Audio Random IEM / Headphone Rants

esanthosh said:
Can you describe what EQ settings you use now? I don't remember liking Clip+'s EQ at all.

Do you get hiss without EQ?
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I am assuming its the same EQ on Fuze+. Hate it. Doesn't have any marking, nothing to tell what frequency I am adjusting or how much. I just bumped up the middle one up by one point am assuming its 2dB and the same with the extreme left (Lows). Yes the hissing was just as it is now as it was before.
 
Then, there's not much that can be done. Usually, I prefer adjusting by ear than going by FR charts.

What you hear also depends on your own sensitivity and thresholds. Not sure if you can adjust anything with a bad EQ and no labels. Unlike Cowon's hardware based EQ, these are software based and also, I think instead of increasing your desired frequency, they might reduce the rest relatively leaving a hollow sound. Secondly, if the perceived harshness is due to an error in presentation (weight of note, forwardness, aggression), it will stay no matter what. I can't judge why it is so unless I hear it myself.

Going by graph, HD600 would look "hotter" in treble than A900, but due to the very nominal range between it's peaks and valleys, it remains very smoothly balanced. It's mellow presentation, however is not captured by the FR graph.

graphCompare.php
 
Finally got my M2 and Sunrise Xcape IE. Yesterday was fun. Coupled these with my Cowon J3.First impression with M2 was awesome. I can't express what i heard as i am no audiophile but can say M2 lacks a bit in detailing. The bass is good and best i have heard till date for south of 5K budjet. As someone wrote in one of their reviews i find the bass getting pumped at times where it is not required. It seems i have to fiddle a lot with J3 settings.With Default BBE settings itself M2 rocked. I must say a wonderful combo i got. M2s are good at bass and treble as well but not in detailing.By detailing i mean the IEMs are not crisp. May be they need some more time for my mind to get used.

Regarding Sunrise Xcape IE, i did not find much of difference between this and M2. However after reading some forum posts i confirmed to myself that they need some burn in to shine.

As of now i am enjoying J3+M2 combo. Thanks a lot to esanthosh, faheem and other gems of audio section who has helped a lot of people in deciding what they want.

I would be posting a new thread soon as i need a headphone for a budjet around 7K.

PS: I have another sealed M2 box which will be up for sale in a day. It has got Foam tips as well. How much can i sell this for as i got this from Amazon UK.
 
IIRC, for XCape-IE, the manufacturer recommended burn-in time is around 200 hours. You can either listen for a long time to break it in (while your brain also gets used to it) or you can let J3 run on shuffle + repeat overnight (or morning to evening, whichever is convenient for you) for 8-10 hours per day. Burn-in may not change anything, but I don't lose by running it when I can't listen, so I do it anyway. You can take a call on whether to do it or not!

At first everything sounds the same and I say that from my experience. RE0 did not sound any different from a bunch of IEMs I was using back then. For proper evaluation, you need to listen to XCape-IE exclusively for a few days, go back to M2 and see if you miss (or gain) anything for the same set of tracks. The reverse would also hold true. However, it's not to say that you would find XCape-IE to be superior to M2 after this, but you would know about the differences between them easily.
 
THE ALTMANN TERA-PLAYER

THE ALTMANN TERA-PLAYER

Altmann Tera-Player? Anyone?

Enough said! :O

Makes me proud - QA350 brick is a better deal! Of course, it does not play anything more than 16/44, but this whole hi-rez thing could be just a scam! I have my hands full with SD cards and 300-500MB WAV albums and do not require 1.0-1.5GB albums.

Speaking of high bit rates, this thing can support 32/384 and costs ~ $700 along with the power supply. Mike @ Headfonia on his facebook page has mentioned that the combo sounds better than Burson HA160D, DacMini CX etc., Of course, he has also mentioned that it sounds only a tad better than DacPort LX without the power supply.
 
Brainwavz HM5

Just got the HM5 which was held in customs for a week. The reason - nobody in their right mind would believe that a "USB drive" would be the size of a headphone :p. It was opened and inspected - a rare occurrence for me, but all contents are in place, so never mind!

Can't believe that I've bought 3 headphones in the last 2 months. For the price I paid, I got a well built closed headphone, decent isolation and good set of accessories (detachable cables - both 3.5mm and 6.3mm, extra ear pads, airline adapter, case). As far as Comfort goes, I may need more time with it to have the final say. As of now, it clamps a bit on my ears and on my head, but that should get better with usage or a 'use-book-to-wide' headband "burn in". No disappointments on that front.

