After some research on IEMS, I decided on Hyla Sarda’s. Company was quick to send em over but had to wait more than a month on custom clearance as they have a big back log. Then finally they arrived April 8.
Unfortunately I have big problems with them. When they arrived, I put them in and they sounded great. Really love the sound signature. I use a Fiio q5s type c and a IEMatch. Also I have a 3,5mm female to 4,4 male balanced adapter so I can use the q5s’s balanced input as well as single ended. Added a picture of my setup.
Basically there’s two things.
This is the worst. First night I had them they sounded perfect. Listened for about an hour total over the course of the afternoon/evening. Morning after, Put them in. Left bud plays seriously more silent than right and totally lacks the bass. The right bud is rich, detailed and perfect bass. Left is weak and flat. It’s like it only plays some of the mids and highs. Could there be a driver that just went to shit overnight? When I listened the night before all was good.
I tested the inputs of the Fiio q5s when it arrived. I could use stock cable into single ended perfectly fine. I could also use the IEMatch in the single ended input of the q5s fine. Then balanced. I could use stock cable into balanced 3,5mm female to 4,4 male adapter into the q5s perfectly fine. LASTLY , when I tried to put the IEMatch in between there and run it on balanced, the sound is SERIOUSLY distorted. Not listenable. I wonder what that could be? And could just testing that have destroyed my left bud? Even though I only did it briefly when they arrived and after they played perfectly fine throughout the day …? During the day, I just used the single ended input with the IEMatch. And now , no matter what the source I put them in, the left bud just doesn’t do it anymore. No bass , just some mids and highs , completely out of whack with the right bud.
Had to wait a long time on these, payed lots of tax on it. Pretty expensive buy, to be faulty after half a day of use is really unfortunate. I contacted Hyla audio, I hope we can fix something.
Well, it now has been a full night in between again and it still sounds bad
Secondly, the IEMatch has a setting balanced or single ended. If I put it on balanced and put it in the balanced input of the q5s, it sounds very distorted. First time I put the IEMatch in the balanced port , I left it’s setting on single ended as I forgot. But could that have killed a bud of off one time?
Thanks for your reply.
My amp is fine, I can still run anything I have off of it. It’s just the Sarda that’s fucked. Maybe I got a faulty pair I recon. It played perfectly throughout the first day and I only ran it single ended. Just tested the balanced port for a brief second with what I thought was balanced material. Maybe I was wrong but yeah… would be kind of crazy that I blew up my left bud
I don’t suggest anyone to do this because it’s a balanced source to an unbalanced gear type of situation. What’s happening is that the negative left right is combined to the shared ground of the IEM. If I see correctly, the cable that you have is a TRS cable. What you want is a TRRS cable like this
Here is my rough guess on what’s happening. While converting unbalanced gear to a balanced source is not advised because you are running the risk of damaging your source, that doesn’t mean the amp would be shorted right away. Every device is different.
Which is what I’m guessing what’s happening here, but it’s a different story when you are plugging it with the IEMatch. The IEMatch works by having a voltage divider inside it. When you are in a balanced mode, there are 4 individual voltage divider circuits for each channel, but the problem here is that the IEM is having an unbalanced cable. So, I would guess that something messed up happening in the voltage divider region.
Edit: I think I would suggest you to buy a balanced cable and try whether everything is alright or not because I think the problem is in the unbalanced cable connected to a balanced one.
I have a balanced cable on the way. But it is to arrive only end of the month.
Also I’m worried because now even if I put the Sarda’s into single ended , the left one doesn’t play well anymore. But really, I just tested the balanced port for like half a minute. And after that on the first day I used them a few times single ended only and they played perfect. If I did something wrong to the Sarda’s , wouldn’t it have reacted immediately? It’s like a day later that it started.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I have sent an email out the Hyla Audio in the hopes we can fix this situation. I was just saying to my girl, damn with these Sarda’s , I’m gonna be sweet for a while they sound so good I don’t need anything for a good time. Meh
Assuming this isn’t because of the problems below, this might be related to seal and pressure, when they are in your ear, try and pull one of them outward but not break the seal to flex the driver a bit, wonder if that’s the problem, but it shouldn’t be that extreme
This can fuck up stuff and brings you no benefit, do not do this
You could have messed it up there, perhaps shorted or damaged something
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the crossover got screwed up or a driver died to user error
That’s a pretty stupid / costly mistake then. So basically the stock cable is TRS and should be used single ended only. If I wanted to run them balanced I should’ve gotten a seperate cable for them with 4,4 pentacon trrrs.
Thanks for the reply,
I’ll cry myself to sleep now.
Yes. I can play other headphones perfectly on the Q5S. It’s just the Sarda that seem to have died even though they did play perfect for the day after I messed up the inputs briefly.
Yes, never convert a balanced output on an amp to single ended, you gain no benefits and there’s a big risk of screwing the amp or the headphone/iem up depending on how they were designed
Correct
To make it very simple, I would actually just grab the 2.5mm balanced iematch, and then a 2.5mm balanced cable for the sarda which avoids adapters and gives you balanced (I think the q5s has 2.5mm out). But you will likely need to get them fixed before you do that
I’m not sure where to get them fixed, is my only option back to Japan with the guys of Hyla. Or should I better look for local audio store or whatever?
For the sarda, see if you can snag a pw audio blackicon silver gold (when they go on sale), really nice match and solid upgrade, otherwise you could move to pw no.5 4 wired which is also nice
