CRA, its a beast. (modded)
Assuming that KXXS = Aria, then yeah, bass is lacking for my preferences.
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I have seen you mention the CCA CRA before, it always looks very bright when I see the graphs.
I assume the mod is to smooth out those peaks around 4.5k and 9k.
So what mod are you doing, do you change a filter?
… and yes the Aria is the budget version of the KXXS, their graphs are nearly identical
At that price, next time I order on Linsoul, I will have to add one. That still looks better than most of the KZ sets in the treble area.
Two questions : Is CCA a sub-brand of KZ? How is the fit? Some of the newer sets have been getting uncomfortably wide ( thinking of the ZEX ).
I got my T3+ shortly after your post with the photos, and after a tip change ( CP100+ ), have been listening to my test list w/o EQ, it sounds pretty good. It reminds me of the Mele with more energy on cymbals, and a little less bass. I need to get further into it, but for classic rock it works pretty well. I am not sure where I am the comfort, which probably means it isn’t great for me.
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Yes, KZ has 2 sister brands, CCA and GK (NOT GEEK WOLD!).
This fits me quite well, more like their older (ZS10Pro) sets I think. Doesnt have that “wing” that the DQ6 has.
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Thank you, and I am this happy to hear that … that wing must die
Yes, I hate it.
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Have you tried EQing the CRA? Seems pretty easy to tame those few peaks without the dampers.
CCA is part of KZ. KZ is part of QKZ.
In 2005 QKZ is divided into two subsidiary which is ‘QKZ’ and ‘KZ’ ~ Know for Zero Defect.
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yes, a simple:
peak: 4800hz, Q: 3, gain: -5db
Did it, I went and tried modding it after I heard how it sounded with that EQ though. Waiting for my sony foams and other materials.
NO, this is wrong.
KZ DOES NOT HAVE ANY RELATION TO QKZ. Explicitlysaid by a KZ rep.
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Speaking of copies:
Exact same shell as KZ ZEX, just with the addition of that screw and a metal nozzle
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2021-01-06: Tin Hifi T3 Plus: Tin HiFi T3 Plus - Reviews | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org
stock: C+
Modded: B-
Overpriced, cant keep up with cheaper iems.
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After spending about 5 hours listening to it. I think it is a brighter more energetic version of the Mele, with the following differences –
- a crappier cable
- an uncomfortable acrylic shell
- a higher price tag ( regular price on the T3+ is $80, but it has been on sale for $70 ).
Given the price difference you could buy a Mele and a CCA CRA, and still have money left over.
The comfort issue really hit me today when I changed to a Mele before a meeting.
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Hey @Rikudou_Goku , since you reviewed the i3 Pro, and my purchase decision was based on that i think the impressions i wrote would fit in this thread. Absolutely oposing experience to yours, but its good to have more information from different parties to help potential buyers decide.
So here it is.
After few weeks with the i3 Pro that i bought with my hard earned cash
here are my impressions
First thing that youll notice when you put them in, is the air pressure forming in your hearholes. Its due to the nozzle not having any vent and will take about 5-10 seconds for the pressure to normalize and music to start sounding normal. As ive read somewhere, it was a conscious move on their side since they deemed them sounding best that way.
This pressure issue was mentioned in few reviews, but it seems there wasnt enough attention brought to it as it affects comfort pretty notably for me.
Mine have a pretty dense steel grill with tiny holes and a nylon mesh underneath it, which does contribute to the problem. Removing the mesh and grill alleviates it and makes it more bearable. Havent experimented with alternative grills/mesh/tuning paper, and not planing for the time being while im still getting acquainted with the set and the idea/philosophy behind it.
I like to shove iems as far as they can go in, so if youre more into shalower fit ymmw regarding this.
I dont want to take 10 seconds to slowly put in the IEMs, or shove them in fast then feel discomfort for few seconds after that. I dont think im asking too much?
After the initial discomfort has wore out, if you make moves that mess with the ear pressure like yawning, chewing or generally moving your jaw you can still feel the pressure.
Pulling them out will also try to suck your eardrums out. Janice Griffith standing on the side and nervously smoking a cigarette being worried loosing her job… They know too much, she thought.
Janice is a dramatic actress and in basically every movie shes in she gets her heart broken and never gets to mary the boy in the end. Sad 
.
KBEAR, If at some other occasion you come to the conclusion that your iems sound better without a nozzle vent(and the construction prevents it expel air without it)… Just go back to the drawing board, and please, PLEASE dont do this again. Eardrums around the world will thank you.
Luckily ive found foam tips that work for me, and i would consider the only type of tips that are useable without discomfort(no pressure problems), but being limited to a certain type of tip without sacrificing comfort isnt ideal.
So now that the rant is over, lets get roling.
I will be using Foam tips, Tri Grace cable(sent as a gift by KBEAR) and Fiio BTR3K(LDAC 909kbps 44/16) for the evaluation. Tracks used for testing were either flacs i have downloaded or streamed from Deezer/Tidal. Youtube samples provided here are just for your reference and might have some differences in sound quality/different mastering.
Oh boy, companies can actually make IEMs with proper channel balance, looking at you Timeless.
Difference between channels is @ around 1db.
Bass is authorative and has god hit, clean sounding and fast, with maybe hint of boominess.
Vocals are technically good and rich but most do suffer from a veiliness or having too much weight to them which i found to be because of the big and wide dip after the pinna gain. I do like powerfull male vocals but they do become bit too much with the i3 Pro.
