Yep - but the UM 3DT is a next level step-up over the DQ6 (although I’ll probably end up buying it too). But Olina will be first - already have a DQ6 as my beater set.
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Well, interesting to be called B.S. 
Plus, did I say I didn’t enjoy Mele or would not purchase Olina? I think not. I didn’t discredit anything mate, just being real as a consumer. I’ll be glad if Olina replaces O2 in post sale numbers in the long run; even better if Olina sounds just like O2, if not better. O2’s price tag is the reason why it’s on my wishlist and never purchased.
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Yeah true. I wish more people reviewed Penon Serial - that’s a 3DD and consumers with both 3DT and Serial are saying they prefer Serial.
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If I called you B.S. I’d quote you bro. 
I am speaking in general.
People are going to have to twist hard to call Olina something at $99 when they
called 02 top class and I cloned it.
Not talking to you or I’d quote you
And thanks for Buying Mele 
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Unlisted till I put a close up vid on twitter I can pin under in comments cuz folks wanna see stuff up close
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Yeah, me too - I have less than zero trust in the author of the only review I could find, plus it’s Penon and my one and only experience of shopping with them was less than stellar (it was only for some O2 filters and they still managed to fuck it up).
I think @rattlingblanketwoman has/had(?) a set though so could maybe chip in
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I liked them. The usual Penon brand of darkness (something about the sub-bass extension and perhaps upper mids or treble). Wasn’t sure about how sub-bass feels (compared to the biocellulose diaphragm in the Aladdin) and for me the main issue was where I listened to some bass guitar and it was just missing some detail/feel that I just have to have. Overall a very good coherent tuning, and fantastic timbre. My favorite Penon set, I’m not usually a fan of theirs but keep trying them for some reason. Hopefully this wasn’t too off-topic to answer here. But it made me enthusiastic for a well tuned 3DD set, after the 3DT which was really not my tuning preference.
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I just saw 3DD mentioned…it’s 2022 and I’m still waiting for a multi-DD + EST set from a respected brand. Wouldn’t that be a great collaboration project @hawaiibadboy ?
It’s being tuned now. You mean a tri brid or 2/DD 2/EST?
Yes to both
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There is no off topic here 
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that’s good news and yes a bi brid 2/DD 2/EST.
After few weeks with the i3 Pro that i bought with my hard earned cash
here are my impressions
First thing that youll notice when you put them in, is the air pressure forming in your hearholes. Its due to the nozzle not having any vent and will take about 5-10 seconds for the pressure to normalize and music to start sounding normal. As ive read somewhere, it was a conscious move on their side since they deemed them sounding best that way.
This pressure issue was mentioned in few reviews, but it seems there wasnt enough attention brought to it as it affects comfort pretty notably for me.
Mine have a pretty dense steel grill with tiny holes and a nylon mesh underneath it, which does contribute to the problem. Removing the mesh and grill alleviates it and makes it more bearable. Havent experimented with alternative grills/mesh/tuning paper, and not planing for the time being while im still getting acquainted with the set and the idea/philosophy behind it.
I like to shove iems as far as they can go in, so if youre more into shalower fit ymmw regarding this.
I dont want to take 10 seconds to slowly put in the IEMs, or shove them in fast then feel discomfort for few seconds after that. I dont think im asking too much?
After the initial discomfort has wore out, if you make moves that mess with the ear pressure like yawning, chewing or generally moving your jaw you can still feel the pressure.
Pulling them out will also try to suck your eardrums out. Janice Griffith standing on the side and nervously smoking a cigarette being worried loosing her job… They know too much, she thought.
Janice is a dramatic actress and in basically every movie shes in she gets her heart broken and never gets to mary the boy in the end. Sad 
.
KBEAR, If at some other occasion you come to the conclusion that your iems sound better without a nozzle vent(and the construction prevents it expel air without it)… Just go back to the drawing board, and please, PLEASE dont do this again. Eardrums around the world will thank you.
Luckily ive found foam tips that work for me, and i would consider the only type of tips that are useable without discomfort(no pressure problems), but being limited to a certain type of tip without sacrificing comfort isnt ideal.
So now that the rant is over, lets get roling.
I will be using Foam tips, Tri Grace cable(sent as a gift by KBEAR) and Fiio BTR3K(LDAC 909kbps 44/16) for the evaluation. Tracks used for testing were either flacs i have downloaded or streamed from Deezer/Tidal. Youtube samples provided here are just for your reference and might have some differences in sound quality/different mastering.
Oh boy, companies can actually make IEMs with proper channel balance, looking at you Timeless.
Difference between channels is @ around 1db.
