The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.
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Simpeler
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Amazing collectionThis hobby is an embarrassment of riches right now...
Would love to try out the Canpur (specifically because they are apparently Dutch?!)
The WM1Z absolutely no question. This is the player and the sound I've been searching for high and low for years-- and it's been right under my nose the whole time. For me the WM1Z is the absolute master of musicality and refinement and, purely in terms of sound quality, I don't think this player has been topped to this day. By "musicality" I mean something close to what is generally meant by "analogue" in that it in the ultimate sense it comes down to "feel" and a perception of the sound just flowing over you in a nautural, effortless and cohesive sort of way. In this way, while it is not R2R, the WM1Z to my ears manifests similarly to R2R players I've heard like the RS8 and LP6, one of which I presently own and the other I owned for a large part of this year. The RS8 is a great player don't get me wrong but in addition to my general affection for Sony aesthetics and the Sony sound the WM1Z also has the advantage of being more compact and portable and the RS8 is quite a brick and in many ways set up (with the cable jack on the bottom) as more of a transportable desktop device. For this reason alone the WM1Z would be my choice purely in practical terms.
The sound though...I just can't get enough of it. It's got that LP6 like quality where it injects a bit of its own magic through whatever transducers are plugged into it only I've come to believe that the latent tonality of the WM1Z is just slightly more to my liking than the LP6 Gold...or at least it's more synergistic with my IEMs. My recent revelation with the Fei Wan is the most recent example. On prior demos with the FW I referred to it as technically astounding but occasionally overwhelming-- it blew my mind in one instance and then I'd be skipping tracks due to too much energy up top in the next. By the time I'd gotten my hands on the WM1Z I'd long since sent the FW kit on but once I hearing it I wondered to myself if this player might be just the fix I needed for the FW-- so I made some arrangements and due to the boundles munificence and eminene of GOAT Andrew at @MusicTeck I was able to secure the kit for one more weekend...and I'm so glad I did. Yesterday I spent about 8 hours listening to the FW through the WM1Z and it was pure bliss the whole time. WM1Z takes every single element of the sound sig and polishes/refines it to perfection. Nothing sounded too energetic, everything was just right and the bass, while not the focus or star of the show at all with FW imho, was eminently satisfying. The thing about the FW for me is that it straddles the line in a couple areas--- which is just how I like it. I'm not personally interested in a really relaxed sound...I like energy, just properly balanced and not too much of it. Because of this as @MRT-Man indicated below FW is very sensitive to sources and other tweaks as just a nudge here or there in the wrong direction can push it over the line for some...which is just what had happened with me on earlier demos.
While I'm not the topic I thought I'd share a few more thoughts on the Fei Wan. To me and to my ears and mode of classifying things it's a masterpiece of what I'd call "Asian/eastern hifi tuning". By this type of tuning I just mean that it's the sort of set where my locus of attention is skewed upward on the FR. I'm more fixated on air & space between instruments and the bass is primarily in a supporting role. This doesn't imply weak bass or overly boosted highs (though this sometimes happens)-- it's more of a top down perspective of the sound. IEMs that I would put into this category include the Annihilator, Mentor, Grand Maestro and the Fei Wan...and imho, and according to my sensibilities the Fei Wan is master of them all...assuming you can get the synergy right for your tastes. The FW stands above the others for me in that it manages to bring together a number of tremendous factors without falling prey to any of the pitfalls which have written off other, simiilar IEMs for me elsewhere-- poor bass quality, lean lower mids, excess energy up top etc. Fei Wan's strong suit imho is in its amazing holographic presentation and imaging. Every element of the sound has its own mini 360 degree atmosphere , is beautifully transparent and fully resolving within that spance, and yet blends completely and cohesively with everything around it. This is a hard balance to pull off as just a bit more and the various elements of the sound would almost mainfest as disjoint from one another, like one of those plates of food you get as a child where the peas, meat and potatoes are all completely sectioned off in their own space. The Rn6 is an example of an IEM that I'm finding to go a bit too far in this direction and feel like that.
On the other side is what I'd call an "American/western hifi tuning". This latter is characterized by a more "bass first" or bottom up perspective. IEMs in this category for me would be the Trifecta, Xe6, Raven, Bonneville...and imho the Trifecta presently stands as the towering achievement of this sort of tuning in the IEM space right now, with no signs of being bettered any time soon. Of course, YMMV and all that fully applies here
Trifecta and Fei Wan, then, represent the ultimate yin/yang for me right now.
