IEM general discussion thread

Bizarre concept. I don't see how making it concentric would help here.

If the BA is firing into a cavity first and then a tube going into the ear canal, it will be severely low passed. Secondly, concentric alignment makes no sense for an in-ear as the dimensions are small compared to the wavelength, so the entire system behaves like a pressure chamber where directionality has little to no influence. With moving coil in-ears, if you want to maximize extension, this is done by having a lighter moving mass and minimizing the front volume before the acoustic tube.

 

Thanks for helping with visualizing what the adapter would look like. True, coming from the cable end, it would be rather long before the bend. But a straight adapter would have it going a long ways towards the temple before the cable could start wrapping backwards over the ear. Maybe the angled one is the way to go.

My head w/ Noble X:


MUC-M2BT1 MMCX connectors

 

dafuq?! i first saw these in a japanese forum ...

http://inearspace.com/2017/07/11/meeting-with-stereopravdas-big-misha/

 

I don't know what it says about the author when a fanny pack is now novel.

 

How are the universal Future Sonics? The spectrum g10...

 

I did a review on them over on HF a while back. Superior subbass extension and lot of quantity, then a lift in the vocal region, then a relaxed treble.

It's a pro stage monitor and has that command of timbre. Depending on fit, a few find the vocal lift to be harsh. But I never have, it's designed to be non-fatiguing at volume.

It's good for an iem just under $200, if you're looking for its stage monitor tuning and subbass. One last thing, I would say it does much better with more power.

 

A few IEM impressions from a recent store visit:

ATH-LS200 - Like these quite a bit. Fairly neutral, the treble dip shown on La Cenric's measurements wasn't that pronounced to my ears unless I A-Bed with my Tenores (which I still feel are just right for me FR-wise, and hard to beat especially for the price). Somewhat airier and more spacious-sounding than I was expecting. Midrange has a hint of haziness at times. Didn't trigger my BA timbre allergy as bad as the...

Fender FXA6 and 7 - Mmmmmm. No, especially considering their prices. Warm bassy tilt, somewhat congested. FXA7 had an upper mid to treble weirdness I wasn't too keen on. Oh well.

Noble x Massdrop X - I can see why these are well- liked, with their warm, pleasant tone. Personally, I would have liked a gentler rise in the mids and bass from maybe 900hz down, with about 3db less around the 100hz region. Nozzles are badonkadonkhuge, especially for my tiny ears...

 

Some brief Noble 3 impressions from a little while ago. Note: I am not very experienced with IEM's.



I have never been an IEM person. I have just stuck with headphones as they suited my needs. IEM land always seemed confusing. Do I get customs? What brands are any good? Will they be any good compare to full size headphones? Where do I even begin???

I have been doing a lot of travelling lately, and just been using my M&D ME03 that were given to me by a friend. They are great, and were suiting me well, but I started to get an itch to try something new. I had a poke around on my local shops website, and saw that the Noble 3’s were on sale, as a whole new line of Noble products were coming in. I started researching Noble, and every other IEM brand I could find on my local shops website. It was a whole new world. How many drivers do I want? What tips are good/fit? What sort of frequency response am I looking for? I decided, after a lot of searching, that I didn’t want to/couldn’t after the purchase of the WA8, spend a lot of money on my first pair of “real” IEMS. So, with them being on sale, and getting a bit of a combo deal with the WA8, I decided on purchasing the Noble 3’s.

I have spent two days with them now, listening pretty much non stop, to all different kinds of music. Holy shit. I’m blown away. I didn’t know IEMS could be this good. Next time I am in the local shop I will try out some other brands and higher up the line Nobles, just to see what is possible with IEMS. They sound SO good compared to what I thought was possible. Now, obviously they are different than full size headphones, just as full size headphones are different from speakers. With that being said, I’m wondering what a custom Kaiser 10 would sound like. Would they match, or even beat out my full size cans??? I never thought that was possible with IEMS until I tried these Noble 3’s…..but I really think it might be now. I can’t wait to try the Kaiser 10’s, and other top of the line models.

I don’t travel enough to justify spending 2 grand plus on a pair of earphones, as most of my listening time is at home, in a very quiet room. Full size open cans are the way to go for me most of the time. These Noble 3’s are probably as far as I will ever go in terms of actually purchasing IEMS. I’ll try out other kinds as I said just to see what is possible, but unless I start travelling more, or other circumstances change, the Noble 3’s are probably it.

So. Impressions. All the listening with the Noble 3’s over the past two days was done with my iPhone, straight out of the headphone jack, my computers headphone out, the chord Mojo, and the Woo Audio WA8. I wanted to see what the differences were from all 4 sources. Obviously the Mojo and the Woo were preferred and sounded better, but these can be run from your phone or computers headphone out no problem The music used for testing these out ranged from electronic, to jazz, to orchestral, to rock, and some metal here and there.

