Noble Savant IEM Measurements and Review (Succinct)

Thanks for the review!

I know close to nothing about measurements, but your descriptions mirror my experience: they were pretty clear, pretty good overall, but they just didn't have ENOUGH to become a go-to IEM or to separate them from the pack of competitors either in or below their price range.

And, my gosh, the hype from HF and especially the Noble thread is suffocating. I still love my K10s, but I can't bear to be anywhere near the Noble brigade anymore.

 

I never get tired of using this gif when it comes to describing a large portion of the HF community.



I try to keep updated with some of the new stuff that comes out on there, but I can never trust what 90% of them are saying.

 

I have no problem to cheer for a brand. Noble pulled off the new 6-diver Django and it's f'ing fantastic. The improvement over the original 6 is applausable. But it doesn't prevent me from thinking the 5-driver Dulce Bass is a failure IMO. I don't criticize Noble. We in general don't seriously criticize a brand unless it pulls some of the worst business practise like Jerry Harvey. Someone has taken nit-picking and bitching about a particular IEM model way too seriously.

 

Think again, it's not english you need improvement at.

 

I totally agree with you. I like Noble and pull for them, too. It's just that I've only recently been awakened to the over-the-top fanboyism that I barely recognized in the past (a bit slow on the uptake). Now it's so transparent for me that I have to remove myself from it.

 

@Griffon You've heard the Dulce? Can you elaborate more on it please? If you don't want to go off topic, pm would work. I've been interested in it, mainly due to my affinity to the Heir 8.0.

 

See my comments in the New Noble Line thread. TLDR is f**k you Dulce.

 

Are you saying people should avoid mid-fi purgatory? Very offensive and elitist of you. I'll have you know that my arsenal of 15 chi-fi IEMs makes me just as much of an audiophile as you.

 

That's why I just decided to get a RHA MA750 for $80 and call it a day for my portable life. I was looking at $200-500 IEMs, but then I wondered why bother if I am just using them for portable use and don't want to spend too much money anyways.

 

There are exceptionally well perfoming cheap IEMs like the Dunu Titan 1/Fiio EX1 (exact same IEM different cable). EX1 is only $70.

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/DunuTitan1.pdf

https://clarityfidelity.blogspot.com/2015/12/fiio-ex1-iem.html

 

I've had the opportunity to listen to these for a few days. Eh, idk, I don't have a ton to say.

They're a little thin for me, where I like a little more impact and depth down low in an IEM. They also have this weird characteristic where they don't sound bright and airy up top, yet they are somehow fatiguing. I think this is what @jowls was getting at in his earlier post.

They remind me a bit of the Audio Tecnica MSR7 closed back, where the mids are slightly recessed, but the upper midrange is quite forward, which makes rock guitars and female vocals awesome but makes other genres just distant and uninteresting.

The Savants are fine, just fine, but for $600 I just don't get it. I really want to hear 4/Savannah but am curious as to why this is priced higher. My daily IEMs have been custom K10 and more recently Jupiter, so maybe I'm spoiled, but these just aren't for me. I think I prefer the IM03 at ~$320, over the Savants, which had more or less than same characteristic signature but was just more engaging.

 

I would love to see a direct comparison between ATH-IM02 and the Savant; both seem to go for a very similar tuning, same driver count, except the IM02 can be had for <200USD.

 

Go home Jude; you're drunk.

 

If IM-02 is bassier and brighter than Savant, how about IM-03 comparing with Savant? I know that IM-03 has one more BA each side and was told that IM-03 is slightly smoother.... Will it compete or even exceed Savant? Thank you.

 

I very briefly compared them above. It's been a long time since I've owned im03, but I'm confident I liked it more. Had a similar over profile to savant but sounded more full and lively, possibly smoother but hard to say. Good sound for price IMO but I personally had awkward fit issues with the shell shape

 

Thank you very much for sharing.. Someone told me that IM03 is similar to TF10 sound sig (exciting and lively) and tad bit smoother. Sounds like better option than Savant in terms of Price to Performance...