To those who owns/heard both the UM Red Halo and the Mentor, how does these compare?
The Mentor and Red Halo FE share pretty much the same backbone but are handled differently in the bass.
Both earphones are the supreme rulers of midrange frequency in today's market, and in my personal view it's quite ahead of the competition in midrange frequency dynamics, timbre, resolution and low-level detail retrieval of nuance.
Where they are different is the bass to low mids transition. The easiest way to put it is the Mentor is the American sound to the more Eastern sound of the Red Halo.
I parted with my Red Halo after Canjam SoCal when I realized Mentor is all I could hope for in a do-it-all iem. I was also considering a Trailli + cash for it at some point as I do prefer the Trailli ease-of-listening despite its lesser fidelity - it just sounds more realistic than RH.
In a sense, Mentor is exactly the hybrid of Red Halo FE & Trailli, but perhaps more so tilted to the Trailli ever slightly.
Red Halo is Mid forward with a slight midbass hump, but the upper mids are too forward and it lacks a bit of air.
Mentor Multivverse is mid-forward too, with a significant bass hump and the upper mids are slightly south of Harman, and treble is a bit boosted.
Mentor Multiverse:
Sub-bass, slightly boosted (9/10)
Midbass, notably boosted (9.5/10)
Low mids, perfect and organic (10/10)
Midrange, perfect with phenomenal transient attack (10/10)
Upper midrange/ presence, dancing on the edge of both relaxed yet somewhat forward, great dynamics (9/10)
Mid treble, crystaline clear with sharp attack but never shrieky, hashy or grainy (10/10)
Upper treble, slightly relaxed sense of air, brings mids into focus and images front and depth forward more so than enveloping you in space (9.5/10)
Red Halo Fe:
Sub-bass, severely lacking presence (7/10)
Midbass, slight;y above neutral (9/10)
Low mids, perfect and organic (10/10)
Midrange, perfect with phenomenal transient attack (10/10)
Upper midrange/ presence, quite forward and extremely detailed/transparent, great dynamics. Impressive but also can be tiring (9/10)
Mid treble, crystaline clear with sharp attack but never shrieky, hashy or grainy (10/10)
Upper treble, slightly relaxed sense of air, brings mids into focus and images front and depth forward more so than enveloping you in space. Perhaps a bit wider sounding than Mentor, simply due to the lower amount of bass off-setting perception here (9.5/10)
Trailli:
Sub-bass, slightly boosted, 1-2 dB more elevated than Mentor (9/10)
Midbass, wonderfully done and above neutral but in a satisfying way (9.5/10)
Low mids, near-perfect and organic, even syrupy sometimes (9.5/10)
Midrange, one of the bests our there, and my favorite if favoring a bit of lushness/ sweetness to its timbre (10/10)
Upper midrange/ presence, quite relaxed which is tonally pleasant and inoffensive. However, hurts electrics guitars and engagement factor/ dynamics (8.5/10)
Mid treble, crystaline clear with nice tone, never shrieky, hashy or grainy. Lacks a bit of attack (9/10)
Upper treble, slightly relaxed sense of air, brings mids into focus and images front and depth forward more so than enveloping you in space staging & imaging is fantastically done (9.5/10)
I would easily take both MM & Trailli over the RH, but I can see the appeal of the latter for the traditional audiophile.
RH gets 64.5; MM gets 67; Trailli gets 65 out of 70 (whatever this metric means lol)
