Wait you never got my Meteor your way? How in the world did we miss it getting to you. So the question is would you like to demo it?
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I think I opted so sidestep tours about the time of that tour.
From what I know about it, Iām not desperate to hear it, I donāt think it would replace either the Serial or EN1000 - and itās too pricey for a purely fun set. Thank you very much for the offer though! Override me if you think Iād love it though 
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I donāt review as such more kinda ramble on about my experience with an iem. Plus Iām always way late to the game as I like to live with an iem and see if I end up reaching for it once the honeymoon period has passed.
Why you may ask, in the past Iāve shared my more in depth thoughts and give high recommendations only to find it ends up languishing on the shelf never to be picked up again.
Oh and if I donāt like an iem from first listen I donāt share indepth thoughts, as my Mum says āif you donāt have anything positive to say, shut upā
My music of choice is Classic Rock, Disco/funk and Country music/Americana
Anyway hereās my thoughts on the Kiwi Ears Quintet
Pros: Very detailed open sound signature with punchy bass
Cons: Needs tip rolling to balance out the signature
Can be a bit thin sounding
I buy pretty much all my iems so my review is 100% my subjective opinion not influenced by anyone else.
Iām a guy who wants to like what heās bought and will put the work into finding the best synergy to make an iem work for me.
My scoring system is as follows
- Meh
2.Average
3.Good - Incredible
(With space within this to wiggle)
Spoiler alert: The Quintet are upper Good nudging Incredible with the right synergistic components.
I think a warm dap is essential the Shanling M6 Ultra, Sony Nw-WM1A sound superb. Hidiz Ap80 pro X and iBasso dx160 were murderous making me rip the Quintet from my ears.
A nice good quality copper cable to nudge the warmth I used a not too expensive Ā£30 off
Ali. FENGRU 610 Core Litz Type6 Pure Copper Silver Plated 2Pin 0.78 Upgrade Cable
The final and most important the correct tips
The Kiwi Ears Quintet utilizes 4 different types of drivers, consisting of :
1 Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) dynamic driver,
2 balanced armature (BA) drivers,
1 planar magnetic driver,
1 piezoelectric (PZT) bone conductor.
With a total of 5 drivers per each ear, hence the name.
So what do they sound like?
To simplifyā¦ All the DETAILS! with adequate bass (tips dependant) Do you want here everything thatās going on in your music for Ā£200 instead of paying silly money then the Quintet is your answer.
Now letās not get ahead of ourselves, this isnāt the iem for everyone.
I favour a warm bass heavy signature with a lush midrange and lively treble and the Quintet are not this.
I can still enjoy a good 4 hour session with the Quintet and appreciate their very much above average technical performance with slightly thin mid range and lower treble.
The clarity of the music is supreme to the point if youāre listening to poorly recorded / mastered music they can make you wince as its all layed bare.
So earlier I made reference to tips this is really important
I tried loades of different tips before I was satisfied with the bass and trebleI. I really didnāt like wide bore(my usual first choice on any iem) tips, the bass was anemic the treble bordering on murder treble the whole signature was thin and sharp.
I have large ear canals so I struggle to find big tips needed to seal correctly. The saviour to my woes?
The black Final E tips. Everything fell into place balancing out the frequencies perfectly to the point I kind of fell in love with the Quintet and itās unveiling qualities, the way they dig into the music, present space between instruments in a wonderful expansive stage where you can pick out positioning of individual instruments.
The really detailed treble without sibilance is a marvel.
The bass is not the star of the show it is balanced has a good sub bass presence while a sufficiently textured mid bass. It gives a clean, precise and incisive bass response that is quite well-separated from the other frequencies it has OK subase and decent midbase attack, it can come over slightly hollow but itās a minor quibble when taken as a whole with the rest of the frequency range.
The Quintet unboxing is minimalist to say the least. You get iems and OK 3.5mm copper cable and a zip up case (itās small and pocketable) and some inadequate silicone tips. All the money went in the iems and it shows.
You might read this and think I donāt really love the Quintet. I really do appreciate the things itās good at and in the right mood with the right music it incredible.
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What do you think of Bravery? The tuning looks intriguing/interesting but the several comments about the lack of technicalities scare me away.
