Funnily enough, my initial thought of the Monarch Mk3 when I listened to the first tracks on them was „…fuck me, these are clean“. The Bass is very controlled and I‘d describe them as a neutral-ish reference sound with very sparkly (and the most detailed treble I have heard) treble without being fatiguing and having lovely midrange.
I did buy them blind with my own money, and I do not regret it one bit. But I cannot recommend buying them blind either (by sheer cost of the set alone).
how? they have 10 db bass boost on most graphs, 10 db bass boost comapared to reference studio monitors that have almost 0 bass boost nearfield is ALOT.
If the bass in the IEM is controlled, then there is no problem. The old bands have less bass, but most also have worse mastering. So far I like the IE600’s bass shelf the best, followed by the KL. We will see the new 2 IEMs arriving soon…
The problem with me is that I also want some other technical characteristics, not just a good bass.
Because so many sets either elevate the upper mids and bass to create more dynamic range, or tuck the midbass to emphasize the upper-mids, I like finding tuning styles that do other things, to get a different playback.
One thing more people should try, to either appreciate it or decline it, is to pull the pinna gain down, so you don’t have to boost the bass as much.
I’m very curious about how this set plays back, because it is a set that isn’t asking for every part of the frequency to compete with each other for my attention. This will probably not be forgiving to poorly mastered tracks, but to the point, it will be honest to what is there. I’m finding myself drawn to that (with some extra bass on some, but not all of, my sets) more than what many audiophiles consider neutral, which isn’t even neutral
Basically, Separation is very clean and even on bass heavy tracks, it never sounds out of control and overbearing.
ThieAudio IEMs have this weird thing where the bass sounds less in quantity to my ears than what the FR graph would indicate. I have the same thing with my Oracle (the OG) where they sound almost dead flat to me opposed to the slight bass boost they have on their graph.
That would indicate your ear anatomy gets less bass. I think I probably get a little less mid-to-upper bass than a lot of people, because I like a boost from 100-400Hz that other people would find muddy in a distasteful way.
Or the way some people have 3k sensitivity I don’t, or the 8k deficit that I have where I can boost it to levels that other people would absolutely call harsh. Those biases exist because our ears receive the information and our brains process it differently
i find around 8 to 10 db 3k area to be natural for me that mimic my monitors, if it goes lower then transients become softer and unnaturally distanced. the 3k area is hrtf related too some have natural 8db boost there some have 12 db boost.
i have to try this preset but from graph it won’t sound natural imo.
it might be funny but this is the closest graph that sound like my nearfield speakers, or what is neutral to me.( its still needs good polishing after 4k+ though).
not agreed, my oracles are very bass heavy to my ears. my brain just can’t handle the boosted bass if i switch right after i had a 1 hour session with the speakers.
hrtf differences are mostly on 3k and 8k+ from what i read before.
It’s more about doing my due diligence before I reject all-BA sets completely. I’m trying to find one that I’d actually want to keep in my collection.
It hasn’t happened yet but I’m trying to keep an open mind
That affects bass perception too though: if I perceive more upper mids at 3k because of HRTF, I won’t perceive the bass the same as someone less sensitive
you are 100% right, i fully forgot that point. like if i boost the upper regions by eq, the focus of my brain shifts to the upper regions so the bass will be less prominent and visa versa.
Which is why I’m getting into flattening things more and just letting the tracks be the tracks.
Calling 8-10dB of pinna gain “neutral” or “uncolored” is so inaccurate. That is colored AF, to the upper registers and it overwhelms all the information and texture to be found in the low ranges.
I love having some sets that are low-end focused, midrange emphasized, v-shape, and boosted treble.
I don’t have to love every flavor of ice cream but life would be boring if there was only one or two flavors to eat. And I feel the same about IEMs
Bro get these off of J
If still available? and do your filter thing, a unicorn set as is 
Those are a curiosity, but they’re just gonna be a flattened bass version of my Flatland Panda mod…so yeah, I’ll leave that to someone else lol
i said its neutral to my ears. neutral is so hard to define in this hobby.
That’s precisely why I used the word inaccurate. There isn’t a good way to gauge what is a neutral sound from you to me, so using that standard is a fallacy at best. The times I use it is only because it is a known-enough nomenclature so people can have a frame of reference. Even if that frame of reference is inherently busted.
Not the bass lol…reign in the P1 1.5k rise and 6k spike and there we go
OG P1 is the only set I remember that I NEEDED to tame the upper-treble peak, that thing is deadly there.
Bass is anemic af though…
The successor, Plus, version is a much better set that fixes the faults of the OG set imo.
Sub yes but that will depend on your library and source…og given enough 
tube hybrid source offer some of the fastest and detailed replay i’ve heard from an IEM… a set I’d never part with…but yeah I can see why folks don’t like them, they’re a niche set and thank fuck for that 
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