Thought I'd post this here. Still not had time to wrote a review but I've had a few people ask me how red sounds and especially compared to fs which I've never listened to. This was a reply to a pm for that very question and also regarding Indigo. I'll put most of this into review along with music listened to so you get more of an idea what I'm hearing. Hopefully this should give a little insight into red for now.
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500+ Head-Fier
Ooh, you ask a tough question. I've been asked by so many people and find it hard to give an example as I don't have a collection of iems to compare to!
Actually had a chat with someone last night who shares a very similar music library and has some common ground in gear.
He owns FS, uses Ti AE and pairs Phoenix with orph, didnt like FS with orph.I took delivery of LP6 yesterday and thought Red sounded pretty bad in it, was a bit disappointed as everyone in the mason thread seems to rave about LP pairing. What that told us was red and FS are definitely not the same IEM.
What do I like about red...
I think it's hugely organic and transparent. It's got a natural flow that's extremely lifelike, effortless & delicate when the source material gives it, yet it can absolutely smash your ear drums with heavy rock / metal making guitar sound like it's getting out all of its pent up anger and drums / bass providing the ominous thunderous backing to set the mood.
It doesn't have DD bass but it does have big ba bass. It's full, tight, fast, textured and with the bcd you still 100% get the bass drum kick and snare snap.
The down side of the above is the higher the volume goes the better it sounds!
Mids are full and organic with great clarity. They're not saturated but definitely have some bite and give some meat to the music. If you like mids rather than a v shaped tuning then high chance you'll like these.
Treble has superb delicacy and air, decay in cymbals is quite long showing that they in conjunction with n8ii can retrieve detail / highly resolving. Treble isn't sharp, not pushed forward. I'd say lower treble is maybe more prominent but right now I'm paired with orph which does smooth the treble whilst giving more detail. Attila I'd say has more sparkle but less detail. Orph has one body so maybe that takes away from the...sparkle. (really don't like the use of sparkle to describe treble)
Stage is superb. I don't like a stretched soundstage as I feel this separates the track too much and I can't enjoy the sum of the parts. Good example was Focal Clear MG, massive stage width extended too far for me. It definitely extends out of head but doesn't push it too far. Good depth and varies by recording. Anywhere from on stage to a few rows back. For quite a few albums, it's singer placed just infront and the band around you.
Height is good. There's good enough height to easily distinguish placement of a kick vs a tom etc. On "money", Gilmours guitar feels like it's wailing high up bouncing of the walls and ceiling of the studio. Quite something to hear.
Separation is good although on very busy tracks with heavy guitar riffs (metal mostly) the bass definition can fade a touch. Double edged sword as it compliments and drives the guitars with an immense wall of sound but sometimes you need to focus to hear all of the individual bass notes. This could just be a byproduct of the individual recording, I'm mostly thinking back to black album here which even with the reissue and remaster still falls short on quality. With tracks where it cuts to drums / bass, it's jaw dropping the amount of weight and texture they can carry.
Imaging. I love imaging. I like being able to visualize the stage and it adds immersion to the performance and can take me from listening to a recording to being there when it's recorded. Red I feel is accurate in more than just a planar dimension and can place instruments throughout the stage.
Coherence is a non issue. Going back to indigo I can hear all 3 type of driver doing their own thing. Red has kind of spoiled indigo for me to a certain extent.
Compared to indigo....
I thought indigo was superb with MAX SS but too hot with N8ii. You can clearly hear the difference between red and Indigo ba vs est, est having more prominent treble but also more etched, not as natural. Taking bcd out of it, indigo bass is a more fun tuning but I feel reds BA is more natural. Red BCD is more apparent than indigo which gives red the kick it needs being BA. UM have done a great job in this regard IMO and given us a best of both worlds.
Red is VERY tip dependant. Out of well over a dozen tips, I've only got two that make it shine and sound 'good' in my book. They're probably quite source picky as well, didn't like them on LP6 and wasn't too keen paired with M9. They're also very transparent to cable change with all 3 pw cables I have here (um3, attila orph) having different characteristics, orph being the biggest jump / difference in sound.
Hope this helps, I'll probably use a lot of this for review. Not reviewed anything before as I don't like people taking any opinion I have as gospel as we all hear things differently!
