A beautiful spring morning here in Dublin earlier, the first day in a while where it felt like some heat in the sun… roll on summer.
TL;DR - Onyx is my new favourite IEM. And while I wasn't able to pull the trigger on Ronin, Radon 6, Mentor, Traillii, or Storm (mentioning but a few), I can on Onyx. Does that make it perfect for me? Absolutely not!
Best regards,
Mr. Hard To Please.
Today I travelled all the way back to Rotterdam to give Noble Onyx a second chance, as I thought my demo 2 weeks ago was heavily influenced by listening to Volür for 1.5 hrs first. Volür being warm and closed in may have made Onyx sound very bright as a result, or so I thought, and this appeared to be the case.
I'm hearing Onyx as an upgraded Sultan with better comfort (super comfortable in fact), a much better standard cable, improved treble, perfectioned mids, and (unfortunately for me) an even bigger bass shelf. They look unremarkable to me which I'm totally okay with as I'm only in it for the ear candy.
BASS:
Let me get this out of the way first: It's a bit much for me and only listenable when EQ-ing 50 Hz down by 1.5 dB (Q=0.3). But even then it's too thick, has too little impact, and I would have loved it to be much tighter overall. Dire Straits' Six Blade Knife and Sultans Of Swing, or Tracy Chapman's Baby Can I Hold You Tonight and Michael's Thriller become uncomfortably thick for me. Perhaps it can be cured with a cable/DAP combination that opens up upper bass / lower mids a bit, but since there's only one shop in the whole friggin' Netherlands that at least has a high-end cable (but not Onyx) I won't be able to find out before I hit the road again. And I absolutely didn't have the guts to try my PWA copper cable on them as I learned my lesson last time. That would've been death by sub-bass for sure. When listening to Us And Them / Any Colour You Like I honestly thought there might be something wrong with the IEMs because of the bass shelf and weird effect, but when listening to the same songs on Sultan back home I'm hearing a similar problem in the bass, just not as obvious. It may have to do with my CD pressing and I do realize no IEM can make all albums to sound fantastic.
MIDS:
Totally incredible, lush, palpable, warm, open mids that are so uniquely 3D sounding that it's like you have a 3rd IEM in the front of your head that is exclusively used for center-stage vocalists. I don't think it gets any better than this and you can embrace vocalists that are right there, even on not too great sounding tracks like Black Sabbath's Children Of The Sea. And Sade sounds better on Onyx than in real life, period. But also, you can almost see the slime on Suzanne Vega's vocal cords so it's definitely very detailed while being warmly tuned. Last but not least I have a few recordings where male singers always sounded too boy-like and nasal (Geddy Lee or Bryan Ferry on the title track of Avalon for instance) but they were perfectly supported this time 'round.
TREBLE:
What was my biggest gripe last time turned out to be just fine and influenced by my Volür demo indeed. Sure, very bright recordings stay very bright. Like, San Francisco Bay Blues from Eric Clapton's Unplugged has a bit of a waterfall effect, partly created by all the hand clapping, and Onyx isn't going to repair that. And neither should it. But problems I had with snare drums on Metallica's self-titled album or for instance Dire Straits' Walk Of Life were very close to being solved; although Sad But True still had too much snare drum energy for me. Acoustic strings on A Fridaynight In San Francisco sounded a tad too smoky for me and lacked a little bit of definition because of it, but this is nothing a great silver cable can't solve I would think. It would add a bit more air and attack at the same time and most likely a bit of glow on Miles' trumpet that is welcome all the same.
TECHNICALITIES:
I have yet to hear a more speaker-like BUT realistic presentation of Rumours and A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. Not necessarily extremely wide, but very nice imaging, staging and layering. Micro dynamics can be improved while macro dynamics can't, or at least not by much. Timbre's great, tonality is great with bass toned down a little, and PRaT ticks all the boxes for me.
drftr in trouble
Always thought it would look bomb on the Neo 5 but, the price ratio doesn’t quite add up there
Plus, not sure I want to put solid core copper on a unit with already healthy bass.
That is like a beautiful ode to Miami Vice, the tv series
Always thought it would look bomb on the Neo 5 but, the price ratio doesn’t quite add up there
idk why I thought those cables were silver…lol, yeah, there would be a slight mismatch there.
Its quite good actually - it’s more spacious and more accurate than Duality that I tried after that. But it’s not the best of course esp against something like Ronin or Mentor.
I'm getting the tour set layer this week, and your impressions finally got me excited after a so-so Canjam demo. Which is fine because I had the same reaction to Monachaa at CanJam and now I own it!
RHAPSODIO SUPREME MK3:
A lot has changed for my preferences and gear setups since I first fell in love with the Rhapsodio Supreme MK2 ~3 years ago, but when I found out that I had the opportunity to have an extended listen with it outside of CanJam, I knew I had to see what else Sammy has cooked up (thank you @Rockwell75).
