So have you had that kind of feeling in your head I’m describing? Am I just a witch? Don’t burn me at the stake!
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Wonderful description! However I will keep my answer short,
What you described is what I lived last with Kinera Hodur 4.4mm dx300 combination.
"You have a very different sensation (after 4.4 and dx300) when it comes to Polyphia Playing God. The music is all around you and you can feel every guitar as if you can touch! This is totally new for me, an advanced 3d imaging here. After it’s vinyl-esque moments in the beginning, the dream-like moments begin… And leave the room for Jason Mraz.
Now he is singing his unique vocal not to my face but it’s like there is no distance between us. But things got different when The Electro Suite began. Now you know your position, you are like covering the whole floor and they are performing just for you. Elegant and balanced at everything. After the meteor falling and sinking deep near 04:00, it is displaying extension capabilities and organic bass thump (which is not bumpy now due to the distance between you and the stage)"
This is a combination of 3d imaging, stereo crosstalk and results of great sound engineering.
My limited knowledge says so.
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The first time I’ve ever experienced this so called “3D” effect is with the Monarch’s. The imaging, tuning and Stage performance of those to me create this illusion of a bubble that surrounds you and the music is literally playing in this bubble around your head, rather than IN your head. You have great center imaging where the vocalist is right in front of you, the guitars and bassist are to the left and right of you but still in front and the drummer Is almost below/behind you.
I remember sitting on my couch, dead silent environment, with the right tips on my monarch listening to Zeppelin - the goosebumps I got once I realized what was happening with the imaging was immense. Literally almost brought me to tears.
When we meet up, I’m sure you’ll hear it too 
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Lol I’d never set you aflame, rest assured. Yes, I have had that from headphones (distinctly different from just “good imaging and wide soundstage”) but never truly as prolific as it is with a properly-implemented 2-channel speaker setup.
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I am not sure if it exact same feeling, but in my opinion it is more of a mindset and general condition of a listener kind of thing than intrinsic particular IEM property. There are days when I listen to some set and I immediately melt into a music nirvana and I feel everything is in a right place.
There are days when I listen to same set, same track in same setting and on those days music is just something in the background or even some kind of annoyance.
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The Moondrop Stellaris is a disappointing first entry by Moondrop into the planar-magnetic IEM space. This is an IEM that could have used more time in development and has unfortunately become a victim of the Chi-Fi industry’s breakneck rush to capitalize on a new driver type trend.
My full review is available here on HiFi Guides and on my blog.
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So I had some back and forth with Qudelix and the quick story is they weren’t that helpful. They are having a hard time understanding what my issue is. They claim that due to the integrated DAC/amp nature of the chip if there is sound then it should be working as intended. I’m going to get a db meter to double check that something is going wrong but they did say I could mail them my unit. I’m not sure what they will do with it if they don’t think it’s broken though
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Tanchjim filter cures all
Haha, yeah, there might be more mods u can use for the nozzle but this seems the most simple. (although also most expensive cuz u need that 20 usd tanya to get the filters at least.)
What about Mele/Olina filters?
Should work, they seem pretty high density as well, so probably also around that 500 grade area.
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Idk about the mele fiilters but the Olina ones are slightly less dense and the adhesive ring is thinner so depending on the opening of your nozzle the Tanya filters will do more dampening.
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hmm, the stellaris nozzle seem pretty wide.
Maybe Olina filter over stock filter, then?
should work. But for those that do not have any filters you can buy some 500 mesh here.
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Woke up to this and I feel like it’s going to be a long day. Feel free to discuss, and I will try to answer everything I could.
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This package weighed more like one for a desktop amp vs an iem, lmao.
A couple points on the GL-AMT16 before I go back for more listening:
- Source picky. I’m pushing 90+ on the QP2R (High Gain) and -10dB on the El III for normal listening volumes.
- Texture > Immediacy. It’s also quite shimmery. I wouldn’t consider these ideal for very busy rock/metal/electronic.
- Incredibly unforgiving for tracks with less-than-ideal production and/or mastering, at least with the stock nozzle. I’ll be switching out the nozzles for more expanded thoughts.
- Nozzle is a lot shorter/stubbier than most iems, and the provided tips are the short & wide kind. I ended up using double-flanged aftermarket tips to get a good seal YMMV.
- Next-level detail when you give it some room.
- Wide out-of-head soundstage
- [Take this with a grain of salt since I haven’t heard TOTL DD iems] Best vocals (male and female) I’ve heard in an iem, period. The mids are r i d i c u l o u s
Updates:
- Nozzles differ by internal diameter, and differ in what I perceive as vocal “nasaliness” as you get smaller, shoutiness as you go wider. This seems to corroborate with johnchpark’s graph on Head-Fi for his review GoldPlanar GL-AMT16 - Reviews | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org.
- Giving this some more time, but this has that stock LCD-5 -like sound with present mids in the foreground with detailed instrumentals in the background. I find this more tasteful, but I’ll have to go back-and-forth because headphone and iem comparisons are tough.
Final Update:
- Spent a bunch of time today on desktop amps. I can definitively say that this is the LCD-5 in IEM form, tuning quirks included. The whole part of it not being ideal for busy music goes away when you give it enough juice. Kind of ridiculous, though.
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Has anyone watched this guy? The truth about high-end headphones, IEMs, burn-in, sound quality and $$$ - YouTube
What he’s saying sounds absolutely bonkers to me, claiming basically that he can take a $50 no-name TWS and EQ it and it sounds better than an 800S, because that the only thing that matters is frequency response. Now he also says you have to “tune” the FR to your own ears and his instructions for doing that for the TWS he recommends are behind a Patreon paywall (clever), but it seems to simply involve playing a sine wave sweep to find where your ears have peaks and dips and then picking an EQ profile that corresponds to that.
It seems obviously incorrect to say that FR is all that matters, like the Moondrop Chu and Kato have nearly the same FR but the Kato sounds obviously better to my ears. But this (internet rando) seems really technical and talks about technical acoustic properties in headphones that I don’t really know about. So I’m wondering if anyone with more knowledge in acoustics and engineering can weigh in because again it sounds like utter nonsense to me but there sure seem to be a lot of comments and things of people agreeing with him. In the comments he even says that he thinks “detail” is just a function of treble presentation, which again sounds bonkers. Anyone know anything about this guy?
While I agree that FR is a BIG part of what we end up hearing, it is NOT everything. There are other factors (technicalities) that are not shown on graphs, being factors like soundstage, imaging, decay, texture, etc…
Beyond that, the other factors involved in tuning a transducer besides the drivers, is the shell shape, which can make or break the driver being used and even the material being used will heavily affect it.
That is essentially finding out about your HRTF and then using PEQ to compensate with the HRTF in mind.
Also, keep in mind that these people that essentially worships graphs, are literally worshipping an imperfect thing from the start. Since these iem graphs are based on the IEC60318-4 standard which are only good for 100hz - 10 000hz.
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