🔶 Mangird TEA (6 BA/1DD)

[igor0203]

So what are you trying to say is that you prefer V shaped sets, nothing wrong with that.

Let the graphs speak for themselves:

[BarkingStranger]

I implied that your question was related to the price, because you phrased it like that, by asking what do I own “similar or above” 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 “laugh” and mention “all the contradictions”, but I still haven’t read a real criticism of my assements, which is not how a debate/discussion works.

But I’m happy that you rest your case, because I dont think we can have a fruitfull conversation anyway.

Have a nice day.

[igor0203]

Well I can answer it for him…

@BarkingStranger

My preference is a natural and smooth sound

@BarkingStranger

Bass extends low enough, but is not emphasized enough

@BarkingStranger

Mids are clear, but they sound too forward to me

As I’ve 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 “fun” sound signature, not natural and smooth.

[PopinTeddy]

I’ve never felt the urge to defend any IEM, and I’m 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, I’m not a fan of the way you try to flex yourself prejudice onto this forum. Lets see what we got here:

1. Tried Tea for under a day; comes up with a huge list of no-nos.

@BarkingStranger

I had the possibility to try the Tea today, a Co-Worker of mine bought them and asked me about my opinion about them, and tbh I was pretty dissapointed.

2. Shows that you have lesser experience in IEMs and that you already prefer headphones over IEMs. Biased statement.

@BarkingStranger

If you’re interested what IEMs I use, I have to say that I dont really use IEMs so much, because I think headphones deliver better sound quality, as they involve more parts of the ear and don’t have this “in your head” sound so much like IEMs do.

3. Dr. Olive’s research has nothing to do with individual performances of IEMs but rather a generalized observatory statistic data. It’s 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 doesn’t need a “Dr. Olive” to tell us this fact. But the fact that you’re referencing him just because it fits your very limited experience of IEMs is laughable.

@BarkingStranger

So according to Dr. Olive’s findings, it even shows that it can be the case that the sound gets even “worse” the more you pay. This correlates with my own findings, as I can’t say that the more expensive IEMs that I’ve tried were really better then the lower priced ones I mostly use.

4. Your daily use and love for Sony MH750 and QKZ VK4 suggest your basshead or v-shaped preference. Etymotic ER4XR seems to me that you’re using it to block out sound and to retrieve better treble in loud environments.

@BarkingStranger

Problems I had with the overall Sound

• Bass extends low enough, but is not emphasized enough, which makes it kinda boring sounding on more “engaging” music.

@BarkingStranger

I just use IEMs in the gym, for commuting on the bike or for plane travel. My favourite is still the Sony MH750, its not perfect but its really good and enjoyable. I also like the QKZ VK4, which albeit having some minor flaws still delivers a great tonality and is really comfy for me. For plane travel or louder environments I use the Etymotic ER4XR, they are better than the Sony or the QKZ, but the deep insertion kinda annoys me on a daily basis.

5. By all the information you’ve revealed above, there is no way this “natural and smooth” means neutral. Actually, you’ve revealed nothing; everyone can have their version of “natural and smooth” 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.

@BarkingStranger

My preference is a natural and smooth sound, as a reference I use Neumann KH 80 speakers in a mildly acoustically treated room.

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 can’t 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? You’ve 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 don’t you tell us all the IEMs you own? Maybe that’ll make it more convincing.

[BarkingStranger]

Thanks for your reply, Igor.

I can’t work much with terms like “fun” signature, and I don’t really like the term “V-Shaped”, 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 “perfect” amount.

By natural and smooth I mean that bass/mids/treble should have the same level (to be balanced) and that there shouldn’t be peaks or dips which disturb the “smoothness” of the sound. When I listen to the Sony or the VK4 I dont hear a “V-Shape”, 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.

Have a nice day.

[BarkingStranger]

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

@PopinTeddy

However, I’m not a fan of the way you try to flex yourself prejudice onto this forum.

1. Tried Tea for under a day; comes up with a huge list of no-nos.

2. Shows that you have lesser experience in IEMs and that you already prefer headphones over IEMs. Biased statement.

3. Dr. Olive’s research has nothing to do with individual performances of IEMs but rather a generalized observatory statistic data. It’s 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 doesn’t need a “Dr. Olive” to tell us this fact. But the fact that you’re referencing him just because it fits your very limited experience of IEMs is laughable.

