I hope so!
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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.
How are you defining slam?
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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.
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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.
drftr
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)
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I know id like to read them compared to Timeless. But if you dont write anything about that, pm me short impressions if its no trouble.
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I also think the timeless is better than the teaās
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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.
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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 
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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.
It will be played 24/7 for the coming days.
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.
Tnx for sharingā¦
drftr
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Seems my timeless is arriving on my country very soon. The plot thickens. Let the customs game begin 
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Make sure they donāt get to listen to it or it may never arriveā¦
drftr
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I am trying hard to grasp how a demo of an earphone listened to with another earphone could be in any way useful.
And then he tells to listen to it on an iphone speaker which is even stranger to me. Why donāt I print the graph and make paper balls out of it and stick it into my ears instead. Iām confused.
The delivery company has been bouncing my package around my country since the package landed, with an apology that it went to the wrong depotā¦hoping for tomorrow!
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Thatās the reason my Teas arenāt going anywhere for demos 
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Maybe itās possible with reference level gear?
If someone told me āthese earphones are great, check out this iphone speaker playback of how they soundā, I would assume that the earphones sound worse than the iphone speaker.
Keep in mind demos are useless for anything other than direct comparison on the macro-level, e.g., āoh, IEM A is warmer than IEM B since its treble is less forward using this same song and same micā
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