7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2 IEM Review

[Chromatischism]

Amir mentions the v2 is superior with eq and v1 if you don’t.

I don’t eq and ordered the v2 as I tend to listen at lower volume and think a slight bass boost might be better for my situation

Based on the measurements above, the V2 very likely sounds better for people who don't like brighter speakers (myself included). Don't mistake the Harman IE 2019 for neutrality

These will sound deeper and more listenable.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Just got these Zero:2 and let me tell you this, if I was Westone or Shure I would be VERY VERY worried right now. These are in ears monitors killers. These ZERO: 2 sound even better then the ZERO RED @amirm reviewed this year and these cost half the price of the ZERO's RED. I have no idea what these guys are doing but let me tell you that two of my worship leaders already ditched their $1500 molded in ears for these ZERO RED and when they listen to these new ZERO:2 pretty sure they are going to ask me to get a dozen of these. You can even use 1 per show and trash them after the show and not been worried about loosing a pair of $1500 molded in ears. We are living in a golden era of IEMs for sure.

 

[Somafunk]

I’ve noticed there is very little talk regarding the Zero2 on headfi which i figure is down to the low cost and lack of exclusivity, Crin should put the driver into a fancy shell with stardust sprinkles and a cable that could pass for a sub sea intercontinental telecommunication cable with interchangeable jacks, limit the production to 1000 units at £1000 and they’d be wetting their pants over the sound quality whilst gushing over the staging, tonality and ability to scale with all musical genres.

He’s really missed a nice little earner here

 

[Robbo99999]

Agreed! Soundstage and bass perception is going to be notably different. A pair of headphones will emit bass frequencies that will be felt by not only the eardrums but the ear and even covered portions of the sides of the head. Likewise, there will be interactions with the pinna of the ear that create a different (and in fact larger) sense of space and scale than an IEM would project. Seeing low cost IEM’s frequency and distortion though already on the performance level of the Dan Clark TOTL stuff is refreshing for us consumers. I wonder how long until the headphone market comes around and begins the price trickle down of the Dan Clark headphones technology?

I reckon it'll take longer for the measured performance of for example Dan Clark Stealth & E3 headphones to trickle down into the market that is on the $25 level! To be honest though, perhaps the material & manufacturing cost is higher due to the larger format, and it's probably just harder to create low distortion well measuring headphones vs the corresponding IEM's, so it's probably not reasonable to expect $25 headphones with Dan Clark performance in the near or middle future, maybe not even in the long term! You can get some good headphones though nowadays, Sennheiser HD560s is £149 here in the UK and is pretty darn good without EQ and better with it. I don't know what's gonna happen in the headphone market, I'd like a cost effective version of the Smyth Realiser in a pair of headphones, not sure when that's gonna happen though!

 

[enricoclaudio]

BTW, the Comply foam tips that I use with the ZERO RED, fit the same on the ZERO:2.

Amazon.com

 

[khensu]

Just got mine a bit ago. The tips that came attached seem to work great, and I agree. They sound incredible with no EQ. Very well balanced response. Just the right amount of bass for me and no "shoutiness". Granted, this is after just an initial few minutes of listening, but I think these are likely to become my new go-to IEMs.

 

[ob1]

**EDIT** I feel the need to edit my post since it was later found that the reported "problem" was my entire fault, shame on me, I had inversed the wiring, as enricoclaudio suggested.

I am leaving my original post for sake of clarity, but please accept my excuses for polluting the forum.
__________
(Original post)
Disclaimer : only subjective opinions of very limited value, please read with caution and do NOT make anything of the following

I wish I could bring more to the community than subjective comments, but at the moment, I can't. That being said, these are the ?sixth headphones I buy following reviews on ASR and all have been very rewarding (Senn. HD560S, Truthear Crinacle Red, blue, Philips SHP-9500, Senn. HD6XX).

It may be a fit issue or I may have a received a defective pair, but these sound like shit! Admittedly, I have a hard time fitting them in my small ear canals and have tried them with all supplied tips, along with 4 different ones I had on hand, notably Spinfits, memory foams, etc. Even when I had a good seal, the sound balance was completely off, way too much highs and absolutely no sense of envelopment. Switching to Truthear Red (with spin fit tips) immediately rewarded me with pure blissfulness, both in terms of comfort and sound. Awful sounding (Zero:2) changed to perfect sounding (Truthear Red).

I guess I am unlucky in having had a defective pair and/or having an uncommon HRTF.
Objectively, there is nothing I can fault those headphones based on Amir review.
Fit for me is awful : never had an IEM that hurt my ear canal as much as this one.

