I don’t know about Isabellae, but Twilight probably is somewhat ungraphable since it has crazy number of front vents near the nozzle where it leaks like probably 10-20% of the sound pressure bombarding your ear cartilage (here is one against 3d printed copy of the shell)
The bass is much more prominent and palpable than it graphs. Also they make any harman/sub bass focused sets I have tried sound thin and like with frequency range part just being cut out with EQ. And if not for the fact that sometimes I like very angelic female vocals of sets with mid bass tuck I think I would not need any other transducer on top of Twilight.
Such a fun set for music listening <3
This is the magic sauce I was talking about. I couldn’t get them to fit well enough to get that bass sensation but I can totally understand the impressions for those who do
That is correct. This is not the most typically fitting set and I can assume it may be unfittable for some. But I really wiggled through about 50 tip types and finally settled with Azla Crystals making the fit stellar and it was worth it. Easily the most comfortable set I have - I can wear it for hours without any problem
Well I am not a big fan of “magic sauce” term and could not find it in this nor Panda or Mangird Tea sets. Twilight (and the other 2 to lesser extent) just playbacks my music in very full and engaging matter, so in combination with fit it is just unbeatable for me. For example MEST OG gets close to zero listening time for 3rd month straight in my rotatioj, whereas it was my definite favourite before
And you have absolute best of the world ot IEMs so I dont think you get easily surprised
Ha, true…but even I still get surprised every now and then (Rikubuds GAS3 is the latest big surprise, which SHOULDN’T be a surprise given his track record haha). I just had to let Twilight go because people I lent it to DID get that magic, and it felt wrong keeping it when it didn’t see near enough rotation in my collection. I’m gonna have to start cutting some of my other units sooner rather than later, at that…
Thanks to the immense kindness of my crew I’ve gotten to hear Twilight, Tea, MEST Mk II, and Emerald Loki as sets that I hear talked about as having “special sauce”.
I think it’s fair to be controlled in using that term and that it gets leaned on a little too much, but I do think people can get something extra out of sets like those above that resonates more than other sets. Like with Twilight I absolutely did hear the 10-20% of pressure that was being vented into the ear make a difference in the bass reproduction. I got some effect out of the bone conductor in the Lokis, and did not really get anything that really stood out as exemplary in the MEST Mk II.
I didn’t like enough about the Tea for me to be blown away, but I can absolutely understand the people that heard something special in the vocal reproduction. IEMs like the Juzear 41T and Dunu Vulkan have something different in their headstages that stands apart from 95% of the IEMs I’ve heard. But certainly there is a good amount of people that didn’t hear what I did.
There’s no real rhyme or reason to when or why an IEM will stand out, and it won’t stand out universally to every listener. So I don’t really have a point, just my observations.
You are probably right for most in our hobby - in my experience I find that different IEMs are more like more or less spicy twists to the same main dish of the music piece I listen to. So I probably love the same music just a little bit less on Cadenzas than I do on Twilights.
In other words the music has like 85% weighted factor toward my end satisfaction and IEM + tip and every possible shit like cable, source, file etc is max 15% to me.
If “magic sauce” is 20% extra out of this 15% it is still not a lot to be heavy decision driver most of the time. But I guess it still may be a leverage for some other people with better hearing
P. S I am a numbers person in non quantifiable hobby if anyone did not notice yet
The latest hype train I have one foot on the Tansio Mirai 10th going on Penon store at an introductory $300 off at $399
Nervously hovering over the buy button!
As I said I never heard them but you named only two of their many models and even out of those two the RGB looks pretty sharp in the treble. Bright isn’t always bad but I’ll stick by my statement that if you aren’t a fan a bright IEMs I would at least wait for a graph before blind buying a TSMR IEM
Those both look pretty solid! Tansio Mirai have been around for ages, but really seem to be one of those brands that fade in and out of public consciousness.
