Audio Anything wrong with my iem

[techfan]

I have 2 pairs of soundmagic es-18 iems. recently was listening to the older one, which is about 12 months old, after a while & found that it sounds different from the newer pair which is about 2 months old.

I changed ear tips on both to make sure that it wasnt anything to do with the fitting & heard them back to back & found the newer one has a lot more bass than the older one. if i just heard the older one by itself then i probably wouldnt have found anything wrong as the really bassy songs produce enough bass but when i listen to the newer pair that seems to have a lot more deeper bass.

Can the same brand/model have 2 different sound signatures? Could the older pair be spoilt in anyway? (though if that were the case wouldnt the sound be totally off?)

 

[vantheman5211]

It seems that the older one has been used a lot more than the younger one and may have settled to produce a different sound altogether (Read Burn-in)

I had something similar with my M2's a few years ago. One was very bassy and the other was a bit mellow. I kind of liked it a bit but yeah it sucks if your prefer a type of sound and only one emits the same.

 

[techfan]

Can burn-in, which many experts say is a myth, bring about such a big change ?

 

[xenaxance]

also consider the wax deposit on the mesh it also has its effect

 

[techfan]

Yes the mesh seems a bit dirtier on the older one. also it has a larger diameter than the newer one

 

[xenaxance]

no idea about the diameter part..
clean the wax.. and you're good to go
and yeah for certain headphones burn-in do affect SQ

 

[techfan]

So the the older pair is not spoilt in anyway, like one of the drivers busted or something?

 

[xenaxance]

If one of the drivers is busted you will know the difference right away...

 

[techfan]

How many drivers do these things have? I mean do they have separate drivers for bass & mids? I was wondering if the bass part of the drivers on both ears are slightly spoilt & i'm not feeling anything majorly off because the mids are doing the work. Or does it not work like that (dont have much knowledge of iems)?

 

[xenaxance]

es18 has a single 10mm driver i suppose.. i guess soundmagic mostly uses 10mm for there IEMs
separate drivers are used in Balanced Armature IEMs. I came across only one IEMs that employs 3 dynamic drivers in single iem.. unique melody 3dd
sometimes overpowering bass affects the whole sound.. so dividing the frequency response spectrum does the trick
about the bore diameter do post some pics with es18s side by side..

 

[techfan]

Thanks for the reply. I'll post some pics soon.

 

[Tony Parsons]

It would be worth checking also that the audio cable is in good condition and the 3.5mm jack plug is clean and untarnished.