Alexzander
500+ Head-Fier
It is always cool to read an honest review, great job indeed!
The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.
- Thread starter Rockwell75
- Start date
theintention
1000+ Head-Fier
Now this has my attention
Scubadevils
Previously known as Scuba Devils
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2011
- Posts
- 7,848
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- 46,835
@Scuba Devils will probably come back in 2 months telling us all about this fantastic new album from *wait for it* TWO former members of Radiohead!!
I don’t follow?!
KuroKitsu
Headphoneus Supremus
Water(ampant)c(consumerism)oolerMeanwhile on Head-Fi...
I mean its right there in the community name
I mean people also associate price with acoustically correct hereIem's are not race cars! New tech does not make old iem's obsolete. Acoustically correct is still acoustically correct.
PICTURES
honestly the only thing stopping me from ordering is that you can't get it without SwapX. It's nice but I like the design I pick for my customs
RESISTING URGE TO CLICK
Bobby why
wolfstar76
Headphoneus Supremus
The economy of China is not doing well, and probably will be stagnant for foreseeable future. However, the market of UM's flagships are not for mass, rich is always rich, no matter how bad is the economy.
BlueA
100+ Head-Fier
For them xMems is a real innovation and since the companies behind are not ill intentioned the pricing is correct.
Noble jumped in with 600$ XM1 and entry level is 150$.
PixelSquish
Previously known as idiotekniques
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2005
- Posts
- 2,715
- Likes
- 2,051
Just a p.s. that 8k IEM is not even that good looking. There have been a bunch of IEM's I've stopped and said, wow, that is beautiful, this is not the case here. Of course it is subjective, but I can appreciate things that maybe don't use the colors I prefer but still look good.
And why are they hyping up 'desert tree' wood. Cactus 'tree' wood is a thing, but you can buy that stuff for aquariums. Wow. I mean it's all just a bunch of nonsense words and terrible marketing when you read their materials. You can get a boatload of desert cactus tree wood for 69.99 from Etsy and make a thousand of those IEM's
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1258021671/100-cholla-cactus-wood-6-inch-by-34-to-1?gpla=1&gao=1&
I can't copy and paste their marketing jingo from their website as it is images, but I am quite sure a lot of their tech-jargon marketing is just a bunch of bs too.
And why are they hyping up 'desert tree' wood. Cactus 'tree' wood is a thing, but you can buy that stuff for aquariums. Wow. I mean it's all just a bunch of nonsense words and terrible marketing when you read their materials. You can get a boatload of desert cactus tree wood for 69.99 from Etsy and make a thousand of those IEM's
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1258021671/100-cholla-cactus-wood-6-inch-by-34-to-1?gpla=1&gao=1&
I can't copy and paste their marketing jingo from their website as it is images, but I am quite sure a lot of their tech-jargon marketing is just a bunch of bs too.
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BlueA
100+ Head-Fier
That's me looking at the Kinera Imperial Verdandi!
Such rich levels of textures.
Sorry mate, it's my lame attempt to have a go at you for discovering amazing "new" stuff a few months after the rest of us
wolfstar76
Headphoneus Supremus
I was busy today until now and I clicked the UM new product release on the first page of head-fi only to find it is so funny: I never saw a new product release announcement followed by so many negative reactions (or protests?).
I owned Mest Mk2 once, before I even knew head-fi, due to the influence from BGGAR, aka, Hawaii bad boy. However, after I heard Mason FS, I can never go back to Mest Mk2. Over the years I spent on head-fi, especially in watercooler thread, my spending limit on IEMs is gradually increasing due to the bad influence here. However, it never justify me to purchase any IEM from the Mason line.
My guess is, as long as UM can still pull it off to offer real improvement on their flagship products, people here will pay for them until they hit a wall. The same thing happens to Apple with their yearly released iPhones. After people found out the new release is only marginal improvement, they will skip the release and wait for next year.
