šŸ”¶ Letshuoer S12

What sets do you think snares sound good at? I cannot think about one IEM where those are particularly realistic sadly (looking at Tea, S12, Olina, KZ CRN)ā€¦

1 Like

There is may be some fuzz, but it may be highlighting the microphone or it could just be general planar fuzz. I guess I will have to listen to Rosanna - TOTO, Superstition - Stevie Wonder and compare IEMs against my budget tier bookshelfs until I get sick of it.
I will have to look to see if there are some planar mods and see if those upper treble frequencies can get softened or diffused a tiny bit, the foams help a small part. I havenā€™t even started playing with EQ.

S12 is great for detail; however, like the Timeless (from what I have read), suffers from the lack of soundstage depth, which becomes particularly apparent on binaural recordings: close your eyes in a dark quiet room and no matter how hard you try to picture any depth, it isnā€™t going to happen.

1 Like

??? the driver doesnā€™t affect soundstage itā€™s the design of the shell/housing/open or closed back and how far away it is that alter soundstage

1 Like

I think you are correct that how the driver is enclosed matters, but at this point I have never really heard a planar with great imaging. If you look at a standard closed, with vent hole style IEM case, the planar will have great positional audio, and some even get good soundstage, but the instruments tend to feel like they are the same distance away. Take a similar casing of a DD, and it will be totally different experience.

That said, planar IEMs are pretty new, so it could be figuring out what is different about casing them. We have decades of shoving a single DD in tiny ear bud or IEM, so those are the most evolved form of the technology. I think we can look forward to all of the less common audio tech getting better.

1 Like

I am not sure 100% to be honest, since my personal pair got sent away for another tour. However, I think if you can just tame that 8K peak a little it should do well.

I donā€™t agree! And with a perfect construction of the shell, the planar driver still have a flat sound stage. With the same or similar design, DD or hybrids have a different sound stage. :sunglasses:

1 Like

i tried lowering 8k by 3-6db on a eq but human voices were still too bright and thin with a little sibilance, i had similar pb on heart mirror (trebble too bright) until i taped the front vent to add bass to balance the excess brightness but taping front vent on s12 did not add bass i guess planar donā€™t behave the same way DD do. for human voices i prefer olina that has more natural timbre and more body ( but for details and bass s12 is better than olina)

1 Like

I remember reading that you had to tape the rear vents on the timeless to give a bass boost. Maybe try blocking those?

1 Like
7 Likes

2 Likes

Lots of praises from Dave! Good to see him mention that it scales really well with more power.

Bit surprised by his comment on staging: I donā€™t find S12 to have as much depth or height as the Olina or Oxygen. I would say itā€™s decently wide though.

Anyway, Iā€™m enjoying the S12+front vent mod as a bassy set for busy tracks from EDM and jazz genres

3 Likes

I was trying to adjust 8khz that too, first hours i listened to them.
Now i donā€™t need anymore, iā€™m pretty sure they need some burn in time. And they sound realy better with latex tips such as Azla Xelastec and i changed cable for a balanced 2.5 pure copper cable.
Iā€™m listening them with a R3 pro saber. I donā€™t need anymore EQ but iā€™m using the MSEB functions to adjust level of details/ air / clarity / tonality (warm-cold) sibilance/ note weight / bass extension, depth and texture / vocals.
For the basshead, i can adjust bass from very light to monster.
It works pretty well, much better than an EQ, and better than a parametric EQ that i use with my phone with USB pro player. I own many iems, these sounds exeptionnal.
Really no need to mod them for basses and trebles.
I donā€™t think many iems will please to everyones tastes, these respond very well to adjustments.
Many testers says that they are testing without EQ, stock tips, stock cable,ā€¦
Is it a good thing, maybe yes for what you get, but certainly not for what you can improve for your personnal taste and/or at a limited cost.

5 Likes

Could I see your MSEB configuration please? I have the same dap

PSA: final E eartips work so well for me on my S12, that I have to be careful removing them due to suction created by the excellent seal lol.

3 Likes

Listening to this track with bass boost on (aka Truebass on ifi Zen DAC) + S12 (modded with filter over front vent, Final E tips) == shakes my ear canals with bass. Holy cow

1 Like

Agree, Final E eartips. I added an Olina filter on top of the metal screen and I think it knocks off the brightness a tad for my treble sensitive ears. Love it. I tried a Tan. Tanya filter and it reduced highs too much. YMMV

Maybe Iā€™ll try the vent tape. Maybe I wonā€™t. :slight_smile:

Iā€™ve seen others on this forum say something like the following: Between S12 and the Olina, Iā€™m set for a while.

5 Likes

nice! In general, it seems like front vent taping / filtering has a stronger affect than adding a mesh on the nozzle. Maybe I should give it a try as well! @paulwasabii do you have the S12?

I decided to try the front vent mod by adding a Tanya filter and removing the Olina filter from the nozzle screen. I wish I could easily A/B the results. So far so good, though Iā€™m not sure which I prefer. I like the detail and enhanced bass, but the detail may be too much for my dumb ears. Iā€™ll see if I canā€™t get myself to become accustomed to it.

PSA: When removing filters from nozzle screen, pay attention to the metal screen itself. While removing one of the filters, the screen came off with it.

1 Like

That didnā€™t take long. The treble was too much for my ears, so I added a small amount of foam from a foam earbud cover, inserted into each Final ear tip. Iā€™m not sure if it matters, but I used a white cover versus the black covers. It looks like the white is slightly more dense, but I have no way to prove this. I took one foam cover and cut it into 1/8s, then cut the two layers in half and jammed each piece into the ear tip with tweezers, damping it into place. (I discarded the half with the hole the earbud is inserted into.) If this works, I may consider placing the foam under the metal nozzle vent, to prevent the foam from coming out while the iem is in my ear.

Not yet. A friend was sending his set around so I will get one for a short stay soon I hope.