The IEM Maze - Features - Eartips, Cables, Vents, #of Drivers, Type of Drivers, Shell Material, etc, etc - How significant are these?

[OK1]

OK. I'm making progress, albeit it took far too long - several months. Worked my way through several challenges.

1. DACs - ended up with a TempoTec Sonata BHD, which I'm pretty pleased with, and am unlikely to upgrade, unless I'm really flush with cash. Has ASIO drivers, one of my requirements
2. IEM's - been using a CCA CRA V2 (Revised CCA CRA), which I'm very pleased with - most revealing and accurate and balanced transducer thing I have ever put on or in my ears. And I have a KZ ZVX on order, as insurance, also to see where diminishing returns lie, in aiming to get something better than the CCA CRA. Tired of reading or listening to reviews, best I educate my ears.
3. Discovered AliExpress, to lower the cost of acquisition. This has really helped, make this journey as pain free to the pocket as possible

Although I am not likely to invest much more in IEMs, there is so much temptation.

Both of the IEMs I have bought are single dynamic driver IEMs - aka 1DD.

In my search I found all kinds of options and am wondering how much value is there in these, or is all just snake oil.

I'll list these options in the next post

 

[OK1]

OPTIONS/IEM FEATURES

1. Driver configurations - from 1DD to 12 drivers in one earpiece - C'mon, is more better? Are there examples of IEMs where a few more drivers is universally agreed to be better. I'm thinking 1DD without crossovers, is great, but I am familiar with a real world of speakers where most speakers have at least two drivers, and usually 3 ways tend to be better than 2 ways. That is my simpleton thinking, but this may not apply to IEMs. I'd like to know what the truth is. But I also know that more drivers means more work for the designer (cos its more complex).

2. Almost every reviewer except AmirM, goes on and on and on about cable quality, and I look at the cable that came with my CCA CRA, and have absolutely no complaints - Its a cable - it has copper strands, it does not tangle, it just works. What more should I be looking for?

2.1 Silver coating?
2.2 Multi Core? 4, 8, 16 - what is all this about?
2.3 Chin whatever - some kind of thing that can slide up and down the cable - my cable does not have one, from the reviews, but what advantage does this provide?

Now that my IEMs cost no more than $15 each, any advantage in spending up to $50 on a replacement cable?

I'm using the unbalanced output of my dongle, and one of the reasons I chose it was it had a 4.4mm balanced output. I'd have to get a suitable cable to pair that output with my IEM, but would it sound any better. The spec sheets tell me that crosstalk which is already low on unbalanced, would reduce, and I would get more power - not that I need it, cos on the unbalanced, I still have about 35dB headroom before clipping, when I play at the loudest possible volume my ears can accomodate for short periods, and that is on the lowest gain setting on the BHD which has three gain settings. I control volume digitally on the computer, with the volume on the dongle set to max.

Will I experience an audible improvement by using a balanced cable connected to the balanced output of the TempoTec Sonata BHD?, and what would that improvement be, if any?

Reminds me of the Hi-Fi world of audio interconnect cables and power cables, with esoteric claims. Is this the same kind of snake oil, rearing its head in IEMs?

3. Vents _ I'm familiar with Open, Semi Open and Closed back over the ear headphones. and their different sonic profiles. Does this apply to IEM's also. How much venting is desirable, and what's the impact. My CCA CRA's have a really small hole, which may have a purpose. Reminds me of ported and non ported speakers. Are these concepts relevant to IEMs, and if so - how relevant?

4. Shell Resonance - Does it matter what the IEM shell is made of - Plastic, Resin, Metal? In the speaker world a lot of attention is paid to the cabinet, to prevent resonances. Do we have a parallel of this with IEM's.

5. Was reading the specs of a new IEM - the CCA CRA Pro - with DLC DD1 - Diamond Like Carbon. any advantage? I read all kinds of things on drivers

Dual Magnetic, Dual Chambers, Planar Magnetic, Balanced Armature, Electrostatic, Hybrid, does any of the non dynamic type drivers add any improvement?

