IEM discussion thread (Part 1)

Thanks for watching brother, and I appreciate the feedback :pray: At the end of the day Iā€™m not trying to destroy anyoneā€™s livelihood here, but some things do need to be addressed. Had to scrap multiple drafts because I didnā€™t just want this to be a roast session :joy:

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You definitely got that across! I have to admit, you set a great example for how to handle addressing a sensitive/controversial subject gracefully, and how I should handle the one I have to deal with :slight_smile:

Well done, brother

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You are very ā€œsoftā€ and delicate, my friend. I would be sharper and more critical. And I would be right because Lee is not. :expressionless:

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Hahahaha :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Thank you, my friend :joy:

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Great share, thank you. These are stories that people should hear just to help. Maybe some of these sellers up their game.

When it comes to customer service instead of just quoting policy. I just had that happen with the Juzears Flame. That I bought from AngelDac store on alli express. I showed him that my unit had pretty nasty chanel imbalance. And then he went off on the usual ChiFi, show me the video and pay to send it back. So we can prove that itā€™s defective. BS .

No another example where I also had a channel inbalance on a pair of inexpensive SIMGIT EW100 and guess what? They just shipped me a new pair. No questions asked thatā€™s pretty big different than customer service if you ask me. Whoā€™s gonna go further?

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This one really gets me. How do I show you a video of channel imbalance? Its totally unreasonable. Do they expect everyone to have a rig to test their equipment?

EDIT: not to mention asking for a video at all is terrible customer service

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That really is a jokeā€¦
It is like having a low-shelf 2db boost all the way from 800hz with a q value at 0.6.

Worse QC than KZs.

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Ask them if Apple also has such terrible QC.

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Of course, anytime. Canā€™t keep letting these companies get away with this even though itā€™s the ā€œstandardā€ - if the standard is shit then maybe we should raise it, eh?

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When KZ has better QC than you - thatā€™s a yikesā€¦

Itā€™s funny how Iā€™m getting different responses here vs Reddit Reddit - Dive into anything

Not saying which is right or wrong, but itā€™s interesting how people take things like this :thinking:

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I stopped looking at r/headphones like a couple
of months into the hobby. No good recs (always pushing Dusks and Sennheiser hd6something), few helpful reviews, a lot of jerks, etc.

Thankfully most of my specific Google searches took me to productive discussions on here.

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Some thoughts on the XENNs Top. Maintains XENNs house sound. Which is a huge plus for me as the UP and OG Tea are adored by me. Liked it better than Tea 2 which is the least like release of XENNS. Brings more bass than the UP and could have been great as I wish UP had a tad more but unfortunately itā€™s to lose and bloomy. UP keeps the bass way tighter and in control. Top has a bit more treble energy and emphasis and isnā€™t peaky or sharp. Another positive for me. It does sound thin though and doesnā€™t sound coherent with the bass on drums and cymbal strikes. Probably would have been blown away by this sound if it were the first IEM Iā€™d ever heard. Knowing what I know now and of everything Iā€™ve heard itā€™s overpriced and forgettable. Glad I was able to pick it up used a your great price.

Also to a point from a previous purchase I received recently. Anything over Glamdrings price better to something way better or bring me some huge smile or toe tapping energy. Top isnā€™t hitting it for its asking price. Maybe had the bass not been so bloomy and the coherency to the treble was fixed it would have had been killer.

To bad because by the graph it looked like it be a banger for my WIP target.

@trouble Thank you for the great deal on the set and shipping to the United States. Iā€™m a big fan of the XENNS house sound and would have always been left wondering what the Top could have filled in my collection. Iā€™m fortunate to have gotten a opportunity to do so. Sadly for me Top just didnā€™t click the boxes.

As it stands and with current releases at a cheaper price Top is an over valued asking price from XENNs. The only redemption of this set in my opinion is if XENNs brought the price down or fixed the issues with an MKII release. Thereā€™s just way better options that are more competent and unique at its current price or equal to better in lower price ranges.

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7hz governorā€¦

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I heard there is some great pricing on XENNS right now best link please?

The next step of the journey is an interesting one.