At head-fi, there's a small battle going over in the HM5 review thread. My initial take? It is no HD600 as claimed by one side nor do I "hear the graph" and worry about the 300Hz dip. While I am only trying it out of my brick-stack, it does not evoke the same excitement as DT880 or HD600 - those two are definitely a tier or so ahead. It has bit more bass quantity than I remember with HD600, but quality is I suspect may not be at that level. The mid range is nowhere near how I felt with HD600. Treble is a rolled off as well and has no sparkle. The problem with HM5 is not that it does a few things wrong, but has nothing to highlight for itself. None of the ranges stand out greatly nor is it super-detailed or fast, which may or may not be a great thing depending on where you come from. It does not sound like something which 'punches above weight', but more like a good choice within it's price range. The only thing I can somewhat compare to HD600 is that they are both laid-back. But that's like saying M2 has bass, FX700 has bass, so M2 = FX700. This begs for comparison against MS1i, which is more in it's range in terms of price / SQ than HD600. It does score better on the value for money category if indeed FA-003 sounds exactly the same (but costlier by $50). As long as one keeps expectations in check to a realistic level, HM5 won't disappoint.

I will try that 200 hour 'burn in' and also try it out of Burson to see how it goes. Will this or MS1i be my third headphone? Interesting battle ahead after 2 weeks of burn-in.

Random thought of the Day

Looking back at 2011, the year in which I sold many and bought even more...

Best Buys - In terms of exciting me:

  1. The Brick Stack (QA350 Mod V2, Leckerton UHA-6S, Sys.Concept Mini to Toslink)
  2. Beyerdynamic DT880/600
  3. Sennheiser HD600
  4. Sony EX-1000
  5. Yuin OK1

Random Thought on New Year's eve

Looking forward to in 2012 - Upgrading to Arrow 4G (and/or may be 2StepDance?), Upgrading DAC for PC -> Headphone setup. Other than that, I should reduce inventory further only to those I use most.

Custom IEM is a long shot now with the INR depreciation. May be used headphones would offer a better upgrade path at an equal / lower cash outgo?
 
hi, esanthosh, these Yuin PK/OK series have surprised me with their design choice, they look like ordinary buds with premium price, how did you find the OK1 to be sound wise, I guess no isolation, and also build wise, I always wanted to try one of these, they look unbelievably cheap & flimsy, in the meantime I got my first headphone amp FiiO E11, I have so much of expectations for a headphone amp, but these simply amplifies sound (volume), I thought the SQ will get improved drastically, over time it should I guess, definitely my HD280 pro sounds LOT better now particularly with FLAC files, but not much luck with SE215, I have doubts as well, on should I have max volume on source and little volume on amp or vice-versa? will that make big difference? BTW Wish you all Happy & Sound :)P) New Year 2012!
 
Neither the hifiman nor the Yuin buds will win any design contest anytime soon that is for sure. RE0 does look like a cheap $10 IEM. Likewise OK1/PK1 would not make you proud if you dropped the full MSRP on them. The other shared theme is their build quality or the lack of it at first and gradual improvement from thereon. Cables on the Yuins were problematic at first, but they fixed it in the next batch / release (that is why you could come across a few re-cabled Yuins from time to time). That is why they only make good choices when buying used from head-fi :)

As for Source-Amp volume levels, it's always better to keep source at 50-60% volume and higher volume with the amp.

Some IEMs shine with better amplification, but many do not benefit other than louder volume output. It varies from IEM to IEM.
 
HM5

Was all excited when it arrived, but the excitement was short lived.. Wont talk about the build, no complaints there. Accessories too and loaded.. but but but, Out of the box they sound horrible. I mean it seemed like some of the frequencies went completely missing.. They almost sounded artificial.. Headed straight to head-fi to see what others had to say and to my surprise, there were some good things said there.. So decided to give em some burn-in. Lets the drivers warmed up a bit and give the cans a fair shot...

30-35 hrs later..

Sigh of relief, literally. They sound a lot better atm.

