I implied that your question was related to the price, because you phrased it like that, by asking what do I own āsimilar or aboveā the Tea, which sounds to me like you correlate the quality to the price, hence my explanation of my standpoint. I owned and tried dozens of IEMs. I never compaired IEMs directy to speakers or headphones, I just stated my preference. You read more into that then it is.
Also, you said my affirmations made you ālaughā and mention āall the contradictionsā, but I still havenāt read a real criticism of my assements, which is not how a debate/discussion works.
But Iām happy that you rest your case, because I dont think we can have a fruitfull conversation anyway.
As Iāve stated, you prefer V shaped sets.
Natural and smooth are not V shaped, Tea is natural and smooth because it is tuned that way. Vocals are forward because on V shaped sets (VK4, MH750) they are pushed into the background.
So as nymz said, there were some contradictions that you wrote. You prefer āfunā sound signature, not natural and smooth.
Iāve never felt the urge to defend any IEM, and Iām not going to for the Tea as well. In fact, if you trace my initial impression of the Tea in this thread, I said it was sharp. However, Iām not a fan of the way you try to flex yourself prejudice onto this forum. Lets see what we got here:
Tried Tea for under a day; comes up with a huge list of no-nos.
Shows that you have lesser experience in IEMs and that you already prefer headphones over IEMs. Biased statement.
Dr. Oliveās research has nothing to do with individual performances of IEMs but rather a generalized observatory statistic data. Itās well known in this field of interest that gears and their price follow a logarithmic growth pattern. The more the price the harder the improvement. This doesnāt need a āDr. Oliveā to tell us this fact. But the fact that youāre referencing him just because it fits your very limited experience of IEMs is laughable.
Your daily use and love for Sony MH750 and QKZ VK4 suggest your basshead or v-shaped preference. Etymotic ER4XR seems to me that youāre using it to block out sound and to retrieve better treble in loud environments.
By all the information youāve revealed above, there is no way this ānatural and smoothā means neutral. Actually, youāve revealed nothing; everyone can have their version of ānatural and smoothā according to their preferred signature. Unless you agree with the aforementioned assessment that your preference is bassy and warm, or else your review of the Tea is more or less just barking.
Tea without long listening sessions cannot show its true colors. I had my flatmate who had no experience in IEMs try the Tea and he canāt stand its shrillness. But we had a whole night listening session comparing all the IEMs we owned (including his iPhone earbuds) for him to come up with that assessment. On the other hand, I can totally trust his judgement because he finds Koss KPH30i sharp.
So contradictions you say? Youāve got plenty to address.
But best you can do is HAVE A NICE DAY. Your way of stating things as absolute truth like some guru spitting fAcTs is kinda ridiculous.
Why donāt you tell us all the IEMs you own? Maybe thatāll make it more convincing.
I canāt work much with terms like āfunā signature, and I donāt really like the term āV-Shapedā, as the graph for a IEM/Headphone should never measure as flat as for a speaker. You need to compensate the bass for the lack of physical impact you are missing out when you are not using a speaker to listen to music. And the gain in the upper mids up into the treble region has to be there, this is known since the diffuse field target and was confirmed by the Harman reseach. But bass and treble are something which is highly influenced by preference, so thats hard to find the āperfectā amount.
By natural and smooth I mean that bass/mids/treble should have the same level (to be balanced) and that there shouldnāt be peaks or dips which disturb the āsmoothnessā of the sound. When I listen to the Sony or the VK4 I dont hear a āV-Shapeā, for me they sound pretty close to beeing balanced. (The bass may be a tad too much, especially on the VK4, but like I said thats more of a preference thing)
Nice that you posted the graphs, as it shows what I originally critisized about the Tea, before people starting to attack me personally here: the huge dip around 5k.
