SBAF don’t know shit about iems and why bigger penis mindset is happier

I'll concede that merely being able to access iems isn't sufficient for developing ear training. However, were there someone with a similar level of experience as yourself in Asia, then they would be at a clear advantage over someone living in the United States. That's just some hypothetical bullshit though, so I won't delve deeper on this matter.

I'd like to reiterate that what I said was not an attack on any particular reviewer. I hadn't even read this review yet at the time. Rhythmdevil did a great job with his review, very in-depth and detailed. His work is appreciated.

I'll also concede that one doesn't need to listen to 1000 iems. I won't be as arrogant as to say how many iems one needs to hear (and be able to critically analyze), to get a sufficient understanding of the iem landscape. I guess that'd depend on the person. I'd argue that which iems DO matter though. As for which iems should be included in that list, I'll defer to Animus. I make no claims to be an iem expert or anything like that. Some IEMs that I do like though, include Sony M9, Vision Ears VE8, Andro 2020, 64Audio U12t, and maybe a few others. Most IEMs suck. Even the ones I like have pretty big flaws.

Here are some points that I'd like to raise, again, with no disrespect.

The U18t has been out for years, and is only being covered here at the end of 2020. There's already been a revision on the product, namely the U18s. That speaks to the difficulty of procuring demos in America, I'd say.

The average audio enthusiast living in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore can go to any audio shop and demo the entirety of the Campfire brand, along with any number of others including 64 Audio, Sony, Vision Ears, qdc, Moondrop etc. Most importantly, they can do an a/b direct comparison with any of these iems.

Now, whether or not they can actually sufficiently evaluate what they hear is another issue. But the possibility is there.

What I said was in reference purely to accessibility. Nothing else. I apologize for how I phrased my statement; Discord is a decidedly casual platform, and I was being decidedly casual at the time. But I do stand by my statement.

 

Glad we're on the same page. I understand and agree with all that you've said. In fact, that's exactly the point I was making on Discord at the time. Just inadequately articulated, casual platform and all. This is why the out-of-context screenshot upset me so. Had to clear the air.

 

There are a lot of IEMs I think SBAF would like, but never make it here on account of simply not being noticed by anyone or just not being readily accessible. 64 Audio is based stateside and has been around for a long ass time, but it took about 3-4 years for someone outside of SG (because I know Crin has mentioned the N8 on SBAF) to even take notice of them. Even then, it was what I would consider to be one of their worse IEMs anyways. Had it not been for all this drama, I'd bet 64 would be written off as another shitty ORFAS brand (and quite honestly, who can blame you when your first and only exposure from them is some $3000 dozen-and-a-half BA mess?) when they actually do have a couple IEMs that are at the very least interesting, if not just plain good.

In the past a lot of people have criticized SBAF for "shilling" for Schiit or Massdrop or Campfire. I don't think this is entirely accurate, but I think I understand the angle they're coming from. The ultimate point that is trying to be conveyed is that SBAF often has too much of a laser focus on specific brands. I think almost everyone is susceptible to this (the psychology of brand loyalty and whatnot) but it becomes harmful to discourse and critique when it becomes a large group of people that are fixated on the same handful of brands. It has nothing to do with shilling or thinking those brands are the only good ones on the market, but rather getting overly comfortable with them. This is likely why 64 took so long to get noticed here, not to mention how many other US IEM brands there are that are well known in Asia, but unheard of on here.

I don't want to sound like the holy arbiter of truth or pretend that I know absolutely everything about SBAF or anything like that, but I guess what I'm getting at is that it really doesn't hurt to expand one's horizons, even if it's just limited to stuff that you can access and there's a whole other world that you can't. I'd love to hear SBAF's opinions on something I like, like the U12t, or something I don't but still find intriguing as a proof of concept at least like the Fourte, or even just IEMs that are highly regarded and considered as staples in Asia like the VE8, M9, Odin, VX, Viento, Monarch/Clairvoyance, S8/B2, so on and so forth.

As much as I disagree with SBAF's critiques of something like the IER-Z1R, I can't deny that the talks about driver incoherence went on to influence a lot of my personal thinking about driver incoherency on hybrids as a whole, and about different ways to dissect the overall presentation of an IEM. The commentary on here is absolutely useful, but it's that it's so sparse and could be so much better with proper context as mentioned earlier, that is the tragedy at hand.

 

I mean that's kind of the advantage of demo units. I've heard plenty of heinous shit that retails for car money and then some. If I had to pay for that shit I'd be pretty damn furious about how awful the most of it sounds. Because of readily available demo units I can hear them and then make fun of them/the manufacturer online without paying for a single cent outside of what it cost me to get to wherever I heard it. Unfortunately CA doesn't have this opportunity, which is why I understand people being wary of all the ORFAS priced bullshit on the market and comfortable with what they have.

