My First High End IEM - 64 Audio U12t

[Deleted member 57422]

One thing I am wondering, is did you expect the u12t to sound similar to your AKG Q701 (that you mentioned a few times) as it won't - it has a very different FR.

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e.g. the rolled off bass.

While the u12t doesn't roll off the bass, and has 2 treble dips (at about 3Khz and 8Khz) - just where the Q701 would have peaks:
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So without EQ (which we all know you don't want to apply) - it will sound very different IMO.

No not at all.

The Q701 are a cheap set of headphone I use for stereo placement and vocal relation in a mix.

In other word, I am not expecting my Q701 to do what a stellar set of headphone could do. They were like 350$ a pop back in the days and as I am sometime producing records myself, having a ''Quincy Jones edition'' anything was also a little kid dream in me that came true. The resulting of those headphones were a big shocker for me when I bought them as I had never experienced the stereo width of AKG's cans before for some reason. Or at least never took the time to pay attention.

But yeah, I would have bought Quincy Jones left socks and put it in my mouth and thought I'd sound great singing suite madame blue. The rest was just a huge wonderful surprise ( well not really but its more romantic if I say it that way).

 

[markanini]

And I appreciate you guys offering different cheap solution but I just prefer to go back to professional studio headphone just because I know exactly what to expect as I can try them everywhere here in Montreal.

But before jumping to conclusion, I really need to give them a shot with the 1/4 cable that will arrive tomorrow.

I found out earlier today that I have an issue with the cable termination and/or the 1/8 jack being loose in the 1/4 jack adapter.

I was just listening to Dr Dre chronic and the centre channel completely disappeared so I was left with nothing but an instrumental haha.

I moved the cable a bit and it came back on.

Also, as much as I was overwhelmed by the bass yesterday, today it almost feel shy like the high mids and presence frequencies. All I hear today is extremely focused and upfront mids and mid lows with a tint of bass and barely any sub frequencies. The mid highs and presence still feel shy. Especially the presence. I can't get any sparkle in anything i feed it. Nothing.

Also, almost half of the kick drums I hear on Rap track today sounded like they distorted badly. I never experienced any of this on Dr Dre Chronic 2001 before and its everywhere. Thats not normal.

I'm listening to Still DRE as we speak and the kick sound like its hitting 9 db in the red on a tape machine.

There's definitely something weird going on as we speak and I need to understand what it is.

As for Sonarworks, I uninstalled it early last year as I couldnt stand the digital blanket it installed on my studio monitors when activated. It feel way better since.

I'm not reinstalling it but I used the mic with REW on Monday to reinstall my monitors as I just came back home on Saturday from a 6 month trip.

It's a fast solution too. But you are posting about various attempts to salvage an expensive purchase that gave you less than expected performance. It would be interesting if you tried the low hanging fruit besides the fancy stuff so all can see how how it stacks up. I haven't heard anyone get an intermittent cable with Truthear Hola, most say it's worth getting for the cable alone.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Except...

This frequency response (sub-bass lacking, muddy upper-bass, severe lack of ear gain, uneven treble, big upper-treble resonances):

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This awful channel matching:

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This significant unit variance:

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This relatively high distortion:

And this impulse and step response (inverted polarity / out of phase multi-drivers):

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...would be mediocre engineering at any price. But at $2000? That's daylight robbery.

I have taken frequency response measurements of many sets of custom 12's and they match perfectly. I think Amir missed a little bit with how these were put in the measurement machine's ear canals. As I've stated many times on this thread, IEM's are very sensitive to how they are put in your ears. The generics don't do a good job of sealing or aiming at your ear drum. Measurements are very sensitive to being barely off axis.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

64 audio U12t - Review day 2

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So I was expecting to wake up and go about my day and in the afternoon try to listen to about 4 albums I know very well to try and test those and give me the chance to get used to their sound signature.

It didn’t took 30 minutes after my morning shower and coffee that I had the IEM in my ear canals but this time with a different ear tip, the big open one .

So I pulled them out of the leather puck set them up and connected them to my Universal Audio Apollo Twin-X headphone amp.

I started by listening to the album Where we come from by Popcaan. An album I must have played from beginning to end about a 100 time in my life.


“Hold on” started very smoothly and I was really not overwhelmed by the bass this time and I let it go without really paying attention. Good vibe and nothing was bothering me. I was still half asleep I guess.

Then when “Everything nice” started, I instantly noticed a lot of Air and brilliance which really caught my attention as yesterday it was completely absent.

I started to actually pay attention at that point and I instantly noticed that the overwhelming bass and sub frequencies were gone and almost nowhere to be seen like the presence was yesterday.

That got me extra confused and started playing with my gain knob on the Twin-X. Cranked it up at Party level and noticed that the bass and sub frequencies stayed very shy but that the whole mid came all the way up front. Still the mid highs stayed very polite and the presence stayed shy. No sparkle. But to be fair, it’s not something I’m after on that specific album.

