My First High End IEM - 64 Audio U12t

[Jeromeof]

Yeah, that would be probably for the best as this is getting totally out of hand and completely out of subject.

Before they do how has your 2nd day of testing gone? Do they sound better now?

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Before they do how has your 2nd day of testing gone? Do they sound better now?

They sound totally different now.

I found out that there's an issue with the cable termination and when I move it, its creak. If I move a little, sometime the stereo field is lost or the mono ( I guess that must be because of the 1/8 jack inside the adapter).

I also found out that the bass prominence in the mix seem to be affected by how much gain I push in the IEM's and it doesnt seem to corolate with the rest of the frequencies higher then 200hz.

Yesterday, I kept a very secure and low volume for the most part to catch as much of the dynamic range of the drivers as possible but when I decided to push them today at a ''party'' level, the mids and highs really stood out but the presence was still on the shy side.

Because of the connection issue, I will have to wait until I receive the new cable to make sure that what Im experiencing is not due to a faulty cable or slack adapter connection.

There's also the fact that I'm starting to get use to them so they don't sound like a UFO anymore.

But I couldn't find any sparkle nor micro details popping out in the mixes today and that is still a big issue to me.

What i found on the other hand is a lot of air/brillance on certain track which is something that was totally absent yesterday.

I also used a frequency generator earlier today and I can hear a pretty flat response from 32 hz to about 200hz, then theres a bump until about 1khz and theres a pretty decent dip until 2-3khz where theres another peak and another dip from 3khz until about 6khz where theres another peak and then it slowly roll off until 11khz and then drop abruptly until I cant hear anything anymore.

 

[Zensō]

Are you guys done yet ?

You came here asking for help and many of us tried to provide that in good faith. Now it appears you have all the answers so I won’t be contributing to this thread any further.

 

[Soandso]

Lets ... see if I can confirm that with the new cable coming in tomorrow because today's finding might point that way.

Likewise I have found there are adapters taking 1/8 to a 1/4 male plug that have horrible 1/8 connection tolerance. Whenever I shop on-line I steer clear of the cheap unmarked offerings. I prefer taking my chances with an old used adapter even if listed pricey.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

You came here asking for help and many of us tried to provide that in good faith. Now it appears you have all the answers so I won’t be contributing to this thread any further.

I came here doing a review.

I would like you to point out where I asked for help.

Granted that your initial options were given in good faith but we are now in a totally different territory where people are starting to attack me for not following their advice.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Likewise I have found there are adapters taking 1/8 to a 1/4 male plug that have horrible 1/8 connection tolerance. Whenever I shop on-line I steer clear of the cheap unmarked offerings. I prefer taking my chances with an old used adapter even if listed pricey.

I mean the one I have are not the black plastic type. But again, Im not well versed in it as I hate using those so I avoid them like gonorea.

 

[kemmler3D]

Sir, if you dont want me to put words in your mouth, may I suggest that you start by doing the same.

I will repeat it for the 4th time.

if you guys feel good about EQing your drivers, I beg you to do it and enjoy to the fullest.

I don't.

Point blank. There's no conversation to have.

you like electric cars. Cool. I prefer an old Chevy. Im not here to judge your preferences.

I'm simply stating mine without the need to impose it on anyone.

Please stop with your preaching, you're not talking to the correct person in the correct situation.

Hold up, you use EQ as one of your main tools as a mixing engineer, so why not EQ the monitors too? If EQ is bad for playback it's also bad for the mix. This is hopefully not your point of view... so what's the problem? (sorry if this was already discussed too much, I didn't read the whole thread).

I've come to regard EQing headphones as essential, because no headphone or IEM (unless you're extremely lucky) has a response that will sound flat to your ears. All ears are different, and headphone tuning ATTEMPTS to compensate for the average ear's transfer function, (and even then only rarely succeeds) but nobody's ear is the *actual* average ear. So IMO you have 2 choices - get some decent IEMs and EQ them, or go on an endless quest demoing IEMs until you randomly find some that match your personal ear's tuning. Both are valid choices, don't get me wrong, but I prefer EQ because I am cheap and lazy.

 

[Zensō]

I came here doing a review.