I am not the least bitter and I am most grateful for Amir's reviews and what the whole community has taught me.

I wish I could provide more insight as to why I am so underwhelmed, but I can't. Headphones are not distorting, but the sound balance is completely off.
I can't relate in any way to the review, save for low distortion. Best way I could describe my experience is as if I was sent the wrong product, but box and IEMs say the contrary...

Hey, I still encourage you to give them a try, but if I were to comment on how I would rate subjectively rate them, Red would earn 99/100 and Zero:2, say 40/100.

Life could be worse

P.S. It goes without saying that my "testing" (laugh as loud as you want) was not level matched and definitely NOT blind tested.
P.P.S. Still have voted them as Great (golfing panther) in the poll and have no intention to revise that based on my personal experience.

 

[amirm]

Appreciate the feedback. If you can, why not exchange them for another pair? Another thing to check is to make sure you plugged them in all the way into your source. I have had headphones sound that way until I discover I had not fully inserted the plug.

 

[SlothRock]

Disclaimer : only subjective opinions of very limited value, please read with caution and do NOT make anything of the following

I wish I could bring more to the community than subjective comments, but at the moment, I can't. That being said, these are the ?sixth headphones I buy following reviews on ASR and all have been very rewarding (Senn. HD560S, Truthear Crinacle Red, blue, Philips SHP-9500, Senn. HD6XX).

It may be a fit issue or I may have a received a defective pair, but these sound like shit! Admittedly, I have a hard time fitting them in my small ear canals and have tried them with all supplied tips, along with 4 different ones I had on hand, notably Spinfits, memory foams, etc. Even when I had a good seal, the sound balance was completely off, way too much highs and absolutely no sense of envelopment. Switching to Truthear Red (with spin fit tips) immediately rewarded me with pure blissfulness, both in terms of comfort and sound. Awful sounding (Zero:2) changed to perfect sounding (Truthear Red).

I guess I am unlucky in having had a defective pair and/or having an uncommon HRTF.
Objectively, there is nothing I can fault those headphones based on Amir review.
Fit for me is awful : never had an IEM that hurt my ear canal as much as this one.

I am not the least bitter and I am most grateful for Amir's reviews and what the whole community has taught me.

I wish I could provide more insight as to why I am so underwhelmed, but I can't. Headphones are not distorting, but the sound balance is completely off.
I can't relate in any way to the review, save for low distortion. Best way I could describe my experience is as if I was sent the wrong product, but box and IEMs say the contrary...

Hey, I still encourage you to give them a try, but if I were to comment on how I would rate subjectively rate them, Red would earn 99/100 and Zero:2, say 40/100.

Life could be worse

P.S. It goes without saying that my "testing" (laugh as loud as you want) was not level matched and definitely NOT blind tested.
P.P.S. Still have voted them as Great (golfing panther) in the poll and have no intention to revise that based on my personal experience.

I've gotta imagine you have a buggy pair. None of what i'm listening to sounds like this with my Azla SednaFit's. Try and exchange and see if that's the case?

 

[enricoclaudio]

Disclaimer : only subjective opinions of very limited value, please read with caution and do NOT make anything of the following

I wish I could bring more to the community than subjective comments, but at the moment, I can't. That being said, these are the ?sixth headphones I buy following reviews on ASR and all have been very rewarding (Senn. HD560S, Truthear Crinacle Red, blue, Philips SHP-9500, Senn. HD6XX).

It may be a fit issue or I may have a received a defective pair, but these sound like shit! Admittedly, I have a hard time fitting them in my small ear canals and have tried them with all supplied tips, along with 4 different ones I had on hand, notably Spinfits, memory foams, etc. Even when I had a good seal, the sound balance was completely off, way too much highs and absolutely no sense of envelopment. Switching to Truthear Red (with spin fit tips) immediately rewarded me with pure blissfulness, both in terms of comfort and sound. Awful sounding (Zero:2) changed to perfect sounding (Truthear Red).

I guess I am unlucky in having had a defective pair and/or having an uncommon HRTF.
Objectively, there is nothing I can fault those headphones based on Amir review.
Fit for me is awful : never had an IEM that hurt my ear canal as much as this one.

I am not the least bitter and I am most grateful for Amir's reviews and what the whole community has taught me.

I wish I could provide more insight as to why I am so underwhelmed, but I can't. Headphones are not distorting, but the sound balance is completely off.
I can't relate in any way to the review, save for low distortion. Best way I could describe my experience is as if I was sent the wrong product, but box and IEMs say the contrary...

Hey, I still encourage you to give them a try, but if I were to comment on how I would rate subjectively rate them, Red would earn 99/100 and Zero:2, say 40/100.