I kept on paying attention and obviously brought the level back to a very conservative level to see what was up with the dynamic range that the drivers would reproduce and still, it was pretty flat. I did notice that the stereo field kind of opened and got a good chunk deeper. When “The System” synth line started I noticed that the stereo field also got a lot more defined. It was not about a laser beam centre and a full right and full left anymore. There was some contrast appearing.

When “Hustle” with Pusha T started I thought, let’s see how those IEM fair with ultra low sub frequency bass line from this bass sweep so I decided to crank it up but every single kick drum hit started to distort but not like if the driver was cramping but like if the sample itself sounded like crap. So I skipped the song confused and the same phenomena happened on “Waiting so long”.

So I decided to search for Dr Dre - Chronic 2001 and put on Still Dre and again, a weird distorted kick appeared. At the point I started to play with the cable and adapter as it made no sense whatsoever. Well, another surprise appeared, the whole centre position of the sound-stage completely disappeared leaving me with only the instrumental with a few percussion and no kick nor snare and obviously no vocals hahaha. It’s at that point I started to understand that I had a cable issue. So I played with the cable from top to bottom , left and right , front to back. Yeah, there it was , the cable was radically changing the sound width, depth but also tonal balance .

I was a bit scared that I had an issue with my headphone amp output so I connected my beloved AKG Q701 and there was no issue at all. Played with the connector to make sure it was not an output problem and nothing. Not a single creaking.

Plugged back the U12t in its full metal adapter and noticed that it was kind of loose. Not enough to pull it out without pressure but just enough to feel like I could move it through the adapter Input.

So I plugged them back to the Twin-X and played the latest Gang Starr - Family and Loyalty but also the good old Above the clouds. and they both had that weird distorting kick. If you know Gang Starr, the distorting kick sound I'm describing sound like the one in You know my steez.

At that point it was clear that I was not only experiencing some technical issue but that in all of that, my ear was getting used to the IEM’s.

I put back “Chan Chan” by Buena Vista Social Club and realized that something had clearly changed.

Same thing on “Is This Love” by Bob Marley.

No more overwhelming bass nor sub frequencies.

So for not totally ruining my experience I decided to put them aside for the rest of the day as tomorrow there’s a little Santa Claus gift coming in.
A Brand new cable from Moon Audio. Precisely, a 2 pin at 0.78 spacing terminated with a 1/4 TRS jack. So no more disgusting adapter and one less thing to worry about.

Let’s hope that tomorrow will be the day for the U12t because if they don’t start to deliver, I’ll have to start to think about asking him to resign and go back playing in the high school yard .

I still keep hope. I heard some very promising things today through all those issues.

Fingers crossed.

What you are describing here also sounds like a mismatch between the in ears 1/8" jack and the 1/8" to 1/4" adapter. Did this adapter come with the in ears? Have you tried a different one? Have you tried just listening to the in ears through their 1/8" cable on your phone?

 

[Deleted member 57422]

What you are describing here also sounds like a mismatch between the in ears 1/8" jack and the 1/8" to 1/4" adapter. Did this adapter come with the in ears? Have you tried a different one? Have you tried just listening to the in ears through their 1/8" cable on your phone?

No, there was no adapter included in the package. I had to use the ones I bought from the Music shop a few years back. But it's always the same with those f//king adapters. Sometime they work just fine, sometime you're left wondering what's wrong with your signal.

I HATE ADAPTERS !!!!

I have tried the 1/8 directly in the cheap DAC of my laptop Motherboard and yes, the sound is night and day. Very muffled in the laptop and overly bright in the Twin-X Headphone amp through the adapter. I have tried 3 different adapters and they all do the same thing. The cable does creak in the Laptop 1/8 headphone input so i think we're talking about 2 different issues stacked up here.

But again, we'll see what really comes through later on today when the needed cable arrive.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

It's a fast solution too. But you are posting about various attempts to salvage an expensive purchase that gave you less than expected performance. It would be interesting if you tried the low hanging fruit besides the fancy stuff so all can see how how it stacks up. I haven't heard anyone get an intermittent cable with Truthear Hola, most say it's worth getting for the cable alone.

What would you have me do about it ? haha

Exchange them against a set of 50$ IEM because they measure flat ?

I mean, you're making it sound like I have to EQ them or get those other cheaper IEM so I stop having those connectors issue.....

Let's take a deep breath and aim at a solution with what we have in hand and then advise when all attempt to fix the issue have failed.

Of course I will try to fix the obvious issues. I might be into something if I actually give them all the chance to shine. Until then, my impression is just uninformed at best as there's 2 component that seem to cause issue here.

But I'm with you. I want THE BEST AND NOW.