I would like you to point out where I asked for help.

Granted that your initial options were given in good faith but we are now in a totally different territory where people are starting to attack me for not following their advice.

Being in disagreement over a technical question is pretty normal on a forum like this. I’ve seen nothing here that even remotely resembles a personal attack.

Good luck in your search.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Hold up, you use EQ as one of your main tools as a mixing engineer, so why not EQ the monitors too? If EQ is bad for playback it's also bad for the mix. This is hopefully not your point of view... so what's the problem? (sorry if this was already discussed too much, I didn't read the whole thread).

I've come to regard EQing headphones as essential, because no headphone or IEM (unless you're extremely lucky) has a response that will sound flat to your ears. All ears are different, and headphone tuning ATTEMPTS to compensate for the average ear's transfer function, (and even then only rarely succeeds) but nobody's ear is the *actual* average ear. So IMO you have 2 choices - get some decent IEMs and EQ them, or go on an endless quest demoing IEMs until you randomly find some that match your personal ear's tuning. Both are valid choices, don't get me wrong, but I prefer EQ because I am cheap and lazy.

Because of resonance, because of decay time because of driver limitation and tolerance, because of noise floor and distortion boost, because of phase issue. Those are the obvious reason that come to mind.

I also need to point out that while it would be cool to have a single output connected to my DAC, I actually have 4. So starting to click on a different EQ curve then switching monitors, and reclicking another EQ curve and switching back to another set to cross reference is as close to a psychosis a mixing engineer can get.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Good luck in your search.

Thank you, appreciated.

 

[kemmler3D]

Because of resonance, because of decay time because of driver limitation and tolerance, because of noise floor and distortion boost, because of phase issue. Those are the obvious reason that come to mind.

I also need to point out that while it would be cool to have a single output connected to my DAC, I actually have 4. So starting to click on a different EQ curve then switching monitors, and reclicking another EQ curve and switching back to another set to cross reference is as close to a psychosis a mixing engineer can get.

These are legit reasons, esp. the output switching, I get that. If you are using just one main out for the mains / IEMs then I agree it would be a PITA.

Resonance / GD / distortion - I think are not major concerns if the drivers in question are good. For $2K I'd sure hope they could handle EQ. Also, from your review, the issue was excess bass, so EQing some bass out would tend to make resonance / distortion better. But as a general idea I see why you'd rather just have a suitable tuning from the beginning.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

These are legit reasons, esp. the output switching, I get that. If you are using just one main out for the mains / IEMs then I agree it would be a PITA.

Resonance / GD / distortion - I think are not major concerns if the drivers in question are good. For $2K I'd sure hope they could handle EQ. Also, from your review, the issue was excess bass, so EQing some bass out would tend to make resonance / distortion better. But as a general idea I see why you'd rather just have a suitable tuning from the beginning.

I totally agree with you that subtractive EQing isnt a big deal on its own. What I often get from people selling their soul to digital corection software is that when you have a dip in your frequency response curve because of desk reflection or room mode, boosting it wont fix the issue, it will just push your driver harder for no beneficial reason as the frequency will stay absent. Same goes for port resonance.

It's like people saying that when you have a port resonance on your monitors, you should simply block the port to fix the issue. Sure, the issue will be fixed but what about your monitor excurtion and what about protecting your 8000$ investment so your driver dont start to distort because they lack displacement.

So that's my stance on those solution. It is a very nice ultimate bandaid but if thats what you rely on and you believe a flatr frequency response is all there is to the needed quality of a driver, I have bad news for you. And I know thats not what you said, I'm just saying.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Because of resonance, because of decay time because of driver limitation and tolerance, because of noise floor and distortion boost, because of phase issue. Those are the obvious reason that come to mind.

I also need to point out that while it would be cool to have a single output connected to my DAC, I actually have 4. So starting to click on a different EQ curve then switching monitors, and reclicking another EQ curve and switching back to another set to cross reference is as close to a psychosis a mixing engineer can get.

These are all issues if you're putting really dramatic EQ curves on a speaker or headphone, but if you're applying gentle curves, bumping certain frequency ranges by a couple dB and pulling others back by a couple dB, none of these are going to be problems - in fact, issues with resonance, driver tolerance, and distortion should actually improve if you're using EQ judiciously at reasonable volumes and are pulling back the bass output.

