[dmphile]

This is well said. Sometimes when you are caught up with FOMO you just need to take a step back and breathe. This year has been crazy for me. It all started with a post Covid trip to Singapore to catch up with family. While I was there:

Xe6 and Indigo

Then back to Vietnam and:

Traillii
First Times (non shielding)

Got the FOMO:

First Times (shielding)

Supermoon hype:

Supermoon (Universal).

There were other midfi iems also just to see what the fuss was all about.

Now my wish list includes:

RS8, Odyssey and an EE.

I think I have to take a few steps back and just enjoy what I have at the moment and not let life go by!

All that said, love the music and this community! Problem is that it moves so fast and catching up is sometimes a challenge!

Agree, some of us need to slow down and enjoy the ride before trying to jump out. As I look in the mirror.

As it should friend we are now jewel cultists xD jk jk and soon to join us @dmphile hehe

At this rate, this is what I'm afraid of. Although I can show restraint if thunder and Indigo continue to impress. I'm big on the price / performance ratio so I've hit a point in my journey where I'd like to smell the roses a bit.

 

[yaps66]

2 months, and I'll help you clean out the house. That's what friends are for!

drftr

Haha! More like clean out the office. No evidence of my addiction in the house, but yes, looking forward to some head cleaning at the very least!

 

[Chronos]

This one seems to be the stillborn of the bunch. It totally slipped my notice and I didn't hear anyone else talking about it.

Its strange because people were constantly demoing it at the Musicteck booth but we really haven't heard much about it despite it being one of the stars of CanJam London.

 

[WilliamBlake]

Hah, no if I was truly wise I would delete my account and stop lurking here

real wisdom maybe is in finding balance, that is really tough, so neither delete the account nor buy infinite sets of iems, just my thought

 

[Scubadevils]

After a week listening to Twilight on holidays, I 'tried' to listen to IE600 and TZ700 yesterday... the former sounded too 'digital', and the latter too bassy and somewhat clinical by comparison to the very natural tonality of Twilight. I know I'll adjust to both again, a great example of brain burn-in when switching sets - plus choice of genre is also key. However, if I did a single DD ranking today, Twilight would sit at the top.

Twilight on LPGT is a blissful combination...

/endshill

 

[Skyediver]

Campfire Fall Equinox sale - https://campfireaudio.com/product-category/custom/

All CIEMs are $1100 including the Supermoon.

Damn. I wish I heard Supermoon last week. Custom, too? Nice. Getting a lot of love here and priced “reasonable” even.

 

[Skyediver]

And to be fair I really wish I could spend more time with the A&K SP3000 to give it a fair evaluation. There were just too many modes, setting, etc to really listen in a 10-30 minute session and give it a fair evaluation. If I can use that DAP as a portable stack replacement for headphones I see the merit in it. DAPs are hard to evaluate in a show setting.

I agree with this. I was hoping more from the SP3000. I think it nails UI better than most other brands, and it’s a relatively minor thing, but I like that it’s truly Roon Ready. Over in it’s forum, there was some discussion from the AK rep on why it’s the only DAP that has that status, but I was just underwhelmed sonically when I listened with the Odyssey and my Traiillii/Orphy config. It had resolution for days on both setups, but almost seemed underpowered, not the engaging listen I hoped for. I triangulated that it was the SP3000 that was the issue because trying the Odyssey and Traiiliii on the HiBy RS8? Mind blown!

But, in SP3000’s defense, this was maybe 30m of show conditions listening time and I didn’t futz with many of the settings, just enough for caveman-level volume/gain level balancing.

So now deep DAP review at all, but I DID email Andrew and ask to be put on his HiBy RS8 waitlist. I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m really trying to lean more minimalist in my audiophile acquisitions, but I think the RS8 will be a nice complimentary R2R source with my Cayin N8ii, is the way I’m leaning right now.

 

[Skyediver]

Oh yes, definitely aware of the craziness, and been hanging around here long enough to have dabbled. Just found for me that diminishing returns kicked in real hard and personally I have just pivoted to struggling to find value in a lot of the more expensive stuff. I know there are differences to be had, I just have lost the desire to spend that money to chase what often amounts to pretty small changes. Just isnt for me. Still want to hear a lot of that stuff and even considered jumping on some tours, but I would rather not even tempt myself and will likely be focusing on more value type purchases that offer something unique. Seemingly like the fatfreq maestro mini I just bought.

As I said though, always interesting to see whats releasing and see all you guys sharing impressions of your new toys.

I’m trying to be this way. I emphasize “trying”, lol!

This year for me the goal was to be a minimalist, and build one, complete, versatile, TOTL setup, and I accomplished that for myself over about six months: Cayin N8ii, Oriolus Traillii, PW Audio Orpheus. Done. And extremely happy! Still very happy, not selling anything.

