[swedishpat]

Third party reshells of custom in ear monitors is hardly ideal and comes with risk. You will be much better off ruling out used monitors and purchasing new units.

Yes no third party. Just in-house. Fir audio did my ne4 reshell which turned out great

 

[aaf evo]

Looking for some advice from the great professionals on here!

Want to spend around $3000 on a new or used Custom CIEM. (universals don’t work) I have these in mind:

Fir RN6
Kinera Loki
Grand Maestro
CFA Bonneville
Used UM Mentor
Used Jewel

I like crisp clarity, natural voices like they’re whispering into my ears, and most importantly deep powerful bass. Not too laid back, I would like something a bit exciting. I listen mostly to pop, rock, indie, folk and americana. My favorite headphone is the D8000. Which would be your choice?

Thanks!!

There is no Loki CIEM. Just a heads up.

 

[swedishpat]

There is no Loki CIEM. Just a heads up.

Oh I thought there was! Ruled out then

 

[Valrhona]

Yes

Also yes

This bit

Also this bit specifically.

There, I trimmed it for you.

I'm still here, on and off. Rn6, for better or worse, pretty much has me out of the game for the foreseeable future. My enjoyment has peaked when it comes to what little time I get to enjoy my music these days, although lord help me, if medical bills weren't at the foremost of my concerns, I'd consider grabbing a Trifecta for that something different. I still really, really want that golden sunset colorway, but no way could I swing full retail for it from Hong Kong.

Time is one of those things that I try to set aside (if I could) for music listening. But it can be difficult. So I quite cherish it when I have good sessions. May you always have good health.

 

[ttt123]

Asking because on a few forums listening comparisons pointed to wav being superior sounding BUT flac being more versatile, smaller, faster. "A man" doesn't want to regret 2 years of daily ripping in flac and then rip for a 3rd time in wav later on. Something tells me a few 'round here may have done listening tests themselves. If not, then I guess I will take a bite and open up the can of worms myself.

@Rockwell75 Made me think back about a Palestinian song I once heard called "Drowning, not waving".

drftr

I don't believe the decision is that critical, as FLAC files can be ripped into WAV (and vice versa) at a later date, without needing to go through the the laborious rip from the CD again. So you are not stuck forever, with one or the other. Can always convert from one to the other in the future.

- To me, WAV gets just a little closer to a naturalness of vocals, closer to emotive feel with the singer. This aspect may be less/not important to many people, so for them there is no gain. As with so many things, it is up to the user, their system, and preferences, whether there is a worthwhile difference. Try it for yourself.

- Theoretically, WAV is a simpler reproductive chain than FLAC, and on the principle of reducing the chain to as simple as possible, WAV has an advantage.

- Whether it is a small difference, noticeable or not, etc., etc., is a common question to the people on this forum, so this is nothing new.

I do find it amusing that a view that micro SD cards make a difference can be viewed as extreme, and disregarded by most, even on this forum, which I would say has pretty esoteric yardsticks! Another example of how one person's common sense "fact" is another person's illogical belief.

And maybe this is why the hobby is so interesting? After all, what kind of discussion would there be if everybody agreed with each other. It would be pretty boring, I guess. i.e. Statement: Fei Wan is fantastic. Response: agree, agree. Then on to the next IEM, with the same result. Would probably stop reading any more at this point and go and investigate a business growing legal Pot.

Every user makes their own choices of what they consider important, and worth pursuing, and this would seem to be common sense. But even this would be argued against by some/many.

 

[Rockwell75]

Last call to complete the survey.

 

[hungryewok]

Another thing regarding TOTL is that IEMs advance at a crazy pace. I've been out of the hobby for the last-ish 5 years, being very happy with MH335DWs. And all I can say is that some current <$1k iems blow 'older' flagships out of the water.

With headphones it's a much slower story. Focal Utopias - 7-8 years, Abyss 1266 - 10 years?, HD600 feel older than me.

 

[drftr]

I don't believe the decision is that critical, as FLAC files can be ripped into WAV (and vice versa) at a later date, without needing to go through the the laborious rip from the CD again. So you are not stuck forever, with one or the other. Can always convert from one to the other in the future.

- To me, WAV gets just a little closer to a naturalness of vocals, closer to emotive feel with the singer. This aspect may be less/not important to many people, so for them there is no gain. As with so many things, it is up to the user, their system, and preferences, whether there is a worthwhile difference. Try it for yourself.

In a hobby where everything can make a tiny difference it seems funny to throw away the quality I already have on CD and replace it with something sounding sliiiightly less great.

Wav files sounding fuller, more emotive, and more natural is the thing I've been reading repeatedly and the reason I wanted to double-check here.

Just in case I choose for flac anyway, would I keep all manually optimized meta data when converting to wav? I guess not but am open to positive surprises.

drftr

 

[Silverlinings]

In a hobby where everything can make a tiny difference it seems funny to throw away the quality I already have on CD and replace it with something sounding sliiiightly less great.

Wav files sounding fuller, more emotive, and more natural is the thing I've been reading repeatedly and the reason I wanted to double-check here.

Just in case I choose for flac anyway, would I keep all manually optimized meta data when converting to wav? I guess not but am open to positive surprises.

drftr

To say that anyone can hear a difference between wav and flac imo is ridiculous. That would be all in ones mind. I respect everyone’s opinion here but after 25 years of listening to 320 mp3 up to uncompressed wav it would be very difficult if not impossible to tell the difference. Go ahead argue away.

 

[Scubadevils]

The TS-316 are getting a lot of my ear-time this week, and potentially leading me back to my single dynamic driver focus - definitely where my heart is for the most part!

TIMSOK(s)

TIM no-SOK(s)... sorry, couldn't resist

 

[Rockwell75]

To say that anyone can hear a difference between wav and flac imo is ridiculous. That would be all in ones mind. I respect everyone’s opinion here but after 25 years of listening to 320 mp3 up to uncompressed wav it would be very difficult if not impossible to tell the difference. Go ahead argue away.

lol I think if past experience has taught us anything it’s that these sorts of questions won’t be settled by “arguing”.

 

[Valrhona]

The TS-316 are getting a lot of my ear-time this week, and potentially leading me back to my single dynamic driver focus - definitely where my heart is for the most part!

TIMSOK(s)



TIM no-SOK(s)... sorry, couldn't resist

That cable looks quite like the Dita Celeste cable.

 

[szore]

For those using/testing out desktop solutions, what are you using in terms of cables/adapters? Are all 3.5 to 1/4 in adapters created equal? Any particular ones that are recommended?

Go to the AliExpress cables thread...

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/aliexpress-cables.963919/

 

[Lumithium]

, but mostly the processor having a very tough job decompressing/translating the flac file, while that's not necessary at all with a wav file. However, when using flac with no compression (which is NOT the same as the 0 compression setting) there's nothing to be decompressed and no audible difference seems to occur. The difference seems to be really audible when picking a decompression setting of 3 and higher. Interesting is that most non-audiophile articles claim the best setting is 5; possibly only taking speed and disk space into consideration. Using flac without decompression would also solve the tagging issue wav files can have.

drftr

That could be an issue in low latency environment, but for music listening, it really doesn’t matter.

 

[Silverlinings]

lol I think if past experience has taught us anything it’s that these sorts of questions won’t be settled by “arguing”.

Obviously I didn’t want an argument lol. Just stating how I feel. I listen to a lot of hi res audio too and I can’t tell a difference between that and 1,000 kb flac and sometimes even the 320 mp3. I think bc we know we are listening to the hi res we think we hear more. Maybe I’m In the minority haha.