[slumberman]

Their price

 

[CharlyBrown]

At first it's 3k and now slowly drifting to 10k++
Someone please stop me

But the 20k+ stuff is even more refined. Think about it and don't waste your time with the 10k stuff !!!

 

[GiullianSN]

Nice mix of colours

Had all my gear out (plus some friends gear I have on loan) yesterday for a meetup with some of the Melbourne crew. Apologies for the poor quality photo


Thanks to @Yifang I luckily got to come home from the meetup with the Nightjar demo kit which included the Duality prototype + Blue Hour cable



One of the most bombastic and fun sounding IEM’s I’ve ever heard with insane levels of bass, yet it somehow manages to remain tonally balanced and technical. This one will be a guaranteed purchase for me in 2024.

Also in the kit are some special cables, including the behemoth Sovereign 8w. Easily the biggest IEM cable I’ve ever used lol.



I’ll take some better photos after Christmas and share some impressions

Merry Christmas everyone!!



Just missed to post a couple impressions from our great meetup downunder a couple days ago….Always good to catch up with the crew and see this group growing is even nicer. This time we had @Damz87 , @Yifang , @Bosk , @jaydoc1 , Camille and @Joe Bloggs

Thanks to @AddictedToAudio Addicted to Audio for hosting us and even giving us his most expensive room. (unfortunately no one there was after a multiple 6digits home theatre )

The main thing on these meetups for me is the chat. So, as usual, I only tested a few things.


Cayin NE30 Amber (together with my N30LE).

Not every day you can have these two beasts together side by side to compare. I could notice some differences specially on treble heavy songs, where Amber is slightly brighter. But I would never notice it if not side by side. So don’t feel “FOMO” with whatever version you have, they are both amazing and probably the best Android DAP around.

Subtonic Storm.

I never miss an opportunity to listen to this. Not much to say about this great legendary IEM. Great monitoring IEM due to the narrower stage, but lots of technicalities, separation, notes weight and details. It can be slightly bright depending on your tastes. I loved the upgraded Nightjar cable with it. Felt good and sounded like a worthy upgrade to the stock cable. Do it if you can.

Aroma Fei Wan.

This was a love and hate demo for me. For bass heavy songs this things sounds fenomenal. The bass hits like pillow fights…smooth but powerful. Loved it. But on the other hand anything that has a bit of treble enphasis was like needles poking my eardrums…even out of N30LE that is a warm source. So if that “balance” is your taste, Fei Wan will be a hard to beat these days.

FatFreq GM 2.0

This new version is such a huge build quality upgrade from the original one, doesn’t even look like is FF that is making it. The new metal modules are also a big improvement. It does sound slightly warmer from what I can remember, for some reason (maybe thicker shells or modules material affecting sound?). Either way, I liked how it sounds, it hits hard on low end when needed, but also keeps its good technicalities on the upper end. Not the best thing around, but it’s a good contender for that “if I could only hold one IEM”. If I had to replace my beloved LX, this new GM would be a good one to take it’s place on a not so different price.

FatFreq Scarlet mini.

This thing has a loooot of bass… like… I got Dizzy trying it (reminded me how I felt when I first heard MSE, exponentially higher). I definitely want to spend more time with it and I can’t wait for the tour unit to come this way, but unfortunately this time I couldn’t handle it. Weak me.

General stuff.

I also tried a feel cables, including the Nightjar’s Anaconda (also known Sov 8W). That thing sound exceptional, but unfortunately it’s so thick that I could hold the seal even with my Custom A12t.

Notable mentions

Had some great chat with Joe and how he likes to design some Darwin filters and tuning, this guy knows a lot. Tried his RS6 with Darwin Ultra filter and that got me back to when I had my RS6 and how his tuning sounds amazing and much better than what I can remember from the sotch RS6, it got my toes kicking for sure. But more impressed I got with the little M300 with Joe’s tuning in it, it got me looking for the prices of it after our meetup. Only downside is 3.5mm outlet. Nice size and great for an streamer for the Mojo2.

All in all… I love our meetups and chats. I made some good friends to take out of the hobby for life. Sorry to have missed the other guys from across australia. Maybe one day we will be able to do an small head-fi around here.


Take care everyone. Peace and love.

