Audio Random IEM / Headphone Rants

I am not sure you can buy from that listing as the seller explicitly restricts shipping to certain areas.

You can contact this eBayer, AudioHipster (Listing for 668B here). I bought my 668B from him. The listing shows shipped price to India at $67, but you can ask him for a better price.
 
It is the first time i am approaching to buy a product from outside of India.

So here is some query,kindly please advise me...

1.Can i do the payment through the Debit Card?(I have only debit card)

2.In the giving link i don't find to ship India,there is only US & Canada as a guest Checkout.

Thanks in advance...
 
So, anybody getting Sony XBA-1 or XBA-3? Didn't know they were launched in India until a member in another forum mentioned them. XBA-1 goes for 4K and XBA-3 for 8K.

I talked with a person from Sony India. As of now, they do not have plans to launch iPhone versions (XBA-1ip and the like) or the even numbered BAs. The local Sony center does not have stock, but they 'may' come next week. Whenever they do, I'll be getting at least XBA-1, if not both. I have been curious about Sony BAs ever since they are announced and impressions on head-fi sort of being all over the place does not help matters.

I am expecting both SoundMagic ES18 and Tekfusion Twin Woofers by Saturday or Monday.

#[member='doom2010']

1) I don't know if Paypal allows Debit cards.

2) In the link I've given, International shipping is present. In the link you gave, it was not.
 
Heavily edited and expanded after further listening around 01:00 AM

Got the SoundMagic ES18 today. Having read that it uses the E10 driver, I was thinking of something mid-way between PL11 and E10 in terms of signature i.e., bass-heavy, recessed mids. But, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. ES18 is tonally balanced with some emphasis on mid range and more intimate presentation compared to the E10. For the Rs. 475 I paid (including Rs. 100 for shipping), I'd rate it higher on the value for money scale than PL11 or even E10M.

Apart from my now sold "I-will-never-wear-this-outside" Pink V-Moda Vibes, ES18 is the only one in a different color (generally black, PFE is white) i.e., Red cable. But, I like the color somehow. It has a similar right angled plug as PL11. Compared to PL11, it lacks the shirt clip in terms of accessories. Much like PL11 (which has L and R markings embossed), it irritates me no end to figure out Left and Right markings (in maroon color just above the strain relief) on the back of the housing. The only way I could read it was in either in sun light or by using a torch. For ease of use, I've marked the left now with a black line in the red circle. I find it a little easier to get the right fit and insertion with ES18 every time than with E10, which requires some fiddling with the angle of insertion.

ES18 has zero hours of burn-in and E10M has 50 hours of burn-in at the time of writing. The earlier version of this post included comparisons using Clip+ as source, but this post largely has impressions from iPod Video 5G with UHA-6S as amplifier.

ES18 is not bass light by any means and even has a similar extension as E10. Stand-alone, it has good punch and texture, but in a direct comparison, loses out in forwardness and overall quantity to the harder hitting E10. Mid range of ES18 is more cooler in tone, compared to the warmer and sweeter sounding E10. Clarity wise, they are at similar levels. Mid range of ES18 is bit more forward and intimate than the E10. It is also a little more textured lending vocals more authority. Treble is a bit more thicker and seems a bit rolled off with the ES18 and a bit more crisper, airier and sparkly on the E10.

Presentation of ES18 is another surprise. E10 sounds more airier, is a bit more layered and has better depth. ES18 sounds a tad more wider and has very good imaging as well. In complex passages, the airiness of E10 makes ES18 sound a tad congested - relatively speaking, though it is not as congested as PL11 for the same passage.

Wonder why I did not even bring PL11 into the mix till now? That is because the cheaper ES18 sounds closer to E30 as described by Joker in his review. Initially, I thought it was a little inferior to E10. But, with more listening with the iPod -> UHA-6S, I think they will fall more closer to each other (I initially put PL11 at 4.x, ES18 closer to 6.x and E10 closer to 7.x when comparing via Clip+ with ES18 falling slightly behind in clarity and details, but I now think ES18 is a little better than that, at the very least)

I am now interested in getting E30 and doing comparisons so that I know I am not imagining things. Ah! The damn IEM shopping spree takes months to stop, but when it starts, it's always like a flood - like 4-5 IEMs within a couple of weeks. How my wallet hates me
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Anyways, ES18 stand-alone is more engaging than I remember my experience with PL30. It is better than PL11 and getting closer to E10 all at a much cheaper price. I wonder how Tekfusion TW would stand up to this competition. Ah! the suspense!

A little rant...