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I do quite like it. Very natural sounding and smooth set. I never thought technicalities were lacking, but not outstanding either.
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Having more or less technicals doesnāt make a set bad, just a different flavor.
Penon Serial doesnāt have insane technicals but people who love it donāt think thatās a flaw. Having sets that are just āpick up and play musicā is good too! 
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Totally agree. I feel like Bravery suffered the ānot good for the priceā kinda opinion by reviewers. But if on sale or used, it could be real cool set.
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uhh, I dunno. Even if it got discounted from its msrp 280 usd to like 200 usd, there are a lot of hybrids i wager are a lot better than itā¦
Problem is that BA-only iems usually cant compete with hybrids or even single DDs at the more ābudgetā range, until maybe you go above the 500+ range.
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This is why I donāt have an all-BA set in my collection.
Iām not paying that premium to get an implementation I find satisfactory
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Yeah, problem with BA iems is that they struggle with bass performance as well as timbre, both are top tier priorities for me so its why I dont really like them. And then even if they DO have those qualities, then there is the pressure build up -.-
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Fact.
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You are basically paying 500+ for them to remedy those problems and even then I dont think (cant speak from experience though) they can match the top tier DDs or planars. And still be left with pressure problem.
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I guess youāre right. The market has evolved a lot since it came out.
I have Prisma Azul which is 2BA and yes the bass is pretty bad, it still has a place in my collection because it replays classical and simpler vocal music so well.
And yes the timbre is fine.
I am not necessarily looking for the perfect IEM nowadays but more complimentary or different sets.
Most reviewers always have the optic that itās the only IEM youāll buy. For us who are into the hobby it building a collection, itās more than that.
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I respectfully disagree on that; there are enough all-BA IEMs that have great bass and disprove the āBAs cannot do bassā myth; the 64 Audio U12t, Symphonium Helios and Meteor come to my mind immediately.
And even then, I donāt feel like BAs do Bass wrong, just different. BA bass is usually very fast and snappy, but some lack that body and weight behind the initial impact.
Iām of the opinion that most people are biased towards Dynamic Drivers by default anyway since that is the most common driver type out there. When you turn on a radio, when you sit in a Car, the speakers at a concert or in a cinema, most are dynamic drivers. And since you get exposed to those the most, you get used to their characteristics. And when you then hear a different driver type with different characteristics, most people default to it sounding āoffā or āwrongā instead of different and having its own strengths and weaknesses.
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Brought them to work with me so I can give you some fresh impressions later, along with comparisons with more resolving sets (Variations, Oracle, Monarch)
Should mention, bought them on release at full retail price and never regretted it. Been a bit more that two years now. In general I would describe it as a warm-ish set that sounds very natural and āorganicā; very pleasant representation of vocals (both male and female) with nice mid-bass.
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And how much do those cost?
They dont sound as close to real instruments like DDs do. (Piano and ex-violin player here.)
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True, although value proposition was never part of my claim
Trombone player here. I donāt think proper good BA sets sound (substantially) less natural than a good DD.
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In my opinion, BA sets Iāve heard often hit a ceiling of what they can provide in impact, which may be as much about tuning and implementation as it is about the specifications of BAs themselves.
Until recently, I wouldāve said planar bass doesnāt get to where DD bass can get either, but Shortbus actually tunes his modded S12s to play good freaking bass. The vast majority of all-BA sets are tuned to be allergic to midbass, and when considering that BAās give off a perception of snappier, āfasterā bass anyway, I very often find BA bass to be top-heavy with sub-bass but no substance in the mid and upper bass going into the mids.
Look, I just pulled a LOT of BA sets on Timmyās squig and normalized to 500Hz. The only sets that arenāt already flat at 300Hz are Andromeda, Bravery (OG and AE) and QDC Gemini (with bass switch on).
Maybe itās not completely fair to say BA sets canāt do bass well, but it is fair to say there are not many BA sets tuned to do the full spectrum of bass well.
Somebody out there please tune some goddamn midbass into your BA sets, is all Iāll say!
EDIT: To be fair, AĆ¼r Neon Pro does this in its bass configuration, but Timmy doesnāt have that one on his squig so I missed it in the comparison. And it has pretty good bass
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