I owned Mest Mk2 once, before I even knew head-fi, due to the influence from BGGAR, aka, Hawaii bad boy. However, after I heard Mason FS, I can never go back to Mest Mk2. Over the years I spent on head-fi, especially in watercooler thread, my spending limit on IEMs is gradually increasing due to the bad influence here
. However, it never justify me to purchase any IEM from the Mason line. My guess is, as long as UM can still pull it off to offer real improvement on their flagship products, people here will pay for them until they hit a wall. The same thing happens to Apple with their yearly released iPhones. After people found out the new release is only marginal improvement, they will skip the release and wait for next year.
Shots fired!
The new UM flagship priced at $8499 isn’t that crazy. Their previous flagship was already $7999, a new flagship that is replacing their Mason Red Halo, which announced all the way back in Jan 2022. (Le Jardin is just a different color design to the Red Halo, more about that later).
The Mentor Multiverse is in a different lineup and Amber Pearl is more as a collaboration IEM with Cayin than its own thing. Depending on how they communicated, this could be an unfortunate timing on Cayin. The new UM flagship was already in the works at the time, but it wasn’t ready by the time of N30’s release to have a joint flagship release, so they used the Mentor’s tech instead.
Speaking of Amber Pearl, it is also a product that is pretty different from Mason or Mentor. It uses electrostatic drivers that is never used on other UM flagships, so based on that, I don’t think it’s exactly a successor to the Mentor, but more of another co-co-flagship situation, much like the Mentor Multiverse is to Mason.
And I am sorry to all the Campfire audio fans, because this post will be related to their marketing in different but bad ways. Their early 2023 launch was pretty bad. They have done better since fortunately.
The flagship priced at $8499 itself isn’t the problem, despite the very expensive pricing, it is obviously going to sell, otherwise they are not going to price it this way. Unique Melody’s Mason lineup is always their most expensive line of products, and people more less already expected the pricing to be extraordinary.
The biggest rule in the market is that if it doesn’t sell, the market will reflect that.
CFA’s early 2023 release is a good example. The Solaris and Andromeda was a refresh to their 2020 counterparts, at a ridiculous markup of >70% and >25% respectively. From what I can see on the internet, most people lost interest in them almost immediately, which is worse considering how accessible CFA IEMs are compared to other more boutique brands. And retailers such as A2A was doing $1k off of these products even though they were relatively new.
From what I can see from their previous releases, namely the original Mason FS and the Mason Red Halo. This is not the case, their were sold out relatively quickly at full MSRP, while both of these IEM were pushing the boundaries of IEM pricing back in their respective times.
LeJardin is a “different” product though. It is a Red Halo but has a different design. The driver configuration, the cable and the sound signature are supposed to be identical. Whether it is due to bad marketing or any other reasons, a lot of people didn’t get the message. With the release being so close to the original Red Halo, or the fact that it has a $9499 CIEM, most people thought it is a new flagship, such rapid release of flagships easily turns a lot of people off. I made quite a number of comments of $10k UM flagship coming out by 2023, which luckily did not happen.
There’s also another problem here. The Red Halo is already a limited edition, for most of us, limited edition means if you missed this product you will not get it anymore. It is also a way for them to bump up the pricing. Rare goods are expensive. Having Le Jardin released is saying (to me, at least) the Red Halo is selling a lot better than expected, so we make more to make more money. We don’t care if it destroys the market value of the Red Halo and screw our existing Red Halo customers.
Whatever the case it may be, Le Jardin is not selling well, I can find them brand new over half a year later. Reflecting the poor sales on their part, considering each of the vendors has no more than a couple of them, a big contrast compared to the Red Halo.
Campfire audio has yet another good example here. The infamous Trifecta. It was a limited edition of 333 and at a monstrous pricing tag of $3375. And not long after its release, perhaps the sales are just so good, they released Trifecta in different colors. So what happened to the limited edition? What is the point of a limited edition then?
These marketing practices should absolutely be called out.
Anyway, back to the new Mason FS. From the marketing pictures, it looks like the new BCD driver has a very different frequency response to their old drivers. With this information and the different sound signatures in both Amber Pearl and Mentor Multiverse compared to the Mason Fs and RH, I can’t help but wonder if this is actually more like a Mentor refresh than a Mason refresh, but they put the product under the Mason lineup for the flagship pricing. The new products has a sound signature that is pretty different from the Mason sound (a warmer sound).
It also mentioned high current output of current DAPs, so I am assuming the new flagship is going to be pretty difficult to drive.