First off, Sv3 is more revealing, technically proficient, and dynamic than the Sv2. At first, this can come across as a touch bright, or a bit too illuminating in the upper registries, but just like most Rhapsodios, synergy is everything. Granted, my portable DAP-game is MIA (lol @ L&P W2), but once I gave the Sv3 some serious power through my tube desktop rig with the Rockna stack + Woo Audio WA23 Luna, that gorgeous timbre and sensual midrange came to life tenfold. Staging is sophisticatedly and eloquently placed, with convincing instrument imaging and impressive microdynamics. My biggest issue with the previous Rhapsodio magnetostatic IEMs were that they were just not dynamic enough---they had impressive speed but were lacking in impact. And while Sv3 will not satisfy a basshead, it has a clean, tight punch to its transients that work well for its organic tonality.
As I am spiraling deeper and deeper into trying to maximize the most I can out of the Susvara, I can almost confidently say that the Sv3 (when synergized well) can compete with Susvara for timbre and beautiful portrayal of vocals and instruments. Acoustic guitars are goosebumps-inducingly realistic, with just the perfect blend of speed, texture, and decay. I think Sammy is really onto something with the magnetostatic driver for IEMs-it has planar beat on timbre and realism, albeit at the expense of some macrodynamics and sensitivity to source. Just like how I love to use the Susvara for genres I don't generally listen to such as classical, piano, orchestra, and vocal-centric tracks, the Supreme MK3 entices me the exact same way from the portable world. It simply embraces you with an emotional attachment to the music. Effortlessly. Cohesively.
The damn shame is that again, it will require finding that right DAP/chain, likely one with tons of power and that can add technical warmth to offset Sv3s rather finicky, quirky, even at times metallic default tonal signature. I've had this issue with the Rhap v2, where it was a bright, fatiguing IEM off the HiBy R8, but significantly different IEM off a warmer iBasso DAP (my favorite midrange of all-time). And the same with Rhapsodio Infinity MK2. But again, a lot has changed in the last 3 years and I think the understanding that synergy is everything in this hobby has grown, so I look forward to hearing if others also unlock the beauty that Supreme can offer. Kudos Sammy-expensive AF (especially when you have to find a TOTL cable for it), but Supreme V2/V3 really do stand in a league of their own for timbre, midrange, and texture IMHO.
Did you try it with Blue Hour? I love it. I actually enjoyed Titan more
Yeah I wasn't too impressed at CanJam either, but I am happy I gave it another chance as I think the Sup3's strengths are more evident in an intimate listening environment anyways. Hopefully that L&P P6Pro pairs well as R2R generally does well to bring out the driver's tonal accuracy IMO!
Yeah, I did. For bass i definitely would take Titan over Ronin/Mentor. Really wished i A/B ed against Xe6Did you try it with Blue Hour? I love it. I actually enjoyed Titan more
.
Nice to find a V3 fan
RHAPSODIO SUPREME MK3:
A lot has changed for my preferences and gear setups since I first fell in love with the Rhapsodio Supreme MK2 ~3 years ago, but when I found out that I had the opportunity to have an extended listen with it outside of CanJam, I knew I had to see what else Sammy has cooked up (thank you @Rockwell75).
First off, Sv3 is more revealing, technically proficient, and dynamic than the Sv2. At first, this can come across as a touch bright, or a bit too illuminating in the upper registries, but just like most Rhapsodios, synergy is everything. Granted, my portable DAP-game is MIA (lol @ L&P W2), but once I gave the Sv3 some serious power through my tube desktop rig with the Rockna stack + Woo Audio WA23 Luna, that gorgeous timbre and sensual midrange came to life tenfold. Staging is sophisticatedly and eloquently placed, with convincing instrument imaging and impressive microdynamics. My biggest issue with the previous Rhapsodio magnetostatic IEMs were that they were just not dynamic enough---they had impressive speed but were lacking in impact. And while Sv3 will not satisfy a basshead, it has a clean, tight punch to its transients that work well for its organic tonality.
As I am spiraling deeper and deeper into trying to maximize the most I can out of the Susvara, I can almost confidently say that the Sv3 (when synergized well) can compete with Susvara for timbre and beautiful portrayal of vocals and instruments. Acoustic guitars are goosebumps-inducingly realistic, with just the perfect blend of speed, texture, and decay. I think Sammy is really onto something with the magnetostatic driver for IEMs-it has planar beat on timbre and realism, albeit at the expense of some macrodynamics and sensitivity to source. Just like how I love to use the Susvara for genres I don't generally listen to such as classical, piano, orchestra, and vocal-centric tracks, the Supreme MK3 entices me the exact same way from the portable world. It simply embraces you with an emotional attachment to the music. Effortlessly. Cohesively.
The damn shame is that again, it will require finding that right DAP/chain, likely one with tons of power and that can add technical warmth to offset Sv3s rather finicky, quirky, even at times metallic default tonal signature. I've had this issue with the Rhap v2, where it was a bright, fatiguing IEM off the HiBy R8, but significantly different IEM off a warmer iBasso DAP (my favorite midrange of all-time). And the same with Rhapsodio Infinity MK2. But again, a lot has changed in the last 3 years and I think the understanding that synergy is everything in this hobby has grown, so I look forward to hearing if others also unlock the beauty that Supreme can offer. Kudos Sammy-expensive AF (especially when you have to find a TOTL cable for it), but Supreme V2/V3 really do stand in a league of their own for timbre, midrange, and texture IMHO.
did you manage to cable roll? I find it to be sensitive to changes in the gear chain, which I like
