JAY's audio memes (and reviews/ranking too I guess)

On the Doscincos I found upper mids a bit too prominent and bordering on honky, even if I wouldn’t expect it from their graph. Are upper mids even more pronounced on the Estrella? (By ear)

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Honky? That would be because there’s too much low-end + no treble/air emphasis, look at that mid-bass. Estrella has less, it’s not honky to my ears :+1:

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The 4.5kHz peak is interesting. Was that a deliberate tuning choice or more like a side effect of achieving some other tuning goal?

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Deliberate. Since the 3K is pulled back you need something later or else the vocals won’t sound as good

You get enough of the vocal details without it becoming shouty in the uppermids like Harman :+1:

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That’s such a smart decision. That 3k area is an issue for lots of folks, me included, so seeing a flatter, more gradual rise with a small bump for clarity way after has me excited.

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Just wondering how many Oracle Mk3’s have you tried to be sure.

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3k affects timbre for me usually so I welcome this tuning. Looks like a better Kailua!

Would you be able to compare Estrella to Cadenza4 (if you heard it)?

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Thank you!

I found the Cadenza 4s to be too bass light and a little thin in the noteweight, kinda sharp sometimes. It has a clean harmanish tuning, whereas Estrella is very different - dynamic with contrast.

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I agree with your assessment of Cadenza4. A bit thin but it makes it very versatile. But I’m looking at something with more bass so…

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What area in the frequency response do you attribute more dynamic sounding set over a less one? Implementation being equal, and does a dynamic driver make it a more dynamic sounding tuning over non-dd?

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If we don’t include the actual dynamics in a song/recording, and just graph wise, it’s not a specific area, but more like how the whole FR is in relation to one another. For example, a straight line would be dead neutral with no “contrast or dynamics” to the sound since there’s no change to the FR for contrast to happen, because well, it’s a straight line. Whereas having some change in elevation or dips creates a bigger difference.

The bigger the difference the more “dynamic or contrasting” the sound is, but you’ll also need to strike a fine line between changing too much and creating big peaks and dips that’s not only very shouty and sharp, but also creates masking and hides the areas that it shadows.

So tldr, for dynamics you want some changes in the FR (like small peaks and stuff), but not too much to a point that it’s overly done. The Strom would be an example of dynamics done right (ignore the 8K that’s a measurement thing), and the FIVE would be an example of what NOT to do:

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Here are more wonderful and almost free tunings. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong! Some look like a rollercoaster to me, :smiling_face_with_tear:.

Enjoy silence in your wallet with these superb IEMs :nerd_face:

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That’s helpful, thanks. I saw a reddit post describe a lack of dynamics makes the quiet sounds louder but now that you’ve explained it, the reddit comment is about the music media and how it was mastered. Is there anyway certain sets will make the music sound compressed like the quiet parts not quiet anymore.

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You can think of dynamic range as having a wide margin of deviation. With More dynamic range it is wider and that means that the quiet parts are more quiet and the louder parts are louder. While with LESS dynamic range, the deviation is not as much and thus you will have louder quiet parts and more quiet loud parts.

Different sets do vary in dynamic range, most of them tends to be pretty similar in my experience but some sticks out as bad/good. Cant really remember one on top of my head though.

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I’ve seen some people describe some sets as sounding compressed without explaining how it is compressed. Then again maybe it’s just their HRTF. It may sound like that to them but to others maybe not. Could the tuning of the frequency response explain it?

As @VIVIDICI_111 mentioned above, the FR does affect our perception of dynamic range because of psychoacoustics, so hrtf does also affect this.

Example.

1

2

(just look at the pinna area)

For someone that is NOT sensitive to the pinna area, if they listen to nr 1 it should be less dynamic than nr 2.
However, for someone that IS sensitive to the pinna area, if they listen to nr 1 the dynamic range should be better than it is for the person that is NOT sensitive there.

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Sorry for sounding like a broken record then. My memory dumps all the hobby stuff. I gotta make room for hobbies. Smartphone GUI doesn’t help either. I can only see so much. Thanks.

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My first post here. I am pretty interested in learning more about this one. Especially the tape mod and what that is about. The looks are perfect on this one. I was going to buy the Hype4 but honestly I couldn’t get with any of the colors. Almost bought the cincotres but held out long enough for this one to show up. Glad I was dragging my feet.

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Alot of the DCA planars up until the recent e3 have had a problem of sounding compressed with a lack of dynamics.

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Seems like this might be the DCA house sound :laughing: