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7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2 IEM Review

Rate this IEM:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 7 1.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 12 2.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 52 12.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 351 83.2%

  • Total voters
    422
I think the time has come to declare that planar magnetics should be the minimum standard for an IEM, and dynamics serve the purpose only of showing us how far technology got to before planar magnetics were available at prices where almost anyone can now afford one.
They're available at amazing value. The Zero 2 was $23 + tax. The PRX was on Black Friday special, with tax and shipped from China... $36. Total score for well tuned planars. So happy with them so far, I believe they spank my LCD-2 pre-fazor, which need gobs of EQ, including 5+dB bass shelf. I was lucky to nab a B-stock of that for $650. Had to replace cable and pads, at additional cost. Man, looking back that is just not good value at all, IEMs are such the way to go if budget is not that large. I am amazed at the sound quality of the PRX, tough choice between it and my main system which consists of little Maggies, from the '90s, $500 at the time. The PRX were $33, so that's 15 times cheaper for a transducer of comparable quality. Amazing advancements in manufacturing techniques to be able to offer it that cheap.
 
I've used the Zero2 on and off for months now, but have been listening daily and extensively to them for the last two weeks or so. I'm using the EQ filters that Amir provided with some slight adjustments to personal taste (with a Qudelix 5K). I am astonished by the fidelity every time I put them in. In fact, I'm so impressed with them that I'm seriously contemplating to sell off my DCA E3. I honestly can't point at any factor that is being outclassed by the E3 (or any other over ear HP for that matter) when comparing them. I can tolerate the Zero2 in my ears for about three hours, which is about the same amount of time I can comfortably keep the E3 on my head. I continue to be amazed about what you can get for just a couple of bucks these days.
 
They're available at amazing value. The Zero 2 was $23 + tax. The PRX was on Black Friday special, with tax and shipped from China... $36. Total score for well tuned planars. So happy with them so far, I believe they spank my LCD-2 pre-fazor, which need gobs of EQ, including 5+dB bass shelf. I was lucky to nab a B-stock of that for $650. Had to replace cable and pads, at additional cost. Man, looking back that is just not good value at all, IEMs are such the way to go if budget is not that large. I am amazed at the sound quality of the PRX, tough choice between it and my main system which consists of little Maggies, from the '90s, $500 at the time. The PRX were $33, so that's 15 times cheaper for a transducer of comparable quality. Amazing advancements in manufacturing techniques to be able to offer it that cheap.
Unfortunately, there is an a fly in the ointment. The quality control for the budget IEM's can be a bit hit and miss., and not everyone who buys a supposedly "good" budget IEM, will experience their goodness. My Zero 2 is fine, thankfully, and by and large I have not heard any anecdotal accounts of faulty Zero 2's, but KZ products, and others like the Moondrop Chu's have tales of woe. Not wanting to generalise, since I do not have all the evidence to compare quality control, but my example of 1, a 10 year old AKG K702, that sounds as good as the day I received it, and will likely outlive me, may not sound as good as my current best IEM, an ARTTI T10, but I cannot fault it's durability.

I wish the budget IEMs would be more consistently made, and also be durable.
 
Unfortunately, there is an a fly in the ointment. The quality control for the budget IEM's can be a bit hit and miss., and not everyone who buys a supposedly "good" budget IEM, will experience their goodness. My Zero 2 is fine, thankfully, and by and large I have not heard any anecdotal accounts of faulty Zero 2's, but KZ products, and others like the Moondrop Chu's have tales of woe. Not wanting to generalise, since I do not have all the evidence to compare quality control, but my example of 1, a 10 year old AKG K702, that sounds as good as the day I received it, and will likely outlive me, may not sound as good as my current best IEM, an ARTTI T10, but I cannot fault it's durability.

I wish the budget IEMs would be more consistently made, and also be durable.
Can’t eat the cake and keep it.
Seriously, 25 bucks and Amazon return policy. This isn’t the most sustainable approach, but economically a rather acceptable risk. Also, does a higher price always come with better QC?
 
Can’t eat the cake and keep it.
Seriously, 25 bucks and Amazon return policy. This isn’t the most sustainable approach, but economically a rather acceptable risk. Also, does a higher price always come with better QC?
The QC control issue, goes beyond the manufacture, to the sales and support. I give my non IEM example.

I bought three Samsung dongle DACs- USB-C/A to 3.5mm stereo. One from Amazon in the UK, another from ebay, and a third from a local UK business. All three were fakes., including the one sold my Amazon. I returned the one from ebay, and got my money back, cos it was so obvious that there was something wrong with the frequency response. So obvious. and the product did not look exactly like the item on Samsung's web site.

Before I bought this dongle I read Amir's glowing review on ASR, and one well known Youtuber - Julian Krausse, who both gave high marks to the product. But I never experienced any of this.

I have since discovered that contrary to about a decade ago, today's ebay, is the wild wild west, and best avoided unless you are purchasing a very complex product that is impossible to fake, such as a computer/laptop. Dongles, as I have discovered can be faked, and are being faked.

So the product itself is only the beginning. I am aware that Amazon, can repackage returned products and resell them as new, anecdotal accounts, not sure how true, but it would not surprise me, these are products fulfilled by Amazon, from its own warehouses. Should be impossible for this to happen, without them letting the buyer know, but $hit happens. I've been sold a full size professional digital piano, which was the demo copy in the shop, and they simply packaged it and sent it to me, at home, as new - it was the last of it in the country, so I had no choice but to accept their lie, and live with it. But there was payback day. Within about 3 years, the keybed went faulty, and the store had to replace the entire keybed, which costs almost as much as the keyboard, for free.!

So the buyer also has to implement their own QC. Decide where to buy from. Amazon, Ebay, Ali-Express, Linsoul, HifiGo, Headphones.com, and in the multi-seller online stores like Ali-Express, also consider the store cos many stores sell the same product.

If a Samsung DAC Dongle can be faked, with three different copies, all fake, how farfetched is it to think that IEM's are also NOT being faked. I bought a CCA Polaris, and it was the worst thing I have ever listened to. I'm suspecting it may be fake, cos it's impossible for a standard dynamic driver device to sound so terrible, like completely distorted., totally dead on arrival.

My point being, the supply chain may have become compromised for many of these popular budget IEM's. And the fault like my Samsung fakes, may have nothing to do with the manufacturer.

We the buyers now need some wit, to avoid the risks in the supply chain. This is not just about IEM's. Any product that has become trusted, a good example being the Shure SM58 and Shure SM57 microphones, that are like the air of the music industry, everyone owns one, are also the most faked microphones. So one has to purchase these from the most trusted suppliers, whose distribution chain is watertight.
 
So an update on my Zero2 and it's unbalance. Did some janky measurements with an UMIK-1, and while of course I won't get any accurate absolute measurements of them at all I can still get the relative difference between the buds. I did several measurements with both of them reseating them on the mic between each go and then average those measurements lessen any seating errors and this is what I got. The left bud is the purple and the blue/green is the right one. Yeah it sounds sort of like this, the highs works okay but the lower in frequency it gets the more off the left one gets. Unclear of why this would happen?
Getting any kind of replacement or money back from Aliexpress seem quite hard though..

roomeqwizard_241205-140552.png
 
So an update on my Zero2 and it's unbalance. Did some janky measurements with an UMIK-1, and while of course I won't get any accurate absolute measurements of them at all I can still get the relative difference between the buds. I did several measurements with both of them reseating them on the mic between each go and then average those measurements lessen any seating errors and this is what I got. The left bud is the purple and the blue/green is the right one. Yeah it sounds sort of like this, the highs works okay but the lower in frequency it gets the more off the left one gets. Unclear of why this would happen?
Getting any kind of replacement or money back from Aliexpress seem quite hard though..

View attachment 411695
Sure this looks concerning.

Please what are you using to measure this?

I am familiar with measuring and correcting speakers, but have nothing to measure headphones or IEMs. Definitely am interested in learning how to measure headphones and IEMs.
 
Definitely am interested in learning how to measure headphones and IEMs.
Here's some info on measuring IEMs:

For headphones, you can use a miniDSP EARS if you only care about measuring channel balance or matching one headphone's response to another.

If you want to gather useful, absolute frequency response data, be prepared to spend some $300-500 on AliExpress for a 711 clone coupler and KB500X clone pinna (same shops as listed in the link above).
 
Here's some info on measuring IEMs:

For headphones, you can use a miniDSP EARS if you only care about measuring channel balance or matching one headphone's response to another.

If you want to gather useful, absolute frequency response data, be prepared to spend some $300-500 on AliExpress for a 711 clone coupler and KB500X clone pinna (same shops as listed in the link above).
Thanks.
 
Here's some info on measuring IEMs:

For headphones, you can use a miniDSP EARS if you only care about measuring channel balance or matching one headphone's response to another.

