HBB X KZ PR2 Planar IEM

[chomi]

My PR3 is on the way. I will do a direct comparison with the PR2 (current vers.)

Have the PR3 arrived for you? How do they compare?

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

The Quintet got in the way.

 

[ryzen3]

My PR3 is on the way. I will do a direct comparison with the PR2 (current vers.)

What are your thoughts of the PR2 (no mesh) vs. the new PR3?

 

[Blorg]

What are your thoughts of the PR2 (no mesh) vs. the new PR3?

They are virtually identical, I think KZ released the PR3 to be able to sunset the PR2 after all the drama, bonus if they also don't have to pay HBB a royalty for it any more.

 

[starfish person]

One other point of interest, and very surprising for a planar, is that the PR2 is sensitive to output impedance, and an impedance adapter drops the treble:

This actually fixes the brightness 100% but unfortunately it starts dropping it from 3kHz rather than 8kHz which is where it really needs it. It makes it just a little dark in the 3-8kHz region. The V1 kept the pinna gain in that region but muted the higher treble, I haven't heard it but the graph looks about perfect. With this it is a lot more natural sounding though and part of the "sounding dark" is probably from direct A/Bing with it stock which is insane treble levels.

KZ did mention tweaking the "PCB" in the V2 as well, to compensate for removing the physical treble damper. So there does seem to be an electronic component in the IEM that presumably is what is giving it a non-flat impedance curve, and probably also what makes it so hard to drive.

That seems to explain why I was getting listenable amounts of treble from the PR2 when it is plugged into my Z506's headphone jack. When EQ'ing it on my Xperia according to this graph, I managed to get it to sound remarkably similar to when it was plugged into the Z506.

Screenshot for reference:

 

[villagera]

A little late to the discussion, but I thought sharing this might help those who aren’t fully satisfied with their non-mesh PR2. I used the bass from the Moondrop Variations, combined it with the IEF target, and got this result. Its fun, its smooth and the details are still there! For a system-wide EQ on Android, try rootlessJamesDSP—it’s the most accurate systemwide eq out there, plus you can get it for free on GitHub.