I think, as with FW, sources and personal ear anatomy will come to bear here. The Perpetua (and the Trifecta for that matter) is another IEM that really came into its own for me with the WM1Z. It's polishes and refines the whole presentation and makes it all smooth as silk. Those 3 IEMs along with that player are my holy triumverate right now. Though I totally understand that this is an entirely YMMV situation and for some the Perp just might not work.
Brother my heart goes out to you-- I can't imagine having to deal with such a sudden and unnecessary loss.
I got to meet Tony on a trip to Manhattan in 2019. Great guy. He tried to sell me the Noble Khan ..which it turns out was not the ideal exposure to Noble for me as I avoided their IEMs for years afterwards.
I see a blind buy in my future
LOL
I have that one here this weekend also...if I can only pry the FW out of my ears.
Sorry I didn't mean to come off as flippant or disrespectful. There was a piece of marketing for Fei Wan somewhere in the past few weeks that had the spelling mistake "Fei Wang"...ever since in my head I've said "Fay Wang" whenever thinking of the IEM.
Awesome. It's a great feeling when you land something you've been coveting for a while. I think you'll find it looks quite stunning in person, moreso thant the pictures will convey.
Epic! Can't wait to read your thoughts.
Coming from the Atlas I don't think there is a better place to land than the Trifecta-- it's a comprehensive upgrade across the board imho (Atlas was my first TOTL CFA IEM...gosh 5 years ago
Thanks for the great description can you compare Sony nw-wm1z to Sony wm1zm2.The WM1Z absolutely no question. This is the player and the sound I've been searching for high and low for years-- and it's been right under my nose the whole time. For me the WM1Z is the absolute master of musicality and refinement and, purely in terms of sound quality, I don't think this player has been topped to this day. By "musicality" I mean something close to what is generally meant by "analogue" in that it in the ultimate sense it comes down to "feel" and a perception of the sound just flowing over you in a nautural, effortless and cohesive sort of way. In this way, while it is not R2R, the WM1Z to my ears manifests similarly to R2R players I've heard like the RS8 and LP6, one of which I presently own and the other I owned for a large part of this year. The RS8 is a great player don't get me wrong but in addition to my general affection for Sony aesthetics and the Sony sound the WM1Z also has the advantage of being more compact and portable and the RS8 is quite a brick and in many ways set up (with the cable jack on the bottom) as more of a transportable desktop device. For this reason alone the WM1Z would be my choice purely in practical terms.
The sound though...I just can't get enough of it. It's got that LP6 like quality where it injects a bit of its own magic through whatever transducers are plugged into it only I've come to believe that the latent tonality of the WM1Z is just slightly more to my liking than the LP6 Gold...or at least it's more synergistic with my IEMs. My recent revelation with the Fei Wan is the most recent example. On prior demos with the FW I referred to it as technically astounding but occasionally overwhelming-- it blew my mind in one instance and then I'd be skipping tracks due to too much energy up top in the next. By the time I'd gotten my hands on the WM1Z I'd long since sent the FW kit on but once I hearing it I wondered to myself if this player might be just the fix I needed for the FW-- so I made some arrangements and due to the boundles munificence and eminene of GOAT Andrew at @MusicTeck I was able to secure the kit for one more weekend...and I'm so glad I did. Yesterday I spent about 8 hours listening to the FW through the WM1Z and it was pure bliss the whole time. WM1Z takes every single element of the sound sig and polishes/refines it to perfection. Nothing sounded too energetic, everything was just right and the bass, while not the focus or star of the show at all with FW imho, was eminently satisfying. The thing about the FW for me is that it straddles the line in a couple areas--- which is just how I like it. I'm not personally interested in a really relaxed sound...I like energy, just properly balanced and not too much of it. Because of this as @MRT-Man indicated below FW is very sensitive to sources and other tweaks as just a nudge here or there in the wrong direction can push it over the line for some...which is just what had happened with me on earlier demos.
