man, give her a listen with the SK!
Here are a couple more recommendations from me.
If you're into French pop Angele is pretty good!
And if you're into some Bossa Nova this album is great! I'm sure there are quite a number of songs you'd be familiar with, this time with a Bossa flavour!
Listen to the ones with 'Bossanatics & Ana Costa" in them. Ana's voice is just so airy and chill.
riverground
Headphoneus Supremus
Yeah man! I've gotten addicted to her voice after I discovered her from watching "Frozen 2" in the theatres.'Great share! I haven't gone too far into the AURORA rabbit hole, but I love that record. Her cover of Half The World Away is insane.
Her voice just captured my ears with her "role" in "Into the Unknown".
GiullianSN
Headphoneus Supremus
I’m excited…
Just based on that description alone, I'm neither hot nor cold. The increased bass and flatter centre-midrange both sound appealing, but I don't know about adding even more air up top than the Jolene. Perhaps, the added low-end will even it out. In any case, we'll have to see how the tuning ends up coming together.
Looks like a shift on Layla’s signature that lots of people have been asking for.
New toy has arrived!
Initial “out-of-the-box” sound thoughts… I understand why people go crazy for L&P’s R2R. It just sounds so real. Even with the electronic stuff I listen to, vocals sound incredibly natural and analogue. The tonal balance is spot on. Hard to say if it’s “warm” or “analytical” leaning because it sounds so well balanced between both. Listening now with jewel and It’s obvious that mids are the star of the show, but man, the bass hits super hard and deep and the treble sounds fantastic too. Super impressed with the sound.
I just can’t get past L&P’s UI
I like the design of the vol button!Oh yeah the UI is terribleI just can’t get past L&P’s UI
I’m using it in dac mode, streaming from my iPhone with an OTG cable 
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