[HiFiHawaii808]

I was trying to pick something entertaining to watch on Netflix to kill time....nevermind. The EE thread will do.

I hate to admit this, but I watched the K-drama "Doona." It was my first ever. I absolutely hated it and yet I couldn't stop watching it. They invented a new genre which I will call The Romantic Tragedy. It's like a chord progression that never resolves. It just leaves you hanging. And, it is infuriating. So much so that after it ended, I was still pissed off for 2-3 days after it was over. The acting was fabulous. Now they need a second season so that the chord progression can resolve. I have such cognitive dissonance with how it ended.

 

[kevin638880]

I'm not a specialist on this one but I think the entry should be Ragnar, as the Viking is a special version of the Ragnar. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

drftr

Viking was the original limited release with a full Damascus steel body. Ragnar came after that as a "standard" version. I guess you could call it a special version?

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

No I'm pretty sure it's the other way around-- Viking Ragnar, Viking Damascus etc. @HiFiHawaii808 could you clarify?

Yes, Noble Viking is the family name. Ragnar and Damascus are variants of the Viking family. They are supposed to all sound the same, but they don't to most people,

 

[kevin638880]

I hate to admit this, but I watched the K-drama "Doona." It was my first ever. I absolutely hated it and yet I couldn't stop watching it. They invented a new genre which I will call The Romantic Tragedy. It's like a chord progression that never resolves. It just leaves you hanging. And, it is infuriating. So much so that after it ended, I was still pissed off for 2-3 days after it was over. The acting was fabulous. Now they need a second season so that the chord progression can resolve. I have such cognitive dissonance with how it ended.

Is that something extra you must complete in addition to the BTS concert? Jokes aside thanks for the recommendation, will take a lo......

It's like a chord progression that never resolves.

I may need to think again.

 

[drftr]

Yes, Noble Viking is the family name. Ragnar and Damascus are variants of the Viking family. They are supposed to all sound the same, but they don't to most people,

Oh well... Anyway, we're a bit closer to 5,000 pages yet again

drftr

 

[linux4ever]

Hi coolers,

Got to try some nice new stuff today!

Dita Project M :


Very cool set from Dita! The looks are awesome as usual with Dita iems! Always elegant and subdued but always oozing quality! Project M is no exception despite a fairly affordable price which is below $300.
Fit is also great, with a somewhat deep insertion but very comfortable. I typically use M or L tips but I find this one working great with S tips , providing deep custom like fit.

Sound is really amazing for the price! If I didn’t know the price before hand and just judging by the looks and sound I would have thought it would be way more expensive in the current market pricing policy. It also comes with a cardas cable.
Tuning is great with good balance, nothing wonky to my ears. Great timbre for vocals (from the Dita products I tried so far, I’d say that were the brand generally shines), good treble extension without being harsh, and nice bass reproduction with good quality but as with Perpetua I’d wish there would be a little bit more presence. Soundstage feels adequate, not the biggest ever but still substantial with nice realism and positioning accuracy.

Overall an excellent offering! When factoring in the price I’d say it is an amazing offering!


Oriolus Monachaa :


These are quite something! Really like the vibe they provide!
Bass isn’t basshead level but certainly not shy at all! They can slam quite hard when called for with good impact and tactile feedback. Also, I think the bass can reach very low sub bass frequencies better and with more substance than a good chunk of the iems on the market.

Mids are flavorful à la Traillii with a bit less warmth but still keeping most of the sexiness. I just personally think it’s got a tiny bit too much energy in the upper midrange for some female vocals, but I think I’m more sensitive than most in that frequency range. Nothing serious, it’s not harsh by any stretch! Just a personal preference.

Trebles are quite good as well! Good extension and detail retrieval, without the digital vibe that can come out from some BA or EST sets.

Soundstage is also not too dissimilar to Traillii’s.
Pretty spacious in all directions, but more focus on width than depth. I also felt a nice sensation of height in the way it was portraying music.

Really cool stuff overall! If I didn’t have Simphonio P0, I could have been tempted, but they do share some similarities and I think P0 has the edge in terms of detail retrieval, soundstage size and realism as well as mid bass quality. Monachaa was doing a bit better on the deepest sub bass though.

All in all, another amazing piece of gear from Oriolus with a fairly competitive price tag IMHO.


See Audio Hakuya :


This is the first time I demo an IEM from that brand, and I must say these are pretty cool!
Very nicely executed tuning, that sounds right to me! Everything felt pretty much in its right place. No real standout features except the great tuning as a whole.
Technically it’s also excellent from soundstage size, placement, layering, detail retrieval without once again being overly done.
The only thing I would like to improve would be the bass. It feels a little bit shy and could use a little bit slam and groove.