I am a little annoyed though at the lack of reference and comparison IEMs. When I had 40+ IEMs, it was much easier to go through every IEM in the tier to exactly know where an IEM will go in the list. Nowadays, I have to work with faded memory, review notes containing comparisons to IEMs which I don't have, assumptions about so many things. I can guesstimate that these are better, but I can never be sure. That is why avoided doing reviews for quite sometime now. It still feels more like a half-job to me
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. But on the other hand, I have always felt under-whelmed with every IEM I bought. At least now I feel a bit satisfied with each purchase in some way. And I did not have to pull out and re-insert IEMs for A:B. Oh! The pain of it.... you need to do it yourself, otherwise it's hard to understand.
 
^^ waiting to read your impressions of TW. also im in the same group as many. want a good deep throated bassy IEM. pl11 kind of bass, but better in any respect.
 
I have been relatively quiet about Tekfusion Twinwoofers, because

1) I want to write a proper review as opposed to enthusiastic 5/5 reviews at Flipkart.

2) I am still wrapping my head around it. I can see why plenty of people on Flipkart found it irritating on the first day, but turned around to sing praises after spending sometime with it. Is it all due to "burn-in"? Absolutely. I am just thinking it's more the 'brain burn-in' variety though!

While I promise to get into the gory details later on in the review, I would just stop by saying that it is a different kind of tuning than I have normally heard in this price range. It's not bassy but bright, at times a little in your face with upper mids and treble, short on sound stage. Too short a description? ... And I didn't say 'clear', 'clarity' etc.,?
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Right now, I am trying to EQ it to find a rendezvous point between my tastes and Twinwoofer's sound. It's pretty interesting in that aspect. I'd let the 'burn in' take it's own course and then try to put up a review as soon as I can.
 
esantosh, I just need some help. I need a link to a review that compares ATH AD900 and Denon 2000. I tried searching but couldnt find something worth reading.
 
doom2010 said:
It is the first time i am approaching to buy a product from outside of India.

So here is some query,kindly please advise me...

1.Can i do the payment through the Debit Card?(I have only debit card)

2.In the giving link i don't find to ship India,there is only US & Canada as a guest Checkout.

Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...

Paypal allows debit cards. And you don't even require a paypal account.

Whatever you purchase select "pay via paypal"->do not have paypal account - sign as guest user- pay via debit card.

Your bank may charge for currency conversion. I had to pay rs.53 for payment of 172$
 
I have tried a few models of the old PL series (own PL11 now, tried PL30, PL50 as loaners). While they were good, they were sort of unimpressive one way or another. I got the E30 today and so far from the experience (ES18, E10M and E30), E series are much better. I would happily take any of them over the old PL series because they are very good upgrades. For one, none of them lack in bass.

But, every damn SoundMagic IEM across the price range from the Rs. 400 ES18 to the nearly 2K E10M/E30 comes in the same package - only the model number and the accessory set are different apart from the IEM. May be it's time they did some differentiation.

I had no reason to buy E30 other than to quench my curiosity about whether ES18 sounds similar to E30. So far I like E30 a slight bit more than I liked ES18 and E10M on their first days. It's low impedance (12 ohms) and low sensitivity (94dB) could be an issue with a few portable sources. But driven out of iPod Video -> LO -> UHA-6S, it shines very well. Bass is good in terms of punch, extension and quantity and is also forward as in the case of ES18 and E10. Mid range is very clear, smooth and engaging, but a tad bit recessed next to the bass. Treble quality and quantity are good. The sound stage is decently spacious especially coming from Tekfusion TW - a bit more wide than deep with good separation and somewhat decent layering. It is tonally balanced, but does not sound boring as it has some PRAT factor which IIRC PL30 severely lacked. I quite liked this mini-session with a mix of Gojira, Isis, Ihshan etc.,

I have not gotten down to comparisons yet. But I think, E30 has more refined mids than E10 or ES18. They don't sound too far apart from each other. At this point, I think ES18 is a bit more forward in mids and may lag a little behind E30 in terms of treble. It's build quality, accessories is not as good compared to the higher end E series, but then it costs only about 1/4th.
 
Unfortunately, I don't own either ProAlpha or M1. Comparing from memory can be a very dangerous thing in audio, because brain usually remembers a collective gist - a bundle of your emotions when using the IEM + the signature. Unless I can get a loaner, it would be tough to verify any of my thoughts.