Sadly, that's rarely how life work.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

So a guy goes and buys an expensive IEM. Does not like it. Comes to ASR, maybe to get some help, maybe to create some pressure on the vendor to give his money back, who knows. Condolences, suggestions, solutions are offered. Bash the expensive product no matter what crowd jumps on the bandwagon as well. 64Audio is shamed. Alliences are formed. We are now all rady for a happy ending. In an unexpected turn of events however, it is reveleaed that the OP refuses to EQ claiming inexplicable digital grainess. Is he a subjectivist?! Broken hearts and more drama ensues. Words are exchanged. And at the end, it turns out it was the cable after all!

Wow! What a story. You can not make this stuff up.

Follow us on our next adventure of the Kardashian on channel 3 at 6 pm monday to friday.

 

[GaryH]

I have taken frequency response measurements of many sets of custom 12's and they match perfectly.

Let's see them then.

Measurements are very sensitive to being barely off axis.

The FR measurements I posted were taken by Crinacle, and he uses a pinna-less set-up, so precision (i.e. positional repeatability in the centre of the coupler, at the same depth) will be high. If it wasn't he wouldn't be able to achieve measurements like these showing, in contrast to the so-called 'high end' U12t, very low channel and unit variance (at 1/40th the price):

 

[asrUser]

@martel80
Just burn them in for some days and remember to pause the burn-in sessions. Pink noise at listening volume should be good. It can improve your experience.

 

[GaryH]

 

[Deleted member 57422]

@martel80
Just burn them in for some days and remember to pause the burn-in sessions. Pink noise at listening volume should be good. It can improve your experience.

I will definitely give them a fair shot but still can't see how they could become decent when they are currently so off of what I'm looking for in terms of monitoring and critical tool.

I also need to point out that GaryH graphic about the transient response of the U12t is making me sh!t my pants as this is crucial to me.

If the transient response is as bad as it is represented in that graph, there's no way I can interpret details in any of this. It's like if those drivers are so slow, they basically cut all the natural attack of every instrument.
How the hell am I supposed to dial compression or even problematic sharp band frequencies if the resolution and detail are absent?

Anyways. As I said, I'll keep on trying to understand their way to transmit and will try to make it work for me. I just have a hard time seeing how that could even remotely happen.

Let's give it a shot today with the good cable that will fix 2 big issues then see how my hearing react to them and if I can find something to do with them.

 

[frix]

I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that those are an analytical tool? I know those are praised by the audiophile community. But that doesn't equal neutral/analytical tool.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that those are an analytical tool? I know those are praised by the audiophile community. But that doesn't equal neutral/analytical tool.

To make a long story short, I joined a discord channel from a famous IEM Ranking website and all users and some moderators suggested that the best analytical and critical tool would be the U12t.

Suposedly the holy grail of IEM in terms of tone and technicality based on that website.

So to answer your question in a more simple way, I came to that conclusion by believing a bunch of hi-fi kids that don't have a single clue what an analytical nor critical judgment tool is.

That was a very expensive mistake and to be fair, it was quite dumb as at my age, I should know better then to listen to a name dropping gang with tantrum issues.

Shame on me, really.

But hey, not all is lost, I might be able to do something with it. Just a few more hours and I'll get a better picture of the whole situation.

The cable is in the delivery truck to my location as we speak. Let's see.

 

[frix]

Hm, I see. I know what ranking list and discord you are referring to. Those discords can be a big echo chamber. With a couple of server favourites. Some people repeating it might actually haven't heard them by themselves. It is an issue with many social media platforms. So yeah it's always best to look in many places. Also I wouldn't consider ASR as my only source.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Hm, I see. I know what ranking list and discord you are referring to. Those discords can be a big echo chamber. With a couple of server favourites. Some people repeating it might actually haven't heard them by themselves. It is an issue with many social media platforms. So yeah it's always best to look in many places. Also I wouldn't consider ASR as my only source.

Just to make things very clear, ASR had nothing to do with it in any shape or form. I just want to make sure that no one misinterpret it. ASR is not affiliated nor linked to that other website in any shape or form as far as I know.

I'm talking about a different website (not a forum) that look pretty well organised but that is completely flawed and only based on personal preferences which mean that it is of absolutely no value to anyone serious about music engineering. Matter of fact, I think the guy even mention it on his website.

But yeah, he seems to have built a cult following community that don't have a single clue what they are talking about. But they can name drop some product. That they can do for sure.

 

[frix]

Oh sorry if this came out wrong. I wasn't referring to ASR. I just wanted to say it's a good resource to have but shouldn't be the only one.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Oh sorry if this came out wrong. I wasn't referring to ASR. I just wanted to say it's a good resource to have but shouldn't be the only one.

No worries, no harm done. I just wanted to make sure that no one misinterpret what was said.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

64 Audio - U12t - Day 3 Review

Today's finding were pretty basic to be honest.