This specific set I believe is a limited edition with only 10 units and it sells for a bit below $3000. I think it’s only the cosmetics that are in limited run (not sure).



Next I tried this cute “little” guy that’s been laying around in that shop for a while but I never took time to try out :



I don’t have much interest in this kind of “trans-portable” stuff because it just doesn’t fit my use case, but I just wanted to check out what could possibly be extracted from my P0 with the mighty Mjolnir!
Well… surely it does sound awesome, but it didn’t blow my mind either… detail retrieval and soundstage are impressive but it felt a bit too referency overall. I mean, it’s not sterile at all, but I like me a bit more oomph and body in the lower register. I would even say (and I’ll probably get stoned for it ) that I’m preferring the sound I’m getting out from my ibasso DC Elite! The bass is more flavorful and it (to me) did not actually feel like it was blatantly outclassed in technicalities by the mighty Mjolnir. YMMV of course, but in my case, I’m happy (and probably blessed) that my ears are already outperformed by my small phone dongle!! That’s some serious phone dongle though, trust me!!!

Anyways, today was a pretty good hunt! Only cool stuff worth a shot to demo!

Cheers everyone and enjoy your weekend!

Julien

Seems like Julien is having lotsa fun. Thanks for those nice impressions. Project M and at that price of below $300 is such a welcome thing in these ever inflating price these days.

Penon iems, Campfire Audio - Bonneville, Blackstar, Cascara. Custom Art Fibae 5, Oriolus Szalayi all have been good ones and also priced below $1500.

 

[Rockwell75]

Hi coolers,

Got to try some nice new stuff today!

Dita Project M :


Very cool set from Dita! The looks are awesome as usual with Dita iems! Always elegant and subdued but always oozing quality! Project M is no exception despite a fairly affordable price which is below $300.
Fit is also great, with a somewhat deep insertion but very comfortable. I typically use M or L tips but I find this one working great with S tips , providing deep custom like fit.

Sound is really amazing for the price! If I didn’t know the price before hand and just judging by the looks and sound I would have thought it would be way more expensive in the current market pricing policy. It also comes with a cardas cable.
Tuning is great with good balance, nothing wonky to my ears. Great timbre for vocals (from the Dita products I tried so far, I’d say that were the brand generally shines), good treble extension without being harsh, and nice bass reproduction with good quality but as with Perpetua I’d wish there would be a little bit more presence. Soundstage feels adequate, not the biggest ever but still substantial with nice realism and positioning accuracy.

Overall an excellent offering! When factoring in the price I’d say it is an amazing offering!


Oriolus Monachaa :


These are quite something! Really like the vibe they provide!
Bass isn’t basshead level but certainly not shy at all! They can slam quite hard when called for with good impact and tactile feedback. Also, I think the bass can reach very low sub bass frequencies better and with more substance than a good chunk of the iems on the market.

Mids are flavorful à la Traillii with a bit less warmth but still keeping most of the sexiness. I just personally think it’s got a tiny bit too much energy in the upper midrange for some female vocals, but I think I’m more sensitive than most in that frequency range. Nothing serious, it’s not harsh by any stretch! Just a personal preference.

Trebles are quite good as well! Good extension and detail retrieval, without the digital vibe that can come out from some BA or EST sets.

Soundstage is also not too dissimilar to Traillii’s.
Pretty spacious in all directions, but more focus on width than depth. I also felt a nice sensation of height in the way it was portraying music.

Really cool stuff overall! If I didn’t have Simphonio P0, I could have been tempted, but they do share some similarities and I think P0 has the edge in terms of detail retrieval, soundstage size and realism as well as mid bass quality. Monachaa was doing a bit better on the deepest sub bass though.

All in all, another amazing piece of gear from Oriolus with a fairly competitive price tag IMHO.


See Audio Hakuya :


This is the first time I demo an IEM from that brand, and I must say these are pretty cool!
Very nicely executed tuning, that sounds right to me! Everything felt pretty much in its right place. No real standout features except the great tuning as a whole.
Technically it’s also excellent from soundstage size, placement, layering, detail retrieval without once again being overly done.
The only thing I would like to improve would be the bass. It feels a little bit shy and could use a little bit slam and groove.

This specific set I believe is a limited edition with only 10 units and it sells for a bit below $3000. I think it’s only the cosmetics that are in limited run (not sure).