A common thread through all these questions is - at what point should one stop, cos beyond that, the results diminish in comparison to the cost or effort, so we avoid the endless search that all these variations can drive. The manufacturers are happy to tempt us with every new bell and whistle, to their advantage of course.

6. And eartips - Foam, Silicon - I can understand changing size of eartips to get a good fit, but almost every reviewer except AmirM, goes on an on about eartips. Any value in all of this customisation? It makes a mockery of a headphone review, when the reviewer is using a replacement cable and some other eartips that were NOT supplied, with the IEM. What kind of review is that - a review of the cable and the custom eartips? I see this a lot.

7. Do the number of cavities make any difference - e.g Dual cavity on the CCA Polaris?

 

[OK1]

And there is one more - but this is NOT a feature, but who knows it could become one - if manufacturers offer - pre burned in headphones.

Is IEM burn in - a real thing, or just a waste of effort?

 

[nerdstrike]

My opinions in this area:
1. Measurement seems to be difficult for IEMs. They're thin on the ground and very dependent on ear seal for bass. It's more difficult than for speakers across the room.
2. Ear comfort is important, and the bigger multi-driver, wireless or whatever options don't always feel nice in the ear.
3. Excellent performance can be had for cheap, see 7Hz x crinacle zero 2 (or whatever the stupid name is!)
4. The cable should not transmit noise to the ear when you move it around aka non-microphonic.
5. Tip material is whatever works for you. I'm fine with the tips that came with, choosing the size that fits well. The squishy compressing soft ones like to unseal themselves from my ears over time.
6. Burn in is bs. You will take minutes to tune in to the sound, but that's your brain, not the electronics. Ear tips might get easier to use with exercise, then become less good over time.

I won't comment on technology used, armatures etc. I don't think we have the objective data publicly available.

 

[OK1]

My opinions in this area:
1. Measurement seems to be difficult for IEMs. They're thin on the ground and very dependent on ear seal for bass. It's more difficult than for speakers across the room.
2. Ear comfort is important, and the bigger multi-driver, wireless or whatever options don't always feel nice in the ear.
3. Excellent performance can be had for cheap, see 7Hz x crinacle zero 2 (or whatever the stupid name is!)
4. The cable should not transmit noise to the ear when you move it around aka non-microphonic.
5. Tip material is whatever works for you. I'm fine with the tips that came with, choosing the size that fits well. The squishy compressing soft ones like to unseal themselves from my ears over time.
6. Burn in is bs. You will take minutes to tune in to the sound, but that's your brain, not the electronics. Ear tips might get easier to use with exercise, then become less good over time.

I won't comment on technology used, armatures etc. I don't think we have the objective data publicly available.

Excellent thoughts. Thanks.

 

[OK1]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007066783269.html?

What ! - Cable, and that is the price before tax, and customs duties. Of course no one forces anyone to buy. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Reminds me of Audiophile cables - esoteric, probably made from moon dust.

 

[herr.jemine]

View attachment 378997

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007066783269.html?

What ! - Cable, and that is the price before tax, and customs duties. Of course no one forces anyone to buy. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Reminds me of Audiophile cables - esoteric, probably made from moon dust.

the cable was coated with a nano layer of adrenochrome - extracted from dead children in gaza, that's why it's so expensive - joke

 

[majingotan]

View attachment 378997

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007066783269.html?

What ! - Cable, and that is the price before tax, and customs duties. Of course no one forces anyone to buy. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Reminds me of Audiophile cables - esoteric, probably made from moon dust.

They would think that's no good. The one's they're willing to buy that transcends their IEM to real of gods is this below:

 

[OK1]

They would think that's no good. The one's they're willing to buy that transcends their IEM to real of gods is this below:

View attachment 379003

Wow. I cannot believe what I'm seeing. Wow. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[OK1]

There is an interesting parallel in the professional audio industry. Fortunately it does not involve expensive esoteric voodoo cables, manufactured under moonlight.

It occurs that, almost every single high end implementation of speakers, in both the live environment (events) or studio, in today's world has DSP to improve the best that physical manufacturing can do, and take this to another level. Either the DSP is implemented in the speaker, or before audio gets into the speaker. Trinnov manufactures the most acclaimed DSP units for studio/cinema speakers or ATMOS configuration speakers, to give one example, that is generally well accepted as adding value.