Life could be worse

P.S. It goes without saying that my "testing" (laugh as loud as you want) was not level matched and definitely NOT blind tested.
P.P.S. Still have voted them as Great (golfing panther) in the poll and have no intention to revise that based on my personal experience.

This is literally the opposed to my experience with the ZERO:2s. I had today an A/B test with the ZERO's RED and ZERO:2s, in more than 15 swaps, the ZERO:2s won. They are just perfectly EQ. No need to do any EQ to get the right sound. Unfortunately I made the mistake to bring them to practice and one of my worship leaders refused to gave them back to me so I ordered two more pairs with delivery for Dec 28th. I'm using Comply foam tips with them and the fit is just perfect.

Make sure you have the cables plugged in the right way. The R and L signs on the cable have to match with the L and R signs on the IEM's If you put them the wrong way, you will be inverting polarity and the sound would be the way you are describing.

 

[restorer-john]

My postman (with his Santa hat on- seriously) just delivered me a tiny package. I wonder what's inside?

 

[SteveL]

Based on the measurements above, the V2 very likely sounds better for people who don't like brighter speakers (myself included). Don't mistake the Harman IE 2019 for neutrality

These will sound deeper and more listenable.

The tuning of the OG Zero is what neutrality means to me. With a well-mastered orchestral recording they sound just like what I hear in a good seat in Severance Hall. The violins sound brighter, and the distinctness of sub-bass from lower midrange is more marked, than people who don't regularly attend classical concerts generally realize. A smoother, warmer sound may be pleasant but it isn't realistic.

 

[muza_1]

To me the OG Zeros sounded bright, a bit shouty, thin and fatiguing after just a little while, the RED sounded much more better but a bit bass shy, the Zero:2 are on the sweet spot, balanced and neutral, also I found them really comfortable.

There is no neutrality on IEMs, once you skip the pinna, take in account the difference on ear canal and HRTF they are going to sound different for everyone, maybe not that much but it might explain why the wide variation in preference compared to OE headphones.

 

[GPJ]

The tuning of the OG Zero is what neutrality means to me. With a well-mastered orchestral recording they sound just like what I hear in a good seat in Severance Hall. The violins sound brighter, and the distinctness of sub-bass from lower midrange is more marked, than people who don't regularly attend classical concerts generally realize. A smoother, warmer sound may be pleasant but it isn't realistic.

I feel the same way. The OG Zero is spot on with a good master. I use the highly dynamic Steely Dan Aja master from Steve Hoffman as a reference. The OG Zero presents it perfectly across the range. Nothing lacking, nothing overdone. The OG Zero reminds me alot of Dan Clark Aeon RT. People think they are bass lean but they are most certainly not. Bass quality and quantity is outstanding. Getting a good seal on both is critical however.

 

[OnLyTNT]

I couldn't resist and bought two different colours. There is a slight discount (23.74 for a pair) and when bought two on AliEx it dropped 6 bucks more. Pretty good deal I think. It's December and I'm hoarding again

 

[GPJ]

If you're not hoarding audio gear ....................... you're doing it ALL wrong!

 

[restorer-john]

Well, that was shortlived. I think I got an hour or two, before I foolishly said, "you need to listen to these"...

My beautiful partner has not only ordered a pair for herself (silver with the pink tips), she's stolen (klepted) mine until her pair arrives. Thanks for that, @amirm.

 

[asibbald]

I only just received these yesterday - but I am already very impressed. I have listened to numerous tracks that I know very well. I am hearing musical balance and low level musical details that I don’t hear on my HD650s of my AirPod 2 Pros or on my Linkwitz Orion speakers. That I’m getting this from a £25 IEM (and Apple Dac Lightning dongle) is remarkable. They’re also very comfortable to wear - but this is of course personal.
I’ll be retaining my AirPodPros for the convenience when I’m out and about, but at the moment, I’m feeling that my HD650s aren’t going to be used much…

 

[AudioSceptic]

I only just received these yesterday - but I am already very impressed. I have listened to numerous tracks that I know very well. I am hearing musical balance and low level musical details that I don’t hear on my HD650s of my AirPod 2 Pros or on my Linkwitz Orion speakers. That I’m getting this from a £25 IEM (and Apple Dac Lightning dongle) is remarkable. They’re also very comfortable to wear - but this is of course personal.
I’ll be retaining my AirPodPros for the convenience when I’m out and about, but at the moment, I’m feeling that my HD650s aren’t going to be used much…

I'm still holding off until the New Year. Can you get head-banger volume with the Apple adapter or is it just "enough"?

 

[Scott_Williams]

Its orange looks really great!