Topping Hane IEM Review

[heraldo_jones]

Nonio says 5.80 mm for Arpgear Hane.

6.30 mm for 7Hz

6.35 mm for Zero 2.

6.60 mm for Zero Red.

6.60 mm also for Zero.

Thanks for sharing! I think I'm going to give it a try

 

[oscar_dziki]

Sorry, I have the problem that I can't use the IEM headphones because the ear canal is small, could these headphones be okay?

My wife had similar problem. The only iems that fitted her, were Phonak's (discontinued). Other than that, you probably need to look for ciems

 

[phoenixsong]

My wife had similar problem. The only iems that fitted her, were Phonak's (discontinued). Other than that, you probably need to look for ciems

Whoa were they the Phonak PFE 232? Those had legendary status attached to them when I began my audio journey

 

[oscar_dziki]

Whoa were they the Phonak PFE 232? Those had legendary status attached to them when I began my audio journey

no, it was 122. Back then i couldn't afford 232 but they share the same narrower than usual sound tunnel.

 

[Herbert Shooler]

Just got a pair...AMIR THANKYOU YOU are a GOD of Audio,they really are excellent,beat one costing 1000 plus!

 

[Luciferium]

Guys what you think, if of all switches are in down position (stock tuning), in that case signal will bypass all SMD resistors?

 

[SorpassoSonance]

Just a heads-up for folks to log into their Amazon account and see if they may possibly have a coupon for the Topping Arpegear Hane (it's the $129 listing where the earbuds are shipped by Amazon and sold by Toppingaudio).

I had them on my wishlist and noticed a couple days ago I was being offered a 30% off coupon for them, making them $90.30 before tax. Pulled the trigger. I did no-rush shipping so they aren't arriving until the 13th. Interested to compare them to the pair of Blessing 2s that I have.

I bought a pair of Truthear Holas on October 11th 2023 since they were so cheap. I liked them in terms of comfort and thought the audio quality on them was very good (not as good as the Blessing 2s but shockingly close for a tiny fraction of the price). But the left side stopped working after less than a year of owning them, which seems to be a fairly common complaint about a lot of these sub-$75 IEMs that have good compliance with the Harman curve. Since the Holas were so cheap I didn't bother trying a different cable with them to see if that was the issue--next time it happens I certainly will try a new cable. I got the Moondrop Blessing 2s on August 22nd 2022 and have had no issues with them so far. Hoping the Topping Hanes similarly last much longer than only one year.

 

[zorox]

Thanks for the discount heads up. Hope they come with a decent (heavy) cable.

 

[SorpassoSonance]

Received my pair of Topping Hanes on the 13th and have listened to quite a bit of music with them as well as my Blessing 2s, both connected to a JDS Labs Element III.

Lots to like about them, though I do prefer the Blessing 2s to them. But I will hold on to the Topping Hanes as a quality back-up.

The switches are unique and interesting. I tried out every configuration of them and found turning switch 2 on for both earbuds to be the only meaningful difference. All other configurations were a negligible difference, aside from switch 3 by itself on (treble attenuation), which did make a noticeable albeit deleterious difference (to my ears), causing too much loss of detail. But yes switch 2 by itself on makes the bass more impactful, without compromising the rest of the sound.

They are a bit harder to drive than the Blessing 2s. I listen to the Blessing 2s at -18 dB via the Element III, and switching to the Hanes I have to go to around -9 dB to get the equivalent volume. I would not listen to them unamped, unless it’s just to listen to a podcast, Youtube video, or the like.

They look nice and I have no issue with the included cable. I like that the included tips come in a nice little plastic case. At first I went with the medium sized silicone tips, but ended up switching to the large ones as I found the medium just a hair too small for my ears. The large gives a better seal, though in terms of comfort they are not as comfortable as the silicone tips I use on the Blessing 2s. The Blessing 2 ones are larger than the medium sized Hane ones but a bit smaller than the large size Hane ones. I wish the Hane had an equivalent silicone tip size that was in-between the medium and large ones that they provide. The large size ones are still comfortable, but after an hour or two they start to irritate my ears a bit, whereas I can wear the Blessing 2s practically all day without any discomfort.

Audio quality is very good on the Hanes and close to the Blessing 2s, but doing a lot of A/B comparisons my ears prefer the Blessing 2s. Maybe it’s the minor 1.5 kHz bump on the Blessing 2s that makes me prefer them—I dunno. Of course I am comparing a $90-130 IEM to a $270-320 one, so the Hane performs admirably for its price.

The most laughable thing about the Hanes is the carrying pouch they come with, which is insanely low quality. The pouch that came with $16 Truthear Holas is much better, the hard li’l case the Blessing 2s come with even better still. Though as I said earlier the plastic case the tips come in is very nice and something I wish all IEM manufacturers used.