In these speaker based industries, there are other physical tweaks done within the speakers themselves, waveguides, port tuning and shape of ports, cabinet design and materials to reduce resonance and edge diffraction.

The manufacturers and the buyers, all have to decide how much attention to be paid to each of these opportunities. Some go the purist route - focus on good solid engineering, no DSP, like PSI and ATI. Others like Kii Three us both good physical architecture and tons of DSP. But all of them can be further refined via a Trinnov solution.

I've been watching videos by Paul Wasabii, AnyAudioVault(Dongle Madness) and Akros, and a few others, and I get the impression - no evidence to back it up yet, that resonance could be an issue - between say metal and "plastic" shells. AND foam eartips can definitely smoothen the bumps in the high frequencies - and this one is measurable. I have seen graphs on various squig.links which support this assertion.

While I am pretty satisfied with the audio quality of my CCA CRA 2023 revision, without EQ, EQ using options on AutoEQ, does tame the bass noticeably, but I cannot say if this improves the result or not, since I do not have a reference against which I can check. I have not found any measurements that are specific to the CCA CRA 2023 version so any AutoEQ corrections may be wrong, since these are based on the OG CCA CRA! So for now I'll probably just stick to the non-EQ'd result. Cos any corrections could be completely wrong. Maybe a simple shelf EQ in the bass should be enough, to tame things. I've added a bit of a shelf on the high end to tame the harshness, kind of slightly reversing the V shape.- improves the clarity in the mids - making voices just that bit more clear, and the whole audio feels a bit less distorted and smoother. Even less fatiguing. I am unable to measure my own IEM, so think that any further tweaks are just guess work and could be counter productive.

Especially as we do not have any room reflections to deal with, would be interesting to see how effective EQ alone, could be an effective enhancement.

Wonder what the future looks like - DSP in the earpieces, responsible for crossover duties, feeding multiple drivers? AND?OR there to shape the Frequency Response - already available in some IEM's with DAC's fitted in their cables.

 

[Basic Channel]

My opinions in this area:
1. Measurement seems to be difficult for IEMs. They're thin on the ground and very dependent on ear seal for bass. It's more difficult than for speakers across the room.
2. Ear comfort is important, and the bigger multi-driver, wireless or whatever options don't always feel nice in the ear.
3. Excellent performance can be had for cheap, see 7Hz x crinacle zero 2 (or whatever the stupid name is!)
4. The cable should not transmit noise to the ear when you move it around aka non-microphonic.
5. Tip material is whatever works for you. I'm fine with the tips that came with, choosing the size that fits well. The squishy compressing soft ones like to unseal themselves from my ears over time.
6. Burn in is bs. You will take minutes to tune in to the sound, but that's your brain, not the electronics. Ear tips might get easier to use with exercise, then become less good over time.

I won't comment on technology used, armatures etc. I don't think we have the objective data publicly available.

I'd agree with this, but I'd say eartips make (or can make) a bit of a difference (and they can also make no apparent difference whatsoever) Say the final couple of percent. I also think that the stethoscope effect can partly relate to the eartips as well as the cable. But I suppose they maybe just excapserate a bad cable (in my case the 7hz salnotes zero).

I wouldn't say there is a "wow" to the correct eartips, but they are more comfortable with regards to my tinnitus. I kinda feel like the wider bore ones I have tried don't annoy it as much.

On the latter point, I'd say I have very little experience of different IEMs so even things that I think that are true might not only apply to my ears, but also only to a particular IEM (or couple).

 

[anaveragebear]

1. More is not necessarily better. The number of drivers used does not correlate to the fidelity of the result, and afaik it also doesn't necessarily increase tuning difficulty. In fact, my understanding is that Balanced Armatures are easier to tune. But this is electrical engineering, and I am out of my depth.

2. Cables mostly just come down to microphonics (does it make noise when it moves around) and aesthetics. There are edge cases with IEMs that are super sensitive and low impedance where the resistance of the cable can cause measurable changes to tuning, but that's extremely rare and maybe not even audible anyways.

