Iām just super indecisive and $600 is a lot of money to pay for something I havenāt heard and have to base my potential liking off of descriptions you know? I can stomach a blind buy at like $350-400 but 600 is a lot of money 
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I totally get that and it makes sense. I just thought you had decided not to cancel so was surprised by the about-face. So now youāre hunting for the SA6U on the used market, looking for something else entirely, or are you going IEM demoing before you decide?
Or have you not decided how youāre going to decide yet? 
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Got my set. Canāt listen though until later after Iāve been out for dinner.
Comparison incoming between the Ultra and ISN H50 ($295)
Not a fair fight of course, but letās see what you gain by doubling the price!
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Just received mine! Excited AFā¦ upgrading from FH3s, so a big oneā¦ My dailyās are HD58x with Zen DAC and btr5.
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Looking for something else, I would love to demo some sets but unfortunately I live in SC and to the audio world itās pretty much in butt fuck Egypt because I donāt even think we have decent headphone stores here let alone somewhere where I can listen to IEMs
I wouldnāt mind to get these but Iād definitely have to hear them first and thatās basically impossible so iāll be on the lookout for some stuff on the used market under $500
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What the hell?! Another set has popped up boys.
Little more money but free priority shipping within the CONUS.
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@Kamron_Howard AYO
Letās pray our boy gets it this time 
Also does anyone know why I canāt post listings on head-fi? No add button 
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How old is your account and how many posts do you have? I forget what the qualifications are, but you have to reach a certain membership timeframe and post quota in order to post on the f/s forum.
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I actually just ordered the Serratus after seeing all the rave about it! I should be good for a while haha
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You really canāt make this up
Enjoy! Heard itās a great set 
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Ah that makes sense. Made my acc in august, and I guess I donāt comment or react enough. Thanks!
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For those who own SA6u, try xelastic. The fit I got last night just added another BA to the mix or something
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My setup is quite humble with Macbook ā Letshouer DT02 ā SA6 Ultra (w/Final E Type Tips)
So I have had some time with the SA6 Ultra aaandā¦ Iāll just shoot some of my thoughts from the hip.
It comes alive only at mid-high to high levels of volume, imo. It is mid centric so you need to up the volume for it to compensate the loss of sensitivity at both ends of the frequency spectrum.
At the same time, I feel like its elevation in the 7-9kHz region is exacerbating the BA timbre.
This coupled with its lean low mids exposes the snappy, quick but ultimately binary nature of BAs.
I find it quite dry, all things considered. This boi reeeaaalllyyy needs something to make it sound more dense, lush, rich etc. This is why I like it so far with the Final E Type tips, although it kills some of the staging capability.
I also donāt think you can compare this IEM to the MEST Mk2, it is firmly 2 tiers below that set, except in the category of coherency and detail pertaining to sheer tuning balance, areas at which the MEST Mk2 falters a bit.
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The SA6 Ultra is utterly fantastic for its price and especially for someone who likes an analytical take on music WITHOUT it being sterile. Detail and incisiveness of drivers is stellar.
Well, itās all about preferences. Iām a well known disliker of the Mest, as it didnāt click my light bulb due to lack of any organic feeling to it. I also donāt like to talk about it given my experience with it was very long ago and short. I might be able to re-do it soon.
My SA6u doesnāt have any elevation around that mentioned 7-9k area. Thereās indeed BA timbre, but I donāt find it as excruciating as most offers in the market, including Mest, where the timbre was lost in the other side of the street. Other than that, Mest is a better set technically wise, especially around the OCD detail part. Calling it a 2 tiers above itās a strech on my head, but again, itās been a while. Iām rather using Anole VX as a benchmark, where the SA6u is a 95% copy, gaining on BA timbre and losing on sheer detail retreival, and costing a poppin 1/5 of the price.
Now, since Iām deep, Iāll indulge you. At 77db @ 440hz I donāt think both ends suffer that much from its mid-range focus. I do agree that mid-bass does tho. If you take a look at RSVās or U12Tās bass curve in comparison, you wonāt find much, but the kicker is in the upper mid-range.
