My new saddle is on order.
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From those i only know vision Ears. But I dont think that i like their tuning
Can someone maybe give me a comparison between:
- Unique Melody Mest MK2
- Thieaudio Monarch MK2
- Empire Ears Legend Evo
- JH Audio Roxanne Aion
Thanks
Sh.t 
Am I the only one who got lemon MKII?
At least MKII I got is way worse sounding than Monarch OG, and iâm not talking about tuning.
Problem with QC or you donât like the tuning?
2 reasons, tuning was fine but it just sounded weird and to my ears worse than Monarch OG when I compared them side by side.
Then there was fit, they kept falling out of my ears when on the move no matter which tips I used. Only except azla xelastec but I didnât like the way mk2 sounds with those.
I donât know anymore, or I got dud, or fit and seal was the problem, they just didnât work for me.
Sounds like you may need to try a deeper fit perhaps?
drftr
Mine will be here tomorrow. HYPE. I was expecting them mid to late December, guess I got my order in before they sold through their first batch. Definitely a nice surprise. Time to dig out all my tips and hope that one of them gets me the fit I need with these fat ass shells.
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Well Iâm about to say some crazy shit but it is what it is.
I donât enjoy these any more than I enjoy my FH3s.
Theyâre tuned well, I didnât have to EQ much at all to find my preferred sweet spot. They actually fit super comfortably, I mean zero discomfort in any area, and I was able to get them seated deep enough to use my usual tip size. That was my biggest fear and it turned out to be a non-issue.
Tuning aside what I was hoping to hear from these was⊠I donât even know. Something. Something I didnât hear before, some element that stood out and smacked down the quality I have heard previously, or at least showed me enough of a difference to justify the price gap.
I donât hear it. They sound fantastic donât get me wrong, and theyâre obviously more detailed than the FH3. I donât actually have a single real complaint. But did any significant details come to the surface that I have missed before? Nope. Are they more fun? Nope. Are they delivering ANYTHING in a way that is a new experience for me? Nope. Theyâre just very good IEMs. But I already have what I feel are very good IEMs.
Iâd like to keep these, mostly because theyâre both comfortable and absolutely gorgeous, but I canât come remotely close to justifying holding on to them. Maybe itâs my library. Maybe true âaudiophileâ music benefits from these small increases in detail, and my metal mixes that are all over the place just donât get much out of it. Or maybe my hearing is whack.
Headphones has a top notch return policy and Iâm going to make use of it. (EDIT) Jk they had a 20% restock fee and this now a very expensive mistake.
@nymz has his Teas and I have my FH3s. Iâm gonna take his advice and just be happy with what Iâve got.
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Welcome to end-game. Whatever makes you dance is the right one.
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I know what youâre feeling (not with Monarch IIâs, which I havenât heard, but Iâve been through the response you describe with other expensive sets).
Itâs awesome you have something you already love so much (Iâm familiar with that too), and I appreciate you being willing to share an experience that probably goes against the grain.
Sometimes dabbling about helps you to strengthen the love you have for what you already like. The longer you stay with one set the easier it is to imagine all kinds of sound experiences that the newer/more expensive sets are âprobablyâ delivering, adding an imaginary 100 to all the stats of what youâre enjoying right nowâŠ
A âdiminishing returns reality checkâ helps reset your expectations of what you are/ are not missing out on.
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Ultimately, what you listen to, your library, matters. Congrats on not falling into a confirmation bias trapâŠseriously, not being a smartass.
I received my MKII earlier today, been too busy to listen, but did inspect them, and tried them with my favorite tips; it fits well. The I hooked them up to a payer to run some music through them this afternoon.
I listened to only a couple songs, and nothing is amiss, thatâs for sure. Iâll try to spend time with them tonight to start the process of coming to my own conclusions.
My listening is comprised of 40% electronic (ambient mostly) and 40% instrumental jazz (from bop to contemporary). The remaining 20% is pretty eclecticâŠalternative/prog rock, rarely do I listen to pop.
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I know it doesnât have the Monarch OG level of sub bass, but is the Mkii good with rap (which amounts to about 70% of what I often listen to)?
I have XENNS UP as a pinned mark âSâ tier item.
Itâs my list, itâs a tribrid with EST and berry bass. Love em
I would never ever f***** ever take a boring ass U12t or Anole VX over the UP
Not for rock, or anything.
Be you.
Your list if you have one is as valid a any.
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It depends on what metal you are listening to. If it is one of the newer groups (after 2010) MK2, I think they will do a unique job. If they are older records - nothing can help you and you better get headphones for $ 50! FH3 has more bass and you probably like it, but itâs hardly close to MK2 in everything else! Most people confuse the big amount of bass with good fun, which is not the case for me. The graphics of the MK2 seem fantastic to me and have nothing to do with the poor tuning of the FIIO. Audiophiles find these subtle nuances of music that most people fail to detect. This is the difference between people, which is transferred to the headphone world! Letâs start with the trolling comments again 
.