Since I missed the Amber Pearl, but I loved the Mentor, maybe this will be the one to get?
The Mentor Multiverse is in a different lineup and Amber Pearl is more as a collaboration IEM with Cayin than its own thing. Depending on how they communicated, this could be an unfortunate timing on Cayin. The new UM flagship was already in the works at the time, but it wasn’t ready by the time of N30’s release to have a joint flagship release, so they used the Mentor’s tech instead.
Speaking of Amber Pearl, it is also a product that is pretty different from Mason or Mentor. It uses electrostatic drivers that is never used on other UM flagships, so based on that, I don’t think it’s exactly a successor to the Mentor, but more of another co-co-flagship situation, much like the Mentor Multiverse is to Mason.
And I am sorry to all the Campfire audio fans, because this post will be related to their marketing in different but bad ways. Their early 2023 launch was pretty bad. They have done better since fortunately.
The flagship priced at $8499 itself isn’t the problem, despite the very expensive pricing, it is obviously going to sell, otherwise they are not going to price it this way. Unique Melody’s Mason lineup is always their most expensive line of products, and people more less already expected the pricing to be extraordinary.
The biggest rule in the market is that if it doesn’t sell, the market will reflect that.
CFA’s early 2023 release is a good example. The Solaris and Andromeda was a refresh to their 2020 counterparts, at a ridiculous markup of >70% and >25% respectively. From what I can see on the internet, most people lost interest in them almost immediately, which is worse considering how accessible CFA IEMs are compared to other more boutique brands. And retailers such as A2A was doing $1k off of these products even though they were relatively new.
From what I can see from their previous releases, namely the original Mason FS and the Mason Red Halo. This is not the case, their were sold out relatively quickly at full MSRP, while both of these IEM were pushing the boundaries of IEM pricing back in their respective times.
LeJardin is a “different” product though. It is a Red Halo but has a different design. The driver configuration, the cable and the sound signature are supposed to be identical. Whether it is due to bad marketing or any other reasons, a lot of people didn’t get the message. With the release being so close to the original Red Halo, or the fact that it has a $9499 CIEM, most people thought it is a new flagship, such rapid release of flagships easily turns a lot of people off. I made quite a number of comments of $10k UM flagship coming out by 2023, which luckily did not happen.
There’s also another problem here. The Red Halo is already a limited edition, for most of us, limited edition means if you missed this product you will not get it anymore. It is also a way for them to bump up the pricing. Rare goods are expensive. Having Le Jardin released is saying (to me, at least) the Red Halo is selling a lot better than expected, so we make more to make more money. We don’t care if it destroys the market value of the Red Halo and screw our existing Red Halo customers.
Whatever the case it may be, Le Jardin is not selling well, I can find them brand new over half a year later. Reflecting the poor sales on their part, considering each of the vendors has no more than a couple of them, a big contrast compared to the Red Halo.
Campfire audio has yet another good example here. The infamous Trifecta. It was a limited edition of 333 and at a monstrous pricing tag of $3375. And not long after its release, perhaps the sales are just so good, they released Trifecta in different colors. So what happened to the limited edition? What is the point of a limited edition then?
These marketing practices should absolutely be called out.
Anyway, back to the new Mason FS. From the marketing pictures, it looks like the new BCD driver has a very different frequency response to their old drivers. With this information and the different sound signatures in both Amber Pearl and Mentor Multiverse compared to the Mason Fs and RH, I can’t help but wonder if this is actually more like a Mentor refresh than a Mason refresh, but they put the product under the Mason lineup for the flagship pricing. The new products has a sound signature that is pretty different from the Mason sound (a warmer sound).
It also mentioned high current output of current DAPs, so I am assuming the new flagship is going to be pretty difficult to drive.
Since I missed the Amber Pearl, but I loved the Mentor, maybe this will be the one to get?
Ok, but, like, in their defenseThe new UM flagship priced at $8499 isn’t that crazy. Their previous flagship was already $7999, a new flagship that is replacing their Mason Red Halo, which announced all the way back in Jan 2022. (Le Jardin is just a different color design to the Red Halo, more about that later).