Iā€™ve been doing some things behind the scenes and recovering from a nasty ear issue last week. But luckily, when I woke up this morning, I finally felt that my hearing was back to ā€œnormalā€ (or whatever normal is to me). This is a massive deal as I havenā€™t been able to use IEMs since last Thursday - 9 long daysā€¦ doesnā€™t seem like much but when you go from using IEMs for 2-3 hours every day to not at all, itā€™s a significant shift.

The timing is perfect - I received the Topping D10s in the mail last night and I have some short time to myself today to set it all up and see whatā€™s what for the first time in my house, with a proper Desktop DAC/amp stack. Obviously, this is on the budget side of things, but Iā€™ve noticed that price-to-performance on these units can be quite high. They donā€™t have to worry about being portable, with a battery and Bluetooth and all that jazz - they just have to worry about power output and sound quality. So for $150 or so, you can pretty much get an Amp that can output a shit ton of power to run just about anything within reason and definitely anything in my collection.

Iā€™ve been testing some of my IEMs over the last few hours here and there and the difference is noticeable compared to running the same pairs on the BTR7 thatā€™s for sure. The feeling of discovery for me has been reinvigorated. I find myself looking up source devices rather than transducers and thank god for that. I wish I had invested in sources long before, because I finally feel like Iā€™m getting the most out of my investments with all of these IEMs. I can finally lie back and just enjoy the music, rather than wondering ā€œHow do I make these sound better?ā€.

The OG Teas have a better sense of staging, with a more incisive transient response.
The Monarch MKII has a deeper hitting thump in the bass plus the center imaging and staging are improved
The depth Iā€™m getting from the Maestro Minis is impressive, not to mention, the ridiculous bass

Thatā€™s all Iā€™ve gone through so far but I will be exploring my buds as well, hopefully soon, which I expect to be a really fun experience. :handshake:

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Found out I had the materials on-hand to do the Shortbus ā€œGlamdringā€ mod on the Z12 (mentioned to me by @RockinDave). A pair of extension tubes provided with Spinfit tips pictured below actually produce three sets of rings when you cut them crosswise at each of the segments.

While it doesnā€™t entirely fix planar timbre quirks with cymbal crashes, fricatives, etc., just about everything else is an improvement. Thicker, punchier bass and the treble is FAR less peaky.

Shoutouts to Shortbus/Michael Bruce


Should also mention my PR2 V2 shenanigans. After testing with low and high density foams, a two stack of high density foams (low d didnā€™t do the trick) in the bore and resticking the mesh completely fixes the IEM. Doesnā€™t sound wonky and gets rid of the sibilance. Doesnā€™t bring up the midbass like the S12/Pro/Z does, but the IEMs are a different tuning anyway.

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Paul Wasabi (and a few others) said the timbre comes off DD like to them, did you maybe do something a little differently or have the others also noticed the planar-ish timbreness still too?

Edit: found what you are missing me thinks.

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I think in the bass region, I could definitely equate the change to being ā€œDD-likeā€ for punch and rumble presence. The upper treble ā€œsheenā€ is still present when things get busy in that frequency range, but not piercing/visceral like pre-mod levels.

**Ah, I didnā€™t watch that one. Hmm, Iā€™m curious about what heā€™s done in the bore :thinking: .

Idk if itā€™ll be a similar process, but the modded PR2 treble with foams has tonally better treble than the Z12 at the moment (imo). I bought all three densities for the larger foams he recommended. So, Iā€™ll tinker with those w/ the Z12 like I did with the LZ IEMs. Speaking of the LZ ones, changing bore diameter also does stuff to the sound.

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Keep in mind he also isnā€™t using anything standard we usually use for modding. Heā€™s mentioned a few times just in other words. Below is from his discord and references an unknown thing. So whatever is in the boar isnā€™t the standard of the shelf foam typically used it seems. He may also be doing things to the ports. He may have also done further things not discussed in the video to keep it a mystery. As for the timber I have to agree that to my ear it is very DD like and the overall coherency of the tuning is spot on.

filters will not work whatsoever, im tuning this with an unknown thing

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