If you want to gather useful, absolute frequency response data, be prepared to spend some $300-500 on AliExpress for a 711 clone coupler and KB500X clone pinna (same shops as listed in the link above).
Had a brief look at the costs of either option. Definitely not a small expense. With speakers, about 2016, cos I already had the audio interface, all I had to buy was a $100 Dayton audio EMM-6 measurement mic, with a downloadable calibration file. My ambitions to measure IEM's/headphones will have to wait.
 
Had a brief look at the costs of either option. Definitely not a small expense. With speakers, about 2016, cos I already had the audio interface, all I had to buy was a $100 Dayton audio EMM-6 measurement mic, with a downloadable calibration file. My ambitions to measure IEM's/headphones will have to wait.
For IEMs, you could use one of these 711 “clones” available in AliExpress (elsewhere?) for less than $100.

IMO, they are ‘good enough’ to do comparisons between IEMs, visualize EQ impact, and better understand what kind of IEM FR works for you—differences-type measurements, not “absolute”…
 
Sure this looks concerning.

Please what are you using to measure this?

I am familiar with measuring and correcting speakers, but have nothing to measure headphones or IEMs. Definitely am interested in learning how to measure headphones and IEMs.
I did say in my comment that you quoted. "Did some janky measurements with an UMIK-1, and while of course I won't get any accurate absolute measurements of them at all I can still get the relative difference between the buds". IE I have unfortunately nothing to learn to you.
 
You can use https://autoeq.app/ to calculate EQ parameters with custom GEQ values.

However, you'd have to find out which Q value Shanling use for their GEQ implementation.

If you'd like, give my Zero:2 EQ preset a try as well. To my ears, a clear step up compared to Amir's settings:
This is a great EQ - thanks for that. I tamed the higher frequencies slightly as they were a bit sharp when playing certain recordings loudish, but that's it. tbh I'm a bit surprised at how many of the EQs I see don't boost the treble. Most (especially old) jazz/classical recordings seem to be lacking a little up there.
 
I think its time to be a little frank about the Zero 2. It's ok, for the price, if you get it on a discount/sale. What I would hope to see is proper comparisons, with listening devices that are accepted as being oustanding, cos for me that's what counts.

How good is the Zero 2. Simple, not How good is the Zero 2, for the price.

Then there is the issue of how translatable are the measurements. Based purely on measurements, one would expect the Zero 2 to sound better than a HifiMan Sundara (or something in the below $500 bracket) cos in the measurements of HifiMan's here, we see lots of distortion. I have never heard a HifiMan planar magnetic myself, but I wonder can they really sound that bad, or is there something wrong with the measurement of harmonic distortion, by Amir, that needs some further explanation. Could it be the measurement protocol? No disrespect to Amir, this is a labour of love, I think. And I value what he does. But no one is perfect, the is always a margin for error.

From my own listening, once you hear something better, you do not go back to listen to the Zero 2. Period. My daily driver is the ARTTI T10, yes more expensive, but in a whole new league, above the Zero 2.

It begins to beg the question, where does one draw the line, below which we should not bother. Having heard the T10, I would wish everyone in the world could hear this, or better, which opens up a whole new engagement with audio and music, that the Zero 2 just does not do, and no amount of EQ will fix it's weaknesses.

I have no regrets buying the Zero 2, it's part of our "education", but there is so much better to be heard on other IEM's.

Particularly with IEM's I get the impression, that the measurements may not tell us that much. Cos the Zero 2's exceptionally low harmonic distortion measurements, which made me buy it, have NOT translated to a spectacular listening experience.
 
God you just keep making these wild assumptions and leap to bizarre conclusions in incoherent posts that, whilst elaborate, still manage to be extremely vague and unspecific. You can't get along with the stock tuning of the Zero2 and so far haven't managed to fix it with EQ, that's all the content I get out of what you're writing over multiple posts so far.

I myself just put up my DCA E3 for sale, for which this and other dirt cheap IEM offerings are mainly responsible. Unbelievable what fantastic fidelity is within everbody's reach these days.
 
It is hard to take seriously the opinion of someone who has not heard the headphone (Sundara) they are holding out as an example. It tells me they really want to believe the money makes a positive difference.

The Zero:2 have some intentional bass boost but otherwise sound perfectly normal and fine. A more audiophile tuning like the Zero:red is leaner but otherwise similar.
 
The unknown quantity here is - how good is the hearing of those making comments about IEMs and headphones, and that includes me?

