7Hz Salnotes Zero IEM Review

[10PSPMemSticksForMiku2007]

I've been using these for a long time now. Although the quality looked amazing from the measurements, it was horrible when I tried it. Incredibly shrill tremble that was literally painful, and so little bass I could hardly understand speech. They were like this from new. I compensated with an insane-looking EQ and got it to sound decent.

Last week the metal grate in the nozzle and the plastic film behind it just fell off. One fell off while I took off the ear tips to clean them. The other fell off IN my ear and I had to flush it out in the shower. No harm done thankfully.
With these parts gone, I went back to listening and they sounded normal. I had to turn off the crazy EQ. With those parts removed, the quality is probably as good as advertised.

I don't know what the deal was with that metal grate but it was blocking all the bass by about 20db! Now there is nothing but black foam inside the earpiece. I hope missing parts don't result in extra wear or more stuff getting into my ears.

The sound now is shouty now to me, too, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the missing filters or because of my ear canal resonance. It's at least usable without EQ. I again have to tune for my own ears, which I would've done anyway.

Not sure I can recommend these or the Zero 2 which is similarly built. The sound may be potentially good and they're cheap, but I would have to have that junk stuck in my ear canal just so save a few bucks. Then again, are other IEMs actually built differently? I haven't used many models.

 

[lordhumungous]

I've been using these for a long time now. Although the quality looked amazing from the measurements, it was horrible when I tried it. Incredibly shrill tremble that was literally painful, and so little bass I could hardly understand speech. They were like this from new. I compensated with an insane-looking EQ and got it to sound decent.

Last week the metal grate in the nozzle and the plastic film behind it just fell off. One fell off while I took off the ear tips to clean them. The other fell off IN my ear and I had to flush it out in the shower. No harm done thankfully.
With these parts gone, I went back to listening and they sounded normal. I had to turn off the crazy EQ. With those parts removed, the quality is probably as good as advertised.

I don't know what the deal was with that metal grate but it was blocking all the bass by about 20db! Now there is nothing but black foam inside the earpiece. I hope missing parts don't result in extra wear or more stuff getting into my ears.

The sound now is shouty now to me, too, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the missing filters or because of my ear canal resonance. It's at least usable without EQ. I again have to tune for my own ears, which I would've done anyway.

Not sure I can recommend these or the Zero 2 which is similarly built. The sound may be potentially good and they're cheap, but I would have to have that junk stuck in my ear canal just so save a few bucks. Then again, are other IEMs actually built differently? I haven't used many models.

Repeat after me, they are 20 bucks.

 

[multiformous]

The sound now is shouty now to me, too, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the missing filters or because of my ear canal resonance. It's at least usable without EQ. I again have to tune for my own ears, which I would've done anyway.

This is how the Salnotes Zero measures without the filter mesh on the nozzle:

 

[10PSPMemSticksForMiku2007]

Repeat after me, they are 20 bucks.

Of course. That's why I tolerated them being unusable without EQ for months. What's a lot more expensive and less tolerable is getting filter parts stuck in your ear canal. That is a serious concern and almost happened to me.

This is how the Salnotes Zero measures without the filter mesh on the nozzle:

Thank you, that's very useful information. It corresponds well to the EQ I've come up with just from listening to sine sweeps, but this should help me dial the Q in better. Much appreciated.

 

[Robin L]

I already have the Zero 2 IEMs but wanted to try these out—wanted something with more going on in the treble registers. They certainly sound like that. I guess the increased treble also means slightly more of a sense of harshness up there. Haven't had all that much time to listen to Zeros so far. Right now, listening to one of the best engineered Orchestra recordings I know; Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bruckner's 7th symphony on Reference Recordings.

 

[LevityProject]

The only way to listen to these is with some sort of tuning from hangout audio/squig. The 12khz spike is pretty nasty. The crinacle x zero is a lot more balanced without tuning.

 

[staticV3]

The crinacle x zero is a lot more balanced without tuning

Which one? (there are five)

 

[GoneWithTheDess]

I've been using these for a long time now. Although the quality looked amazing from the measurements, it was horrible when I tried it. Incredibly shrill tremble that was literally painful, and so little bass I could hardly understand speech. They were like this from new. I compensated with an insane-looking EQ and got it to sound decent.

