It does take a long time to be able to read a clone 711 graph well. Tuning an IEM will help drastically as it did for me. HBB has been shitting his pants about driver brands and he is not wrong at all. I look for the driver config first, next the graph, overall ear gain, the slope into it, the relative midbass to treble, etc. Lots of things… but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ll say this much, belsing/no name BA are out. I dislike a few of the Knowles they use for mids but super love the new ultra-tweeters they are putting out in IEMs like the Mystic 8. I do also enjoy ED BA which I guess are kind of custom drivers that Softears uses and some Moondrops.
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Appreciate the insight into the process! I might need to just take the time then and compare what I hear with what I see in the graph.
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You won’t be able to. The reason is this iem is an earbud inside an IEM shell. Acoustics and sound impedance is entirely different from normal IEMs due to the thing being entirely non sealed from back to front including the driver. It’s an anomaly.
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My bad! I was referring to IEMs and their graphs in general. And the Anomaly is the kind of IEM I would be willing to blind buy exactly because it is so different.
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I didn’t mean to sound like that at all. Sorry, I was just trying to explain why anomaly doesn’t graph like iems and the 711 has almost no idea what is going on. Im definitely not trying to be abrasive about this. Just taking as it happens ya know.
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No worries, no apology needed. Didn’t think you were being abrasive or anything like that. Just figured I created the wrong impression.
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Well. Figured I would make a post about Anomaly so people have an idea of wtf is going on.
Basically this iem will not be released until its perfect and it is not perfect.
Full disclosure: These are not the OG DM drivers, they are either a revision or a copy and I will never know. Likely they have a heavier mass diaphragm OR voice coil, either way, this causes the resonant peak to be lower in frequency, around 2.2k which is a shoutfest. I’ve spent way way too many brain cells and time trying to fix this crap. I have a lot of drivers too so its either make it work or shit-can the project. I’m trying to not shit can it.
I have been talking to folks with a 5128 rig and all I have is a 711 which has incorrect acoustic impedance vs an actual ear canal.. and the 5128 is supposed to be much better in this aspect, so I created a compensation for below 1k frequencies based on known IEM measurements on both rigs. It’s pretty minor but helps me get an better visual idea of what I am hearing. Anyhow, here is my latest tuning which includes much better over 10k energy, approximitely correct ear gain and enough midbass and subs that rock and metal does the thing, which is like half my library.
This iem will not be released until it is perfect or maybe not at all, but I’m still trying.
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I am sure you will get there and looking forward to hearing it!
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Anomaly is actually open back. No messing around, there is a micro gap where the DD is press fit into the shell. The back of the driver has has extremely low damping and is enough combined with the micro gap to make the back of the iem make sound enough to annoy other people and also allow in sound from the outside. I am not fing around with this, i want this iem to be actually as open back as the tuning allows. Having said that I have tested ‘open back iems’ which are faking it such as the Kiwi Ears septet. Using a Piezeo firing out the back shell is bullshit and MAYBE it allows some sound to transmit to the nozzle, im not convinced its enough to actually be enough to matter.
Less is more in this case. I don’t have it perfect, and I doubt it can be perfect but im doing my best to make it happen.
The only way to have this work right is to give a healthy midbass/sub shelf. I wish I could clean it up but acoustics dictate it has to be this way.
Anomaly has 2x (yes 2!) 1.5mm vents on the front bore. The driver is not sealed and has a 0.1mm micro gap. Aint no back waves fucking up my mojo.
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Extremely cool to see how the product is slowly reaching its final form.
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Does it affect the comfort though? Like does blocking the back vent make a difference in how it feels to wear it? I believe a lot of the stuff marketed as “open back” claim that because of the comfort difference.
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[edit] I just woke up. What IEM are you talking about? Mine? It has no driver seal, 2 big vents, you cant really block anything enough to make it pressurize.
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Did you mean anomaly or the Kiwi Ears Septet?
The Septet lol
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Yeah ok, that is definitely not open back. Def has resonation in the nozzle doing nothing to the back end. I can hear my heartbeat and breathing easily.
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So.. I have 95% of the tuning as good as it should be as I hear it. Subs though.. the compromise here is stage openness. Either I pump them up like every other damn iem or keep it earbud-like, open, glorious. I will stew on this for a bit. Midbass is life, so dont worry about that… unless you do and then you know this open back mojo isn’t for you.
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Most IEMs released these days have no mis-bass. Such a shame. My favorite IEM I ever demoed was the spectrumica and it HAS mid bass.
Edit: here are some have favorite IEMs.
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As someone who’s never used open back headphones, is that a general problem with the open back design or something related to ambient noises being audible from the environment due to the open back?
Well, open back for IEM drivers means the vent on the back of the driver is mostly or entirely open. This means that you get that bulbous sort of mid/midbass shelf with rolled off subs. It’s just the way the drivers respond.
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