First of all, I think the way you form your accusations agaist me is kinda childish and borderline disrespectful, and I dont think we should talk like this to each other. Maybe you do this because I corrected your false accusations against Oluv on another thread yesterday, or maybe this is just the way you talk to other people. Let me just correct your obviously wrong statements
Where did I āflexā ? I just posted my opinion about the obvious flaws of an IEM and now we are talking about me? I donāt get it. And then again you ask me to āshow offā what IEMs I have/had, so I could flex?
How long do you think I should try this IEM? When I listen to my fav tracks and hear that there is something is not sounding right, I dont need days to get my ears used to something which sounds not good to me in the first place. And what does this āTea shows true color in long listening sessionsā even mean?
Just because I prefer headphones, this doenst mean I cant judge the sound of an IEM, you are the one with the biased statement.
Maybe you should read Dr. Olives reseach before making, again, false statements. The fact that you are attacking his reseach without even reading it is the only laughable thing here. I dont even want to waste my time anymore to explain you the reseach.
This was my last post, as I dont think we can have good discussions over here and I dislike the fact that people attack me personally for expressing my opinion.
Oh so now you want to pin my comments on another thread?
Fine, Iāll let others be the judge whoās the one being egoistic around here. Accusation against Oluvās Gadgets about what? Tell me where Iām making accusations against him, bruh? This was literally your first comment on this forum and you questioned my judgement out of nowhere. I didnāt respond to you on that thread because I respected your opinions and couldnāt care less if someone had a different opinion of a reviewer than myself. How about you then?
If you take the Harman Target as your crown jewel and ONLY TRUTH, so be it. Donāt Dr. Olive this and Dr. Olive that and boss people around who donāt necessarily follow the Harman target. Itās just a target for reference, nothing else. If your truly into the hobby youāll know a lot of audiophiles aka music lovers donāt like the Harman target.
I canāt speak for others, but go search for my impression of Tea and see if I fit the cultist mentality.
The problem with dudeās review is:
No reference point: What is he comparing against? He used three other IEMs later for comparison, but actually not, he just said he used them based on certain scenarios like commuting, biking, loud environment. So basically no immediate A/Bing to test Tea as far as he said. Plus he personally said that he prefers headphones over IEMs for daily use. The whole positioning of HP vs IEMs on the ears and how the sound bounces in your ears are totally different, how to compare that?
Vague language: try to go through his review again and ask yourself what he means by ānatural and smoothā while talking about general sound, āmore engaging musicā while talking about bass. Itās hard to understand what heās talking about if these are stated as some kind of fact that people should know.
An extremely unyielding stance with the Dr. Olive research. Heās just quoting the research to crap on gear with higher price, no? Problem is, IEMs with mixed technologies (hybrid or tribid) are just generally higher priced. No one was defending that IEMs sound quality should grow with price but itās just the reality of the market. So heās basically using the Dr. Olive research to prove that Tea, and basically higher end IEMs, are overpriced? How is that relevant to a sound review of Tea?
Anyways, I digress.
This is no Tea cultist speaking.
I didnāt see any problem with your posts fwiw. The other guys however were snarky right off the bat. Is that any way to welcome a new member posting his first impressions?
Are you sure? Arenāt you kidding us? Almost all the IEMs Iāve listened to are better than Sony MH750. Thatās why I say that what you write is a personal preference. All IEMs have drawbacks. Price determines quality, but no one likes IEMs to be so expensive.
Oh yesā¦ Tea is very sensitive and efficient, I have the xDuoo MT-602 tube amp (claims to have an output of 1300mW) and of all the IEMs I have, Tea buzzes more than the others when no audio is playing. Not a big issue for me though as it disappears when music plays.
EDIT: If I just use the FiiO K3, no buzz.
Maybe others could chip in on with dac/amps pair best with Tea
I am hearing something that sounds like a subtle noise floor from the Tea. The problem is it seems to be song dependent, which noise floors on sensitive IEMs arenāt. The Zen has it everywhere when not on a sufficiently quiet amp.
And I have never had anything have noise on the Qudelix that wasnāt in the recording.