Bass is authorative and has god hit, clean sounding and fast, with maybe hint of boominess.
Vocals are technically good and rich but most do suffer from a veiliness or having too much weight to them which i found to be because of the big and wide dip after the pinna gain. I do like powerfull male vocals but they do become bit too much with the i3 Pro.
For my taste, vocals(both male and especially female low ones) besides sounding too thick and also miss on that raspiness and metalic tones in the voice(dont confuse this with sounding grainy or tinny), It will be sort of subdued and smoothed out.
Sade and Jim Morrison are good example.
That same dip makes snare drums(and not only) suffer and take away from the track, sounding kind of lifeless in general. Its like a smart kid being kept back by his peers(FR is the peers). And mind you this is not only with snare drums but with most instruments that play or have their overtones living at around that dip.
like on the 2 tracks with snare drums that i very prominently noticed this -
Most distorted guitars sound too muffled. Great example that clearly points that out is
Plenty of classic rock sounds too veiled to me, Alice Cooper - Poison comes to mind as an example.
Layering is just ok but due to vocals being fuller/weightier than they should, and the smoothing effect it has because of that, it loses some resolution in this regard due to the fact.
Soundstage is pretty good with good separation, has both good width and depth
Imaging is also good on this set. Best for the soundstage(after EQ) i found to be cp100 tips, but brings its downsides with it(remember pressure?)
So now that we know the culprit of i3 Pro not being to my liking OOTB, lets get cooking.
Adding [email protected](q2.5), 3db@6KHz(q1.5), 2db@8KHz(q1.5), 2db@16KHz(q1.5). You could go without the last one. Band pass filter was used for the EQ.
You probably could bring it more to your liking with some additional EQ modification, but imo this is a good starting point as this is where the problem frequencies are, and i would think most that are into similar genres as me would agree.
The EQ modification above adds spaciousness, gets snare drums up in the aforementioned tracks, increases the width of the “center channel” a bit, makes female vocals restore intoxicated/raspy properties and sound closer to what i would consider how they should, and makes this set sound more to my liking. Makes it easier to tell apart harmonizing voices in a choir and will Improve the ability to hear layering/texture in general as it will also affect overtones on good ammount of instruments.
Qoa Vesper i own has a similar dip, though more conservative one, and i pretty much like those. Didnt expect that bit wider dip and few db lower would make such a big difference, but it does, Tri(KBEAR) overdid it with this one for my taste. Should have been bit more conservative and it would have been a great IEM for much wider variety of genres.
In the state it comes, my impression is that it seems that genres that it will excell is “instrumental” EDM (and not all EDM acompanied with vocals due to my previous remarks). Kpop, Acoustic guitar music actually sounds pretty nice and that added weight actually compliments it imo.
Classic Jazz is good, especially if your library has lots of older tracks with not great mastering that would otherwise sound piercing, same goes for Classic Disco tracks of the same variety that would otherwise sound tinny.
Alan Parsons Project, Eye in the Sky Album sounds pretty great.
Since the custom in this parts is to review without EQ, thats what i did, thus the resulting criticism. This is absolutely related to my library so ymmw.
I dont mind using EQ, so thats what saves the day for me and it actually makes it a likeable IEM.
If you own i3 Pro, now try all those audio samples above with the EQ applied, you might discover you had a good set on you all this time.
Soo, am i satisfied? All in all its a good IEM, but ohh that dip. I was under the impression that to buy the dip is a good thing, but i guess financial strategy doesnt translate great to audio related stuff :).
So if youre a stranger to EQ and similar music taste as mine id skip it, if youre ok with EQ it can be made into a pretty great set.
The fact that i got it on sale for $135 + KBEAR threw in a Tri Grace cable as a gift(retail $89, and i assume sale price around $40-50), i dont mind EQ, so i dont think i have much to complain about about the whole experience.
But then again, i have no idea what im talking about, and even “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare”.
And i did have plenty of free time recently… hmmmm
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I hope The Olina coming with Better stock sound cable quality than the Mele stock cable so no need upgrade cable to improve treble clarity like in the Mele
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10 character
Somehow I doubt that the cable quality has anything to do with treble traits in a single DD IEM. I did upgrade my sister to something just a tad less tangly though.
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Looking good.
The DQ6 has a very thin nozzle, maybe a wider nozzle can help with the tuning.
Just saying! I don’t know if you are already done with it.
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Is that a qdc connector on lea?
Ayyy Mr. Chris! My apologies for saying I’m not a fan of the shell design in discord yesterday.
I have never been so wrong.
These look freaking great. Holy shit. Really can’t wait for the release. My wallet and my ears are ready.
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