Thatâs wisdom right there! I felt much the same way when I received my Legacy 4 back when that was the new hotness. It sounded okay and competently tuned, but it didnât do anything for me.
As someone who long ago sold his OG Andromeda but who still loves cheapo VK4s after years of using them, Iâm going to go out on a limb and suggest that when it comes to IEMs, the idea of âtechnicalitiesâ is overblown and that chasing technicalities is possibly a waste of time. The Andromeda sounds veiled, hazy and overly thick, saved only by a bright treble whose contrast with the rest of the tuning makes certain details pop, a special effect that I think some people mistake for âtechnicalityâ.
Technically perfecting speakers seems hard, because you have to generate high sound pressure levels across the full frequency spectrum and you have to project sound into a live, reflective room with multiple listeners placed in various positions in that room. Headphones seem less hard, as you need less SPL and the âroomâ is much smaller, just the space between your ear and the driver, enclosed by the pad and colored by the ear. Open back headphones can have a hard time achieving good sub-bass extension without a perfect seal, which is why I give high marks to planars like the HE6SE that bring on the bass even without a perfect seal.
IEMs in comparison seem almost trivial, with no âroomâ to speak of, excellent sealing against the ear making it easy to achieve high bass SPLs and overall puny SPL requirements.
When someone comes along with a more expensive product claiming that itâs better than the cheap stuff, Iâm always skeptical and want to know what it is that they did to make it better. Is the distortion lower(?), is there something special about the tuning(?), etc. Using multiple drivers seems like a defensible strategy, as it opens up the ability to tune more precisely and maintain high and even SPL past 10 KHz, and I can even see the type of driver mattering based on different distortion profiles, but Iâm skeptical about crazy numbers of drivers and outlandish configurations using 3 or 4 different types of drivers.
Anyway, none of this is to take away from those who enjoy the more expensive stuff. There are plenty of people who love the OG Andromeda and thatâs cool, Iâm happy for them 
But this idea that more money automatically equals more better needs to die.
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More money doesnât means better, but there are better and worse IEMS.
For example, detail resolution. Itâs not just tonality, brighter doesnât mean more detailed. Bad iems have problems with resolution and detail retrieval in busy passages. With good iems, even on busy passages you can differentiate instruments.
So thereâs good and bad, not everything is tonality.
That being said, diminishing returns are really hard at some point. Like TVâs. Today a âcheapâ 4k TV is several orders of magnitude better than a 20 years old TV, it doesnât matter if that was a TOTL TV. Today the best TVs are better than the more basic, but we have to be fair, basic TVâs look great, and today even âcheapâ IEMS can sound great. Going to a more expensive bracket can only bring a small improvement, because the base is better nowâŠ
In any case, returning to the MKII, I donât know how good the FH3 are, but when you start on MKII levels, you need a good source. A small dongle Dac (Hidizs s9 pro) makes a very noticeable difference in the Clairvoyance, even using regular Spotify.
Maybe take some time with the MKII, be sure that you have proper equipment and a quality source, and you might notice the differences when you return to the FH3. The first day might not be the best impression. However, nowhere says that a better IEM means that you are going to enjoy more listening to your music.
Maybe a Ferrari is a better car for track, but if you want to do a 10h trip, you need another kind of car. Maybe the MKII are better in terms of pure sound reproduction, but you can perfectly enjoy more your music with something that does a different job, even if that is generally considered worse than the MKII.
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I was running off my desktop setup, so the source was not an issue.
As mentioned I could hear the difference in detail, it just wasnât enough to justify cost. Itâs doing some stuff better, but itâs not doing anything that my current set canât do, even if slightly worse. At this price point it would have to be a night and day difference, in at least one area, but thatâs most certainly not the case.
I did some head-to-head comparisons on really busy tracks, seeing if one set was catching things that the other wasnât. And yeah sure some small details were slightly more obvious to hear on the MK2 but again, itâs not as if the FH3 was missing or doing those details a disservice. Itâs like a miniscule bump in clarity, small enough that I genuinely donât care about it.
Iâm glad I tried them, but theyâre back in the box and for the sake of a smooth return theyâll be staying there. I donât need any re-confirmation.
God DAMN are they pretty though, pics really donât do them any justice.
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Ohhhhh buddy are those some fightinâ words! Those honking huge flagship CRT and Plasma TVs of old are miles better than any backlit LED TV for everything except brightness. Now, OLED, thatâs a different storyâŠ
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Yes, I totally get your point. They might be good, but itâs not worth the price difference. Same happens with food, cars or other things.
Sometimes itâs not just better or worse, but it is some unique feature that doesnât exist outisde of the top of the line market.
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