100% They’re all good IEMs with the Deuce and Cantor being more stand out imo. The P5+2 didn’t wow me, hence the low-ish rating. It’s confidently average to my ears but that doesn’t mean they’re bad!
Also, thanks so much, brother! I’m happy you enjoyed!
Just wanted to share some amazing music I’ve found this week.
Some of the best produced and mastered rock music I’ve heard in a long while.
Not necessarily “new” but more so, reminded of.
Hope everyone is doing well 
I’d love to hear some feedback on the jams and general thoughts on the tunes 
Oho! This just went from a casual browse to putting in some IEMs…
The tune of the first one didn’t do anything for me but I agree it’s well produced, I like the album art too.
I always love some Khruangbin, so chill but engaging, lots of great instrument timbres together.
I liked the third one, but I don’t know if it stood or to me, Apple’s been recommending a lot of laid back stuff off this style. The bass line sounds great on Explorers (just threw on propeller tips for the first time on these for the heck of it, good choice so far!)
I had to tap out on the fourth one from the lyrics. Sounded like an angstier Courtney Barnett (faster, louder) I didn’t mind the vibes from the sound.
High praise - it’s my friend’s band - I’ll pass the compliment on.
I also enjoyed the Mannequin Pussy album last year 
Always appreciated, John, thank you for sharing.
I have this weird thing about me where sometimes, with certain songs or certain bands, I latch onto a specific element of their sound, and that usually lets me dig it. For Sweet Pill, the production/mastering really stood out to me. Powerful drums too.
Your opinion on Mannequin Pussy made me giggle haha that’s an incredibly accurate description. I agree.
@Kenyon seriously?!
That’s incredible. I’ve been loving their music since I found their unraveled EP last week. Please send my compliments! Let them know if they ever come to Boston, I’ll be there
We met through acquaintance at NTS (separately used to do a show there) & Boilerroom - friend helped put this together.
(Not sure if these platforms are popular in the US - 
)
Sure they will be visiting Boston - they finally getting more recognition.
I sit here and I question whether or not I’ve been just procrastinating writing my review of the ZA12 or if life is genuinely just not giving me the motivation to sit down, listen critically, and write.
I guess I’m just in a ‘shut up and listen’ type of mood lately. I get like this sometimes. It comes in waves. Sometimes I can’t wait to share my thoughts whether negative or positive, hoping that they might give someone a good read to start or end their day.
And sometimes I feel like, what’s the point?
Anyway, I think the ZA12 deserves some spotlight time here. It’s a good set. Especially considering the price. After boycotting KZ for years, I finally decided to buy a pair from them a few weeks back, the Castor Bass edition which is also a pretty good set that sounds fun and bassy but with that, comes coherency issues and a slightly glare-prone upper mid-range and thin lower mid-range. Still, they’re $18 USD… It’s hard for me to complain and nitpick a pair of IEMs so heap, relatively speaking of course.
Not a week later, coincidently, I was offered a review unit of KZ’s newest hybrid offering, the ZA12 by the fine people over at KEEPHIFI a very special thanks to them for offering a unit for review! They’ve been nothing but kind, cordial, understanding, and patient. I was very upfront with Vivian from the beginning with my way of reviewing. No script nor any specific points from the manufacturer or retailer were given to me. I was simply asked to share my thoughts on the set so I have to shout Vivian and the rest of the team over at KEEPHIFI out for that.
I’ll be dropping my full review of the ZA12 tomorrow morning at some point but I wanted to make this post to highlight how great the experience has been so far working with KEEPHIFI. I’ve never bought anything from them in the past, but from my experience with them so far, I can only assume good things.
The ZA12 is a brighter leaning set with a scary-looking graph, to say the least. I was again fooled by those damn squiggly lines. I made the #1 mistake of us audiophiles again, I let the graph dictate my initial feelings towards the set. But ya know what? I’m actually glad I did. To my ears, the ZA12 plays back nothing like the graph would indicate. I was getting ready for the shoutfest to come to town but I was totally wrong. The ZA12 is mostly natural sounding, with fantastic timbre. Instruments and female vocals, especially, sound actually very accurate. Life-like even. Mid-range clarity is impressive for this price range in my opinion, as is the stage size overall and resolution. Sibilance is kept to a minimum when listening to medium volume and only when you crank the volume up a little higher does glare start to present itself a touch. Bass is also on the lighter side. Too light for me to consider these a daily driver of any kind. However, the bass tactility is actually very nice here, with a nice little punch behind the mid-bass. Subbass is almost non-existent in my library, however.
I have changed my musical choices the last week or so I’ve been listening to and enjoying the ZA12. Lots of ballads. Lots of acoustic heavy numbers with female vocals front and center and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it.
Looking forward to diving deeper in the full review 
Definitely sounds like it has a surprising level of depth for the price! Looks like KZ is still surprising us. Can’t wait to read your full review and see how the ZA12 holds up!
Hope they dont stealth revise that set, would hate for the effort you put in to be wasted.
Haha KZ and stealth revisions go hand in hand.
This is a true fact. All I know is that I have the first version, maybe I should say that in my review haha
Note the date you got it and maybe any identification number on the packaging.
That’s fair, will do, thanks Riku!
Btw the pics that you take, they are on a full sized (mirrorless?) camera and not a phone right?
Do you think an old mirrorless camera like the Sony Alpha A6000 would be a big upgrade over a flagship phone even with just the stock lens?
Yes and yes.
I owned the A6000, two separate times. It’s a fantastic little camera.
An APS-C sized sensor is huge compared to even flagship phone camera sensors. The individual pixel size is a massive difference, leading to better low light performance mainly. There are other benefits to larger sensors as well but light gathering capabilities is probably the biggest difference you’ll notice.
Yeah I believe that may never change since they would need to make the lens in the smartphones much bigger and that may look pretty ugly?
Although on the smartphone side, while they do have higher MP count technically(higher number = better bait), since they all use pixel binning to get better low light performance at the cost of only getting 1/4 MP count, even these decade old mirrorless cameras may still have a higher MP count?
How good are the pics on the A6000 if you just use auto mode or just mess with the ISO, shutter speed, etc…settings and not touching it in post?
Higher MP counts are nothing but a marketing ploy. It’s get people every year. Higher MP count, pixel binning or not, hinders low light performance. But now a days the computational engines in modern phones does a good job of cleaning noise up from photos.
But to your point, lenses of course make a huge difference. The lenses in front of smartphones are mostly plastic elements, aka, shit quality.
JPEG images are just fine out of the Sonys. They’ve changed their color science a bit since the A6000 came out but I’m sure you won’t have any issues with what the JPEGs look like. You should be fine.
Haha yeah, its the “more drivers = better” equivalent for the camera world. 
Would you go for the A6000 for 280 usd if its used and has 21k clicks?
(oh and, I guess there is no “chifi” in the camera world somehow?)