2.1. marketing bullshit
2.2. just affects aesthetics and also can impact comfort and durability depending on thickness.
2.3. a chin slider can help avoid the cable getting tangled up in things when you're wearing it and increase fit security for some people. That's it.

If you really like the look of a 50 dollar cable and you have the money, then knock yourself out. But don't get it because you think it will improve sound quality.

Regarding balanced vs unbalanced --- balanced is objectively better but subjectively you won't hear a difference. It will, however, use more power, so if you're using a portable dongle your battery will drain much more quickly.

3. Venting helps relieve pressure that gets built up by shoving an otherwise-solid object into your ear canal, which for some people becomes uncomfortable after a bit. This comes at the expense of noise isolation. It also is used in tuning, but I don't know enough about that part to comment further.

4. Can't comment on this.

5. Also defer to the input of someone who knows what they are talking about re material physics and acoustics. If you must have my input, it's probably marketing BS for something as small-scale as an IEM.

You COULD stop once you own something that measures objectively well and that you like subjectively. You SHOULD stop when you are buying things just "to have them" or "to try them" when you don't have the disposable income to do so. The new shiny thing won't change your life, but collecting can be fun.

6. Eartips have an impact on the comfort front as well as the sonic front. The difference they make is highly dependent on your own anatomy and how it interfaces with the dimensions of the specific IEM. You can get a sense of what sonic difference a specific eartip might make by looking for patterns in changes to measurements across rigs, but the only real way to know is to have a lot of eartips to try. After buying a different IEM and using EQ, this is where you stand to make the biggest impact to your listening experience.

 

[OK1]

Thanks. Highly appreciate all your thoughts and conclusions.

1. More is not necessarily better. The number of drivers used does not correlate to the fidelity of the result, and afaik it also doesn't necessarily increase tuning difficulty. In fact, my understanding is that Balanced Armatures are easier to tune. But this is electrical engineering, and I am out of my depth.

2. Cables mostly just come down to microphonics (does it make noise when it moves around) and aesthetics. There are edge cases with IEMs that are super sensitive and low impedance where the resistance of the cable can cause measurable changes to tuning, but that's extremely rare and maybe not even audible anyways.

2.1. marketing bullshit
2.2. just affects aesthetics and also can impact comfort and durability depending on thickness.
2.3. a chin slider can help avoid the cable getting tangled up in things when you're wearing it and increase fit security for some people. That's it.

I ordered some custom cables, for two reasons :

1. Just to have a silver coated one, cos all I have now is a pure copper one - which is fine
2. To have a 3.5 mm connector without the microphone contacts, cos an old digital piano of mine's headphone outputs, skewed the audio to the left ear.

So far more about function, than aesthetics. My suspicion is any other old headphone jack I have (or adapters - 3.5mm to 6.35mm) which does not work well with microphone connections, would have the same issue, and I do have a few of these - old audio interfaces, and old digital sound modules, and old digital keyboards, from a time before microphone contacts were added to the 3.5mm format.

And the cable was less than $5 shipping and taxes included. So negligible cost.

If you really like the look of a 50 dollar cable and you have the money, then knock yourself out. But don't get it because you think it will improve sound quality.

Regarding balanced vs unbalanced --- balanced is objectively better but subjectively you won't hear a difference. It will, however, use more power, so if you're using a portable dongle your battery will drain much more quickly.

3. Venting helps relieve pressure that gets built up by shoving an otherwise-solid object into your ear canal, which for some people becomes uncomfortable after a bit. This comes at the expense of noise isolation. It also is used in tuning, but I don't know enough about that part to comment further.

4. Can't comment on this.

5. Also defer to the input of someone who knows what they are talking about re material physics and acoustics. If you must have my input, it's probably marketing BS for something as small-scale as an IEM.

You COULD stop once you own something that measures objectively well and that you like subjectively. You SHOULD stop when you are buying things just "to have them" or "to try them" when you don't have the disposable income to do so. The new shiny thing won't change your life, but collecting can be fun.