Initially just to hear em aloud, i had to crank the volume on my S9 to about 34(40 being tops), right now they r good and lively at about 24, which ofcourse says that these cans are surprisingly, stupidly easy to drive.. Which also means that a burn-in is a must..

The sounds opened up a bit.. It doesnt sound artificial atm.. Vocals and instruments are clear and the detailing is good. The amount of Bass on these cans has surprised me.. I thought neutral cans would be bass light, not these.... You can feel the rumble.

Whats not good @ 30 hrs..

The bass though good, extends a tad too much.. Not sure how to explain this, but imagine a song moving on and one still feeling the bass kick.. For eg: claptons- tears in heaven.. The song though bass light, i could feel d bass presence throughout.. Not the case with my tf10's, s4's, ie8's or Senn HD485's(seriously bass heavy cans)

Mids - Think this is the biggest weakness in these cans.. Mids are poor.. makes the music dull and very very laid back.Maybe this is how a neutral can is supposed to sound, not sure for these r my fist neutral sets...

Anyways im gonna give these babies a fair shot and hit the 200 hr burn-in time before judging them...

ps: #esanthosh and others, by burn-in, im simply running tracks on the cans, any other/better way to burn cans? With my previous purchases, ive never needed to do the same...
 
Looking for some help in picking a a new pair of iems. It took a year but I finally got bored with my JH13s.

I'm a bit out of touch with the whole audio scene so I'm looking for suggestions. Don't want my new iems to be overly neutral and I'm currently very tempted by the Heir 8.A ................................ primarily for its musical nature and its ability to scale up with future upgrades.

Anything else that's new out there in the world of customs that might be interesting? Have tried most of the UM demo units and don't want the JH16!
 
Recently got a RE-262 from Faheem , had a E6 but saw that its output power is pretty low for high impedances , i have sold the E6 , will be probably buying a E11 , read reviews and found it to be a good dac/amp . Any opinions on the same w.r.t to driving a RE-262 and providing more bass to my AD700.
 
Ah! Finally TE is up. Was tired of checking it every now and then....

#edge11hussain,

Just run music in a loop - the more variety there is, the better. Other means would include running noise files (pink, white and others) in a loop. You can download some files from http://binkster.net/extras.shtml#cd, burn them to disc and run them in loop. A few others prefer the use of bass heavy files for burn-in. I usually prefer the music in shuffle and repeat / random mode.

Mine is around 180 hours now. It definitely was unimpressive out of the box. The dips are in the low mid range which is why mids are so unimpressive. I've checked it every now and then. Though it seems a bit better now, I am not sure how long I'll keep it. Very comfortable though, which may work in it's favor. As for bass, the decay could be longer, which may give you a feeling of lingering bass note. I intend to run it for 250 hours, so I should be able to tell you this weekend. From what little I've checked, the mid range placement seems a bit dependent on the recording itself, so any overly forward / compressed material sounds alright with it.

@Ritvik,

aud 5X? http://www.head-fi.o...-pure-value-565

Atrio MG6? http://www.head-fi.o...in-ear-monitors

@sukant,

FiiO E11 is just an amp. Confusing nomenclature from them, but E7 is the Dac-Amp. Should be enough to drive RE262 and AD700.
 
Man that's a stunner!! Looks like everyone is bringing out a baby to their flagship, first Grado with PS 500, the HE 400 and now this. Audiophiles
 
#mukulymn,

X1060/61 was good based on what I've read. Is X1050 the same model with lower capacity? If so, it should be good at that price. Not sure about the synergy though.

This one is high on my list for next year (subject to saving that kind of cash and willing to spend it on a custom) : http://www.head-fi.o...imate-reference. DX100 and this are probably the only things I am looking forward to. I have a cursory interest in FI-BA-SS and PFE232 though! Among headphones, I am looking at T1 / HE-500 and looking forward to Anedio D2. Looks like I need more than a fat wallet to continue this hobby
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check headfonia for the sony x1060 comparisons ..its has warm sound .

HD700 could be good , if it has HD650's signature they have a winner.

HD800 is very neutral and revealing, no one wants a sibling which is same as the elder one, just toned down. ( well i was hoping for HD850 , so that they would be like the HD600-650 combo ( neutral-natural ) )
 
#esanthosh its time u got yourself an lcd2 + HD800 and be done with it.. Im already in line to buy those dt-880
<


The hd-700 honestly looks like everything i could ever ask for...
 
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