Tea without long listening sessions cannot show its true colors.

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.

Where did I “flex” ? I just posted my opinion about the obvious flaws of an IEM and now we are talking about me? I don’t get it. And then again you ask me to “show off” 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 “Tea shows true color in long listening sessions” 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.

Have a nice day.

[PopinTeddy]

@BarkingStranger

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

Oh so now you want to pin my comments on another thread?
Fine, I’ll let others be the judge who’s the one being egoistic around here. Accusation against Oluv’s Gadgets about what? Tell me where I’m making accusations against him, bruh? This was literally your first comment on this forum and you questioned my judgement out of nowhere. I didn’t respond to you on that thread because I respected your opinions and couldn’t care less if someone had a different opinion of a reviewer than myself. How about you then?

Oluv's Gadgets on youtube

I think you messed some things up there, buddy. Oluv prefers a rather bright signature in my opinion, which is exactly the opposite of what you discribed. He critisized the Harman Target for having too much bass (which is ok to do, as especially the bass is highly determined by preference), and adapted “his” version of the B&K Optimum HiFi-Target, which is kinda the opposite of “dark” and “warm”. And what do you mean by “detail”? A boosted treble response? Maybe your preference is “VERY unortho…

If you take the Harman Target as your crown jewel and ONLY TRUTH, so be it. Don’t Dr. Olive this and Dr. Olive that and boss people around who don’t necessarily follow the Harman target. It’s just a target for reference, nothing else. If your truly into the hobby you’ll know a lot of audiophiles aka music lovers don’t like the Harman target.

HAVE A NICE DAY.

[blanche]

wow, the guy is entitled to his opinion is he not? why are tea cultists so sensitive to criticism?

[Yaerb]

lmao, these responses to a reasonable impressions post are just amazing

[Robius]

Tea definitely has an interesting tuning so I think someone not liking is more likely than someone actually likes it.

[PopinTeddy]

@blanche

why are tea cultists so sensitive to criticism?

I can’t speak for others, but go search for my impression of Tea and see if I fit the cultist mentality.

The problem with dude’s review is:

1. 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?

@BarkingStranger

because I think headphones deliver better sound quality, as they involve more parts of the ear and don’t have this “in your head” sound so much like IEMs do.

2. Vague language: try to go through his review again and ask yourself what he means by “natural and smooth” while talking about general sound, “more engaging music” while talking about bass. It’s hard to understand what he’s talking about if these are stated as some kind of fact that people should know.

3. An extremely unyielding stance with the Dr. Olive research. He’s 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 it’s just the reality of the market. So he’s 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.

[blanche]

Okay

1. He referenced his Sony IEMs and Neumann speakers

2. It’s not easy to convey sound with words, it’s his first post here

3. The study was referenced in a reply to nymz gatekeeper post

[igor0203]

I don’t own Teas, so I’m definitely not a cultist. I just responded to contradictions in his post.

Anyway, I rest my case as I see he’s entitled to his own opinion and doesn’t accept anything else.

[blanche]

I didn’t 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?

[nymz]

Look, it’s not about the Teas itself and I wasnt remotely asking for a fight or anything. I really found it curious.

Do really people think I get happier or more satisfied because a random person on the internet likes a set I enjoy?

Im pretty sure this got missunderstood so I’m just gonna delete my posts anyway 🤷 lets just move on

[SoundEater]

@BarkingStranger

Моят фаворит все още е Sony MH750, не е перфектен, но е наистина добър и приятен.

Are you sure? Aren’t you kidding us? Almost all the IEMs I’ve listened to are better than Sony MH750. That’s 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.

[blanche]

Ok moving on. Welcome @BarkingStranger !
Please do not be discouraged from posting further impressions with us!

[Dynamic]

So, back on topic. Are the teas particularly sensitive in the sense that they need an uber quiet dac/amp? Do they pickup noise easily?

[PopinTeddy]

Oh yes… 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

[nymz]

They are pretty normal to me, but I use either a dap or w2. Your q5k is more than fine.

Do you have any other cables? Try one and see if u notice a difference. My stock was kinda phased.

They are very sensible to tips, imo.