No news. Just delays and Next-Weeks.
First, one reads this at this (last for now) page of the thread:
On a side note... I'm glad you guys like the masters. you only paid 60GBP for them. For those of us invested in something like the Hunter, we want want something that lives up to the TOTL status.
And yes, trinity's track record since the Delta vII has been below standards I would say. The Sabre was not that great of an IEM. The PM4 a debacle. You can see some better quality reviews through the hype of the typical fanboy impressions with more accurate descriptions of the Master. And as I wait for the Hunter you got the Air not living up to standards.
There's a lot of people who only paid 60 GBP's telling me the Masters are good but they can't really describe why and there is a lack of technical vocabulary to describe it. Even if they didn't know the technical jargon they would be able to articulate something accurate. I don't really care what the group majority says... If you hear good well articulated explanations of faults among bland and vague comments of something being good it will tell you something, even if it be of something subtle that the less trained ear can hear.
And there are a lot of people who have ben listening to audio for a long time and can't describe the sound that well at all. Yes comparisons are important, but if you can hear the sound for what it's worth, you don't need comparisons to describe a sound accurately.
There's a lot of people who won't be able to discern the subtleties of the sound and appreciate them and they will tell you an IEM is worth more than it is.
But I will guarantee that if these people had to pay the full retail price for these items, the impressions would be very different. And whether or not they are aware of that bias or not I don't care.
There is a huge amount of group dynamics influencing how people perceive these IEM's along with the bias from the discount and an accurate picture, as it was with the Sabre and the pm4, is lost.
And for those of you who can hear the subtleties, those 2 out of 10 reviews that disliked certain aspects of the Master are touching on it more accurately even if they are afraid to admit it.
Several pages back (3 or 4) in the same thread:
To weigh in on the whole Master/disappointment thing, I haven't heard the current version of the Masters, but the preproduction version I had around Christmas time for a few weeks was certainly punching in the c. $200 price bracket in terms of SQ as far as I could hear, compared to other items in my collection at the time.
From the early writeups, it sounds like they tightened up a few things in terms of tuning (as you would expect), but the model I heard held up in direct comparison to both the Ibasso IT03 and LZ-A4. Please note that if you find my impressions a fair few pages back, I don't say that the Masters topped the SQ either IEM for my preferences, but the fact that they play in the same ball park as two of the acknowledged heavy hitters of recent times in terms of bang for the buck is no small thing.
Value, like everything else, is subjective, but if Trinity hadn't sold these at the discount price of £60 and had set the initial discounted price a little bigger, I don't think people would have been complain in droves.
Again, just my opinion so please take this with a pinch of salt. I don't defend what Trinity have done and are doing with their delivery shenanigans (I'm a frustrated Hunter preorder like many others in the thread, and will be very disappointed if they don't ship in the coming week), but separating SQ from business practices, all the models I have heard to date certainly have a high price/performance ratio to my ears. This even included the PM4, although I freely admit I was one of the people who didn't like the tuning and find the treble borderline painful.
TL;DR - for me, people can hang Bob and Trinity on the logistics and choose to vote with their feet on future orders, but judged purely on SQ, they still have a pretty impressive track record so far.
I believe these two posts, put in contrast, highlight some issues with both reviewing and keeping the criticism in the realms of what is feasible in terms of cost vs. quality.
I can reiterate my earlier statements (as a hunch towards what I think of Masters) with equipment comparisons,
and oh, sorry to burst the bubble for some of the high-end people -
performance vs. the cost - has always been a major factor in any kind of engineering, even (sic!) audio...
For some people curious on sibilant - or piercing-highs tracks - find "Niko The Kid x Halogen - Tell Me (Radio Edit)", and download it in decent quality...
Wasn't particularly enjoyable with all the other cans I have at home, piercing highs even to me, who like the detail and sparkle there, but with some (or most) of the filters I use with Master, no problems...
Again, our ears are different, and again - the measurements - freq. graphs and other are IMO only a fraction of what the best measuring instrument our ears can fathom.
Criticism of the Masters (oddly enough based on Master 4) having in mind getting them for 60£ is, honestly, bordering on ridiculous.
One More triple driver iem was getting the rave reviews in the press and from most of the users, claimed to punch way above it's price range.
Many have described it as overly bassy, most were raving about it, yet one user claimed that Atlas from Trinity blew them out of the water.
One reviewer - and I liked that review up to the point - compared Masters to the FLC 8s, and that was a good starting point IMO - in terms of SQ, yet, FLCs are more expensive, significantly so for the retail price, not the mention the 60£ steal for the Masters.
I have no reason whatsoever to advocate or defent Trinity Audio, the Master is the first IEM i have purchased from them, in no way affiliated with Trinity Audio, and very curious about FLC8s, plan to test them if ever available down the road.
I have been putting the Masters through its paces for some days now, and noticed that they are highly revealing of the source and all the equipment in the chain.
Even if I can see the limitations and space for the improvement - I am very pleased with their performance, to say the least, not because I want to like them, but because I was doing some extensive comparisons with the other gear at home.
Regarding the 2 out of more than 10 users and their criticism, I think their "criticism" of some aspects of the Masters has been both addressed and put well in perspective in some replies to their posts.
As much as I see both of their posts as well written, valid in terms of describing what they have heard in terms of the absolute sound quality, and some (not all) of the comparisons with the equipment, I strongly disagree with some of the points raised by one of those two reviewers - for example putting the Masters in perspective with AKG Q701, since I own (and enjoy) K701, matched with the right headphone amp.
Please, look more carefully at the post given several pages prior to the post that is put here in contrast to it, and anyone can see that most of the stuff issued in it addresses what has been written (in opposite terms) several pages after that affirmative (to the Trinity) post, which is to me, kind of interesting...