 

I was actually contemplating a new iem to pair with a new dap I received as a Xmas gift, and after doing some research, since I will not spend more than $500 (prefer 300) and it would appear that anything less than $2000 is crap according to the experts at hf, I will probably either buy a pair of er4xrs (I am sure these are crap too) and call it good, or buy nothing. I have never seen so much fomo shilling/worship/fanboyism. Way worse than the Schiit cadre ever has been. Epeening gone wild.

 

Look into the ER2XR instead. Not as rigidly DF neutral, better timbre, pretty good bass response without being excessive. And it's cheaper too, which is a bonus.

 

I have often wondered at this and have narrowed it down to a few possibilities.

First it's worth mentioning that CFA is actually VERY popular in much of Asia as evidenced by certain e-earphones' "most popular" lists I've seen published as well as the fact that many Asian DAP companies tune their DAPS with CFA IEMs in mind-- I have heard this directly from Cayin's rep on Head Fi, whose latest tube DAP originally came with an "Andro green" case. As to why CFA seems to attract a greater-than-one-would-expect degree of disdain from the SEA audio community, I can think of a few reasons:

1) CFA is essentially a market disrupter and sort of came out of nowhere with the Andromeda and is in a sense the "new money" of the industry. Here you have an industry where certain companies have been plying their trade for years then out-of-nowhere a bunch of hippies from Portland come up with an IEM that practically overnight becomes the de-facto reference for many many people...and remains so. They're also eminently the most reasonably priced among so many kilobuck IEMs. My experience is that this sort of phenomena can lead to uneasiness and resentment within whatever industry it happens in.

2) Team USA vs. Team Asia. There could very well be some of this. I have seen lots of disdain for "Murica fi", (of which CFA may currently be the token example) within communities who are primarily about hyping Asian brands (with the exception of 64 Audio, which seems to be something of the token white guy). For what it's worth I think all of this is a perfectly natural and normal human phenomenon.

3) Further to number 2 it could be that CFA's IEMs are tuned more to "Western" musical sensibilities and don't play as well with JPOP, KPOP, and the like.

4) Some sort of personal bias or beef within certain prominent members of the audio community.

There could be more factors but I suspect it is largely a mix of varying degrees of the above factors.

 

>advice to buy the ER2XR

Seconding this. One of us! One of us!

 

Leaning more toward nothing, sadly.

 

That and Ken Ball shooting himself in the foot by slighting the Singaporean community.

For me it’s some sort of fundamental incompatibility between my ears and Campfire IEMs (sound wise).

 

I specifically bought the 64 Audio U18t because I just wanted to hear something good by a different brand with a different methodology behind their design. I now wish I bought the U12t instead but that’s not the one that was recommended to me. After I sell the U18t I may do the same thing with another outlier. Maybe I will consult you first.

 

Boo for being smart (I honestly think the new DAP might do well enough with your headphones, but new IEMs would be good for jumping jacks I guess)

Speaking as a SE Asian who listens to a shit ton of weeb music and loads of other weird crud: the Solaris specifically is still one of the most jaw-droppingly grand IEMs on both a grand and expansive scale as well as a more intimate, nuanced one. Perfect apart from fit and some treble brightness but it's a damn sight better than most IEMs caked in other people's ear gunk that I've had the pleasure of demoing, but that's perhaps why I spend more time here than in local FB groups: my preferences just fall more into place here.

This still makes me cringe. I've had the pleasure of speaking with him via PM and found he's a nice, genuinely enthusiastic dude, but that was a proper foot-in-nutsack moment. Didn't spoil my love of his stuff, but then again I'm a few hundred km off

 

Repeating out loud for emphasis

 

Not gonna be doing lots of jumping jacks. But, at least of the daps that I have experience with and my 'phones, it seems that daps are best suited to iems, which makes sense given their focus on portability. Won't be walking around Walmart listening to my Elexes anytime soon. Not that I couldn't, mind, as they sound the best from a dap of my circumaurals. Truth be told, I am probably just rationalizing a new toy purchase, bringing me back to nothing.

 

It occurs to me that in countries where there's literally no room for a nice speaker setup that > 1 generation of people haven't really had the experience of enjoying that kind of setup, and certainly wasn't introduced to audio in that manner.

I lament that the current generation in the US (even my own kids) haven't been able to enjoy (yet) just sitting in a quiet room listening to music they like through speakers. The most they currently get is a crappy BT speaker or their headphones, driven from iPod-like devices. In my mind those were always meant for convenience, not "real" listening, because they just can't compete with the love affair I have with a nice speaker setup that I've experienced.

At my house, we're just getting to the point where I can install a "stereo system" (as we used to call them back in the day) and expect that it won't be destroyed by kids or animals. I grew up listening to vinyl ("records") on a nice system my dad owned: NAD components (they were a brand new company), a Denon wood-block turntable, and Klipsch Heresy II's (the Klipshorns were too big for the room, sadly). Among several others.

All this to say, our ears have become attuned to different things for what we each perceive as the correct sound for what we listen to, in the environment we're able to listen to it.

Personally I can't stand IEM's because I don't like things sticking in my ears. Then again, I've never been willing to fork over money for a custom moulded one "just to try out".