Don’t. Do. This. To. Me. 
Just wait for when it’s $499 on the secondary market lol
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More like $650 
Well, maybe? But it really all depends on how much people think it’s worth honestly.
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I briefly demoed Dioko and the bass seemed nicely powerful and clean.
I have Timeless and think that Dioko will color the sound less. Hopefully timbre is ok.
PS: little secret is that Dioko stock cable is really nice.
Dunu Vernus was a lot of only 100, with broadly acclaimed tuning - I had to sell mine at cost after months of it not selling even at that price.
Kinda Lava is a limited run (still not sold out) that is only hitting around $400 on the used market already
I think Goober’s notion is realistic. It’ll take anywhere between half a year to a year and a half though.
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You make a good point - listen man, I work in the car business and I’m a little traumatized by what happened to prices and people going crazy due to lack of inventory lol so please, don’t take me too seriously.
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I wouldn’t say they’re quite the same. The legacy of the SA6 and recent reviews (S from Timmy) place it a lot higher to me than the Vernus. And Lava didn’t sell due to the whole tuning fiasco and QC issues.
This feels more like we’re looking at a MiM Dark Magician situation here.
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That thing damn near needs a condom to go in your ear safely
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@nymz Re feedback, I really like on Crin’s ranking the fact that you can search by sound signature. So if you are looking for a warm neutral set you can easily compare sets. You don’t have to do exactly like Crin but something of the sort.
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well i guess this is what we can expect from 11/11 sale on the tea 2, although it looks like a nice cable( 60$ worth) i would rather have a discount of 30$ or something like that
more information about the sale : Linsoul 11.11 Sale 2022 – Linsoul Audio
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TGXear Serratus*
*This post is probably less useful since my earbuds are called (and confirmed by Jim from TGXear @tgx) Serratus, but it does not use the desired 300 Ohm driver of OG Serratus and is not enclosed in desired MX500 shell of OG Serratus. Mine uses 500 Ohm Beryllium composite, low sensitivity driver - 86dBSPL/mW - (more on power demand later) and is encapsuled in custom designed bell-like shell (codename Totem) with quite similar outer dimensions as LBBS.
Still the tuning was aimed at Serratus as this was my original question to Jim - whether he could make something sounding like Serratus (because of all the hype around started by @nymz famous Love Letter to Music review), but with more comfortable shell.
And here I am writing this ‘review’ with those babies in my ears, driven from 2.5mm of Qudelix 5k using Spotify.
3rd week straight with a small break as I had a problem with the 4.4mm Xinhs Plug I needed to resolve (Jim offered replacement right off once he heard there is any trouble obviously, but I could not make those ones die because of some small problem with the connector).
My Unique Melody Mest which were in constant use (and by constant I mean every day, when I was waiting whole day for the evening to come to put them on) for 5 months straight (with short break for Erasmus honeymoon) suddenly ended up in the box (and even listed on the head fi). I did not even do a small A/B up until this point, because I was enjoying those buds that much and that is a waste of short free time I have left in life, but maybe today.
I could tell you that Serratus, with small help of Erasmus made me to rethink my whole collection and need for possesion of any expensive stuff at hand 
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They have probably the widest stage I have heard in any -phone. Not many open backs headphones I have heard to be fair, but still.
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They have one of the most massive sound reproduction in epic/soundtracks/concertos music ever. Famous Mountains by Hans Zimmer make my whole body shiver and this is not overstatement.
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They have amazing, natural and non fatiguing timbre! Any live instruments play like in front of you (I am fan of acoustic guitar tracks, but brass and violin sound beautiful as well).
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Vocals are great, not really in the head, but nice and organic. And I am talking about both male (Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice, Nick Mulvey, Kings of Convenience) and female (Feist, Big Thief, Rhye). All vocal focused albums that are well recorded and I enjoyed previously sound even better now (Rhye - Home, Blood, The XX - I dare you, Kings of Convenience - Riot on empty street, James Blake - Friends that break your heart etc)
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They play any genre that you put at it well, even the modern ones as they do not miss bass and it is of great quality, but as written on Jim’s website they play best the big stage, non vocal music. I believe it is because the vocals normally are positioned in both channels → play in the middle of the perceived stage → being in the focus → making it harder for all the things around the vocalist to get into listener’s focal point.