For my taste, vocals(both male and especially female low ones) besides sounding too thick and also miss on that raspiness and metalic tones in the voice(dont confuse this with sounding grainy or tinny), It will be sort of subdued and smoothed out.
Sade and Jim Morrison are good example.
That same dip makes snare drums(and not only) suffer and take away from the track, sounding kind of lifeless in general. Its like a smart kid being kept back by his peers(FR is the peers). And mind you this is not only with snare drums but with most instruments that play or have their overtones living at around that dip.
like on the 2 tracks with snare drums that i very prominently noticed this -
Most distorted guitars sound too muffled. Great example that clearly points that out is
Plenty of classic rock sounds too veiled to me, Alice Cooper - Poison comes to mind as an example.
Layering is just ok but due to vocals being fuller/weightier than they should, and the smoothing effect it has because of that, it loses some resolution in this regard due to the fact.
Soundstage is pretty good with good separation, has both good width and depth
Imaging is also good on this set. Best for the soundstage(after EQ) i found to be cp100 tips, but brings its downsides with it(remember pressure?)
So now that we know the culprit of i3 Pro not being to my liking OOTB, lets get cooking.
Adding [email protected](q2.5), 3db@6KHz(q1.5), 2db@8KHz(q1.5), 2db@16KHz(q1.5). You could go without the last one. Band pass filter was used for the EQ.
You probably could bring it more to your liking with some additional EQ modification, but imo this is a good starting point as this is where the problem frequencies are, and i would think most that are into similar genres as me would agree.
The EQ modification above adds spaciousness, gets snare drums up in the aforementioned tracks, increases the width of the “center channel” a bit, makes female vocals restore intoxicated/raspy properties and sound closer to what i would consider how they should, and makes this set sound more to my liking. Makes it easier to tell apart harmonizing voices in a choir and will Improve the ability to hear layering/texture in general as it will also affect overtones on good ammount of instruments.
Qoa Vesper i own has a similar dip, though more conservative one, and i pretty much like those. Didnt expect that bit wider dip and few db lower would make such a big difference, but it does, Tri(KBEAR) overdid it with this one for my taste. Should have been bit more conservative and it would have been a great IEM for much wider variety of genres.
In the state it comes, my impression is that it seems that genres that it will excell is “instrumental” EDM (and not all EDM acompanied with vocals due to my previous remarks). Kpop, Acoustic guitar music actually sounds pretty nice and that added weight actually compliments it imo.
Classic Jazz is good, especially if your library has lots of older tracks with not great mastering that would otherwise sound piercing, same goes for Classic Disco tracks of the same variety that would otherwise sound tinny.
Alan Parsons Project, Eye in the Sky Album sounds pretty great.
Since the custom in this parts is to review without EQ, thats what i did, thus the resulting criticism. This is absolutely related to my library so ymmw.
I dont mind using EQ, so thats what saves the day for me and it actually makes it a likeable IEM.
If you own i3 Pro, now try all those audio samples above with the EQ applied, you might discover you had a good set on you all this time.
Soo, am i satisfied? All in all its a good IEM, but ohh that dip. I was under the impression that to buy the dip is a good thing, but i guess financial strategy doesnt translate great to audio related stuff :).
So if youre a stranger to EQ and similar music taste as mine id skip it, if youre ok with EQ it can be made into a pretty great set.
The fact that i got it on sale for $135 + KBEAR threw in a Tri Grace cable as a gift(retail $89, and i assume sale price around $40-50), i dont mind EQ, so i dont think i have much to complain about about the whole experience.
But then again, i have no idea what im talking about, and even “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare”.
And i did have plenty of free time recently… hmmmm
Edit: Fixed the links to youtube videos
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Truly one of the most tragic actresses of our time
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2021-01-11: AKG N400
Disclaimer; some of my readers gifted this to me, I am very grateful for that. 
I honestly am not very impressed by it, from sound to it as a tws.
Sound wise, it does not beat the galaxy buds pro neither in stock nor in modded form.
And as a TWS, I cant even connect it to my windows 10 pc (no graphs because of that).
And while I was about to test the other BT functions more, my left unit suddenly died. Great, it lasted like 2 hours. Avoid this piece of junk…
On a more positive note, the modded Tanchjim Echo is my favorite tws and is a beast.
Will come back and update my modded ranking for this later.
I should be able to start my CCA CRA review soon, as my last mod package is in Sweden now.
I also have some other KZ´s incoming (CA10 and ZES (no clue what this one is though)) and also the Dunu SA4 and the Titan S.
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how’s the echo in terms of functionality/comfort? using buds 2 as a baseline, they were below average comfort for me but worked well for on the go
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Buds 2 should be similar in shape to the buds pro I think?
The Echo is more functional for me than the pro, because the round shape on the pro makes me accidentally touch the touch controls way too often. Very annoying and the shape of the shell + oval nozzle makes the fit quite bad to me. Echo does not have that problem for me.
Of course the Echo doesnt have any ANC, ambient mode or any other tws functions like that (no app either).
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apps/extras aren’t really relevant (only ever really used ambient sound and i’d rather just have one earbud in instead) the buds pro are a little uncomfier based on other reviews compared to the buds 2 but it has the same touch control problem (god i hate touch controls i’d rather have none) + i haven’t tried them myself, so i’ll be picking up the echo soon, thanks!
do they still work fine with just one bud in i’d imagine they would but if not it’d be a dealbreaker
Yeah, I dont rly care too much about ANC/ambient mode, never use them anyway…
Leaving one unit in the case and just using one? No problem. It has no auto-stop (pausing music when you take one out of your ears) feature like most mainstream tws have.
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