Hot girl summer 
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Fantastic write up, my man. I agree with basically everything youāve said. The only thing I can comment on is stage, I donāt think I can quite understand stage on my sets. My right ear is severely dull in terms of sound while my left is fine, I think my brain just naturally compensated for this for years now, so to me, the stage on the timeless is great, just like the rest of my sets lol but other wise, your input on the timeless is fantastic. I feel like the timeless will be a relevant set for years to come and any review wonāt be too late!
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Alright. I have my conclusions.
After some very minimal, elementary, somewhat flawed A/B testing (please take this with a huge grain of salt as I am NOT an experienced reviewer in the slightest) hereās what I found.
I went from:
BTR3K Balanced to
BTR3K single ended to
Apple dongle (3.5mm of course)
And the difference in sound was something I did not expect. With the apple dongle, the entire signature was somewhat flattened out, dynamics were subdued in the low end, drum kicks didnāt have that rumble in their tail end, however, literally no harshness in the vocals where sometimes I experienced them in the past. The apple dongle has seemingly tamed those upper mid/lower treble frequencies enough so that the EST timbre is not as jarring as it could of been before with some of my library. However, with the BTR3K in the balanced mode, the difference in the stage and separation of instruments was in fact the first thing I noticed. Things seem to have moved a hair away from one another, allowing them all to breath a little in the recording. The dynamics of the bass returned, and the sub bass received a nice little kick up. Another difference I found was that with the apple dongle, vocals seemed a touch pushed back in the recording, probably due to the separation difference I mentioned before.
Also, I did find something out that I hadnāt tested out before tonight. All of this time Iāve been maxing out my phoneās volume and then setting the BTR3Ks volume to my liking ā¦ well, in my valiant but not perfect effort of attempting to volume match the two sources, I instead maxed the BTR3ās volume and set my phones volume to my liking ā¦. With the balanced output, my sound quality improved. I couldnāt believe it. The resolution improved, as well as the dynamics in the bass. Something to keep in mind I guess.
So all in all, I can confirm that the apple dongle does tame that EST timbre, with the sacrifice of a flattened overall tonal balance. Which some may prefer.
Iām sorry if this is irrelevant to the thread, but I hope this helps! @John_W_Clark @lilhm
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I too agree, I enjoy the way the timeless presents vocals in the mix. I find the overall warmth in the playback on the timeless helps a lot with my particular library.
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Thanks for sharing your findings. I also agree that the overall tonality changed and especially there is less bass, but the biggest factor to me is the better detail in the treble/air. Overall I like the apple dongle sound better, but can understand that someone like the bassier sound better.
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That is pretty useful, and thanks for sharing.
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Happy I could help!
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patiently waiting for V2 to arrive to see what (if anything) has changed sound wise.
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I find that the apple dongle feels kinda dull in separation and treble compared to my cx31993 or even on board laptop audio jack.
My laptop has a software that outputs audio to 2 devices simultaneously allowing me to A/B test concurrently so I did some tests like ādoes cable actually matterā and ādoes different dacs actually sound differentā. Turns out crappy cable and decent cable do not change the sound at all but apple dongle ended up sounding subdued compared to on-board audio and cx31993 that were pretty much identical save for maybe the slightest treble emphasis and maybe of maybes a little more detail on cx31993.
I also found that the Timeless is very forgiving with sources as my phone has a bad on-board dac that actually clips on some bass hits causing a click sound to appear but Timeless completely ignores that and just plays smoothly.
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Today I tried listening to a couple albums, going back and forth between these two sources.
- Apple dongle - we all have one, a great neutral reference
- Periodic Audio Rhodium dongle - warmer with more power than Apple. This is a Realtek ALC5686 SoC, and I like it for a low power option on my phone.
I found that the Rhodium helped, but it might just be leaning into my sonic preferences. The bass was just a bit meatier, and the details seemed a little better. The extra $40 should get something perceivable.
I should probably do more testing against the BTR5, which is my typical DAC/Amp. I have the older Fiio BTR5, which is the one with dual Sabre ES9218P DACs, the new one uses a pair of ES9219C instead.
I agree. The apple dongle smoothens out the playback
To my ears, taming pretty much everything, so if you have a set with maybe .5 or 1db too much upper mid energy, the dongle would probably be the way to go. Itās not a massive difference at all but it does help a touch. Thatās if you can accept the compromise with the low end reduction.
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Would this alone throw the test off? Just by introducing balanced to the comparison against a separate source thatās only only unbalanced. Seems to bring an unfair variable to the equation that could biased your outcome. I can hear similar differences going balanced to unbalanced on a single source. Might seem like the better comparison would be to A/B them unbalanced in a single session. Just some thoughts.
Iām always curious myself if the sources do dramatically change the sound. However, my only comparisons are between the Q5K and Apple Dongle. Iām happy with both and donāt really want to get in another rabbit hole with sources. As of now I havenāt heard a dramatic enough difference to 100% convince myself with my two. I always just come to the conclusion itās confirmation biased.
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Yeah, you make a valid point.
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Yeah, I also didnāt care and didnāt want to care until I bought the super expensive IEM that the Mest Mk2 is, which audibly sounded worse on my smartphone 
My experience with the ThieAudio Oracle/Excalibur was the same.
From that standpoint I would highly suggest to not get into ESTs if you care about money and donāt want to get into sources. Luckily for me the proper source doesnāt have to be expensive (apple dongle), but still you loose in terms of comfort and what you can/have/want to connect your IEMs to.
While the sound is clearly better on the Mest Mk2, I think from an overall usability and comfort standpoint the Moondrop Chu is probably the better IEM (good mic, easy to drive, sources donāt matter, ease of mind when it comes to loosing them or breaking them).
Iām deep into the game. My bank cryās weekly. Have owned EST sets in the past including Kinda Lava and Mest MK2. While two currents I own, and some of my favorite sets to date, are the Moonlight and Up. All powered by my Q5K via 2.5 balanced at least for EST sets. Iāve yet to hear an IEM where I felt the DAP/DAC would make a difference that would make me further like it. Or at least thought maybe I should get another DAC.
If that time comes though I sell the IEM. Never a day where I want to spend so much money on an item only to need to spend more for it to achieve satisfaction. Itās part of why I havenāt gotten the Penon Volt because, every review āclaimsā it needs an $800 Totem cable to shine.
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So your going with the Chu? Lol I know your not. This is audio. It is subjective as all get out. I have an apple dongle but I do prefer the Qudelix. I am sure there are better dongles than the Apple but for 7 dollars it quite good. Happy hunting but find what you like and tips change sound and they are cheaper than other dongles and dacs
I own both and I use both - different use cases.
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btw, you might want to use SE and low gain on Q5K for your Moonlight, given it has 8 Ohms impedance
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I didnāt know this when I ordered mine Balanced. See numerous people mention the same thing though. For now Iām just running the Standard Profile and Normal Output Power in the Q5K. Iāll swap to SE and see. Curious what might change because right now I canāt come up with any faults. Moonlight easily sits as my favorite as Iām currently running it.
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Is it true that there have been several different batches of this iem?
Not that they changed something that was faulty but that they changed the sound. Or so I have read on some sites.