The Mentor Multiverse is in a different lineup and Amber Pearl is more as a collaboration IEM with Cayin than its own thing. Depending on how they communicated, this could be an unfortunate timing on Cayin. The new UM flagship was already in the works at the time, but it wasn’t ready by the time of N30’s release to have a joint flagship release, so they used the Mentor’s tech instead.
Speaking of Amber Pearl, it is also a product that is pretty different from Mason or Mentor. It uses electrostatic drivers that is never used on other UM flagships, so based on that, I don’t think it’s exactly a successor to the Mentor, but more of another co-co-flagship situation, much like the Mentor Multiverse is to Mason.
And I am sorry to all the Campfire audio fans, because this post will be related to their marketing in different but bad ways. Their early 2023 launch was pretty bad. They have done better since fortunately.
The flagship priced at $8499 itself isn’t the problem, despite the very expensive pricing, it is obviously going to sell, otherwise they are not going to price it this way. Unique Melody’s Mason lineup is always their most expensive line of products, and people more less already expected the pricing to be extraordinary.
The biggest rule in the market is that if it doesn’t sell, the market will reflect that.
CFA’s early 2023 release is a good example. The Solaris and Andromeda was a refresh to their 2020 counterparts, at a ridiculous markup of >70% and >25% respectively. From what I can see on the internet, most people lost interest in them almost immediately, which is worse considering how accessible CFA IEMs are compared to other more boutique brands. And retailers such as A2A was doing $1k off of these products even though they were relatively new.
From what I can see from their previous releases, namely the original Mason FS and the Mason Red Halo. This is not the case, their were sold out relatively quickly at full MSRP, while both of these IEM were pushing the boundaries of IEM pricing back in their respective times.
LeJardin is a “different” product though. It is a Red Halo but has a different design. The driver configuration, the cable and the sound signature are supposed to be identical. Whether it is due to bad marketing or any other reasons, a lot of people didn’t get the message. With the release being so close to the original Red Halo, or the fact that it has a $9499 CIEM, most people thought it is a new flagship, such rapid release of flagships easily turns a lot of people off. I made quite a number of comments of $10k UM flagship coming out by 2023, which luckily did not happen.
There’s also another problem here. The Red Halo is already a limited edition, for most of us, limited edition means if you missed this product you will not get it anymore. It is also a way for them to bump up the pricing. Rare goods are expensive. Having Le Jardin released is saying (to me, at least) the Red Halo is selling a lot better than expected, so we make more to make more money. We don’t care if it destroys the market value of the Red Halo and screw our existing Red Halo customers.
Whatever the case it may be, Le Jardin is not selling well, I can find them brand new over half a year later. Reflecting the poor sales on their part, considering each of the vendors has no more than a couple of them, a big contrast compared to the Red Halo.
Campfire audio has yet another good example here. The infamous Trifecta. It was a limited edition of 333 and at a monstrous pricing tag of $3375. And not long after its release, perhaps the sales are just so good, they released Trifecta in different colors. So what happened to the limited edition? What is the point of a limited edition then?
These marketing practices should absolutely be called out.
Anyway, back to the new Mason FS. From the marketing pictures, it looks like the new BCD driver has a very different frequency response to their old drivers. With this information and the different sound signatures in both Amber Pearl and Mentor Multiverse compared to the Mason Fs and RH, I can’t help but wonder if this is actually more like a Mentor refresh than a Mason refresh, but they put the product under the Mason lineup for the flagship pricing. The new products has a sound signature that is pretty different from the Mason sound (a warmer sound).
It also mentioned high current output of current DAPs, so I am assuming the new flagship is going to be pretty difficult to drive.
Since I missed the Amber Pearl, but I loved the Mentor, maybe this will be the one to get?
chickenmcnug
Formerly known as 8481
I really don’t understand some users here.
One enquired about a listing December, said he can purchase it middle of Jan. We don’t talk at all until the middle of Jan rolls about, he actually messages me “I’m back”, then vanishes..
Another asks for more pics then disappears once I provide them.
One enquired about a listing December, said he can purchase it middle of Jan. We don’t talk at all until the middle of Jan rolls about, he actually messages me “I’m back”, then vanishes..
Another asks for more pics then disappears once I provide them.
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