I agree with most of your points. After all Amirs reviews all have a subjective section too, so I've got your back if anyone wants to argue with your experience.
Thanks, friend. I would love to read what you don't agree with. I'm here fundamentally to learn and I would like to know where you differ. Cheers!
Crinacle AutoEQ: which “target” are you referring to in AutoEQ?
I'm currently using this:
In Poweramp equalizer, as stated.
I also tried the one based on the 711 measures, which I know that are regarded as inferior, but, while I found the sound clearer and with more presence, I ended up thinking that it was fatiguing and went for the more controlled and well-rounded sound derived from the B&K measure.
You mentioned that these offer 85-90% of what really expensive iems would. How are these numbers derived? What would that extra 10-15% consist of? Are these numbers obtained through level-matched blind listening tests? If you'd only give these a "Fine" rating despite their performance to price ratio, what would you give a "Great" and why?
Maybe I made a mistake by providing numbers; I surely made a mistake by not using a ∼ before said numbers. They reflect my subjective experience, and they are not derived from any objective measure. It was not my intention to not make this clear, but I struggle a bit with words in general and with this language in particular. I derived my opinion from constantly testing them against my most expensive IEMs, the FH9. I couldn't blind match them, because they feel different enough that I could never mistake one from another except if I, somehow, shut down my tactile perceptions. I know about expectation bias and I know that the price and the build "quality" may influence my auditory perceptions;
may, I insist, because I'm very skeptical of the research on automaticity and biases; you can read a good explanation to what I mean here:
An explanation of why tricks like priming, nudge, the placebo effect, social contagion, the “emotional inception” model of advertising, most “cognitive biases,” and any fiel…
carcinisation.com
That extra, again: completely subjective percentage points (which were a poor way to express myself, I insist), came from my experience of soundstage, imaging, separation and holography, all very ethereal categories, I know, but let me elaborate. I get the impression, which may not be replicable, but you can read above what I think about automaticity, that the sound of the semi-open FH9 surrounds me better and provides increased immersion and positioning. I'm not aware of an objective metric that would allow me to precisely measure those perceptions. I know that Rtings tries to measure this, but, as far as I know, that is mostly relevant to headphones and not IEMs. Of course, regarding to soundstage, separation and imaging, even the 101€ HE400se, which I like very much, blows FH9 out of the water, and any decent speaker blows any of my headphones.
I listen to very layered and complex music and I sometimes get the impression of the Zero 2 sounding inferior at reproducing very exigent albums. I may provide a list of the things I have been listening to if you want to test by yourself. They sometimes sounded a little thin, lacking punch, weirdly positioning things and, in my personal experience: while still good, not completely satisfactory.
I know that multiple drivers on an IEM are a very controversial thing for a variety of reasons. But it exists the possibility that they play a role here. I don't truly know.
I only evaluated them against my preferred listening experience. If I need to evaluate them in a cost to performance measure, they would get probably an A. They are a better deal than the FH9s for sure.
I hope that I have clarified what I meant by the things I wrote. Please, ask to me to elaborate anything you may like and correct me if you think that I'm wrong. I'm here to learn.
I guess to get a higher rating than fine it'd have to do a bit more than simply accurately reproduce the input signal.
While I understand your point, I would refer you to my previous reply if you want some further clarification.