We make such a fuss about measurements, yet most of those here may never have had their ears measured. And even if they have, these ear tests are not especially detailed, cos they are focussed usually on correcting only those prominent anomalies that affect speech intelligibility, as much as possible, rather than any effort to restore full 20hz to 20Khz hearing, which is impossible anyway at this time in human medical capabilities.

Maybe this is what is responsible for the divergent opinions on the Zero 2, and any other listening device. Differences in how people hear. So is it worth commenting further? Guess not. Cos we do not hear the same things.
 
I think its time to be a little frank about the Zero 2. It's ok, for the price, if you get it on a discount/sale. What I would hope to see is proper comparisons, with listening devices that are accepted as being oustanding, cos for me that's what counts.
What's a "proper comparison"? Amir and others have plenty of measurements to compare. There are hundreds of pages of people's opinions in total here and on other review threads.
How good is the Zero 2. Simple, not How good is the Zero 2, for the price.
I get the impression people think it is very good.
Then there is the issue of how translatable are the measurements. Based purely on measurements, one would expect the Zero 2 to sound better than a HifiMan Sundara (or something in the below $500 bracket) cos in the measurements of HifiMan's here, we see lots of distortion. I have never heard a HifiMan planar magnetic myself, but I wonder can they really sound that bad, or is there something wrong with the measurement of harmonic distortion, by Amir, that needs some further explanation. Could it be the measurement protocol? No disrespect to Amir, this is a labour of love, I think. And I value what he does. But no one is perfect, the is always a margin for error.
I don't think there's anything to this.
From my own listening, once you hear something better, you do not go back to listen to the Zero 2. Period. My daily driver is the ARTTI T10, yes more expensive, but in a whole new league, above the Zero 2.
The T10 has what I'd consider a meaningfully different frequency response. What we can conclude from this is you prefer the response of the T10.
It begins to beg the question, where does one draw the line, below which we should not bother. Having heard the T10, I would wish everyone in the world could hear this, or better, which opens up a whole new engagement with audio and music, that the Zero 2 just does not do, and no amount of EQ will fix it's weaknesses.
Not sure what you mean. These are just pieces of equipment to reproduce recordings of music. We get the best we can afford at the time.

If you EQed the Zero to something like the T10 response I doubt the difference would be so huge.
I have no regrets buying the Zero 2, it's part of our "education", but there is so much better to be heard on other IEM's.

Particularly with IEM's I get the impression, that the measurements may not tell us that much. Cos the Zero 2's exceptionally low harmonic distortion measurements, which made me buy it, have NOT translated to a spectacular listening experience.
Measurements tell us what they tell us.
 
The unknown quantity here is - how good is the hearing of those making comments about IEMs and headphones, and that includes me?

We make such a fuss about measurements, yet most of those here may never have had their ears measured. And even if they have, these ear tests are not especially detailed, cos they are focussed usually on correcting only those prominent anomalies that affect speech intelligibility, as much as possible, rather than any effort to restore full 20hz to 20Khz hearing, which is impossible anyway at this time in human medical capabilities.

Maybe this is what is responsible for the divergent opinions on the Zero 2, and any other listening device. Differences in how people hear. So is it worth commenting further? Guess not. Cos we do not hear the same things.
This has been brought up many times before. What would your solution be? 8% of men have some form of colour blindness. People develop cataracts when they age. Would you say to hell with trying to produce accurate displays, cinema projectors etc. Just because some portion of the population aren't able to fully perceive the result?
 
This has been brought up many times before. What would your solution be? 8% of men have some form of colour blindness. People develop cataracts when they age. Would you say to hell with trying to produce accurate displays, cinema projectors etc. Just because some portion of the population aren't able to fully perceive the result?
You won't find the same level of divergence on opinion, on the clarity or colour accuracy or white balance temperature, etc, etc, for displays, and the consistency of manufacture has reached a level, where measurements correlate with perceived quality.

For DAC's, ADC's, I am comfortable with using any authentic, unbiased measurements, including those quoted by reputable manufacturers, to inform my buying decision. I have not experienced any occasion when the measurements did not correspond with what I was hearing. Some would say I am biased, cos I know the measurements ahead of buying the gear and listening to it.

With speakers, or power amps, I am also comfortable with relying on measurements, cos these correspond to what I'm hearing.

If I'm buying a microphone, or a microphone preamp, certain measurements translate well, to my experience of using the product and when I want better, I can usually rely on the published measurements, to decide what next to buy.

This is the issue. Especially for IEMs and Headphones, the measurements are not converging with people's experience(at least not with mine). More research is needed to find measurements, that can predict people's experience, with greater correspondence.
 
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