[Knee Deep In Epoxy]

I think my headphones are now obsoleted by comparison to the sound of the Prestige LTDs

They're just too good haha
Also, using Dunu S&S tips, great seal I find them more comfortable than the Azla xelastecs.

I agree on both counts.

I'm sure I'll go back to my headphones at some point but at the moment the Prestige LTD is hogging my ears.

The S&S tips are my favourite of all at the moment.... I've recently tried Xelastec Crystal, Radius Deep Mount (black and clear), Divinus Velvet and Final Type E (black and clear). The S&S are my favourite overall, But I do wish they I had ML and MS sizes to get the perfect fit.

 

[ext23]

Same, I tend to just reach for the LTD all the time as I know they will be able to handle whatever mood shifts I have throughout the day (rock to hip-hop? No worries. Pop to jazz? No worries.)

I've also been through a few tips and to be quite honest haven't found much difference in the sound across any of them. I tried Xelastecs and Maxes but although I got good fit with both I actually didn't like either, because the Xelastec get so dirty and gross and because the Max eventually got slightly itchy. Currently I'm using the cheap Kbear 07 and they're fantastic, I can wear them all day with zero irritation.

 

[Wildcatsare1]

Hi Everyone,

So I went to visit Elise Aduio today in London. The guys were really helpful and I managed to get a little listen to some IEMs. Unfortunately not everything in the list above was available to demo but I did manage to get to demo some others instead, so I'll try and remember everything that I listened to in this post.

If you ever are considering visiting them make sure you make an appointment. They don't really have an official shop as such. They operate from a house really. I got to meet their neighbour who lives besides them. Bear in mind if you are buying anything then you will need to buy from their website but you can take it home that day once the purchase has been cleared.

In the end I ended up buying th Kinera URD (Currently listening to with Radius Deep Mount small tips) and I also got a XDuoo Link2 Bal DAC (For my laptop computer). So I'll give my intial impressions of what I listened to. Now I'm no expert when it comes to this stuff so I can't really give great descriptions and I'm going by memeory here as well so I may get confused and mixed up since I tried quite a few IEMs.

Also DISCLAIMER, I only listened to these iems for a short amount of time (5-10 mins), so I didn't really get a chance to try an array of different tips or anything. I mostly used the Radius Deep Mount large tips and a little bit of CP100s and TRI Clarions when I had fit issues. I also used an Astell & Kern Kann Max as my source.

So unfortunately, the FATfreq Maestro Mini, DUNU SA6 Mk2 and Moondrop Blessing were unavailable for demo. So I didn't get to listen to these.

AFUL Performer 5 - I was surprised at how good these sounded for their price tag. I did consider getting these as well while I was there but I decided to leave it for the future. I would say a good neutral sound with some energy behind the sound with some great detail for an iem listed at £154 on their website. I might just get these in future at some point.

AFUL Performer 8 - A little bit brighter than the performar 5 I thought but still really good it had the same kind of energy as the first one too. Certainly a bit more detail but to be honest I didn't notice a lot more. Once again however I only had a 5-10 min listen so I didn't really get to a lot of my library to be able to tell.

Kinera URD - What I ended up buying. Mostly for the sound signature. It's got a nice warm sound and the Deep Mount ear tips certainly brought a bit of energy out into it. Not to mention Elise Audio has the nice blue colour ear buds that they were able to arrange with Kinera.

Symphonium Meteor - They were OK. These are a set more on the Bassy side, which is fine. I do like a bit of bass sometimes but I did find these to just be OK and not really something I would consider purchasing for like £600.

Elise Audio X Symphonium Helios SE & Kinera Verdedandi - This is where my memory is a bit hazy. Both of these were not to my tastes really. I felt like the bass and the treble didn't really match up well on one of them (Can't remember which one but I think it was the Helios). So they sounded a bit weird for me personally. l'm sure that others will like them but they didn't reallt strike a chord with me. Perhaps the tips just weren't right for them either. The other one was difficult to drive and even my Kann Max had to go to a higher volume level on them. So they didn't really sound right based upon that (I think this was the verdandi). I could be mixing these two up though so I'm not sure.

Thieaduio Pristiege LTD - Well, I've finally managed to listen these. They are good but I think I prefer my Monarch Mk3's. They have a very laid back sound without the same energy as the MK3's but I guess that a lot of people like that.

Canpur CP622B - I had heard good things about these beforehand but really I was actually underwhelmed when I heard them. Like I said before I only got a little listen to them and I used the Deep Mount large tips but they came across as a bit bright and thin for my liking. I was expecting some had hitting bass but I didn't get that. I think maybe I needed to try smaller tips for a beter insertion probably. They do have BC driver so maybe that wasn't positioned right. Also I think they are probably really difficult to drive but I was using super gain on my A&K Kann Max.

Thieaudio Hype 4 - These were really good actually. The only reason why I didn't get these is because I already have the Monarch Mk3s but I really do consider these to be along the same kind of lines, obviously cause they have Thieaduio's in house sound. They might not be quite as detailed and resolving as the MK3s but to be honest they are not far off and they are a good bit cheaper. I might pick these up at some point in the future too but I wanted to branch out a little with something a bit different hence why I went with the Kinera URD.

