Right, I have spent Saturday night at home playing around with EQ-ing the Moonlight. It's not as sad as you think since it's Bonfire night in the UK and I generally avoid it due to air pollution and breathing difficulties.
Basically, I have went onto HBB Squig and got the PEQs needed to approximate the Moonlight to various other IEM's tonalities. The ones I have picked were <Mahina, Monarch II, Oracle II, Xenns Up, Variations, Shuoer x HBB EJ07M (is that Kinda Lava??) and Senn IE600/900. These were chosen because of either curiosity, or fellow approximate price, or tribrids. If anyone has any other suggestions after reading this through, please chip in.
Essentially, my main complaint with the Moonlight is that it lacks in bass. How do I determine that? Well my testing track for bass levels, funnily enough isn't EDM or anything, it's particular track by Celine Dion titled <Because you loved me>. The reason for this is there is a strong backing bass in the track along with high vocal peaks from Celine's voice. Using Adobe Audition's frequency analyzer function to analyze the FLAC file of the song with regards to what frequency is at what -db level in the mix, I have used the snapshot tool to take various snapshots in time of the exact frequency spectrum and the max peaks. So overall, you see for a large part of the sound track, the bass level is supposed to be a lot higher than midrange / treble, it's mixed that way and so it should sound low / warm. And roughly speaking, the max peak of bass at approx 35hz is the same -db level mixed as Celine's vocals peaks at 1kz.
Given that information, I play the track back on my speaker + subwoofer setup, which is a pair of professional studio monitors plus a 155lb subwoofer with a 8.33 cubic ft ported box enclosure capable of flat extension in-room of 16hz. I then measure the max peaks of playing back Celine Dion <Because you loved me>using a spectrum analyser app on my mobile to measure the max peaks detected for every frequency. essentially, I am looking for the measured 35hz and 1khz peak to be roughly equal in height, and how *I perceive* that level of bass determines for me, what the correct level of (low) bass *should* sound like (for me).
Given that methodology, I installed Equaliser APO for Windows, and exported .txt files of all PEQs needed for Moonlight approximations with the pre-amp gain reduction disabled. Auto EQ on HBB Squig was set from 20 to 20000hz, not 15000 by default, though the algorithm didn't always go above 15k, but if you set the limit higher it can do for a better fit. I also added more filters until the algorithm determined no more could be optimised (for one of them, I manually added PEQs myself to further improve the laziness of the algorithm and used the outputted line graph as a guide for fit). I added about 5 filter rows from the web app's default.
Aside from that one Celine Dion track, I have also used Lene Marlin <A place nearby> to test for bass level, as there is a constant pulsing of bass throughout. To test for tonality of female voices (I don't care for the men, sorry guys), I used Celine Dion, Katie Melua and Karen Carpenter.
To anyone reading this, the obvious disclaimer is that all the impressions are based from a baseline of Moonlight.
First of all, both the Senns IE600/900 were kicked off because I didn't like the treble, with IE900 being a much worse offender than IE600. It was a U shape, and the treble was too "spicy", not much of an improvement from my Senn IE300 which I only keep around because I got it half price.
Both the Thieaudio Monarch II and Oracle II were kicked off again because I didnt like the treble, in particular in the way it added a brittle, crystalline edge to female voices. Eg the first 20-40 seconds of <Call off the Search> by Katie Melua.
I believe the biggest contributor as to why those sets were kicked off were due to various gains in the treble at 5k and above. Which you may wonder, why I have left the Moondrop Variations on the graph, it's to prove a point essentially, which I'll come to later.
You will see from the screenshotted graph that all of them have higher bass than the Moonlight which I definite feel is lacking.
So now, does the Mahina sound very different from the Moonlight? No is the simple answer. There is however, a perceptible audio difference, more noticeable if you A/B sections of a track. Is the difference worth it for me to take a hit on restocking / resell? I'm not sure yet. But I *am* sure that I should have bought the Mahina over the Moonlight to start with. And that HBB preference tuning is definitely closer to what I would consider to be the "good and correct" sound profile.
However, if I just want more bass at a level but keeping the vocal profile as close to the Moonlight / Mahina as possible, it is actually the Xenns Up which fits the best. It has a level of bass output / kick that I feel is good for the Celine Dion track and the Lene Marlin one, it is how I would expect my subwoofer to sound in the audible frequencies without physically shaking the room and its contents. However, I'm unsure whether the higher level of bass when carried over to every song is exactly how my speakers + subwoofers sound. With the Xenns up sound profile on, the bassline in every track is clear and audible. I could live with it, but I will have to listen to my speaker subwoofer after I get up from bed as I couldn't do it in the night to see whether the level of bass in the Xenns up is "correct" or not. It's certainly pleasant though.
I will now explain why I have rejected Moondrop Variations, but not EJ07M x HBB (Kinda Lava?) even though they both add to the Moonlight's vocal / treble range above 1k. Essentially, the Variation has higher level between 5k to 9k, which I find interferes with female vocals and make them sound brittle / crystal / harsh.
Both the Variations and EJ07M x HBB (Kinda Lava?) also has a boost relative to the Moonlight peaking at 2.8khz which again affects female vocals. I find that for the Kinda Lava? the gain at 2.8khz but not between 5-9k adds extra "bite" to female voices without brittleness, and actually sounds very nice to me. It's like the Moonlight / Mahina vocals with extra seasoning. And this model's bass boost is a happy medium between the Moonlight and Xenns UP, bass levels tested to me also sound to be good and possibly more "correct" than the Xenns UP.
The only thing left is a bit of confusion as on the HBB Squig site, there are EJ07, EJ07M, EJ07M x HBB and EJ07M 2 x HBB. I don't understand the difference and I intend to ask this in a Shuoer thread, but the curve I used was EJ07M x HBB, which had the large bass gain out of those 4 relative to the Moonlight.
I hope my impressions here helps anyone else as opposed to me just pissing in the wind. lol.