Where the other two slow the raise to their respective pinna, freeing up more of rest of the spectrum, the SA6 Ultra double downs it. This effect combined with BA nature will result in a less prominent mid-bass in comparison, where the Mest is a slammer. Again, apples to oranges.
Now, In the other end, I donāt think extension suffers at all. In fact, Iāll commit to say itās brialliantly done as it glides until 9k, gets a small dip and comes back up, peaking at around 12-13k and slowly gliding again until it falls of the radar at around 18.5k-19k (This is where U12T goes off the charts in comparison). This effect cultiminates into a lot of air and enough breathing room for the mid-range to layer, despite its heavy focus, so you donāt get a mushroom omolette in your face, but without over boosting harmonics off the scale so the BA timbre touches your soul until you die.
https://tidal.com/browse/track/93724711
What I just wrote above about separation, layering, treble and upper harmonics can be heard in the above track, if you wish to check it.
Oh and the stage depth. But letās leave that for another time.
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Well known hater of MEST who put it in in his own tier list at S- if I remember correctly 
But I donāt get the hate for that set - the perceived timbre my be sometimes weird due to the strange imaging, but I would never say that it is lacking organic feeling to the bone (a bit off of the best in class buds. It just sometimes sounds supernatural, but for example Fleet Foxes albums (which is my organic sound testers) are such a pleasure to listen too!
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I donāt hate Mest. I donāt hate anything I have in the upper rankings. Not even Variations. I like some sets way more than others (preference ranking column exists and doesnāt influence the other two).
Sigh
Firstly I do have to disclose the following, that I forgot above:
- YMMV
- Libraries matter more than anything
- Everyone listens differently
- 711 couplers have a natural resonance peak that most people align @ 8k hertz
- Reviewers are still humans and can only be as objective as they can
- Volume matching matters more than most stuff in a chain, besides music
Now, with that out of the way, letās go back to the table I guess.
Thereās a difference between subjectivity and objectivity. My tier list is full of incoherencies and is being rebuilt as most people know, but the core is there.
MEST, especially the Mk2, signs of incoherency (disconnection between the mid-bass and the rest of the lower mid-range) and artificial tone are the opposite of Iād call organic or natural.
MEST segment is brilliant to give you an hyper-realistic sound. We could discuss if thereās anywhere near ālife-likeā, but letās leave that on the side. Did you ever saw me saying MESTs are bad? Sure, you will see me saying Z1R, Trio or U12T trump all over it, but thatās preference added to objectivity, which translates into subjectivity.
Thereās no giant killers, as those are just giants that fit your library better.
And I hate MEST so much that I approached you to buy yoursā¦
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Nymz, I did not have have hard feelings in mind writing this comment and I think you took it way harder that I wanted it to sound.
Initially I wrote ādisliker of MESTsā quoting your own words, but my autocorrection triggered, so I changed it to the only synonym I could think of - and hater in my dictionary is not having such heavy weight as it should beā¦
And you know, this just sounded funny in my ear to read that you call yourself a disliker/hater of Mest and have it in S- (both in overall and personal tier now that I checked) and you approached me to buy that expensive shot as well just to have reference (which I know was a good will for any review readers.)
So yes, that would be about it, also I needed to defend a set that I have listed at the moment so not to loose interest 
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No harm done. I was posting as nymz and not Ricardo 
The reference thing is also because I donāt need it, itās more of benchmarking. @igor0203 is prohibint me from buying it 
As Ricardo, Iām off to the sun with U12T, buds, and a couple of other sets Iām still deciding on. SA6 Ultra might be one of them.
After Ripples cools off, gimme a nudge to loan you the other TGX offers, I think uāll like them as well 
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Yes, I get it - you need to protect your reviewersā legacy and my comment could be read as a call-out 
In regards to TGXears - yup sure, but I am waiting for something in non MX500 shell, hope that his planar would be in Totem shell
But back to the topic I almost sold this MEST couple of days ago when SA6U had a launch and I wanted to use the money directly to buy those DUNUs, but maybe it is better that I did not. It looks like they are kind of sidegrades at best
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