6. Eartips have an impact on the comfort front as well as the sonic front. The difference they make is highly dependent on your own anatomy and how it interfaces with the dimensions of the specific IEM. You can get a sense of what sonic difference a specific eartip might make by looking for patterns in changes to measurements across rigs, but the only real way to know is to have a lot of eartips to try. After buying a different IEM and using EQ, this is where you stand to make the biggest impact to your listening experience.

There are many temptations, so many, but I'm doing my best to keep well within disposable income. Succeeding so far. Especially love what you said here :

You COULD stop once you own something that measures objectively well and that you like subjectively. You SHOULD stop when you are buying things just "to have them" or "to try them" when you don't have the disposable income to do so. The new shiny thing won't change your life, but collecting can be fun.

AND absolutely agree with this here, based on what I've learnt from reviews where different pairings with eartips are measured. :

6. Eartips have an impact on the comfort front as well as the sonic front. The difference they make is highly dependent on your own anatomy and how it interfaces with the dimensions of the specific IEM. You can get a sense of what sonic difference a specific eartip might make by looking for patterns in changes to measurements across rigs, but the only real way to know is to have a lot of eartips to try. After buying a different IEM and using EQ, this is where you stand to make the biggest impact to your listening experience.

Not a priority and also not expensive, over time I'll try my hands at one or two third party sets of eartips - 1 foam set, if the KZ ZVX in transit which I ordered, does not come with foam sets.

I've found that parametric EQ - of the broadband kind, slight shelving at the top and bottom(just two bands of parametric EQ), to be more effective than the tools like AutoEQ. I'm not aiming to iron out any innate characteristics of the specific IEM I have bought, only to tame its worst excesses where they exist. Some shaving of the bottom and top, opened up the clarity, even more. Kind of like dampened the mud and tamed a certain shrillness/distortion. Small changes to huge effect. The main challenge with EQ is its difficult to compare cos its difficult to match the pre and post EQ loudness, so this impression of improvement could be subjective and attributable to the change in loudness !!

Unless I was able to measure my own copy of the headphone, I would not bother with any further EQ, cos of the possibility of variations in manufacture - and silent revisions, which all companies including the very best like Sony and Sennheiser also do. I find it bothersome that Chinese manufacturers are unfairly berated by reviewers, for doing same.

Even more important has been choosing the right size of eartip, and learning how to insert them properly. Insertion depth variations, produce the most significant changes to the frequency response(FR), in my experience, especially at the low end. And learning how simple things like speaking, eating, sneezing, coughing or otherwise change to the tension in the jaw muscles changes FR. Simple things like the tilt angle of the neck, also change this FR by changing the sealing of the eartips. The open mouth before inserting and closing mouth after inserting, to aid with proper fitting is an interesting technique.

 

[anaveragebear]

Thanks. Highly appreciate all your thoughts and conclusions.



I ordered some custom cables, for two reasons :

1. Just to have a silver coated one, cos all I have now is a pure copper one - which is fine
2. To have a 3.5 mm connector without the microphone contacts, cos an old digital piano of mine's headphone outputs, skewed the audio to the left ear.

So far more about function, than aesthetics. My suspicion is any other old headphone jack I have (or adapters - 3.5mm to 6.35mm) which does not work well with microphone connections, would have the same issue, and I do have a few of these - old audio interfaces, and old digital sound modules, and old digital keyboards, from a time before microphone contacts were added to the 3.5mm format.

And the cable was less than $5 shipping and taxes included. So negligible cost.




There are many temptations, so many, but I'm doing my best to keep well within disposable income. Succeeding so far. Especially love what you said here :



AND absolutely agree with this here, based on what I've learnt from reviews where different pairings with eartips are measured. :


Not a priority and also not expensive, over time I'll try my hands at one or two third party sets of eartips - 1 foam set, if the KZ ZVX in transit which I ordered, does not come with foam sets.

I've found that parametric EQ - of the broadband kind, slight shelving at the top and bottom(just two bands of parametric EQ), to be more effective than the tools like AutoEQ. I'm not aiming to iron out any innate characteristics of the specific IEM I have bought, only to tame its worst excesses where they exist. Some shaving of the bottom and top, opened up the clarity, even more. Kind of like dampened the mud and tamed a certain shrillness/distortion. Small changes to huge effect. The main challenge with EQ is its difficult to compare cos its difficult to match the pre and post EQ loudness, so this impression of improvement could be subjective and attributable to the change in loudness !!

