Audiophile and gears

msankadi said:
Any idea if it is expected to be good or bad for the final consumer?
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Since Sennheiser is a family owned business, this acquisition simply means that they will now have access to more funds and thus more products for the end consumer. Overall end consumer should not feel any difference whatsoever. This is other way of generating funds for a company without them going public.
 
Hi guys, a complete audio noob here. I'm in the market for my first IEM, looking something under 2K. I've found KZ ZST X and blon BL01 at this range.
Which one should I go for? I currently use my iPhone earpods on phone and a samsung AKG buds on my PC.
 
Nalin said:
Since Sennheiser is a family owned business, this acquisition simply means that they will now have access to more funds and thus more products for the end consumer. Overall end consumer should not feel any difference whatsoever. This is other way of generating funds for a company without them going public.
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That's what people said about AKG. And look at that brand now after acquisition by Samsung.
Their quality dropped and the brand value has faded away into the unknown.

The same was said about Ultimate Ears in the past before it was acquired by Logitech. The brand is non-existent now.

Acquisitions in general are an alarming thought and most acquisitions in every industry end up in a failure.
Innovation goes out of the window and the business becomes only 'for-profit'.
Skype, Zowie, Motorola, Nokia, Activision-Blizzard, Compaq - you just name it.
 
AINDRASIS_GUPTA said:
That's what people said about AKG. And look at that brand now after acquisition by Samsung.
Their quality dropped and the brand value has faded away into the unknown.

The same was said about Ultimate Ears in the past before it was acquired by Logitech. The brand is non-existent now.

Acquisitions in general are an alarming thought and most acquisitions in every industry end up in a failure.
Innovation goes out of the window and the business becomes only 'for-profit'.
Skype, Zowie, Motorola, Nokia, Activision-Blizzard, Compaq - you just name it.
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We can't say that totally for AKG, Samsung TWS buds have some of the best tuning in industry mainly due to AKG as they are following Harman Target Curve. What I learned in Sennheiser acquisition is that their future focus will shift to TWS completely post acquisition. Hearing Aids are very similar as they contain battery and a Balanced Armature in a nutshell, Sennheiser basically cheery picked their buyer Sonova here. Expect some really good TWS from Sennheiser in coming years.
 
Nalin said:
We can't say that totally for AKG, Samsung TWS buds have some of the best tuning in industry mainly due to AKG as they are following Harman Target Curve. What I learned in Sennheiser acquisition is that their future focus will shift to TWS completely post acquisition. Hearing Aids are very similar as they contain battery and a Balanced Armature in a nutshell, Sennheiser basically cheery picked their buyer Sonova here. Expect some really good TWS from Sennheiser in coming years.
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That's also debatable especially when Samsung also owns Harman & JBL Electronics.
And when a company owns so many audio brands, cross-collaboration of different departments is expected, especially in an agile environment that Samsung follows.
 
AINDRASIS_GUPTA said:
That's also debatable especially when Samsung also owns Harman & JBL Electronics.
And when a company owns so many audio brands, cross-collaboration of different departments is expected, especially in an agile environment that Samsung follows.
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Not only JBL but Harman has at least dozen audio companies under its umbrella, all under Samsung now. Samsung buds benefitted here the most, as someone shared earlier here the revenue from AirPods alone is bigger than many Tech Companies. That's how big TWS market is, everyone wants their piece of pie.
 