Then I started hanging here, lol!

Seriously, goal is still to not sell anything (I just don’t like the used market, shipping, packaging blah blah blah back and forth, but that’s just my issue), and eventually land on 3 (okay, maybe 4) TOTL IEMs that would provide just enough sound flavor profiles to be different enough to rotate them and be solidly happy with whatever I grabbed depending on mood/use case. Still the end goal, the challenge is there’s just so much good stuff out there.

Thinking about this, I think the industry has reached an inflection point where there really is an abundance of amazing sounding gear that we can choose from. Even five, six years ago I’d say it was easier to point to a few brands/IEMs that stood out as justified summit tier level, separated by the rest of the field. Now, I think that’s just harder to do, there’s a lot of killer stuff to listen to and consider.

Great for us! Harder to be a minimalist. Also makes me hopeful that there’s some designer out there tinkering, designing something truly next level, and shatters this paradigm again with “something” that’s truly taking the industry to even greater heights.

It’s a GREAT time to be a portable audiophile fan, despite the damage it does to our wallets.

 

[Skyediver]

Always a pleasure @warrenpchi and yes I need to travel south a bit more often...

I thought we had a table? Oh wait that was the Musicteck booth!

Hah, yeah! MusicTeck is great.

We spent so much time there I was worried we overstayed our welcome, like bad Thanksgiving dinner guests. In asking to be put on the RS8 waitlist I apologized if we were “too much”, realizing he’s a retailer that was conducting business. Happy to report that Andrew wouldn’t hear of it, and is extremely happy to host our boisterous gang. He said the Watercooler Gang has a permanent CanJam meetup spot with him, for years to come. Nice!

There may be those who would possibly think that he’d say that because it would be good for business and all. Then you meet the man and his team, and realize this is all genuine and from the heart on his part.

 

[Skyediver]

Sorry, wish I knew this. The players were connected via USB C to charge, but could be unplugged and moved. Plenty of people took the SP3000 and/or Odyssey over to the couch or one of the chairs to listen. You didn't need to be tied to the table. We also encouraged people to use their own music on microSD and we had a number of people use their own cables with Odyseey. We also had our own dedicated hotspot and had every streaming service available if someone preferred to use that instead of the music we had preloaded. We are pretty flexible at the shows and encourage people to listen any way they want.

I appreciate this. Thanks for chiming in. Looking forward to give another listen and take this into consideration maybe at CanJam NYC.

Good luck with the new flagship launch!

 

[MatW]

Hah, yeah! MusicTeck is great.

We spent so much time there I was worried we overstayed our welcome, like bad Thanksgiving dinner guests. In asking to be put on the RS8 waitlist I apologized if we were “too much”, realizing he’s a retailer that was conducting business. Happy to report that Andrew wouldn’t hear of it, and is extremely happy to host our boisterous gang. He said the Watercooler Gang has a permanent CanJam meetup spot with him, for years to come. Nice!

There may be those who would possibly think that he’d say that because it would be good for business and all. Then you meet the man and his team, and realize this is all genuine and from the heart on his part.

I don’t like the words RS8 and waitlist in the same sentence, much less right next to each other..

 

[Skyediver]

I updated the front page of the thread to include my CanJam impressions post as well as results of our summer and spring surveys. Fall top 3 survey will run this weekend-- as it's fall now in the northern hemisphere.

I love those posts, Jeff. Appreciate the work you do to tabulate the information, and it’s really interesting to see the ebb and flow of “what’s hot” over time. Some IEMs rise in ranking, some fall, and a few stay the same, and it’s a true resource for us consumers. Thanks for doing the work, brother!

 

[Amadeo Nospherathu]

I'm looking for nio as suggested and lime pneuma too, think can be my cup of tea

Yeah, I guess that's a good option too. Especially the first ones.
If you need more mass and weight.
But if you need technical skills - rather the second ones. The first are more massive, but when it comes to technical records - there may be problems with speed.

 

[GRIFONE1973]

After a week listening to Twilight on holidays, I 'tried' to listen to IE600 and TZ700 yesterday... the former sounded too 'digital', and the latter too bassy and somewhat clinical by comparison to the very natural tonality of Twilight. I know I'll adjust to both again, a great example of brain burn-in when switching sets - plus choice of genre is also key. However, if I did a single DD ranking today, Twilight would sit at the top.

Twilight on LPGT is a blissful combination...

/endshill

Hello dear, as you know , I am happy owner of ie600 and I am very well.I also hear sometimes a "digital" effect that however does not affect the good feeling with this small headphone. Do you think Twilight is more effective on rock metal? Or Oriolus Szalay? Thanks in advance

 

[KuroKitsu]

As it should friend we are now jewel cultists xD jk jk and soon to join us @dmphile hehe

And here I am waiting to snap up their gear when they clear house

Odin wants some friends.