Speaking of the swedish satan…
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If you love someone, you should love all their sides. Included their bad ones. 
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It has already arrived?! Awesome!! I checked this morning and the tracking said it was “in transit” without further precision. I’m glad it made it to you eventually, given the inverted address thing.
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country regarding shipping speed 
Sony XBA-N3 first impressions
Haven’t heard much of the N3 yet but I’m surprised I like it more than I thought I would. In world of sterile copycat releases, this type of “musical” sets are what gets me going. It’s a very addictive, like a guilty pleasure signature. It instantly reminded me of the Xenns UP. Even the fit works great, go figure 
What I like:
- Coherency and timbre are top tier. Should really be treated as a giant DD and not an hibrid. Sony BAs ftw.
- Treble is great
- Mids are on the forward side and warm, but you still have all the info
- Vocals are greatly tuned and warm
- Sub-bass has good texture
- Stage depth is good for the price bracket
- Mid bass has great impact
What dislike:
- The Mid-bass bleeds a lot. If you like UP etc that’s right up your alley
- Stage width is very intimate
- Imaging is so-so, probably masked by the lack of details and separation
- Separation/layering and sheer detail are very poor
I do have to agree with Riku: this is basicly an upgraded Blon-03. It has the Sony flavour you can find in other of their sets.
I’ll do some tip rolling and experimenting and then I’ll give my final thoughts on the set 
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Still going live right now. 
PS: She needs to tip roll more 
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I think it’s time for the Airship cult…not really. Wouldn’t be necessary since the Olinas exists but someone can dream about it.
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The whole point of the cult would be to indoctrinate people as to why it’s better. So in reality, it’d be a perfect reason to start the cult. So why not?
Yeah…no, I don’t want to be one of those folks who drank their kool aid and die from poisoning from their own delusion. Would rather explore on more options tbh.
If I ever get to hear one I will let you know how they compare. They should be extremely close.
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Very true. One thing that puts me off of the Olina is how much it goes past getting hyped and it’s getting overkill to me. At $100 it is amazing value, and you can mod it easily if the stock tuning doesn’t work, but to me it’s just like the Aria hype last year. At a certain point I don’t want to try something because there’s a lot of “don’t buy something cheaper, just save up for Olina” or “don’t buy something more expensive, just buy Olina”.
I will do what the F I want, thank you very much!
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This hobby is very subjective and when you ask for or read opinions, that’s what you get. Olina is a value breaker, but the same can be said about planars, Chu, you name it. To be fair, I think the “Olina hype” is not really an hype but true recomendations. It was not endorsed by top dogs like Precog or Crin and stays moderate on places like head-fi. Sure, you see a lot more Olina here or on the discords due to people liking it or toying with it, and HBB also rests in this website so that makes sense, given the official thread is here.
I think Olina is as hyped as the Teas, but given the 1/3 of the price naturally more people will blind buy and try it out. There was also the card game that boosted the first month and back then, there was some hype yeah, until all the cards were messed up 
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I think that Olina cult is very hifiguide specific. A bit like Tea. On headfi or Facebook chifi groups I am a member of Tea is constantly overlooked in 300$ category and Olina looses to the ones like Aria, now Dioko or directly with Oxygen as it is treated as something really inferior to the OG. I have no date to back it to with numbers but that’s my general impression.
Part of it is most likely coming from the fact that it is HBBs “native” forum
Edit: interestingly Audiosense T800 has huge cult at HF, but it is overlooked here. Save with B2D, even check the thread length
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Ok, you were 3 minutes faster, that was exactly my thinking in better words!
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I can back up this claim. It really is like that.
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That one aint that good lol.
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I had one and pretty much loved it for what it was. It lost a fight with Tea, but right now I am considering buying it back as there was something special in it as I remember. That was my first high end expensive set so most likely I have some kind of irrational feelings towards it 
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Just bouncing around, the different cults are a lot. There’s pushback on the Penon cult at Head Fi, Tea cult is pretty fun to observe: they love their set but it’s not “us vs the world” as much as “we’ve got this awesome little secret all to ourselves” which is endearing.
I get turned off by interactions like I had the other day where it was “why get Airship when you could just get Olina and mod it?” or the “why get set X when you could just get Aria?” That doesn’t feel so much in the spirit of recommendation, and more like brow-beating. Especially when people don’t know your exact reasoning and circumstances. And that’s not fun as a part of the hobby
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Writting a semi-full review as we speak. I was almost finished with the Zen Pro but then I got the chance to hear the ZEN OG (Thanks Riku) so I decided to put it on hold to A/B.
The Z1R will be shorter but I wanna do it fast so I can send it back to @igor0203 before I lose my mind and buy it from him lol (like I had this amount of cash on hand but oh well).
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