Sennheiser's consumer division is going to Sonova which is anything but Samsung. Sonova makes pretty high end hearing aids and some externally controlled cochlear implants.
Unlike AKG, Sennheiser didn't pinkslip the key engineers ( that's how Austrian Audio was formed by AKG engineers) , they will possibly make more headphones under Neumann brand and Sonova will start attacking the custom IEM market.
Given the strong consumer protection laws both in Germany and Sweden, both Sennheiser and Sonova will continue to give good service.
I have some first hand experience of after sales service of headphone manufacturers.
Sennheiser has always been at number one spot, followed by Beyer.
Everything else is non consistent. Absolute worst: Audeze and VModa, I specifically hate the last one, their tuning is getting worse every year ( as Val's drug use is progressing), they will simply refuse warranty service if you don't live in US ( and possibly UK)
Both these brands are Apple of headphones, few very good products among hundreds of rubbish and grossly overpriced headphones.
I sincerely doubt the sanity of people who wrote Mobius and LCD 1 are great headphones.
Have heard plenty of planars to distinguish the real bad ones.
Unfortunately it feels like nowadays people write headphone reviews without even putting them on once!!
Thank God for chi fi!! Without them in a world full of misleading reviews, an unsuspecting customer would thought IEM like Andromeda indeed gives a speaker like experience.
Disclaimer: I do own and love the older Andromeda. It's great for casual listeners but that's about it.
Can it be used for monitoring or even used on stage?
Hell no!!
 
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I can't really decipher much from crinacle's reviews. Yes, 10-15 years back it would made some sense.
But now after so many years in production hobby I pretty much know / can guess the frequency range coming from a sound source ( a telecaster or a kick or snare drum) just by listening to it. So when he writes "bite of an electric guitar" it feels like a joke, how can he assume that the producer wanted that guitar part sounds biting, it's very much possible that he placed both of his cab mics off axis to reduce the bite .
He doesn't know what amp/ cab/ mic was used to produce that guitar sound, what kind of EQ was applied to it at the track level, let alone the mastering the entire track went through. All these graphs mean nothing unless the engineer gave away some snapshots of his DAW/ analog console settings in the first place.
This is the biggest problem of audiophile community today. Most audiophiles don't care about learning the basics of audio engineering and yet pass on judgements freely on a gear ( where there's absolutely no yardstick available to most reviewers...I'm pretty sure Crinacle doesn't even know how to steal a ProTools session in a thumb drive even if he can somehow manage to enter a recording room)
What's wrong technically to use a single DD specially in an IEM?
Multiple BA drivers are specially useful for on-stage monitoring. As a bass player I don't really care what the lead guitarist is playing as long as I can hear he is making some sound in time. I'm lot more concerned with the drummer and can't miss even one snare ghost note.
Same with the lead player, he's only concerned with his timings with the rhythm guitar player. That's how a band plays live. A bassist often requests the engineer to patch him only to the drummers signal, he can listen to the others from onstage towers.
 
I don't care about graphs as well since it just presents a 2D image like a building shadow, what actual building is made of and what materials are used we can't judge that from a shadow. But the guy who has heard almost every headphone on the planet definitely knows his shit, even though some especially on HF don't agree with him. In the end, audio is subjective and we all hear somewhat differently. What I definitely don't want is a piece of monitoring gear that is not enjoyable to listen to but gets praised everywhere for its accuracy.
 
Nalin said:
I don't care about graphs as well since it just presents a 2D image like a building shadow, what actual building is made of and what materials are used we can't judge that from a shadow. But the guy who has heard almost every headphone on the planet definitely knows his shit, even though some especially on HF don't agree with him. In the end, audio is subjective and we all hear somewhat differently. What I definitely don't want is a piece of monitoring gear that is not enjoyable to listen to but gets praised everywhere for its accuracy.
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Crinacle definitely has not heard almost all headphones. Even if he has, his technical knowledge of drivers, their tunings and science of audio is extremely limited. That's why so many seasoned audiophiles will never take him seriously. Other than DMS, not a single headphone reviewers have any technical knowledge whatsoever and it's all fluff..
A monitoring headphone can be equally enjoyable if you know how to use it. A Neumann NDH20 can turn into an immensely enjoyable headphones with proper amping. However a typical consumer headphone like Meze 99 classic can't.
You can colour a blank canvas anyway you like.
 