Not wanting to apply that EQ curve to your other devices is fair - what software are you using for mixing? I use Reaper and I can apply an EQ VST to the main output, then just enable/disable that VST with a single click - you should be able to do something similar in most other DAWs as well.

 

[kemmler3D]

I totally agree with you that subtractive EQing isnt a big deal on its own. What I often get from people selling their soul to digital corection software is that when you have a dip in your frequency response curve because of desk reflection or room mode, boosting it wont fix the issue, it will just push your driver harder for no beneficial reason as the frequency will stay absent. Same goes for port resonance.

It's like people saying that when you have a port resonance on your monitors, you should simply block the port to fix the issue. Sure, the issue will be fixed but what about your monitor excurtion and what about protecting your 8000$ investment so your driver dont start to distort because they lack displacement.

So that's my stance on those solution. It is a very nice ultimate bandaid but if thats what you rely on and you believe a flatr frequency response is all there is to the needed quality of a driver, I have bad news for you. And I know thats not what you said, I'm just saying.

Definitely not a cure-all especially when room acoustics are in the equation.

However, when it comes to making decent-or-better headphones into good-to-great headphones, I think it works pretty well, sometimes really well.

This site is mostly geared toward home listening, so putting EQ in the chain isn't a big problem for most people, who will typically only switch between speakers and headphones once a day at most.

Anyway, yeah, sell the U12ts and get some ER4S or ER4XR and you'll probably be happy.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

These are all issues if you're putting really dramatic EQ curves on a speaker or headphone, but if you're applying gentle curves, bumping certain frequency ranges by a couple dB and pulling others back by a couple dB, none of these are going to be problems - in fact, issues with resonance, driver tolerance, and distortion should actually improve if you're using EQ judiciously at reasonable volumes and are pulling back the bass output.

Not wanting to apply that EQ curve to your other devices is fair - what software are you using for mixing? I use Reaper and I can apply an EQ VST to the main output, then just enable/disable that VST with a single click - you should be able to do something similar in most other DAWs as well.

I prefer Studio one for my home rig but often work on Protools sadly.

 

[Talisman]

I'm not the least bit surprised that an extremely expensive, well-reviewed headphone can sound awful.
Very small I had the same experience with Sony noise canceling headphones, the WH 1000-xm3.
Reviewers upon reviewers sang its praises. They were simply unlistenable, with awful midbass equalization 5db above flatline. Sold without the slightest regret.

I read that someone suggested thrutears but you don't feel like spending another 50, I can understand that.
But if you were to miss a lunch at McDonald's and you had to save 16/20 euros, I'd suggest you try the moondrop chu, without thinking about mixing, just as a battle headset for when you're out and about.
Personally, I have never found myself better with any headset at any price level, perhaps simply the interaction between the headset and my ear canal gives an answer exactly as I want it, extremely neutral.

 

[Zim]

Just go with anything that complies with the Harman curve if you want flat/neutral-sounding IEMs. I don't know why people still have this idea that Etymotics are flat or neutral. They're not. They're bass-light, to give it a more accurate description. Their frequency response may be flat in the bass region but their sound profile isn't "flat" or "neutral". There are of course other factors like ear pinna and whatnot to take into consideration.

If you were to AB between IEMs and calibrated monitors, the IEMs that conform to the Harman Curve would more likely sound closer to calibrated monitors compared to IEMs that don't conform to the Harman curve.. But of course me saying that is based off personal experience. So take it with a grain of salt.

 

[asrUser]

Lessons for when you can't return items afterwards: Try them first at Hifi shops. Some would even be willing to rent IEMs to potential customers.

 

[markanini]

That's VERY Ironic that you post a video by this specific person in this specific thread about this specific product.

I will leave it at that.

His shilling doesn't bother that much frankly after seeing him clearly state, and specify, the brands and retailers that sponsor him on his website.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

His shilling doesn't bother that much frankly after seeing him clearly state, and specify, the brands and retailers that sponsor him on his website.

I guess I was not aware of that.