Next I tried this cute “little” guy that’s been laying around in that shop for a while but I never took time to try out :



I don’t have much interest in this kind of “trans-portable” stuff because it just doesn’t fit my use case, but I just wanted to check out what could possibly be extracted from my P0 with the mighty Mjolnir!
Well… surely it does sound awesome, but it didn’t blow my mind either… detail retrieval and soundstage are impressive but it felt a bit too referency overall. I mean, it’s not sterile at all, but I like me a bit more oomph and body in the lower register. I would even say (and I’ll probably get stoned for it ) that I’m preferring the sound I’m getting out from my ibasso DC Elite! The bass is more flavorful and it (to me) did not actually feel like it was blatantly outclassed in technicalities by the mighty Mjolnir. YMMV of course, but in my case, I’m happy (and probably blessed) that my ears are already outperformed by my small phone dongle!! That’s some serious phone dongle though, trust me!!!

Anyways, today was a pretty good hunt! Only cool stuff worth a shot to demo!

Cheers everyone and enjoy your weekend!

Julien

Great post thank-you for sharing. I'm especially grateful for the Project M impressions-- I think the first I have seen. Your comment on the Perpetua needing a bit more bass presence is interesting-- I find the bass to be quite prominent and satisfying, and this is something I'm generally quite nitpicky about. YMMV and all that.

 

[tamtrum]

I hate to admit this, but I watched the K-drama "Doona." It was my first ever. I absolutely hated it and yet I couldn't stop watching it. They invented a new genre which I will call The Romantic Tragedy. It's like a chord progression that never resolves. It just leaves you hanging. And, it is infuriating. So much so that after it ended, I was still pissed off for 2-3 days after it was over. The acting was fabulous. Now they need a second season so that the chord progression can resolve. I have such cognitive dissonance with how it ended.

I felt the same about Doona as well, the ending kinda blue balls you. Rest of the story was great up until the ending. If you wanted to give kdrama another chance for something kinda similar in tone to Doona but without the blue ball ending, I would highly recommend “It’s Okay To Not Be Okay” also on Netflix.

Cheers.

 

[nephilim32]

You bet! I have Trifecta and Equinox to compare with (on the DD side). Can't wait to get my WM1Z and N30 back, but in the meantime will have DMP Z1 and Hugo 2 to contend with.

You call it “contention” I call it euphony. You are absolutely stacked in high end portable/transportable gear.

 

[sm0rf]

Oh wow, you were able to get one?! If you have an opportunity, try it with the Martini cable, oh boy...

Purchased the Turii OG on HiFiGo 2 years ago and asked them in early 2023 about the turboo silver cable and they added it to their sortiment.

That Liquid Links cable might indeed a great opportunity while none intention right now...

 

[ttt123]

Q for the rippers among you

Would there be an audible difference between ripping CDs to Flac at 4x or, say, 20 times the speed? Or would the only difference be error correction kicking in more/less often? Which may worsen the sound all the same I guess?

drftr

The general advice I have seen was to rip at lower speeds. Also lower speeds use less power, so more stable power rails, and overall, less Errors, and error handling. Given a choice, it is better to be slow and steady, like the tortoise.

Ripping can get complex. What does the CIRC error correction do when it runs into errors during on the fly extracting/ripping? What does it do with the results? Make a best guess extrapolation, or throw it away?

It makes sense that a lower speed should make it easier for the laser head to read the track.

Here's an interesting article on how a CD Transport works: https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-how-much-impact-can-cd-transport-have-sound-quality

An Audio CD is a stream of bits, and not structured like a data CD with a filesystem. The Audio CD data stream uses CIRC (Cross Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding) error correction:

"The CIRC error correction scheme is clever and effective. It uses two levels of error detection. The first level flags correctable errors, i.e., errors that can be 100% corrected! The second level flags uncorrectable errors. In the rare cases of uncorrectable errors, the system will first attempt to interpolate the missing data from the audio samples it already holds in buffer memory. If the condition persists, eventually interpolation will fail and the player will mute. However, the error correction scheme is clever enough to offset left and right channel data (so they see different error conditions) and then use interleaving and coding techniques to minimize the error chances (the error rate of CD is about 10^-11)."

There are other articles that state that the CD bit stream, with it's CIRC error correction, is able to correct, or interpolate ALL errors, thus is perfect. To me, this sounds like a familiar statement, similar to "bits are bits", so all digital methodology is perfect. I am doubtful about the "perfection" of Audio CD extraction, but of course, this is only my opinion.

Everybody is familiar with these discussions, and they are a mine pit, which I will definitely avoid.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Is that something extra you must complete in addition to the BTS concert? Jokes aside thanks for the recommendation, will take a lo......


I may need to think again.

If they come up with a season 2, I will binge watch it over a weekend.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I felt the same about Doona as well, the ending kinda blue balls you. Rest of the story was great up until the ending. If you wanted to give kdrama another chance for something kinda similar in tone to Doona but without the blue ball ending, I would highly recommend “It’s Okay To Not Be Okay” also on Netflix.