I am not sure if you heard Sony's Signature Series, something like WM1Z is highly coloured and tube like which we all know is far from accurate and yet it is tuned like that knowingly by engineers, all their accurate stuff like WM1A/M9 is strictly mid-end. I don't think high end customers are chasing accuracy.
www.porta-fi.com

Interview with the Engineers of the Sony Signature Series

The Engineers of the Sony Signature Series were in town, Beng Yeow caught up with them and here's what they shared over breakfast!
www.porta-fi.com www.porta-fi.com
 
You can turn off pretty much EVERY DSP settings of WM1Z.
In fact turning on the vinyl processing in high gain mode drastically reduces the battery life.
Tubes are completely different thing, they are meant to saturate the signal. All guitar amps are basically tubes...I've absolutely nothing against distorting the sound in production stage.
Certain cans like HD600 / K702 benefits greatly from tube amps.
True, not all high end customers are after accuracy, but most of them do look beyond Sony's most insane DAP.
 
Fellas, I’m looking for a 100$ iem. Till recently, I was contently using samsung akg iem I got with s9plus. After going through the threads here, I finalised ie40 pro which is selling for around 6k on amazon. But, i read somewhere that monitor headphones cause fatigue after few hours, and they have too much treble, and sibilence. Apparently, audiophiles love them and other might not. So, i’m mighty confused. Please help me out!
 
Etype said:
Fellas, I’m looking for a 100$ iem. Till recently, I was contently using samsung akg iem I got with s9plus. After going through the threads here, I finalised ie40 pro which is selling for around 6k on amazon. But, i read somewhere that monitor headphones cause fatigue after few hours, and they have too much treble, and sibilence. Apparently, audiophiles love them and other might not. So, i’m mighty confused. Please help me out!
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Yes, they are somewhat treble heavy with most eartips.
However please understand, after a certain price bracket every headphone/ earphone will sound bright. Your ears gradually adopt to that sound.
If you visit a production studio and listen to some trance music ( which rattled your teeth in a nightclub) will sound unusually bright and bass light.
Even famously dark sounding headphones like HD600 will sound very bright to inexperienced ears.
Sorry for all the useless lectures without any proper suggestion. Don't spend 100 EUR on your first expensive IEM, dabble around with inexpensive chi fi ( many are well below 50 EUR), find the signature you like and research IEMs along that signature. Gradually build up your collection with other signatures.
Just a suggestion from an idiot who have wasted a shit ton of money in this hobby (could have built a pretty big house in India with that amount of wasted money)
Many audiophiles are actually old people ( myself included) with ****ed up hearing specially in 15-17K ( I can't hear anything below +5dB @ 17K) so we are treble heads out of necessities. And anyone above 40 who's claiming to have perfect hearing is either lying/ totally ignorant/ lived in a world with minimal sound.
I am extremely fortunate to have enough opportunities to learn from audio engineers who work/ worked with huge bands and now can't hear anything above 15K but still are capable of mixing extremely difficult jazz albums using their eyes with ears. Don't ask me how, but they just make out sweet spots from spectral analysis and waveforms!!
 
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Etype said:
Fellas, I’m looking for a 100$ iem. Till recently, I was contently using samsung akg iem I got with s9plus. After going through the threads here, I finalised ie40 pro which is selling for around 6k on amazon. But, i read somewhere that monitor headphones cause fatigue after few hours, and they have too much treble, and sibilence. Apparently, audiophiles love them and other might not. So, i’m mighty confused. Please help me out!
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The new Moondrop Aria is an easy recommendation. Going for currently 8K INR on Headphonezone.

The Aria is the new Starfield, with slightly better bass response and overall tonality. It has a laid-back feel, which means that you can listen to it for hours. Moreover, it's built better than the Starfield, as it has better shells and cable.

In case you're ready to spend around 10-11K INR, get the TRI Starsea hands down (would have recommended Fiio FH3 as well, but that IEM has become a myth due to its high demand all over the world). Available for 11K on The Audio Store.

The TRI Starsea is like getting four different IEMs in one as it has tuning switches built into the IEM to give you four different signatures (balanced, bass, vocals & pure tone). So, if you want customisability, get the Starsea. TRI is a premium sub-brand of KBEAR (KBEAR known for making some of the most popular IEMs such as Believe and Diamond).
 
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