Has anyone heard the ocharaku akazakura?

It was recommended, but I'd like to hear from Super Best Audio Friends!

 

You're only allowed to hear it if you can say the name ten times fast!

 

What is it even is?

<googles>

(Oh, an iem... ok, then this thread is not for me. Pity, it's a wonderful name!)

 

Yup. I currently own it. It's the most balanced and least treble tipped of the flat-4 line. It loses some of the very nice timbre with acoustic instruments that the Kaede has, but overall, retains most of its former's qualities with a better behaved frequency response IMO. Still has some of the weaknesses the flat-4 line is known for, though. I wrote a bit about somewhere in here. I'll try to find it and copy it here.

 

Thanks! Please do post your review or thoughts, much appreciated.

 

I love this expression, is it a British thing?

 

I think that I just made it up.

But you know how originality usually isn't!

 

That's cool, mate.

Anyway, this iem comes from an interesting fellow. His previous iems were known for great timbral realism but a bit of a sharp treble, people said. If his new iem has a smoother treble with good extension in the treble and good subbass, I'm very interested.

 

I previously owned the Kaede II and have the Akazakura. I had them together for a little while and compared them.

Found the brief impressions I made in shotgunshane's IEM thread:

"I owned the Kaede II and now have the Akazakura. The Kaede II excelled in terms of instrument texture and timbre but unfortunately had a really low-fi frequency response IMO. It had a huge peak in the upper treble and was generally uneven with regards to FR across the board. It's a shame because what it did well, it did incredibly well.

The Akazakura is a much more even phone. It still retains much of the strengths of the Kaede II, while providing better tonal balance and and a more even FR. It does give up some of the magic the Kaede II has in terms of instrument timbre and texture, though. It's the least treble tipped of the line, but still on the brighter side.

I think the Flat-4 line is a classic case of over engineering. The driver used in those earphones clearly has a crazy amount of potential, and shows off some of the more impressive attributes of dynamic drivers. But the phase correction tube and doubling up of the drivers I feel does more to hinder than help, especially in terms of FR.

There is still, to my ears, some funny reflections happening in the 6-8Khz range (within the range that the phase tube is supposed to mitigate) which exacerbates the peak at those frequencies, and I feel the tube might have something to do with it. I hope in the future they make a more straightforward single DD design with those drivers."

I like the phone very much and the Akazakura is to my ears, by far the most even handed and natural sounding of the bunch, but it still has too many of the same problems that plagued earlier flat-4 phones. I keep it around because I generally dig DD timbre more often than I do that of BAs, but with all the impressive cheap-o dynamics, the TOTL flat-4's aren't a great value proposition.

 

Awesome, you just saved me a thousand dollars!