Noble says the 3’s have a V shaped frequency response. “Controlled, Impactful low end, and far reaching highs. I would agree with that statement, for the most part.

Bass: I am a bit of a basshead, so I pay a lot of attention to the bass of whatever I am testing. These were super! “Controlled, and impactful” sums it up well. No shortage of sub bass extension from what I could hear, and you can almost…feel…the bass. Very impressive for an IEM. I look forward to trying other models and brands to see how their bass compares to these. Can it get better? Supposedly, but these are pretty darn competent in the low end.

Mids: A bit recessed. Definitely not an Audeze LCD model. These are not “warm” IEMS. Very good for electronic and rock/metal, but lacking a little bit when it comes to orchestral, and film scores. Vocals are presented well, but could be a bit more forward. I guess this is to be expected with the V shaped frequency response? Not sure. Compared to my apple ear buds?…..just a tad better. If you like electronic music, rock, metal, but especially electronic, I think these would be right up your alley.

Highs: A bit sibilant I think. Really not enough to bother me, but it is noticeable. If you crank the volume, the highs can get a bit piercing. With that being said, the highs are clear, and extend very well. A bit sparkly.

EQ: These IEMS respond VERY well to EQ. They can take a lot of it should you wish. What I found to work best for my ears, was a bit of a boost in the low end, a tiny boost in the mids, and bringing down the highs a bit. This allowed me to go louder, with less piercing highs. Obviously this will be very person dependant, but bringing down the highs a bit really improved my experience with these earphones. They were still clear, and far extending, but it just knocked off a bit sibilance and made them easier to listen to. Some hate EQ, some love it. I like experimenting with it, and sometimes I like no EQ at all. With these, they really benefit from it. Play around, have fun, its non destructive and you can go back to no EQ with the click of a button

All in all. WOW. IEMS can be killer. They can be so much more than apple earbuds. They can take you places, just like full sized headphones. I can’t wait to try more models out, both from Noble and other manufacturers, though I will probably never buy another pair…….. Maybe.

 

Pioneer SE-CH9T (DD)

TL;DR : The beef vindaloo of iems, cheapskate's miniaturised TH-900

Source: Sony A35 / Amp: ALO National + / cable: PW Audio no5

tips: spinfit, stock

For a 98$ usd iem it's ludicrously well built (better than the HE$2k i saw) aluminium body, brass nozzle, mmcx...fit similar to westone/campfire tho its wide bore nozzle took a bit of fiddling, but not as bad as noble.

Friend bought it so i managed to get an hour with them, no burn in.

Reminds me of fostex th900 (perhaps more th600) and the most V shaped iem i have tried.

Clean but bigly elevated subbass that doesn't muddle the rest. Mids thin, clinical with slight cuppiness, but not too distracting. Highs bright, not harsh, largely sibilance free. lower treble peak.

Headstage is f'ing panorama w-i-d-e, along with + megabass made it unique vs other consumer friendly iems tried today.

Definitely not an all rounder but likely the cheapest alternative to the th900 type of sound, just more extreme, less refined. ymmv

might be of interest to @Warrior !

 

Final E2000 and E3000 in the house!



The E2000 leave a good first impression. Great build quality, super comfortable ear tips and a nice cable. Due to the open design, these isolate quite poorly. They have a moderate bass boost but overall nicely balanced tonality. The midrange seems very accurate for a budget IEM. No harshness in the treble yet.

They don't seem to hit the naturalness of the beloved Sony MH1. From memory, they are closer to the LG QuadBeat. Anyway, these are just first impressions.

 

good catch, really enjoyed the e3000, quite pleasing tonality and great from "in office" use where total isolation might not be ideal.

the "E" tips are great and if its bores are a little wider, it would a great alternative to spiral dots, i prefer them over spinfits.

 

Yes. They have a bit of Loudness compensation.

 

Hello folks,

I just attended a cool show in Beijing for a couple of hours : the 2017 Hi-fi headphones audition and expo. My objective was just to listen to the Dita Dream but I found other cool stuff. Very short impressions :

- Dita Dream: impressive bass, soundstage and details. Overall sound and mids a bit thin and dry. I tried the Dita Brass briefly and found them smoother and more natural. I am even considering trying to get a Brass.

- Audeze LCDi4 : clearly better build than the iSines, cool cable. The cable seems to pop out of the sockets easily and that would worry me, but then again I would not listen on the go. Let's be clear, it was the winner of the show for me: great sound, I want it. I will do a more serious audition next weekend. Nothing sounded anything but great, so there is no much to say. It might be the only serious KSE1500 competitor

 

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/audeze-isine-20-planar-magnetic-ear-earphone-page-2

Apparently the iSine 20 use DSP on the Lightning cable version to correct FR. I heard the regular cable version without DSP, it sounded reedy and off-timbre.

I liked the soundstage though...

 

For me it sounds like they needed a to rush a new product and couldn't get it right, so they decided to fix it with an equalizer.