Just put the Vortex back in my ears and I forgot how much I love that bass with the filter off! You dialed it it in damn near perfect. The unfortunate thing about the Vortex is that after being spoiled by the upper mids and treble of the IE600 it just can’t really compete and leaves me wanting more, it does bring the bass harder than the IE600 though so its got its place.
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Vortex is a very interesting set, that fills a niche in the Penon lineup, but is so…hard to justify lol
It’s not as satisfying in bass as Serial and Fan, it’s brighter than any Penon, and it is pretty redundant with the Hexas/Olinas of the world existing, and it’s 2-3x their price.
I can’t, with it. But it was fun to demo and yeah that was JUST the right amount of bass to make that mod sing.
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Truthear Hola or We’re Really Not Doing This Again
I listened to 3 songs with Hola. It’s a copy/paste review from the last 7-8 $20-80 budget sets doing a neutral-Harman and/or Aria-style tuning. It’s a solid enough set, and an option if you haven’t bought a budget set in the last 12 months.
But if you have any of the other budget sets, it’s redundant and easily passable.
Rank For Hola: B-
Rank With Personal Bias: B-
Rank As a Food: Spider-Men Pointing at Each Other
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I approve of this food comparison 
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What about the included accessories ? The cable, the ear tips etc which one is the better value if you count the complete package? I’m talking about the budget tier
The budget range has gotten to a place where companies are competent about the accessories they offer. We aren’t getting terrible KZ cables from Tangzu or Truthear.
The biggest thing to differentiate these sets is aesthetics. They sound so similar you HAVE to critically nitpick to tell the difference. The first or second time, that’s worth it. By the twelfth time? If you don’t instantly hear a difference, it’s not worth the critical evaluation.
I had promised @Lcg842 that the next time I tried another clone, I was doing it. I’m a man of my word.
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My son will get a kick out of this one, I’ll make sure to show him when he wakes up! one big upside to having a kid - they sometimes end up getting obsessed with the things you obsess over 
Spidey being one of them 
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In all seriousness: In direct comparison with 7Hz Zero, Hola has better note-weight but lesser clarity.
It’s another flavor with compromises to be made. The cool thing is how few compromises need to be made at $20 now, but there is WAY less room to stand out because so many of these sets are similar and competent.
We are way beyond the saturation point.
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Sound aside for me the Wan’er is the best overall. The sound is great, and the accessories/packaging is better than its competitors. Plus, the white + black version looks soooo nice. My favourite aesthetic wise out of all the budget sets. Only nitpick is that it doesn’t come with a pouch or case.
It also came with a crap ton of tips:
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The other thing in Wan’ers favor is the little bit of forwardness in the pinna gain. The soundstage does push forward for people who need that extra presence.
Though it does come at a cost of a slight squeezing of the soundstage
I like Cadenza and pound cake. What to do now?
I mean if you really like Cadenza, probably don’t get JD7. Go find something else different that you can enjoy.
If you like Cadenza, and then get it’s direct upgrade, Cadenza is just going to end up in a box somewhere unused.
Or if you don’t enjoy JD7 as much as me, you’ll be annoyed you spent $80.
Sounds like a lose/lose for me (and I don’t need those bad odds in my life)
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Alright, y’all. I finally had more time to listen to both Ripples and Serratus. Credits for the song lineup and for Ripples goes to @GooberBM. The other credit goes to @rattlingblanketwoman for loaning Serratus. I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to both sets. Big THANK YOU to both of you! 
Now, without further ado, I present the playlist below.
PLAYLIST
- Poison - Freya Ridings
- Whispers From a Distant Star - Fractal Dreamers
- Heart of Gold (feat. Menahan Street Band) - Charles Bradley
- Sick - Echos
- Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
I have a minor confession. When listening to this entire playlist on both sets, I ended up taking a nap, LOL. 
It was when I got to the “Whispers From a Distant Star” song in both that sent me drifting off to quite a relaxed state of happiness. I tried to fight off the tired, but the music was WAY TOO RELAXING! 
Lol
Anyhoo…listening to Serratus, I like that the vocals are more forward because I prefer the clarity of vocals. Now that I have Low-Gain Hearing Aids (LGHAs) to help me hear the vocals clearly, I appreciate the clarity of sound SO much more!
And, like everyone else has noted, I notice that the higher ranges of sound (more treble-y) are brighter.
When it comes to Ripples, like everyone else has mentioned, there’s more of a presence of lower bass sound. It’s definitely got a clearer sound within that range (as, say, compared to Poseidon headphones).
Thank you for reading my takes on these two earbuds. 
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Tell me you fall into this category, without telling me you fall into it @Lcg842 
Seriously though, it’s very cool of you to share your thoughts and impressions. Welcome to being a part of the community
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YES, I totally do fall into that category! Hello, my name is Lisa, and I am a “Sparkles-a-holic” 
Oh, and also I love shiny things. I’m discovering the pretty face plates on some of your IEMs are hard to resist. And the shiny cables. 
Thank you for allowing me to share.
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So I have the Truthear Hola and SGOR Venus here together for a $20 one-on-one, and within 30 seconds I have an overall thought. My ears must be different than a lot of people because if we look at the following graphs:
I simply cannot understand how the Hola can be tuned so well and sound so poor. The treble in the graph says it’s neutral, but it’s not. It’s darker and more dull than the graph says.
I know the graph says the Venus has overly boosted treble, but it’s not, to my ear. The upper-mids and early-treble don’t sound harsh to me and the mid-treble is open and clear. Hola sounds mushy AF in comparison, so even if I would give Hola positive marks for the clean bass, into open mids, and well-tuned upper-mids, everything sounds blurry because of the lack of treble.
The more present mid-bass of the Venus and underemphasized treble on the Hola make this an easy choice for me.
SGOR Venus is better to me, than Truthear Hola.
You gotta take into account of that coupler resonance at 8K I don’t think the Venus is as boosted as that yeah shows and hola would be pretty damped if you account for the resonance peak
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