*I have some problem with bad rock recordings that I used to love (e.g. Led Zeppelin IV, Arcade Fire - Neighborhood, Funeral etc) lately as I cannot listen to them lately for some reason, but it is on any source apart from speakers or car audio. On any phones they just sound off.
Sertatus do that all without loosing the micro details, what is very often the case for the other buds I have. Most of them sound great, but I feel like I hear 85% of what was recorded and what I hear on for example Mest. Not the case with those.
Vs. HD6xx
- Sennheiser has much worse usability for me (I feel too much constrained having to have both ears encapsuled). It also has worse comfort for me - my ears get hot too quickly. It has worse imaging and slightly wider stage. It has slightly worse detail retrieval. It has worse bass quality (less defined notes) and less sub bass. It has much more forward vocals, which may be good or bad depending on the mood. All in all I prefer Serratus, as it is really well rounded, more neutral and polished (refined for conscious listening), but if you don’t mind the comfort and limitations of the full size headphones you cannot go wrong with Sennheisers for the money. I get why they have the legend ongoing.
Power requirements:
By specification those are by far the most power (voltage in principle) demanding earphones I have. Even by calculations those require much more power than anything I tested, still in couple of mW range though - problem is that it is at much higher impedance than typical rated power output of any source. It was first device I could not get “loud enough” on Sony NW-A55 on dynamic tracks. Those are the ones that forces me to buy different DAP (ZX300A), when I thought I have a source which is the ideal for me.
ZX300A out of balanced gets me loud and beautiful sound out of balanced out at 80/120 high gain. Qudelix 5k gets me to the same level both from SE and Balanced out at around 0.4V RMS.
I don’t hear significant improvement (if any) using 1,5W source DX3Pro+. Only one benefit was that I had was mentally at peace that I “would not miss anything if they benefit of power”.
Question:
Do I need beefy power amp to run them? No, but something better than just straight of the plug of phone/laptop would be nice - my phone needs to be at max and distorts heavily with those. But if you believe and hear for a fact that there are some earphones that benefit of high power source, then Sertatus would be probably the one for which you would like to have that tube amp or speaker amp or anything possible to get some voltage out to high load.
But enough of praise and honey pouring. Every rose has its thorns. Buds being buds still have some problems, but I would name only 2:
- fit - those are better than MX500 for me definitely, but definitely far off from the least comfortable and fitting IEMs I ever had. I cannot sleep with them. They fall off my ear. Not even on Qian39 level. No go for walking. No go for shopping.
- no isolation - my wife hates my audio hobby even more now
at work it is unbearable also.
In the end there is a question of value. 200$ for amazing SQ (tuning and technical wise). Not the best usability - better than full size headphones, worse than IEM. But you probably cannot buy this SQ elsewhere in the hobby. Don’t expect that those are 2x better than Olina on the other hand. Don’t expect for sure that those are 4x better than Rikubuds.
But damn, those are good ones to have in the pocket…
10/10, top 1 in my collection along with MEST, but with different use case
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Nice write up and welcome to the fan club 
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Thanks, in fact you were the second person after nymz, who praised the hell out of Serratus to me pushing me even further toward pulling the trigger
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I’m hoping to pick up a pair of TGX buds one day - super interesting headphone.
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my serratus should be shipped sometime this week, could be a contender for a spot in my desk watch box
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Do yourself a favour and skip some of those IEMs in your shopping cart for 11/11, you won’t regret 
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Thanks for sharing @pylaczynski 
Tgx is rly an artist and at these price ranges… Oh well.
I’ve conviced him to do a 11.11 sale. I will share later today, but for those thinking about it, might wanna hold for a couple hours.
My review of the Alpha and Tantalus are done, just need formating and checking, but I’m swarmed with IRL stuff. I will try to post them today, in the evening.
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Thanks for the feedback
That’s one of the things ive debated a lot, but always hold up. Reason being is really one’s perception of neutral. But I might consider it.