Although I still really dont think @GooberBM needs another flat planar. And I dunno how many BA-iems he has but I would have stayed far away from them.
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Rush? An exception.
Bass guitars generate subharmonics. The open E string is 40 Hz with a subharmonic generated at 20 Hz. The open B is 30.8 Hzā¦Those fundamentals and subharmonics are below the mid bass.
Yes, the limitations of audio equipment at THOSE times called for eq.
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its not that they got 0 subbass. i see frequencies go down to 50 hz on my audio spectrum( lower harmonic gyitars, synths, bass guitars etcā¦) but those frequencies are very hard to hear on those older recordings, i think the volume of lower frequencies are so low compared to upper frequencies.
P1 would purely be a curiosity. Donāt want it, and Iām personally unsatisfied with BA sets so I havenāt found one to keep
Yeah, although in your case all those BA iems you heard are demoes from your tour group isnt it? At least you are lucky you havent burnt money on itā¦
(I probably spent at least 1k on just BA iemsā¦)
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Teamwork makes the dream work
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This, if an iem does the base right for me and doesnāt spike treble I can give it a shot. If itās too lean, I just instantly hate it. I can eq with the best of them, but why should I? >.>
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I hate it when people start threads like this. They clearly arenāt open to discussion or trying to foster learning, they just want to argue and get someone to give them an āIām the best audiophileā tiara.
Itās annoying, takes away from the otherwise open and positive nature of this forum, and otherwise misrepresents what HFG is all about, IMO.
Yay, @sovran youāre the smartest guy in the room again. Iāll get to work on that tiara right after I hit the ignore button for your future content. You do you. I just want no part of it.
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- talks about being open and positive
- ignores people that have opposite opinion and calls them negative
never claimed to be smart, just discussed graphs and audio related topics in an āaudio forumā. i guess i have to post photos of 5k $ iems and headphones that i buy to brag on poor people to be āuseful and positiveā so called audio enthusiast.
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To my ears the IE600 were actually lacking in the bass range but based on the FR graphs they should have plenty. They also sounded āhollowā and a tad crispy/unnatural. I know, I know they are mild Vs but stillā¦ not for me unfortunately.
The trick here IMHO is the overall tuning. If you add something here you automatically take something from somewhere else e.g. Etys ER4SR (and ER2SR) sound great tuning wise. Both have plenty of bass because of the balance of other regions even though their FR are flat. Because of that they do reveal a plenty of details even with quite steep treble roll-off.
Another thing IMO is the brains adaptation to what you hear. Few sets Iāve heard were meh on first listening but given more time my brain adjusted and the perception changed. Iām not going into ādoes the burn in phase have or have not impact on the soundā debate here.
IMHO you donāt have to spend lots of cash to have a great sounding set. The problem is that the same set can and often will sound different to different set of ears. Thatās the beauty (or curse)ā¦
edit:
Extremely important ingredient is your library and how itās recorded as wellā¦
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Could be because of their small DDs.
Brain burn in is indisputable, nothing controversial/debate here.
HRTF is a pain. (and different libraries.)
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i used to think that fr is everything until i learned about that leakage tolerance or acoustic impedance of drivers can be different so the way they react to individual ears will slightly differ from the 711 graphs. like how bas measure more in 711 but lose the bass on human ear( so 5128 is way more accurate than 711s i you wanna judge the fr)
but there has to be more that i yet to find out about the ātechnicalityā part of iems.
this is so correct, i had a eq preset on the buds, and after months of using that bright tilted preset i went back to its normal prest. at first it sounded dull, garbage and low fi but now after 3 months of not eqing it it sounds very enjoyable and natural sounding to me.
the same does for bass or treble or even midrange. you get used to boosted frequencies and your brain recognizes that boosted sound as the correct sound.
fully agreed, like i tried listening to hip hop on neutral bass and it sounded like utter shit to me, i even went to boost bass to 1k area for hip hop and at the same time that much bass would make my metal library unlistenable.
or thin recordings need bass boost or some recordings hate treble boost due to the way they are recorded etc etc.
To me, the IE 600s donāt sound hollow in the bass department. I always prefer a bit more sub-bass rumble over mid-bass, but thatās a matter of taste. The IE600s are as fast as the BAs, but with more natural decay and better timbre. They are still unbeatable for ultrafast overload metal. The stage for most dudes is small! The stage is not small, it is medium in size.
And yes- the bass isnāt as much as the FR indicates, which is good for my library. 
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maybe its the overly boosted 9k 10k area thats masking the bass, can you eq down that region treble to see if this is the case?
I did, even though I never use EQ. No more bass coming out!! You should know that the treble extension is not as strong and punchy as the FR shows. This is the same as in the bass department - FR lies. In fact, the IE600s are very balanced, which is hard to believe! 
maybe its because the boosted bass and treble get a balance here. the classic v shape or u shape tuning where without the bass boost it will sound anemic and ear rape and without the treble boost the bass would overwhelm your brain. 5128 graph for ie600 that replicates human ear much better than 711.
why everything i write has a edit pen on top automatically the first sec 
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Yes. I have not tried IE900. On November 11 and 12, there will be a demonstration of IE900, Sennheiser HE1, Hfiman Shangri-La SR, MEZE Rai Penta and their other headphone models, Focal, SuŃvŠ°ra! Everything will be in my city and I will go. I hope I can try HIFIMAN SVANAR too!
I will share impressions from the demonstration. 
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Iām happy you like IE600 @SoundEater . They are really good but didnāt rub me the right way. Had them for a good chunk of a month then did few A/B comparisons with other sets and let them go.
Re the topic: I think the ābestā tuning is flatish sort of diffuse field, etymotic, etc. Itāll give you best neutrality, realism and all the details. Now the problem with this tuning is the IEM itself. Flat natural tuning have few caveats (at least for me). It exposes shitty recordings, sounds āboringā in present day but also have other problems mentioned in the first post. I agree that the problem is partially related to āin headā type of sound and to, in a way, in order to fix that, manufacturers tweak the FR using psychoacoustic to create the soundstage or improve imaging. Itās a trade-off and quite difficult to that matter. Some do it better, some do it worse but thatās also subjective!
Letās start listening to music not the earphones
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I just found this thread. @sovran i agree with most of the points you made here. IMHO, I agree people who have some production, mastering and live mixing experience donāt like IEMs with too much mid-bass and I am one of them. Recently I used Smaart to measure frequency response of speakers and room effects in an auditorium, then, eqed PA speakers to flat response from 100hz to 20 kHz. When, sitting in the same spot where the measurement mic was - since it was eqed at that area, I listened to track through the speakers, and then trough EA500 and Studio4 IEMs. Studio4 was the closest to the PA speakers overall and when it comes to midbass. EA500 has excellent quality midbass, but it starts to go up at 400 hz and gets in a way on certain music, especially when cello, bass guitar and drums play all together. I found in my experience, midbass going up from 200 hz is a sweet spot. Same thing can be said for IEM mixes for a band. I have to cut 200-400hz on IEM buses for guitar, piano/key player and singers who use IEMs with boosted midbass, to increase instrument separation for their in ear mixes.
I love good quality IEMs with boosted midbass for certain genres when want to relax and just listen to music. But, for an IEM to be versatile and play back well most of the genres, too much midbass can hurt instrument separation.
Planar IEMs seems to do better with boosted midbass, it doesnāt get in a way as much.
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