Unless I was able to measure my own copy of the headphone, I would not bother with any further EQ, cos of the possibility of variations in manufacture - and silent revisions, which all companies including the very best like Sony and Sennheiser also do. I find it bothersome that Chinese manufacturers are unfairly berated by reviewers, for doing same.

Even more important has been choosing the right size of eartip, and learning how to insert them properly. Insertion depth variations, produce the most significant changes to the frequency response(FR), in my experience, especially at the low end. And learning how simple things like speaking, eating, sneezing, coughing or otherwise change to the tension in the jaw muscles changes FR. Simple things like the tilt angle of the neck, also change this FR by changing the sealing of the eartips. The open mouth before inserting and closing mouth after inserting, to aid with proper fitting is an interesting technique.

Sounds good. One great application of EQ is also to control for quirks in your own hearing. For example, I always set a band just on the left channel to boost an extra 1-2 dB at 100Hz or so to account for a built in channel imbalance in my ears.

 

[OK1]

Sounds good. One great application of EQ is also to control for quirks in your own hearing. For example, I always set a band just on the left channel to boost an extra 1-2 dB at 100Hz or so to account for a built in channel imbalance in my ears.

I am aware that my ears definitely do NOT have the same frequency response, to the best of my knowledge. One tends to hear bass a bit more. When I was using earbuds from Sony, it was such a terrible thing. And i'd struggle with what I felt were volume imbalances that shifted the phantom center to my left. I once had to use software to adjust the balance.

And it was easy to see, by swapping the left/right earpieces, to realise that some of the level imbalance and frequency response was coming from the earbuds. I bought three different examples of the same Sony earbud, and none of them sounded the same as any other.

But as I got better IEM's especially once I got my 1st proper IEM, a CCA CRA (2023 revision), either I have compensated, or because of better consistency between the frequency response of left/right due to higher quality manufacturing/design. I had completely forgotten about any hearing anomalies, since I got these, until you reminded me.

Part of the challenge with IEM's is positioning, it's so sensitive to insertion depth, so sensitive, so easy to skew the stereo balance, due to manual error, inserting one earpiece a bit differently from the other. In my case I know the outer ear canals are NOT exactly the same size, but fortunately I can still use the same size eartips.

With a bit of EQ, I have been so happy with the CCA CRA's, huge improvement from what I was listening to before. So happy, able to hear very well into music, speech, hear the words being sung, stereo balance, etc, even at low comfortable listening levels, for long periods. Highly resolving listening. Extremely pleased with them, once I put on the right eartips - large which came with the product, and after extensive listening, did the minor manual EQ tweaks, shelf at low and high end, to reverse some of their natural V shape Frequency Response. If this IEM (the 2023 revision), which is NOT highly regarded by any reviews I have read or listened to, can sound so transparent, and satisfactory and revealing, to me, I wonder what better sounds like. Which is the only reason I'll try a few other IEM's without spending too much money. A KZ ZVX, which seems to be highly rated by many reviewers is on order, to arrive soon.

 

[OK1]

I have been experimenting with crossfeed for at least 3 years, i.e in software plugins, in my DAW - Reaper. Comparing about 12 or more different tools or settings in tools, and that is another possible enhancement that I'd suggest, as an experiment.

After extensive listening, I've discovered another aspect of listening on headphones, something I would call the Azimuth. Some refer to this as height. As part of our psychoacoustic hearing - bright sounds seem higher, than low frequency sounds, so EQ adjustments, insertion depth, and any other changes which alter frequency also have a tendency to shift audio - Up or down, on the horizontal plane. I have not heard anyone discuss this, on the web, but that was my experience, and it's very repeatable.

It's possible with some ambisonic tools to alter this azimuth presentation.

But eventually I've, after much testing, over years settled on a tool which I still do not understand what it does - ReaSurround which is only available in Reaper. I was able to - by experiment achieve some settings that narrow the extreme stereo width that occurs without using crossfeed. I have no clue if ReaSurround does any delay of certain frequencies, from one ear to the other ear, which is the common feature in crossfeed solutions. But this has also taken my listening to a much better level of pin point sharp accuracy of placement, without any untoward effects on frequency response. And the azimuth stays fantastic - audio is coming from a horizontal not from above or from below., pin sharp.