 

[peppy]

Merry Christmas all! Praying for a blessed day for everyone as you spend time with family and friends and hopefully have a little time to listen to music!

 

[audionewbi]

Imagine paying 10K for an IEM with a one year warranty, only to have your IEM be faulty with the IEM maker nowhere to be found. At least with Sony, you know most likely they are going nowhere in a near future, all this other bouteque brands, how sure are we about their future longevitity?

 

[gLer]

Imagine paying 10K for an IEM

Nevermind the rest...

 

[nikbr]

Settling in to a Saturday night of Bandcamp shopping. First up is this excellent 'lost' album by Node from 1995 - as always, Bandcamp blurb describes better than I can...

I, for one, appreciate your recommendations very much and find extreme enjoyment in most if not all of them.
A frank thank you is overdue, but anyway, thank you.

 

[zikarus]

To all those thinking about sources and DAPs and how and in which way to upgrade what you already have:

Do yourself a favour and try out various player software - and especially: take a closer look at the Neutron player.

Whenever I switch between players I am puzzled how much of a difference another player software can make. Out of those I use - Roon, Qobuz, Bubble, UAPP and Neutron - it is the latter which sounds significantly better than the rest when using it's upsampling feature.

And though it's UI might be questionable and needs time to get used to, the difference aka gain in sound quality is quite astoundingly large imo.

Preferable settings for Neutron can be found in the specific thread. Here are those from fellow head-fier @RIGATIO:

a. Settings --> Profile --> Bit-perfect
b. Settings --> Playback --> 64 bit processing ON
c. Settings --> Playback --> Resampling --> Audiophile
d. Settings --> Audio Hardware --> MONO OFF --> UPMIX OFF --> DITHER OFF --> PHASE INVERSION TO HARDWARE GAIN (ALL OFF) --> AUDIO FOCUS ON --> DIRECT USB ACCESS ON --> DSD OVER PCM ON --> OVERSAMPLING 8x --> FOLLOW SOURCE FREQUENCY ON

 

[nocturne19]

In the case of Perpetua, it 100% can IMHO. Though the major caveat is that it really depends on what you're after and what you prioritize. Along with the Bonneville the Perpetua was the major surprise of 2023 for me. Grateful for folks like @Sajid Amit , @jwilliamhurst, @drftr and others for putting me onto it and compelling me to go blind on an IEM for the first time since 2019.

Oh sorry for the confusion, I was referring to Project M competing with the big boys. Although Perpetua was not up my alley, I definitely agree it is one of the best DDs in the market. Always fascinated by how wide its soundstage stretches.

 

[CharlyBrown]

Imagine paying 10K for an IEM with a one year warranty, only to have your IEM be faulty with the IEM maker nowhere to be found. At least with Sony, you know most likely they are going nowhere in a near future, all this other bouteque brands, how sure are we about their future longevitity?

Valid point and imo true on the one hand. On the other, how often does it happen an IEM that works without problems for one year, then breaks?

But yes, if you drop it to the floor after the boutique maker went bankrupt it will be hard, or even impossible, to find somebody to repair it.

 

[NOMOS]

At first it's 3k and now slowly drifting to 10k++
Someone please stop

Just keep it up, it could end like this ,..

 

[NOMOS]

It is remarkable how the Storm and the Canpur are similar between 20-2000 Hertz.
Even above that, they are not so far away from each other in frequency response ,.

 

[RonaldS86]

But the 20k+ stuff is even more refined. Think about it and don't waste your time with the 10k stuff !!!

Oh don't worry, I will reach there eventually

 

[aaf evo]

It is remarkable how the Storm and the Canpur are similar between 20-2000 Hertz.
Even above that, they are not so far away from each other in frequency response ,.

The 622B to me sounded much more relaxed in the upper mids and highs to me than Storm, I felt it goes much more for a warmer tone even though they graph similarly. Storm also felt like it carried a much more impactful bass response to my ears as well when I listened to it again at CanJam Dallas.

YMMV etc etc.

 

[phiemon]

I envy the watercoolers who managed to step out of the crazy game and are happy with sub 2k gear and don't even look out of this zone.

I strongly envy all those who consider the Apple AirPods Pro 2 to be the endgame and really don't feel the need to have something better.

EDIT: On the other hand, as simple as that would be, it remains simple. Nah, I think I would be dissatisfied.