Elise Audio X Dark Phoenix - When I used my EQ that I normally use for my MK3s they became better sounding. When I listened to them I could tell that the 2k peak was a bit high for my personal tastes but it's an easy fix really. These are only £135 so I wasn't expecting much but they seemed pretty good for their price range. I think the Performer 5 was probably still a bit better though.

I think that was all of it. The Kinera URD, The AWFUL Performers and both of the Thieaudio's were the real standouts I think. If you don't have the money to buy the Monarch MK3s or the Prestiege LTD then the Hype 4 is definetly a good option.

I'm now going to go back to tip rolling to see if these deep mounts really are the best for the Kinara URD (sounds really good just now). Alos I have a DAC to try out too.

Great write up, thank you.

 

[gentzen]

Finally, my Liquid Links cable for the Prestige LTD has arrived and it's a beauty. I have not yet done an A/B with the stock cable, but both build-wise and soundwise the Ebua II certainly does not disappoint.

 

[kalibri]

Finally, my Liquid Links cable for the Prestige LTD has arrived and it's a beauty. I have not yet done an A/B with the stock cable, but both build-wise and soundwise the Ebua II certainly does not disappoint.

Nice cable but that price is ... ugh

 

[Alkamei]

Nice cable but that price is ... ugh

lol do cables do much? (if at all)
Was considering the "orlog" kinera x effect audio. Maybe my money would be better serve on a different upgrade, such as a newer Dac/Amp unit

 

[kalibri]

lol do cables do much? (if at all)
Was considering the "orlog" kinera x effect audio. Maybe my money would be better serve on a different upgrade, such as a newer Dac/Amp unit

My personal rule is to never pay more than $100 for a cable, I do have a fairly decent box of cables, probably 30-40, that would be a huge pile of cash if all of them were expensive.I reckon most of my cables are in the $20-30 range.

For me, cables do not change the sound in a perceptible way, so they are sort of jewelry and I do not want to spend money on jewelry, I'd rather put that money down towards better IEMs, DACs, etc.

 

[gentzen]

Nice cable but that price is ... ugh

You've got a point there. Not sure the sound is audibly different (it certainly is not worse than the stock cable, but is it better? I've not had time to A/B). There are a few points to consider in such a purchase. I already have a TOTL DAP and am not interested in non-portable, desktop solutions. I have an entry high-end pair of iems in Prestige LTD that sound really good to my ears. Sure, there are potentially upgrades even to this, but they'd probably mean a top-up of £1k-1.5k, which is far more than what my cable cost. I have experimented with several tips, until I found a pair that really fit my sound preferences in Azla SednaEarfit Max. Finally, I was not satisfied with the quality of the stock cable and was looking for an upgrade. Not so much in terms of sound, but in terms of robustness and fit/lock of connectors (my troubles are documented in an earlier post in here). Evua II is a nicely heavy cable that doesn't twist, is solidly build, its 2-pin and 4-pin connectors lock very well and do not dislodge. Sound-wise, there is perhaps something to the signal carrying properties of different alloy combinations and structures of strands within a cable, as well as shielding properties. I too tend to believe the difference might be small (perhaps realized in really very expensive cables) and certainly smaller than what transducers or DAC/Amps can produce as they scale for quality. Yet, there comes a point where there's little else you can improve without going way overboard on price, other than your cable.

 

[ext23]

I use a $20 Tripowin cable with my Prestige LTD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Knee Deep In Epoxy]

Still evaluating the Hype 4... But some comments on my unit:

Heavy bass thump. Doesn't bleed into the kids, but could do with more detail and textures. Still, very enjoyable.

Mids and Highs TBC

Great depth in the headstage when a proper seal is achieved. Even though they are not the biggest iems I own, the Hype 4 is quite thick and sticks out of my ears quite a bit. After a lot of tip rolling I've landed on the Divinus Velvet ML (i.e. one size bigger than usual for me) as my preferred tip. I would highly recommend them for the hype 4.

One QC issue. The recess for the 2 pin connector is a but more shallow on the left earpiece than the right one. Occasionally it causes the wire to slip out which is a bit annoying. Luckily it doesn't happen too often

 

[gentzen]

Heavy bass thump. Doesn't bleed into the kids, but could do with more detail and textures. Still, very enjoyable.

It certainly is most important not to bleed into the kids. They get easily scarred at such a young age.

 

[JAnonymous5150]

It certainly is most important not to bleed into the kids. They get easily scarred at such a young age.

Poor kids...

 

[Knee Deep In Epoxy]

It certainly is most important not to bleed into the kids. They get easily scarred at such a young age.

 

[Alkamei]

I found an interesting blog/article about the Prestige LTDs and the author wrote about their discovery on different tips and wires.

https://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn=60535&snA=24403

I am interested in testing out the
Pentaconn COREIR eartips now
But it looks like they paired it with the effect audio Fusion 1's cable

 

[kalibri]

But it looks like they paired it with the effect audio Fusion 1's cable

Tips do change the sound, cables don't, not in what I would consider a noticeable quantity, even if measurable by a device the ear would have a very hard time picking a difference up.

Use whatever cable you want, it doesn't matter.

Tips on the other hand can be vastly different from model to model so build a collection and tip roll each new IEM to see which one you like the best.

• Wide bore tip: less bass, more treble (perceived)
• Narrow bore tip: more bass, less treble (perceived)