The difference is not night and day, but I think over time, my ear became more critical, and especially with better resolving tools like the CCA CRA, I have been able to hear even better, the difference between crossfeed solutions. None of them is bad, but I would say the commercial options I tried, were a bit of snake oil - all of them, did all kinds of things to the frequency response and placement. Same with the various Room emulation features in these kinds of headphone software based listening augmentation tools - waste of time and money - thankfully I never bought any, only used the demos.

Definitely this final optimisation is one that I would highly suggest. It has introduced an additional clarity that is impossible for me now to do without. But unfortunately its only available to users of Reaper, and one has to be listening on a computer, works for me cos I do 99% of my critical listening, on a computer. I can imagine it would be impossible to use this on a tablet or mobile phone.

All other crossfeed solutions seem to take something away, compared to the preferred settings I've achieved by experimentation (trial and error) with ReaSurround.

 

[OK1]

Apparently there is a lot more. Physical filters and meshes, can be customised. Where does this stop, the never ending things one can do to improve an IEM?

 

[IAtaman]

Saw this on rtings.com today which reminded me of this thread:

High-End Microwaves Include Inverters for Marketing, Not Performance

(...) Inverters are mainly a marketing tactic in a product category that otherwise lacks differentiation. You don't need to worry about your next microwave having this feature! (...)

Same can be said about many technologies and features in the audio world as well. Luckily for consumer home electronics however, there are no microwavephiles who would happily and willingly propagate the BS created to take their money, so these kinds of trends usually die away relatively fast.

 

[OK1]

Saw this on rtings.com today which reminded me of this thread:

High-End Microwaves Include Inverters for Marketing, Not Performance

(...) Inverters are mainly a marketing tactic in a product category that otherwise lacks differentiation. You don't need to worry about your next microwave having this feature! (...)

Same can be said about many technologies and features in the audio world as well. Luckily for consumer home electronics however, there are no microwavephiles who would happily and willingly propagate the BS created to take their money, so these kinds of trends usually die away relatively fast.

There is a lot of nuance on listening devices. At the time I started this thread I had experience with only one proper IEM - a CCA CRA (2023 revision). It was definitely a massive improvement over the cheapie Sony and JVC earbuds, IEM like things and the Apple Earpod. I really liked the CCA CRA. It was miles ahead of these other things,

Then I got a KZ ZVX, which took things to another level, quality of shell, fit, and more balanced frequency curve, with definitely more resolution. So much easier to hear everything in the audio. Definitely more refined. And the incremental cost was about $3 over what I paid for the CCA CRA, if I had bought one with the same like for like - i.e with a microphone. But buying the KZ ZVX without a microphone, brought the cost lower than the CCA CRA with a microphone. For critical listening I do not need a microphone.

Factors I have found to be important, in order of importance.

1. Driver(s)

The main thing I think is that the KZ ZVX I have (which is alleged also to be a revision, and that allegation is partly true, cos it definitely did not come with the foam ear tips of the KZ ZVX Original - mine come with black silicon tips - spinfit type - with notches at the tiny end of the tips), has a different driver from the CCA CRA, a better driver.

So I think from a sonics perspective, the key factor seems to be - The driver or drivers (and in the case of drivers - how integrated these are across the frequency spectrum). The KZ uses a metal shell, but have no clue how much of an impact this makes to the sound. But it does feel that one is getting more value for money cos the metal shell definitely costs more. It looks really cool, and feels cool. I finally acknowledge that the looks of a product, can have an impact on likeability.

So most of the quality, starts with the headphones, themselves and the design of the drivers/shell/nozzles/whatever - whatever is the default, makes all the difference. Everything else is optimisation. I have stopped listening to the CRA, cos the ZVX is night and day better.