One thing I am concerned about is the Topping Hanes do not come with replacement damper filters. Thinking about it more I am fairly confident that was the issue with my Truthear Holas. Because the left side of my Blessing 2s went out a couple days after I received the Hanes, in the same way my Holas did less than a year after I purchased them.

The Etymotic ER2SEs were the first IEMs I owned that came with replacement filters, and indeed the audio went out with them in the exact same way they did on my Holas and Blessing 2s, where all of a sudden the audio went out on one of the earbuds. (When it happens the audio doesn’t entirely go out, but one earbud becomes significantly quieter than the other, which obviously ruins listening to them.) Since the ER2SEs came with the replacement filters and clearly spelled out that at some point you would have to replace them with clear instructions on how to do so, it was obvious when one of the buds went out that replacing the filter was the solution.

I got the Etymotic ER2SEs on June 22nd 2021. Liked them quite a bit in terms of sound quality, and the odd flange tips didn’t bother me in terms of comfort, but the tips did become dirty relatively quickly. Even washing them with warm water and a bit of dish soap they still looked worse than any other silicone tips I’ve used on IEMs over the years. So I gave up on them in late 2023, the same time I got the Holas. But by the time the left earbud on the Hola went out/became significantly more quiet, it had been a while since I had needed to replace a filter on the ER2SEs and also the Holas did not come with replacement filters so I stupidly failed to realize that was the cause of the issue there.

And now just a week and a half ago the exact same thing happened with the left earbud on my Blessing 2s. Thankfully Moondrop has included replacement damper filters with all of their IEMs since 2020, so all I had to do was remove the old one and put the new one on and full volume was restored.

My point being all three of the IEMs I’ve bought in the last five years (Etymotic ER2SEs, Moondrop Blessing 2s, and Truthear Holas) have had one of the buds become significantly more quiet after some period of usage (less than one year in the case of the Holas, a bit over a year for the ER2SEs, and three years for the Blessing 2s) because of the damper filter needing to be replaced due to wax buildup. Two of those three IEMs came with replacement filters (the Etymotic ER2SEs and Moondrop Blessing 2s), one of them (the Truthear Holas) did not.

If you look at Amazon reviews of various well-regarded IEMs with favorable frequency response curves, the majority of the 1 star reviews are from people that have one of the earbuds go out on them in the same way I am describing anywhere from 6 months to a few years later. The price and manufacturer does not seem to matter. I understand that reviewers can’t possibly take into account the longterm reliability of a given set of headphones when they are measuring and listening to them, other than noting the build quality. But based on all those 1 star Amazon reviews for myriad well-regarded IEMs as well as my own experience with them over the last five years, I think mentioning whether or not a pair of IEMs comes with damper filter replacements should become normalized, as it seems most of them will need to be replaced at some point.

The dust screen on the Hanes looks like a mostly solid surface with microscopic holes so hopefully the filter that is presumably underneath the screen won’t need to be replaced for a long time. The Truthear Hola dust screen was more porous by comparison.

 

[Olius]

I've been using these with my phone now for a little more than 6 months and I really like them. I use a Tripowin cable that has a microphone so I can use them to talk to people when needed.

I purchased them to replace my Truthear Zero Blue IEMs I was using before. The main thing that made me want these was the lower sensitivity, because I have very sensitive hearing. On iPhone there's this feature that you (seemingly) can't turn off that varies the volume of phone calls depending on how noisy the environment you're in is. So my Thruthear Zero:s might be fine indoors but as soon as you go out and ride the subway the phone raises the volume to extremely painful levels whether you want it to or not. It does this with phone calls and Microsoft Teams, not with music or youtube videos. So with the much more insensitive Hane, my phone doesn't have the capability to hurt my ears in the same way. I'm using them with the standard apple headphone dongle and I don't even have to use max volume for them to get plenty loud for my taste when listening to music, though I am close to the upper volume limit sometimes. I have the +4dB bass switch engaged, I like that it makes them even less sensitive and it also makes the bass much more audible and more balanced on a rumbly subway for example.

The second reason was the slightly smaller diameter of the sound tunnels compared to the Truthear Zero:s. It's not much smaller but it makes a difference. It's incredible how much better these are at staying in my ears without me having to constantly push them back in. Overall the comfort with these is much better, the shape of the housing is rounder and seems to fit me much better.

@SorpassoSonance on the topic of damper filters, I accidentally left the Hane in the pocket of my jacket during a rainstorm and when I discovered them they had gotten wet. It seems like water had carried a lot of the wax buildup into the filter on the left IEM after the rainstorm because almost no sound came out of it after that. I used a sewing needle to very carefully remove the filter, it's attached with a tiny sticky black ring around the rim of the filter. There's nothing behind the filter by the way, with that tiny membrane gone, you can see straight into the IEM and the drivers. I put the filter in a sieve and blasted it with the hottest water I could get from the kitchen tap for maybe 30 seconds or more. After I let it dry and put it back in, volume was restored.