It was confirmed that the stereo field issue and the distortion was coming from a faulty cable or adapter.

The new cable work as intended and both issues are gone.

I also found out that changing the ear tips change the tonal balance massively.

I first tried the Foam ones again (the first one I tried when I said it sounded like a kid with a 15 inch sub in his cheap car) and the bass was again overwhelming but the highs were not muffled anymore. Lacking a bit yes but not muffled.

So I changed the Ear tips and the modules quite a few times until I found a decent in-between.

I'm using one of the silicon one but with a small opening....the ones that have a pointy tip. Not the wide open ones.

That with the mX modules deliver the flattest response in my opinion.

Yet, the sense of depth is still to be found as is.

So what I did is I applied a good amount of pressure on the ear buds to keep them enter further in and kept applying a pressure and there it was !!!

All became full and well represented.

Still, there is no micro details to be found as we speak. It is still a lot less blurry then my 2 previous day but this is still a ''fun'' set of IEM.

The panning is great and a few tracks confirmed it but the centre field of the stereo field is like inside your head and it really move in 2D. As I said previously, the feeling of depth is pretty much absent. I mean there's a tiny bit of it but boy is it difficult to judge the instrument separation.

I also found out that the different module only add some saturation to the bass signal. The bass is not louder. Its just more and more saturated. So to me, the mX module is the only one usable.

By applying pressure to the ear buds and getting a better experience from them, I understood that some custom ear tips is a necessity if I want to even think of using those.

I think I now understand why the Customer service at 64 Audio highly advised against using custom tips with the U12t. It seems evident that it is for the same reason they didn't answer when I told them I needed the Custom ones.

Anyways...

Tonight I'm also testing a new monitoring system here. It's called VSX and it's a bundle that come with a set of Headphone with beryllium drivers and a spatial plugin to use in a DAW to simulate different mixing environment.

So the U12t are going back in their leather puck for the rest of the night.

So to resume. A very productive day.

The biggest issue was resolved with the new cable and the rendering seem to beg for custom ear tips, which I will provide an ear print to a custom ear tip company next week.

Oh, and before I forget (and that will make most of you happy), I did apply an EQ and lowered the digital output accordingly to avoid clipping and it did help a bit, I can't lie.

But nothing like the correct ear tips or applying the proper pressure on the ear buds so they can fit properly inside of my ears. Those 2 things alone change the rendering massively.

 

[markanini]

What would you have me do about it ? haha

Exchange them against a set of 50$ IEM because they measure flat ?

I mean, you're making it sound like I have to EQ them or get those other cheaper IEM so I stop having those connectors issue.....

Let's take a deep breath and aim at a solution with what we have in hand and then advise when all attempt to fix the issue have failed.

Of course I will try to fix the obvious issues. I might be into something if I actually give them all the chance to shine. Until then, my impression is just uninformed at best as there's 2 component that seem to cause issue here.

But I'm with you. I want THE BEST AND NOW.

Sadly, that's rarely how life work.

Maybe you will eventually familiarize yourself with what you have outwardly conveyed here. You're complaining for days about how things you try isn't working out to your satisfaction. Yet you purchased even more gear and have been resistant to suggestions given by multiple knowledgeable people, which have accurately predicted the outcome you've reported so far. The notion of telling someone what to do doesn't really apply when sensing a disconnect in communication and/or consequential thinking. Given the circumstances it's probably impossible to give good advice with any certainty, yet here we are.

 

[Deleted member 57422]

Maybe you will eventually familiarize yourself with what you have outwardly conveyed here. You're complaining for days about how things you try isn't working out to your satisfaction. Yet you purchased even more gear and have been resistant to suggestions given by multiple knowledgeable people, which have accurately predicted the outcome you've reported so far. The notion of telling someone what to do doesn't really apply when sensing a disconnect in communication and/or consequential thinking. Given the circumstances it's probably impossible to give good advice with any certainty, yet here we are.

I purchased more gear BEFORE getting the U12t. Again, please stop assuming and presuming when you just don't know the situation. Its your second time talking junks here. Don't do that with me.

I'm complaining for days...as far as I know, before today (where i clearly said I'm going in the right direction) it was my 2nd day reviewing and trying those headphones, so again, back down a notch with your exaggeration.

I haven't seen anyone saying that my issue was a faulty cable before I mentionned it. How could they!? Please prove me wrong and quote who said I had a faulty cable before I mentioned the cause of my issues.

Talking about being disconnected, you seem to give us all a great example. I'm still not sure if you're a troll or just someone that has communication issues.

But you're more then welcome to keep on following my review...or not. It's really your choice and I wont force my opinion down your throat like an extremist.

Just so you know, I'm not asking for help nor advice as it seem to be a general misconception here.

Have yourself a great Friday night buddy.