2. Fit

The ZVX is so much easier to fit, when I'm using the most fitting eartips, and maybe the weight of the metal shell, or the slimness of the nozzle bit, makes it kind of like an anchor that fits and keeps the nozzle in the ear, due to the weight of the earpiece. It does not have the super airtight feel of the eartips I was further using on the CRA's. Just a more comfortable - I do not want to take them off ever, but I have to, to listen to real conversations in the real world, cos they do attenuate noise from the outside world considerably, even though they do not have a painful, super tight fit, with the ZVX ear tips I received.

Very slight changes, such as tapping in a bit or dragging it out just a bit, has an impact on the frequency response, raising one's eyebrow, frowning, smiling, coughing, eating, drinking, speaking, wiggling ears, and many head movements, bending and lifting the head, all have some minor variation on the sound. Less so on the ZVX, but on the CRA - every small change in fit, had a more significant variance in the frequency response.

I have no idea how non-silicon eartips would sound, cos all I have are silicon eartips.

3. Audio Level.

I found myself listening at about 2dB over the usual volume at which I listen to the CRA's. Why? It appears that the mids on the CRA are more forward, so the more balanced frequency of the ZVX, needs about 2dB more to hear the audio at about the same level.

4. EQ-ability. I've played around with software based EQ, via my DAW, which is where I listen to almost everything. And using the squig.link, especially the Paul Wasabii one, using between 3 and 5 bands (some bell shaped and shelves at the top and bottom) to refine it further, giving me different listening options which I can save and switch between.

The unequalised result is superb, it really does not need to be EQ'd, but you know us - nerds, we want to get as much as possible, even when we have not spent a lot of money. With EQ, it cleans up the sound and becomes subjectively better - I use subjectively cos I have nothing to objectively measure the result, and share with anyone reading this.

The ZVX definitely responds much better to EQ. i.e whether its placebo or not, I feel I can hear the difference more immediately, and more consistently, when I attempt to do a pseudo blind A/B test, between enabling and disabling each band of the EQ.

I once swore by the use of Auto EQ.app, but now I just use the graphs on squig.link, as my guide. At least I have a choice, of EQ or NO EQ, and 3 different EQ presets, I can switch through depending on how "flat" I want the end result to be.

But this can be a challenge, for one who is not familiar with using EQ, especially a parametric EQ. Like I said, even without EQ, it's a very very decent audio presentation, and taking into consideration, the ZVX is an amazingly fantastic IEM, which can be taken even further, or tuned to personal taste, with a bit of EQ. With a bit of appropriate EQ, the result sound more precise, less bloaty, less resonant, pin sharp.

5. These other factors have nothing to do with the headphone itself. But yield a definitely objectively and subjectively better result.

5.1 I experimented with upsampling from 48K listening to listening @ 96K - and it is worth it. Just that bit clearer, more analytical. I would use the word accurate.
5.2 The DAC/Headphone amp. I found the TempoTec Sonata BHD, to be clearly superior to the Apple dongle, and the GraveAudio-CX31993 dongle.
5.3 The source - I'm listening to Youtube videos, and there is nothing one can do to improve the audio quality - Nothing. All Youtube audio is lossy compressed. Then I listen to the free Spotify, which sounds better to me than Deezer, but Tidal (even the lowest quality) is definitely better than the free Spotify. So uncompressed CD quality audio preferrable non-streamed or higher quality (not upsampled) copies also non streamed, should be the ultimate listening source.

 

[IAtaman]

I agree with your comments regarding fit, comfort and seal. They are extremely important, maybe even more than FR, because, as you also touched upon, measured FR is relevant to the extend it is correlated with the perceived FR, and fit and seal might have a big impact on that.

Driver tech is mostly marketing in my opinion.

If you build a racing car, and it can go fast, you talk about how fast your car can go mainly. If you are not talking about the speed of the car but how fancy are the materials used in the tires are, then the chances that the car is good is very slim.

Similarly, If your earphones have a good tuning, you would talk about the tuning. And then maybe you talk about how you achieved that tuning using different driver technologies etc. If the driver types and numbers are in the center of your marketing material, and there is very little mention of the tuning itself, then your product most likely sucks.

Regarding up-sampling, and differences between Spotify and Tidal and others - those are distinctions without a difference; which is a topic discussed a billion times already, so happy to agree to disagree there.