With mixed feelings, I am happy (and sad) to share with you all my latest and my last review, of the EarMen CH-Amp and Tradutto DAC.
It's a great sounding and very versatile stack, and I am always a little surprised that EarMen doesn't get more attention these days.
If you were convinced there is a real difference, why be skeptical that there would be a measurable difference?
1. Take measurement of a DD and a BA set normally
2. Punch a leak in the measurement rig (probably through a hole in the eartips)
3. Take measurements again
Sorry perhaps I should have been more clear what difference will be obvious between what and what.
Punching a leak in the measurement rig will obviously change the FR greatly, especially in the bass, but what I meant was that the change will be very different on the DD set vs the BA set.
The DD set with its large diaphragm will lose some bass, but the BA set, which depended on pressurization of the small acoustic chamber for its bass response, will lose much more.
That is a simple and extreme demonstration of the fact that different earpieces not only measure differently on the same "ear", they also change their response differently when moved to a different "ear"; "the difference in their response on different ears is different". (if this makes sense to anyone ). This is why, as well as the fuss over what target curve to shoot for on a coupler, there is also a different fuss over improving the coupler standard to more accurately model "the average human ear".
That, beyond any mysticism of things you can't measure on a coupler, is a major reason why earphones that "measure the same" don't sound the same:
1. no two earphones actually measure the same (when you have two IEMs whose (usually smoothed, to start with) curves start looking a little similar, you have people pronouncing "clones" when usually several dBs worth of difference over several hundred if not thousands of Hz can be pointed at)
2. then too, you can make two earphones measure "exactly the same" on the coupler (in FR) by brute force DSP (as per below) and they still won't measure nearly the same on your actual ears (as per above).
3. there's phase response and distortion response figures one could also point to that are in all cases wildly different between any earphones pronounced "the same", but I don't believe these actually contribute that much to the difference heard compared to the above two points...
I'm planning to run an experiment using the R4: get a single DD set, a hybrid set, and a full BA set (I have no EST set here, unfortunately) and use the system-wide PEQ and my measurement rig to tune all of these to exactly the same target up to 6kHz, adjust by ears the treble, and then compare the sound and see how it goes.
My hypothesis is that they would have exactly the same tonal balance and tonality, but timbre of the midrange and physical tactility of the bass would be different. Depending on the leakage of the shell design, the openness of the soundstage would likely be different as well.
Now, which IEM should I use ... maybe the Project ACE, the Elysian Gaea, and 64 Audio U12T. I guess the U12T with 4 Sonion vented woofers would have the most headroom to catch up with the DDs.
My prediction is that you will actually hear them to be quite different even on a level of simple tonality. Unless your ears are the same as the coupler you matched response on, as per the above, they won't have matched response anymore once you move them from the coupler to your ears.
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). This is why, as well as the fuss over what target curve to shoot for on a coupler, there is also a different fuss over improving the coupler standard to more accurately model "the average human ear".
.......bonkers!
