wow those look really cool! I look forward to your review/impressions
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Since they are handmade by one really great guy in Japan, I think they deserve a full review. Been watching 634ears for a while, decided to jump on with the new one. Did go for Cocobolo wood since it is a good balance of fulness, warmth and clarity from his words.
Can be hard to talk about sonic changes in wood with him, Japanese use a little different wording on sound than rest of the world.
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Meanwhile, here I am with my Penon 10th stuck in transit for 5 weeks and now I’m starting to feel bad for getting them 
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Why this, bro? I’m keeping mine with silica bags hoping they will stay healthy!
The DTE900/SR04 could be a good contender to an upcoming AüR tribrid.
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Because of shitty practices done by Penon.
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Okay that might be true, but that won’t get me away from enjoying Serial. Apple and many other companies also do many shitty practices and people still use iPhones and so on. You gotta boycott them all and not bash only smaller companies.
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I am boycotting Apple.
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purity tests help no one. If you don’t want to stop using the Serial or buying from Penon that’s your choice but if someone decides that they want to boycott Penon based on their shitty practices that is totally fair.
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The entire basis of being consumers is our tolerance to shitty business practices because a company’s job is to make profit, not be properly ethical and decent to the customer.
We all draw lines about what we will and won’t accept and that’s perfectly okay, but it’s becoming clear that we are at a bit of an inflection point in the hobby:
- KZ
- Aur Audio
- IMR
- Penon and it’s subsidiaries
- Moondrop
- Elysian
Just off the top of my head these are all companies in the midst of issues of varying degrees, that if someone says “I will not buy their IEMs because (insert reason here)” I would have nothing to say about it. The question, in the end, is what is your tolerance level to bad business behavior and are you okay with spending your money on products from those companies? There isn’t a right or wrong answer, just your answer.
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Well said and to add to this, all the example companies @GooberBM listed are shitty for different reasons and to different degrees
- KZ: Shitty for ghost revisions; customers never know what they are really gonna get.
- Aur Audio: Nicholas apparently talks shit about people who give bad reviews.
- IMR: Bad history, flaky sales where you don’t know if you will get the IEM you ordered.
- Penon: Shitty sales practices and silencing reviews.
- Moondrop: Bad quality control.
For me, things that impact my consumption of your product Im gonna definitely have issue with which is why I won’t buy Moondrop or KZ IEMs.
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There are few iem that are catching my interest lately, have seen few reviews of them on YT as well. Thought i would ask people here. If they own or have tried them, and what are their thoughts.
BGVP NS10
Audio Ehhiku
Audio Hekili
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The Hekili was too energetic and W shaped for my taste, sort of super charged. But if you’re looking for a stimulating listen…
Bass predictably better on the Hekili but I actually preferred Lokahi tuning.
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This is S tier posting right here. Everything you’ve said is right on the money. Thanks for this, man. If only a lot
Of us had a post like this when we first stated!
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I have Hekili’s 7BA sibling and pretty much fond of its technicality. The treble approach is artificially boosted, so it maybe too bright to some. I recabled and used SpinFit W1 to balancing out the timbre.
You can find a short review on my twitter and it has a lengthy coverage on headfi(it’s google translated to Japanese, but you can select language back to English)
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Not sure if this topic is applicable to this thread, let me know if this need to relocated:
As I’ve been challenging on finding best practical use of DAC dongle, I’ve reached to a conclusion.
-Have a magnetic iron plate on backside of your smartphone
-Attach magnetic tape on the backside of the dongle (so it can be easily detached)
-For battery drainage use qi or magsafe type wireless mobile powerbank
For fun: A GND Loop
“virtual GND” that’s trending in Japanese portable audio community.
I found a cheaper substitute for those on Aliexpress for $17USD.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_msutSj4
apparently that’s not for portable use, I just wanted to see if this ground loop actually does anything over a placebo effect.
The result is, “only works at some extreme circumstances “.
I used Sound Rhyme’s SR8 (4.5ohm /119dB sensitivity) with somehow sensitive Cayin RU6 which is known to pick noises from the source.
For this combination I was able to hear reduction in noise floor, otherwise no audible differences for DAPs, and other dongles.
If you are bored and have absolutely no extra things to do with your rig, this ground loop maybe some thing to entertain your free time😄
This is the one trending in Japan now, but unfortunately they don’t ship overseas and it’s all sold out.
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I remember following your small project of finding a small pocket like apparatus to attach to the back of your phone with a zipper so this is a great post to finally read.
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Haha yes, the small zipper wasn’t convenient and I noticed the heat dissipation is terribly bad with this set up.
So I was looking for an easily detachable and well ventilated “part time & modulated DAP” 
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Very cool, the journey and the way you documented it was fascinating, seeing how invested you were in order to find this solution. Love it
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Just to add: Baseus Bowie EX TWS seem to show their true potential when paired with a BT 5.3 device.
Or they just like my PC more than HiBy R2 II or Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro.
Notes seem to be even fuller, heftier with more dynamics separating them.
Gosh… Is it time to upgrade my phone?
It’s really incomprehensible how much in terms of sound quality and comfort nowadays TWS can offer.
Still, I wish I could experiment more with tip-rolling…
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