There is lots of stuff I would love to talk about in your message. But I am cooking, so this one.
In my experience so far, each driver type when implemented really well can not replicate another driver types characteristics. This has been true for me with dd vs planar. I doubt ba will break the mold here.
That is not to say it canāt do something enjoyable. The timeless is basically the best planar bass I have heard. And while I still like DD in general for bass more, it is every bit as enjoyable.
I fully believe BA bass can be wonderful (havenāt experienced it yet) but I donāt believe it will imitate DD bass well.
Cant add anything to that discussion, just what i heard, and thats about it. How true is that i wouldnt know, but worth mentioning that some people find some BAs as good as DD for bass.
Never considered a full BA set so havent memorized what was it, but if youre interested i might do some digging around and find the review(or couple) of one with claims like that.
Itāll be good enough in reproducing DD bass SOUND but never in moving the same amount of air, so if you want to FEEL your bass in a similar then youāre out of luck indeed. Itās about physics at that point.
I know that reviewer Michael Bruce who absolutely is a bass head claims his RSV slams like nothing else. Dynamic will probably say he shouldnāt confuse speed/dynamics with slam though
Among other things, yes. I doubt anything will beat DD bass for me.
I would prefer to see a set that can show me what BA can do.
Yes you should. āsays guy that has never heard the p1.
Me?
Comes tomorrow! I am thinking I will do a dusk/tea comparison. Maybe timeless too. But it might get boring having me say āI like what the timeless does here betterā¦.ā
This logic checks out for me!
Seriously though, the timeless have a ācompletenessā to the sound that goes way above most headphones for me. Very good.
Nah, I think youāre right. In terms of headphones/IEMs all we have to go on is really attack+decay, dynamics and timber when it comes to āslamā unless you mean to tell me (rather, show me) you really think you can feel the absolutely miniscule amount of air these tiny drivers are moving near/into your ear.
When you try enough equipment you find, at the end of the day, the type of driver doesnāt mean much. For instance, with headphones, you can find planars and estats which move essentially no air which absolutely slam harder than most DDs.
You can on the Zen. It literally tickles my eardrum. But, you do have to be playing pretty loud for that to happen. Before then itās less obvious but still more visceral than other IEMs I have heard.
I have not experienced any planar that can slam even a fraction of what my hp-2 does. If you can point me at one, I would love to hear it.
I donāt see how you get this visceral slam without the air motion. The timeless is a great example. On dillard 0742, the sub bass and sonic levels are higher than anything I have heard. But when the bass notes hit there is no impact. Sub bass rumble, which is sonic, but no impact. Hp-2, by contrast, has the rumble up to the bass notes and then that bass note hits viscerally. The Zen also has much more impact than timeless.
It was in my post. I think the more pertinent question is how are YOU defining slam? Since if itās solely to do with the movement of air then by their technical ability estats and planars have ZERO slamā¦ and yet. Well, you can see the contradiction there.
Exactly. Slam for me is the ability to feel the impact of the notes physically. I was under the impression this is the relatively well accepted definition of slam. Otherwise we are simply talking about elevated bass response. And I can see that on a graph. Slam isnāt related to what I see on the graph.
And yes, I would say planars and estats as a whole generally have less slam. The best I have heard planar wise is lcd-xc. Thatās not the same thing as saying they lack bass. The XC was my favorite planar presentation until the timeless. And the elevated bass does help. But I donāt think of it as slam because the impact isnāt felt, itās heard.
Yeah, thereās a reason planar speakers often have multiple square meters to produce both very deep bass and slam at the same time. Think the Apogee Diva for instance or my retired Duetta. For a similar feeling in a planar IEM you probably need a driver of 5 cms or so. I think I have seen planar earphones that cross the bridge with headphones that might do the trick. Canāt remember the name though.
Well that all depends on what youāre looking for in a new set and what other sets you already haveā¦Iād say the Timeless is a warmer tuned P1 with better bass/sub bass but doesnāt have the same level of detail retrieval in the upper frequencies. Iām not the most knowledgeable when it comes to headphones but maybe itās a bit like Audeze vās Hifimanā¦Audeze being a bit darker and Hifiman more forward and brighter ā¦so itās a personal preference thing really but if I could keep just one set Iād have the P1ās just because I have more expensive sets that do what the Timeless does better imhoā¦the P1 fills a niche in my IEM collection and will never leaveā¦(neither will the Timeless tbh lol)
I am thinking about doing a 3 way. I am hesitant to include the timeless simply because I am massively biased toward it. Itās basically one of my three pedestal headphones. The hp-2, the zen and the timeless.
But, one of my goals with doing these is describing what the differences are to me. And then stating a preference.
Maybe good practice?
I also may do a companion video. I finally figured out a video methodology that I wouldnāt mind producing. Weāll see.
Forget about the timeless for a week or so, and use tea exclusively. Write down your impressions of the tea at the end of the week in one last day listen. And then do a head to head. Id do it that way to minimize effect of being used to a type of sound(timeless in this case) and minimize possible bias.
Edit:
But after this methodology you might become biased towards the set you used exclusively for a weekā¦? hmmmm
No choice. Timeless replacement isnāt here yet. Havenāt had it for at least 4 or 5 days. Zen is mailed out for repair.
Tea is getting a really good run no matter what. I donāt want to listen to the dusk when I have a new toy. And my hp-2 isnāt practical for a lot of my head time at the moment.
I do still have the ear pressure issue to deal with on the teas and general irritation. The hp-2 will be used when the tea becomes unusable.
PURELY based on the demo I would never buy any of these, and I thoroughly realize I might want them all if I had them in my earsā¦ But if I had to buy based on the demo then I would save my $1 and buy ice cream instead. The sound of all IEMs reminded me of holding a $25 mono transistor to my ear 40 years ago. Flat. Totally flat. Now, the thing that I hadnāt expected is that I loved the palpable, 3D sound of the voices with much more texture on the HD650 so much, except for the last track. But in general I found them far too boomy in the demo, and they had too much of what the MEST missed: Focus on the rhythm section. Itās like songs played on the MEST were sneakily recorded after they told the rhythm section the recordings were done for the day and sent them home already.
This probably isnāt a good way to choose, but itās a great tool to have Dan explain how he feels about them. Iāve seen some of his other videos and heās really doing an excellent job. But I would consider the demo a tool for him only and focus on his explanations instead of on the sound, I think.
ā¦so itās a personal preference thing really but if I could keep just one set Iād have the P1ās just because I have more expensive sets that do what the Timeless does better imhoā¦the P1 fills a niche in my IEM collection and will never leaveā¦(neither will the Timeless tbh lol)
