[theveterans]

At this point, I knew what I wanted and bought my QDC V14, so now I'm just watching for anything actually revolutionary that piques my interest.

QDC V14 are very nice IEMs. I don't really think you'll find anything revolutionary, but rather something different such as tuning manipulation in the phase response of multiple driver types alongside with FR curves to simulate better depth perception. Do you prefer the technical aspects of a DD driver in the bass i.e. slower decay (longer CSD) or you prefer the faster decay (shorter CSD) of the BA bass?

 

[KinGensai]

QDC V14 are very nice IEMs. I don't really think you'll find anything revolutionary, but rather something different such as tuning manipulation in the phase response of multiple driver types alongside with FR curves to simulate better depth perception. Do you prefer the technical aspects of a DD driver in the bass i.e. slower decay (longer CSD) or you prefer the faster decay (shorter CSD) of the BA bass?

I'm still a bit undecided at the moment. For precision I prefer BA bass, but IEMs using BA bass drivers seem to not be as capable of generating sub bass extension as DDs or planars, so I switch between the V14 and MSE as my mood changes. I think I would like to see a tribrid of BAs, ESTs, and a BC driver to generate infrasonic rumbling to make up for that lost sub bass extension.

 

[redrol]

Because what reason?

Using pure sine waves and artificially generating THD makes it easier to isolate and listen for distortion, so the theory is as you start at 5% THD and step down, the difference is noticeable if the driver is capable of rendering that difference. The inherent THD associated with the driver will add a bit so it's not an ideal test, but it's a practical demonstration of how capable a transducer is at particular discrete frequencies.

Using that method, the best I can discern is down to 0.1%, below that is inaudible. The generator goes down to 0.001% which seems academic to me.

I listen to music files, not sine waves.

 

[KinGensai]

I listen to music files, not sine waves.

That's fair, I'm just trying to isolate variables and be more precise when I'm giving an opinion about an IEM's technical performance. Music is difficult as a metric because of inconsistency, although drastic differences like 3% THD in the subbass vs 0.1% show up immediately in that context too. Sine waves make it easy to set up and replicate or refute my claims, thus have more utility as a metric.

 

[redrol]

I mean thats a legit test but to what end? If you are shooting for that last 5% performance, than bravo and go for it. If its more for personal music enjoyment, eh, probably not worrying about. I have 2 modes, one is making actual sound devices and the other is enjoying them. If im going for the best I can make, hell yeah, kill it objectively. Subjectively you may not notice that last 5% but you will feel good about doing that hard work and seeing it pay off in metrics.

 

[KinGensai]

My main goal is to ground my opinion in an objective point of reference, one that doesn't require an endless web of cross-references to other sets in order to get the idea across.

I bet you see it too, one of the most common questions on the internet about this topic is "this IEM vs another IEM" or "this or that, which sounds better". The responses I see are often adjective word salad that requires a lot of reading between the lines and knowing what heuristic web the person is using to decipher that impression. I'm not saying the responder is lying or obfuscating on purpose, it's just a pain because everyone uses these words in different ways and to different internal metrics.