Based on what little I remember, I think E30 and E10 both have better bass punch and extension. The character of bass in M series is soft, warm, rounded, whereas E series has more of 'normal' bass focusing on impact / slam as well. The mid range on the E's is warmer and sweetly colored (and E30's mids would be more liquid than M1 and PA). Treble on M1 may be a step forward than the E's, but I cannot put a finger on sparkle and details. Sound stage and the feeling of spaciousness would be to the advantage of E series as well. But, that's where I'd like to stop. Unless I have the IEMs side by side for comparison, it is very difficult to assess which scores well in which department. I can only say that in an overall SQ sense, they are somewhat in a similar range, but cannot determine which would be ahead or not. Based on feel, I would put E30 a little ahead as I enjoyed it a bit more than I remember liking M1.
 
As WWE ads say, some things are better left with a "Don't try this" attitude. Of late, I've been trying to fit IEMs a little deeper in the ear than before. I was experimenting with tips a lot. I am not sure what caused it, but 3-4 days ago, I was feeling a little 'funny' in the right ear as if there was a small wall that suddenly came up overnight. As usual, I abandoned IEMs for the next few days and it's now settled. I guess some IEM / tip caused a little swelling which subsided subsequently. No harm done! I have managed to "burn in" my IEMs to the 50 hour mark.

Now to the actual point of this post. I was wondering if ES18 sounded closer to E30. While build quality and tips wise, ES18 falls well short leaving no doubt about which is better, I still had lingering doubt about the sound part. It would be fantastic if the ES18 sounded closer to E30, which costs four times more. But, that's not the case. In relation to E30, ES18 is more emphasizing on bass and treble. That's not entirely bad as the bass extension on the ES18 goes a little deeper resulting in better 'rumbling'. On the other hand, E30's bass a bit more controlled than ES18. Likewise, treble is more detailed, leaner and sparkling with E30. It's the mid range which makes a huge difference to me - E30 is smoother, refined, clearer and a little more nimble in revealing details though relatively ES18 has a more forward mid range. The sound stage sizes are not vastly different, E30's imaging and the feeling of space seems a lot better. Apart from the build quality, E30 also scores in comfort as it sits easily in the ear like PL30/PL50, but the metal on the housing hurts after sometime. But on the other hand, shallow insertion reduces the isolation on the E30. I don't know about others, but I can insert ES18 all the way in (as in when I look at the mirror straight up, I cannot see the housing, only the stem and the cable when wearing over the ear).

In they end, they sound 'similar', but different - housings and tuning can make that difference to the same driver, I guess. Now the question is - Is E30 worth 4X ES18? It's a little difficult to answer. Stand-alone, I have no issues choosing ES18, but if money is no bar, I'll choose E30 because of the overall improvement in build quality, sound quality refinement and mid range (and also no red colored cable
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).

Though there's no way I can be sure of this, ES18 is perhaps the best IEM I've bought under Rs. 500 and may be under Rs. 1000. But, E30 is just one of the better IEMs I've heard under Rs. 2000 as it competes against few of the Xears apart from M1.

Addendum: For some strange reason, ES18 sounded a bit muffled in the beginning, but with time sounds alright now - just as I heard it before. May be my ear was "burning in" after the sudden break?

#hahahari,

Sorry! I hadn't forgotten your question, just forgot to reply. So far, I could not find anything on a direct comparison between AD900 and D2000 either. May be you can ask #Fah33M, #Brendon or #bennysachdev and others who have experience with headphones.
 
esanthosh said:
Unfortunately, I don't own either ProAlpha or M1. Comparing from memory can be a very dangerous thing in audio, because brain usually remembers a collective gist - a bundle of your emotions when using the IEM + the signature. Unless I can get a loaner, it would be tough to verify any of my thoughts.

Based on what little I remember, I think E30 and E10 both have better bass punch and extension. The character of bass in M series is soft, warm, rounded, whereas E series has more of 'normal' bass focusing on impact / slam as well. The mid range on the E's is warmer and sweetly colored (and E30's mids would be more liquid than M1 and PA). Treble on M1 may be a step forward than the E's, but I cannot put a finger on sparkle and details. Sound stage and the feeling of spaciousness would be to the advantage of E series as well. But, that's where I'd like to stop. Unless I have the IEMs side by side for comparison, it is very difficult to assess which scores well in which department. I can only say that in an overall SQ sense, they are somewhat in a similar range, but cannot determine which would be ahead or not. Based on feel, I would put E30 a little ahead as I enjoyed it a bit more than I remember liking M1.
Click to expand...

Would you be interested in penning down your thoughts with my ProAlpha?

The ProAlpha vs M1 debate is one that takes place often. Your views would certainly make things easier for enthusiasts/buyers.

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