IEM discussion thread (Part 1)

GS Audio ST1 looks VERY promising to me, since it uses the Sonion 2356. As nymz mentioned, he has one and I as well, ordered.

Otherwise, the Audiosense DT100 and DT200 are my BA timbre benchmark.

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Nice, I will wait for your review.

Still waiting for GD3A’s true successor.

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That be in 1-2 months lol.

GD3C probably. New DD, vented and perhaps using my target as the reference.

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RE products not being available on Amazon: 2 days ago I asked Linsoul if it was possible to order the Kiwi through their Amazon shop and I just received a message that they added it. That may work for all products you can’t find in a specific webshop, like the FiiO one. Just ask them as they most likely do have the product.

drftr

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Nobody knows how to build a rating system - it’s very difficult. I don’t even agree with appraisers like Crin, because everything is very subjective! Some say that tea is unique, others say that it is bad etc.

Few IEMs handle electric guitars, which is why there should be a variety of headphones and opinions!

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Maybe in this the real value is hiding: Maybe many comparisons from one person are more valuable than random comparisons from random persons? I for one would value the comparisons and rankings of 10 connaisseurs that have listened to 100 products over the collective ones of 10,000 persons that have listened to 5. Luckily though we’re not all the same!

So maybe we should suggest @Dynamic to become a headphone reviewer and create this incredible database that no doubt will be valued extremely high by the community!

drftr

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Interesting thing, I talked to a headphone guy that insisted that the Zen bass was… not good. I was so at a loss, I didn’t even know what to say. Are we even talking about the same headphone?

The point of the “masses” is to prevent someone potentially influential like that, guiding the fate of a product based on an opinion. Had this person been someone more influential, it would have been pretty misleading for a lot of people. Even crin’s “nothing” reception of the zen (which surprised the hell out of me) seemed a bit out of character for his other ratings.

From a purely statistical perspective, analyzing the larger quantity of reviewers should be more meaningful than even a smaller well coordinated group. It also explicitly leaves room for diversity of opinion. Remember, the goal is to find great audio for every single individual, not crown one product better than another. (Or, at least that’s my interest in such a tool)

Also, from my perspective, I have little interest in “Audiophile Sound”. My interest is in creating a tool that helps find and celebrate a diversity of enjoyable audio. And people’s own ranking systems are inevitably biased to their own preferences.

In my opinion, the best tools of this type cut through the preferences.

That’s a hard no. I am happy to provide feedback on stuff I hear, but I only do that out of enthusiasm for said stuff. Not out of any real desire to review anything.

But being involved in a cross-community site that makes headphone hunting fun and interesting? Sounds great to me.

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That’s a great idea.It be interesting if enough people respond to see if there is a consensus. Good luck with that.

If just people like BGGAR and other prominent reviewers did it, it would have value. Having a single point of data across the most known reviewers would be fairly valuable.

Structured large scale data is almost always trend revealing.

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But if he had been 1 of the 10 connaisseurs then you would learn to know his preferences and adjust your reading to that. That’s exactly what I do when reading/watching reviews and looking at their Best Of lists. You know my issue with too much bass and treble so when I watch reviews of for instance BGGAR or Michael Bruce or AudioLevels I take that into consideration, as their neutral/balanced can’t be the same as mine. If on the other hand I watch Super* Reviews or Resolve and they portray something as balanced then my ears go up. Just saying that if on your collective list something rates as perfectly balanced while I know most listeners but not all prefer a V-shaped sound signature then I’d still be at a total loss. Not with the connaisseur lists though as I know how to interpret them.

drftr

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Yeah, that’s what we all do. But, remember, when using aggregation, (assuming we have gathered preferential info about tonality on your headphones) we should be able to match you to headphones that others find similar.

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You know they have published thier lists online, right? I have links to maybe 5-6 different ones and use them to pick up ideas.

drftr

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I do. The problem is the ratings, while similar, have no standardization today.

The standardization of evaluation is the absolute requirement to make this work.

Example: Let’s say I simply created a site and asked people to simply put their headphones in serial order of “most enjoyable” to “least enjoyable”. (this would roughly correspond to tier lists, kind of) Could use the words “best” to “worst”

If that is the only thing we gathered, what do you think we could do with that data? 4 or 5 thousand audiophiles filling out just that for say a few hundred total headphones.

Think about that.

Then imagine what you could do with it if it got slightly broken down into imaging, soundstage, detail, tonality. Then what could you do with all that data?

That’s where my head is at.

Sounds great to me.

One thing (extra) to give you some input is thinking how to handle quality upgrades in general. Like the assumption that in 3 years many IEMs produced could sound way much “better” than now (equivalent to what ChiFi has done to this hobby over the past 3 years). My trigger was Michael Bruce’s now using 11 as his highest rate, meaning that yesterday’s 10 might be tomorrow’s 9 or 8. You may need some kind of way to adjust for this as previous reviewers may not be able to do so having sold off their device.

drftr

It’s not relevant in this case. You aren’t entering values. You are simply putting headphones in a serialized list (technically multiple serialized lists). This means every headphone will have a ranking for every attribute for you.

That’s it. Imaging? 1) Mest mk2 2) Mest 3) Whatever etc.

BTW, I have taken the RSV from my own shortlist after yet another day of reading. Seems to be too much of a bass boost to my liking, and with the potential fit and pressure issues I don’t have the guts to pay almost 50% more compared to the extremely balanced Kiwi Ears Orchestra. That makes for only 1 other contender on my shortlist: The ThieAudio Oracle which (if the charts are not lying) has about half the bass boost of the RSV but is in the same tonal and technical quality league. What I can’t tell is if its dynamic driver for the low end actually produces a similar bass quantity as the RSV in a way the charts can’t show. I lack that experience, so if anyone wants to chime in…

drftr

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This guy knows what he’s talking about. Listen up peeps! :slight_smile:

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I have both right here…

What would you like to know? Personally I feel the EJ07m far surpasses the Dusk in every way especially if you prefer a neutral tuning similar to the Tea. Both driver technicalities and tonality.

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He means timbre and coherency.

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Hello, looking for some general information on how much power is necessary to drive IEM’s. I have a Hiby R3 Pro, which I believe is 280mw into 32 ohms, and it drives my 3 pairs of iem fine(Fiio FH3, Moondrop Aria & Recho & Peacock Spring 1). I would like to upgrade my DAP to an Android one, probably the Shanling M3X (at 240mw). I’m sure my current iem’s will work fine, but as I move up, what am I keeping myself from owning that I won’t be able to drive (if anything). The next jump up is an M6 at 570mw, but at a higher price and bigger size. Am I better off with that to “future proof” future iem purchases?

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