While I'm not the topic I thought I'd share a few more thoughts on the Fei Wan. To me and to my ears and mode of classifying things it's a masterpiece of what I'd call "Asian/eastern hifi tuning". By this type of tuning I just mean that it's the sort of set where my locus of attention is skewed upward on the FR. I'm more fixated on air & space between instruments and the bass is primarily in a supporting role. This doesn't imply weak bass or overly boosted highs (though this sometimes happens)-- it's more of a top down perspective of the sound. IEMs that I would put into this category include the Annihilator, Mentor, Grand Maestro and the Fei Wan...and imho, and according to my sensibilities the Fei Wan is master of them all...assuming you can get the synergy right for your tastes. The FW stands above the others for me in that it manages to bring together a number of tremendous factors without falling prey to any of the pitfalls which have written off other, simiilar IEMs for me elsewhere-- poor bass quality, lean lower mids, excess energy up top etc. Fei Wan's strong suit imho is in its amazing holographic presentation and imaging. Every element of the sound has its own mini 360 degree atmosphere , is beautifully transparent and fully resolving within that spance, and yet blends completely and cohesively with everything around it. This is a hard balance to pull off as just a bit more and the various elements of the sound would almost mainfest as disjoint from one another, like one of those plates of food you get as a child where the peas, meat and potatoes are all completely sectioned off in their own space. The Rn6 is an example of an IEM that I'm finding to go a bit too far in this direction and feel like that.
On the other side is what I'd call an "American/western hifi tuning". This latter is characterized by a more "bass first" or bottom up perspective. IEMs in this category for me would be the Trifecta, Xe6, Raven, Bonneville...and imho the Trifecta presently stands as the towering achievement of this sort of tuning in the IEM space right now, with no signs of being bettered any time soon. Of course, YMMV and all that fully applies here
Trifecta and Fei Wan, then, represent the ultimate yin/yang for me right now.
I think, as with FW, sources and personal ear anatomy will come to bear here. The Perpetua (and the Trifecta for that matter) is another IEM that really came into its own for me with the WM1Z. It's polishes and refines the whole presentation and makes it all smooth as silk. Those 3 IEMs along with that player are my holy triumverate right now. Though I totally understand that this is an entirely YMMV situation and for some the Perp just might not work.
Brother my heart goes out to you-- I can't imagine having to deal with such a sudden and unnecessary loss.
I got to meet Tony on a trip to Manhattan in 2019. Great guy. He tried to sell me the Noble Khan ..which it turns out was not the ideal exposure to Noble for me as I avoided their IEMs for years afterwards.
I see a blind buy in my future
LOL
I have that one here this weekend also...if I can only pry the FW out of my ears.
Sorry I didn't mean to come off as flippant or disrespectful. There was a piece of marketing for Fei Wan somewhere in the past few weeks that had the spelling mistake "Fei Wang"...ever since in my head I've said "Fay Wang" whenever thinking of the IEM.
Awesome. It's a great feeling when you land something you've been coveting for a while. I think you'll find it looks quite stunning in person, moreso thant the pictures will convey.
Epic! Can't wait to read your thoughts.
Coming from the Atlas I don't think there is a better place to land than the Trifecta-- it's a comprehensive upgrade across the board imho (Atlas was my first TOTL CFA IEM...gosh 5 years ago now.
This may be true actually for some genres. A possible explanation is that in lower bitrates there are more 'blanks' filled by our brains, in our favor
I just put the Rn6 in...man I forgot how solid and "even keeled" this IEM is. I fully understand why it won "IEM of the Year" for 2023. That said, in terms of differences with FW...I think there are some latent similarities however relative to how I categorize IEMs as indicated in my last post the Rn6 to me belongs to a third category that I would define by its overall balance. It's not a top down or bottom up perspective so much as a head-on perspective-- I'm not taking in the sound from the bass on up (as in the Trifecta) or the top on down as with Fei Wan...rather in Rn6 it's almost like I've taken a slight step back with everything sort of coming at me at once. In that sense I'm tempted to say at this point that in terms of mode of presentation (discounting the DD factor) the Rn6 has more in common with the CP622B than the Fei Wan. The Fei Wan, relative to the mids and highs anyway, is in terms of technicals a notable step up from the Rn6-- that 3-d sense of air & space with vocals and instruments that I referred to earlier is ever to the fore with Fei Wan in a way you don't quite get with the Rn6. Some of this has to do with what seems to me more prominent bass...though some of this is a matter of perspective. With Fei Wan, as with Annihilator it seems to me like I'm taking in the sig from the highs/high mids on down. On the flip side FW to me is more energetic up top and even through the 1Z straddles a line sometimes in a way that Rn6 doesn't really. In a word the Rn6 is closer to what in my world would constitue a balanced/reference type tuning (though I know for many it's not that)...and Fei Wan is closer to a top down bombastic type set. This was a bit stream of consciousness and a rant as I briefly went back and forth on FW and Rn6 with the first track that came up on my playlist...sorry if it's not helpful lol
For reference this was the track:
It might be, but in my case, I was just too stupid to understand what was really going on.