Cheers.

I've seen that series pop up. My wife is into everything Korean so I get a lot of kdrama recs. She is even taking Korean language classes and travels to Korea a few times per year.

As I said, the acting is great. So is the character development. What is puzzling to me are the decisions they make. What I am unsure of is whether or not those are typical cultural decisions they would make or if I am just missing something with their puzzling choices. I guess if they make the right decision, the series would be over in one episode. It's a bit like when every villain takes their time killing the hero in an action film and they always end up regretting that decision. If you are a bad guy, the general rule is kill the good guy as soon as you get a chance. Don't tie him up and tell him your plan. Just kill him.

 

[RonaldS86]

please do share your impressions when you’re ready.

Here you go
FiR E12
All I can say is that E12 sounds good and quite a fun tuning IEM. Their stock cable are great visually and sonically, but suffer same problem like RN6 (at least for me), which is finding a proper eartips for it is such a pain in the butt
I end up using Softears Ultraclear on E12 and I can say it's a good pair. It's a V shape IEM and listening to the Weeknd with it is such a treat, but yeah I think the treble are a little bit harsh sometimes but still acceptable. The bass has a great quantity and quality, but maybe this is the first time I don't like a driver flex on DD due to their big 12mm driver so those who hate it please just stay away from it. But then suddenly @Deezel177 said (We have a little meet up ) "Hey, do you want to try Singularity?", which I replied promptly "Yeah, sure "
And once again, I need a little time to find a proper eartips for it due to their short nozzle and finally Spinfit W1 do the job. If I have to say and to pick between E12 or Singularity with a gun pointed to my head, I can give you immediate answer. Singularity wins hands down. I love their linear tuning and more controlled treble plus their great bass, but I still don't understand what's wrong with their stock cable. It's too thin I fear I could break it with a minimal force applied to it

VE X
Well well well, maybe this is the first time I see a VE IEM with a rather normal size nozzle (or maybe it's actually on the smaller side?).
When I see it, I have to admit I have a glimpse of hope that I will like it because it's viable to me in term of ergonomics. So I start rummaging on my assorted eartips storage and end up using Spinfit W1 again on VE X and voila it works for me
When I put it on my ears, I immediately feel happy, because at last I found a VE IEM that doesn't feel like I'm shoving a pear of anguish into my ear canals
I listen to The Weeknd again and boy, the VE X sounds so good
I can hear all the details and feel the texture of the bass. IMO it has a linear tuning too with their mid as a center of attention but their bass and treble aren't left behind. I'll definitely pick it up if I'm not going to the Canjam SG next year, but I think I'll put it on my "To buy list" for now. I want to reserve my last empty spot on my IEM case for something on Canjam SG if there's a new and interesting toys. But if there's nothing good on there, VE X will fill the void

 

[drftr]

The general advice I have seen was to rip at lower speeds. Also lower speeds use less power, so more stable power rails, and overall, less Errors, and error handling. Given a choice, it is better to be slow and steady, like the tortoise.

Ripping can get complex. What does the CIRC error correction do when it runs into errors during on the fly extracting/ripping? What does it do with the results? Make a best guess extrapolation, or throw it away?

It makes sense that a lower speed should make it easier for the laser head to read the track.

Here's an interesting article on how a CD Transport works: https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-how-much-impact-can-cd-transport-have-sound-quality

An Audio CD is a stream of bits, and not structured like a data CD with a filesystem. The Audio CD data stream uses CIRC (Cross Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding) error correction:

"The CIRC error correction scheme is clever and effective. It uses two levels of error detection. The first level flags correctable errors, i.e., errors that can be 100% corrected! The second level flags uncorrectable errors. In the rare cases of uncorrectable errors, the system will first attempt to interpolate the missing data from the audio samples it already holds in buffer memory. If the condition persists, eventually interpolation will fail and the player will mute. However, the error correction scheme is clever enough to offset left and right channel data (so they see different error conditions) and then use interleaving and coding techniques to minimize the error chances (the error rate of CD is about 10^-11)."

There are other articles that state that the CD bit stream, with it's CIRC error correction, is able to correct, or interpolate ALL errors, thus is perfect. To me, this sounds like a familiar statement, similar to "bits are bits", so all digital methodology is perfect. I am doubtful about the "perfection" of Audio CD extraction, but of course, this is only my opinion.

Everybody is familiar with these discussions, and they are a mine pit, which I will definitely avoid.

I came across AccurateRip which is a database the signal is compared with to ensure a 100% rip. Interesting concept. It's a bit like the MS-DOS xcopy command that compares every single bit of a copy with the original file.

http://www.accuraterip.com/

drftr