I've been listening to these a lot (the Zero:2 version) recently, and I have seen your same issue with a spike in the treble... but I haven't found anything wrong with the bass. It's tight, musical, and I understand vocals easily. Nothing like a shrill tremble you're talking about...

 

[LevityProject]

Which one? (there are five)

whoops! TRUTHEAR is what I meant. When I bought them, they were the next step up for the price. Things have changed now. the Truthhear x Crinacle Zero are almost the same price (at least in Canada where our money is basically monopoly money now) as the Zero: Red, which has less distortion.

I do find the Truthear crincale zero og versions a bit sharp in the upper midrange, but they are stunningly amazing as in ears for playing live music. They have let me create excellent in-ear mixes - once you introduce the noise of a stange, you don't notice the imperfections the way you do listening at home.

 

[LevityProject]

I've been listening to these a lot (the Zero:2 version) recently, and I have seen your same issue with a spike in the treble... but I haven't found anything wrong with the bass. It's tight, musical, and I understand vocals easily. Nothing like a shrill tremble you're talking about...

the 7hz Zero:2 doesn't have the spike in treble at all. If you mean that one, you might have an upper midrange sensitivity.

But the TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero:BLUE2 defintely has a wide bump in at around 14khz. it's not as grainy as the 7hz zero 12khz bump - probably sounds more crispy, but it's not nice either.

I'd tame it using a tuning profile from squig and wavelet (if you have a android) or soundsource (on a mac). The general need on the Zero 2 is similar ot the 7hz Zero for a nice, neutral sounding tone across the full spectrum of audible frequencies.

 

[todd92371]

I started looking more into EQ curves that can be created with squigs, as my EQ settings from above still were too bright for me to consider them tonally neutral. So, I created an EQ curve that fixes the HF issues with the Salnotes ... I'm still figuring out what the various curves are. This picture is from the hangouts site of the resulting curve.

My method was simple: search up the Salnotes Zero on hangouts.audio
View attachment 397132

Use AutoEQ to get a baseline for adjustments, pictured below
View attachment 397133

Make Manual Adjustments to further deal with the peaks and valleys above 4khz.
View attachment 397136

The listening result
I did all of the above using just the numbers and the graph as my guide. I didn't listen until I was finished with the adjustments. The results in listening was the thought that IEMs are now stunningly accurate, deep and clear without being underrepresented or overrepresented in any band from 20hz-20khz. Everything in every octave is in it's place, with just a hint of HF sharpness that I want to try to keep working on.

It makes a huge difference to not have any spikes of more than a dB or two in the top end. Somehow, I also don't hear any phase issues, which I was worried about doing such large moves without a linear phase EQ. But these IEMS are obnoxiously bright without EQ, and the AutoEQ settings don't deal enough with that due to the nature of Q values and the need to combine EQ settings to get a desired result.

With these EQ settings, I believe I will be hard pressed to find better sounding headphones - though I will keep trying to

They are positively wonderful sounding now and I think they could be even better sounding with further tweaking. And with the ability of using a simple text file to EQ headphones using nothing more than mathematical values combined with a live graph that shows what the adjustments are doing, I believe it should be more than possible to create headphones with a small DSP chip in them that could apply a static or even various "colours" of correction like Harman 2018, B&K and others, thus effectively eliminating the need for extensive hardware-level tuning in favour of getting into the ballpark with the physical materials, and then complimenting the rest with a switchable EQ using a text-based parametric EQ DSP would take almost zero processing power and offer near-zero latency.

Wow.. Thank you so much for these settings. Absolutely amazing with these changes.

 

[FlyingTeuton]

After I found that I like the Moondrop Chu II with Amir’s PEQ better than the Salnotes Zero without EQ, I had my first attempt at PEQing them. This is what I came up with, using Moondrops graph tools (seems to be the same as the one on Hangouts.Audio):

– Peak 50Hz 2dB Q = 1
– Peak 95Hz 2,5dB Q = 9,9
– Peak 1200Hz –1dB Q = 3,5
– Peak 1600Hz –1,5dB Q = 3,5
– Peak 6500Hz 2dB Q = 3