I've never spent any real time with the 1ZM2 however from what I've been able to glean from folks the 1Z has more of a bass emphasis and the 1ZM2 has more of an upper mid emphasis and I've heard from some it's a little brighter.
Speaking of vocals, here is a similar test: It's not distinguishable to me through Raven. It mixes with the treble:
The vocals starting at 5:05 Mono Sapiens - Mechanistic Inception
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I’m a “bass first” guy, even with my Asian/Eastern music. The quantity and quality of bass is what I assess equipment first. For me, it is the one ingredient that holds the whole song together.
Listening to Sino-pop right now with my Trifecta and thoroughly loving it.
In some regards the same is true for IEMs, HP, Loudspeakers, amps, sources.
If we would live in communist country and there would be only one kind of walkman or IEM, we would be all happy enjoying the music, not knowing what lies behind the curtain/what is possible.
Our brain would fill the gaps and adapt to the gear we have.
The same is true for a summit-fi 1 Million dollar stereo system. While on the first listen you are shading tears of emotions, after the second or third song your brain adapts to the sound and your tears are gone.
Of course everyone would prefer the summit-fi system - after hearing it - over the communist walkman, but this is not the point here.
Been really enjoying my small gadgets lately. I know I'm taking a hit in sound quality and functionality compared to a proper DAP or what-have-you, but the increased portability makes up for that. These smol devices really "spark joy" for me. The Shanling M0 Pro is local files only, and despite streaming a lot these days, I still have plenty of local files that I would never delete in a million years, unlike SOME PEOPLE(just joshin ya, Phiemon!)
I've also been digging the Hiby FC6, and it's even smaller than I expected. It's small enough that I can let it dangle without it being too cumbersome, which isn't something I can say for most dongle dacs like this. It's working great with my both my PC and phone.
The other device(in the middle), is the ddHiFi tc35c. I like this form factor specifically because it's a dongle that doesn't dangle. I've previously used the Audirect Atom 3 which is very similar, but it had some issues. When I use it with my phone(Galaxy Z Flip 5) while it's folded, it helps give it more of a old school dap vibe than it does that of a phone. Pretty convenient for grocery shopping or walks and whatnot.
I've also been digging the Hiby FC6, and it's even smaller than I expected. It's small enough that I can let it dangle without it being too cumbersome, which isn't something I can say for most dongle dacs like this. It's working great with my both my PC and phone.
The other device(in the middle), is the ddHiFi tc35c. I like this form factor specifically because it's a dongle that doesn't dangle. I've previously used the Audirect Atom 3 which is very similar, but it had some issues. When I use it with my phone(Galaxy Z Flip 5) while it's folded, it helps give it more of a old school dap vibe than it does that of a phone. Pretty convenient for grocery shopping or walks and whatnot.
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Andricop
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I do not agree with you regarding Qobuz, I find it very OK and the best compared to Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. For me Tidal is the worst of these 6 streaming platforms. Of course YMMV ...
But I agree that local FLAC or ALAC files sound better but streaming is very nice on the go on the iPhone and to discover new music.
I wouldn't have been able to describe the DC Ti so well and I couldn't agree more with @Tokpakorlo !
I can add that in custom the fit is perfect (it's my sixth CIEM and by far the best fit), isolation also and the sound non-fatiguing even after many hours.
Thanks to @efftee and @Kiats for sharing their enthusiasm on this model nearly 2 years ago when it was released.
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How is that E12???This hobby is an embarrassment of riches right now...
saudio7
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Is A&K VE Aura good choice when paired with SP3000, I have UM Mest mkII and starting to look for change/upgrade?
nephilim32
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I have to admit the Trifecta does look like a mechanical ball-sack. Lol.
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