Objectivist friendly and wallet friendly IEM?

[JohnYang1997]

The high frequency boost in IE response is simply due to the couplers. Assuming people eqed the measured iems flat in ears even after 10khz. It's not going to be flat in couplers.
The coupler is designed to be accurate measuring at reference plane which is equivalent to the second bend in the human ear canal. Etymotic's earphones are designed to be inserted to such depths and is expected to perform the same way as measured. If the insertion depth is changed the response will change in the ear canal.
In measurement rig it's even more difficult. Because the coupler is only designed to be measured at such depth if you don't insert that deep it's not representing the human ear canal. The main issue is the ear canal extension. It's arbitrarily designed and does no good. Remember the standard iec 711 was really really old. At that time no one except etymotic was into accurate iem design. Etymotic used Swizlocki coupler for the initial er4 design. The coupler later on matched the iec 711 standard which happened after the coupler was designed. The coupler was owned by Knowles (yes the famous BA manufacturer) at first then sold to GRAS that we know for this. Anyway, the response is only accurate up to 6khz for shallow inserting type as the coupler's resonance move down around that region from 13.5khz. That's why you see most IEMs have a peak around 7-8khz. And it's both artificial and truthful. In human ear you will hear a peak around 6-7khz but what happens afterwards are not going to be meaningful. Harman's IE target is this thing's fault.Then GRAS went ahead and tweaked the response to reduce the peak instead of redesign the coupler to match the impedance regardless of insertion depth making everything even worse. Jude's z1r measurement is caused by this.

 

[ZolaIII]

Truly neutral earphones or headphones are in domain of science fiction. How you like them is your personal appeal & the matter of choice. What's considered "studio grade" is based on the three point measurements (low, mid and upper) for each frequency range (lows, mids and highs) is deviating less than 3 dB from flat. I personally like as flat as possible, a tad of excitement in mids or brightness if nicely put is OK but that's about it. For me what comes closest to this for now is Onkyo E700M (analytic bass, great mids, great highs bright but not sibling) in the realm of in ear one's, unfortunately they cabling is bad so if you have them or planned to get one's putting a little flexible gelly glue in the shells cable intake helps. They can be obtained cheaply from Ali but it's questionable if they are genuine. I personally found my love in Aurvanu Air earbuds (great mids, fairly good bass [no sub bass obviously as those are earbuds] & OK highs, a tad bright with punch hole on coshion they qualify for studio monitors) as I don't like & get irritation from anything in my inter ear channels, sure memory foam ear tips help but they also destroy lower bass. Nor failing out of my ears. The more budget friendly alternative sounding pretty similar would be Edifier P/H 190. Best Bass analytical in ear one's for me are MEE M6 Pro (first generation with duble or triple silicon eartips ) but there are pretty much horrible in everything else (slight recessed but just OK mids, horrible highs and chanel imbalance). For me a reference headphones are old, rare vintage Pioneer Monitor 10 II one's that I use very rarely as I consider them as a trophy & they are very heavy.

My 5¢ on the topic.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Truly neutral earphones or headphones are in domain of science fiction. How you like them is your personal appeal & the matter of choice. What's considered "studio grade" is based on the three point measurements (low, mid and upper) for each frequency range (lows, mids and highs) is deviating less than 3 dB from flat. I personally like as flat as possible, a tad of excitement or brightness if nicely put is OK but that's about it. For me what comes closest to this for now is Onkyo E700M (analytic bass, great mids, great highs bright but not sibling) in the realm of in ear one's, unfortunately they cabling is bad so if you have them or planned to get one's putting a little flexible gelly glue in the shells cable intake helps. They can be obtained cheaply from Ali but it's questionable if they are genuine. I personally found my love in Aurvanu Air earbuds (great mids, fairly good bass [no sub bass obviously as those are earbuds] & OK highs, a tad bright with punch hole on coshion they qualify for studio monitors) as I don't like & get irritation from anything in my inter ear channels, sure memory foam ear tips help but they also destroy lower bass. Nor failing out of my ears. The more budget friendly alternative sounding pretty similar would be Edifier P/H 190. Best Bass analytical in ear one's for me are MEE M6 Pro (first generation with duble or triple silicon eartips ) but there are pretty much horrible in everything else (slight recessed but just OK mids, horrible highs and chanel imbalance). For me a reference headphones are old, rare vintage Pioneer Monitor 10 II one's that I use very rarely as I consider them as a trophy & they are very heavy.

My 5¢ on the topic.

Since you loved Creative Air. I highly recommend the moondrop chaconne. It's astonishingly good.

 

[ZolaIII]

755 is pretty good on its own and for the price you can't argue.

I can argue; imaginary price & usability for something that whose companion of Sony SB BT range with shot cable's and very limited availability.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I can argue; imaginary price & usability for something that whose companion of Sony SB BT range with shot cable's and very limited availability.

You could buy one for 3 dollars for a mh755. I bought a few for 10 RMB(less than 2 usd) in end of 2018- early 2019 a pair. I also bought 6 pairs of mh1c for 10 dollars each in Australia from GB on ebay.

Well. If you cannot get mh755 or mh1c anymore you can still get moondrop spaceship which is directly influenced by these two products. They made it widely available and very cheap.

 

[ZolaIII]

You could buy one for 3 dollars for a mh755. I bought a few for 10 RMB(less than 2 usd) in end of 2018- early 2019 a pair. I also bought 6 pairs of mh1c for 10 dollars each in Australia from GB on ebay.

Good for you, I have SB52 & belonging one's. Nope Chaconne doesn't even come close; sound wise & it's about Foster paper cone drivers & design (functionality) wise. Try Edifier 190 H/P one's, that's actually reference Foster model with slapped on Edifier branding.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Good for you, I have SB52 & belonging one's. Nope Chaconne doesn't even come close; sound wise & it's about Foster paper cone drives & design (functionality) wise. Try Edifier H/P one's, that's actually reference Foster model with slapped on Edifier branding.

I got one sbh24 as well. It comes with mh755.
On the earbud... Chaconne is not close for sure but it's the most accurate one. I was giving recommendation based on that you accept ear bud type.

 

[cleareyes]

I bought a couple of cheap iems, following crimacle’s list. The one I liked the best is Sony mh755. I find it incredible how it can be so cheap, yet sound so good. I recently upgraded to the Sony Ex800st which I’m absolutely loving. I found both on eBay. Iems I’m currently interested in are the moondrop s8

 

[ZolaIII]

@JohnYang1997 Aurvanu Air.

 

[Berwhale]

People taking Harman Target as god's message is hilarious. Their direction is correct but there are flaws.

Nobody here is saying that the Harman targets are perfect, but they are a good place to start. Your use of emotive words and phrases such as 'sound like shit', 'literally jokes' and 'as god's message is hilarious' debase your technical points, irrespective of their validity or relevance.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Nobody here is saying that the Harman targets are perfect, but they are a good place to start. Your use of emotive words and phrases such as 'sound like shit', 'literally jokes' and 'as god's message is hilarious' debase your technical points, irrespective of their validity or relevance.

What you are saying are simply what I said.
However my point of Harman Target OE/AE and IE are completely different.
Why I'm saying that because people literally don't give a fuck about what others say unless it's Harman themselves. Etymotic already done the work for reproducing studio quality sound 30 years ago. Why it has to be when Harman publish their target which is completely subjective driven? While all the people who pro-Harman are about accurately reproduction. It's so funny to me.

Harman Target is just another start. People should improve upon it or to at least try to replicate the result.

Also Harman IE just sound like shit. There's no room for discussion. I also don't want to waste any more time on the IE target.

Also also, what I said regardless being sounding harsh are absolutely true. Who am I? Just another guy who actually care about accurate reproduction?

 

[thewas]

@JohnYang1997, could you please post the target curve of you or Etymotic compared to the Harman one? Would be interesting to see directly their difference.

 

[JohnYang1997]

@JohnYang1997, could you please post the target curve of you or Etymotic compared to the Harman one? Would be interesting to see directly their difference.

Will try.

 

[JohnYang1997]

The best that I can do for now. @thewas_

 

[JohnYang1997]

Also consider the fact that 2013 and 2015 versions are different. Better choice would be 2013 version without high frequency roll off. This goes back the issue of selecting only two adjustable bands. The 2015 version tries to compensate for the less of 200-400hz and 10khz energy in the 2013 version it increased both bands which alter the curve to a worse place. If you go back and look at the etymotic curve you'd see except for lack of bass it's very good. Er4xr also adds bass in a tasty way that all below 500hz gets boosted a little. (adding port also has negative effect on higher frequencies but the bass is very nice). But there are people who actually likes the deep bass without affecting mids. That's personal preference I'm not against that.

 

[thewas]

View attachment 50383
The best that I can do for now. @thewas_

Thank you, the differences except on the deep bass are smaller than I expected being almost identical in the most important musically and pychoacoustically mid region (200-3000 Hz) and just around 2dB at higher frequencies, so personally if Iike the one, I wouldn't describe the other as bad as you did. About the low bass as you say it depends alot with recordings, listening levels and personal preference.

 

[Fregly]

Since you loved Creative Air. I highly recommend the moondrop chaconne. It's astonishingly good.

John, do you have a frequency graph of the Chaconne? Or perhaps you could compare it to the Etymotics.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Thank you, the differences except on the deep bass are smaller than I expected being almost identical in the most important musically and pychoacoustically mid region (200-3000 Hz) and just around 2dB at higher frequencies, so personally if Iike the one, I wouldn't describe the other as bad as you did. About the low bass as you say it depends alot with recordings, listening levels and personal preference.

First of all I'm not again Harman Target OE/AE at all. The one that's really bad is the IE target.

Also 2db in your eyes is not much. But actually considering being a target, 2db is really a lot. Also the roll off is much much steeper on the Harman target because you have both too much 6khz and too little 10khz+ at the same time. This gives a perceptional 4db difference. This is really a lot. And this is just the target itself.

If you look at the iems and headphones from Harman like n5005, k371 k361 they resemble zero of those characters in high frequencies. This indicated that Harman do not consider the Harman Target as the absolute Target. The other ones from Moondrop despite having a different target still managed to match the Harman Target much better than Harman itself. If you put er4 in comparison, it will look very ugly comparing to Harman Target because it has a little too much 1.6khz-2.5khz and less 6-8khz than Etymotic Target which is already like that comparing to Harman Target. But if you have compared er4s to real studio monitors in the studio you will know how close they are.

 

[JohnYang1997]

John, do you have a frequency graph of the Chaconne? Or perhaps you could compare it to the Etymotics.

It's extremely difficult to measure chaconne. Both because the coupler is not designed to measure that and open air earbuds' response depending a lot on seal. But as I can listen it's very close to etymotic target. It's simply one of the best and most accurate sounding earphones I've heard. It's pretty similar to hd600. I haven't done direct comparison but from my memory they are very similar.

 

[JohnYang1997]

This is chaconne's response with moondrop's target compensated. But don't take it too seriously.