TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero IEM Review

[Garrincha]

Now, Crin has to collaborate on a planar that gets this level of approval and get toe to toe with Audeze...

He did already, 7Hz Dioko.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

He did already, 7Hz Dioko.

Yep

 

[Garrincha]

as someone who owns the variations, S12, OH10 and listened to Kato, i can clearly make out the superior spatial qualities,

How did you check for the differences? What spatial qualities exactly?

unmatched timbre esp with vocals

Timbre is entirely consisting of FR, and this is very close to Harman here, so how possibly could the timbre be off?

and sub bass thump

Are you sure? Do you also claim there is a differnce in bass thump betwenn DD and planars? Or is this maybe a myth?

on the 550 $ IEM vs sub 150 $ IEM's. I don't have B2 to compare but id recommend getting one of the newer planar magnetic IEM's under 200 USD as they do have the technicalities

What technicalities specifically?

 

[carlcamper]

The $20 7Hz-Salnotes Zero looks very promising when compared to these IEMs. At that price, however, I would expect its distortion to be higher, which is now a dealbreaker as this looks like my new standard. If I did not just purchase these, I would have purchased and sent the Salnotes in for review. Perhaps someone else is interested.


View attachment 231011

The 7hz Salnotes Zero has been tuned by Crinacle as well (or at least he has been consulted for it, as per his Youtube video description about his collabs

)

 

[Bel Canto]

Do people really think that different IEMs and headphones that have the same frequency response measurements sound exactly the same?

That's like saying 2 cars that have the same engine specs drive the same...

 

[Garrincha]

@crinacle, since you made your apearance here already and dropped something on twitter, could you please enlighten us on the Project Red? Something like planned release date, number and type of drivers, company and expected retail price?

 

[Garrincha]

Do people really think that different IEMs and headphones that have the same frequency response measurements sound exactly the same?

That's like saying 2 cars that have the same engine specs drive the same...

Well, in a car a lot more elements are involved besides the engine, like transmission, body, etc. So what exactly besides the frequency response in an IEM is responsible for a difference in sound, all things being equal like seal, fit, etc?

 

[Tks]

10 ohm impedance.. I gotta talk to crin about this. We're going in the wrong direction here.

I looked at another review for this thing, I wonder if people who were studying 2D illustration in school four years ago thought they'd be working for audiophile companies I also now wonder if Amir got an audio waifu

 

[julian_hughes]

Do people really think that different IEMs and headphones that have the same frequency response measurements sound exactly the same?

That's like saying 2 cars that have the same engine specs drive the same...

I know they don't. I have different IEMs from Shure, Moondrop, Samsung, JVC, Massdrop, Pinnacle and others. Also headphones from Sennheiser and HiFiman and Koss. They can all be eq'd to offer the same frequency response very easily these days on PC or mobile. They absolutely do not sound the same even when EQ matched. Similar(ish), yes, but a long way from identical. All these publicly available correction curves like at AutoEQ are great for correcting gross errors but in fact you can't make them all sound the same. It's also worth remembering that almost all IEM measurements over 8000Hz are known to be unreliable, so using them in a parametric EQ correction doesn't make much sense. And anyway most EQ corrections require really significant precut, -7 and -8 dB is not unusual; how many phones can really lose even 3 or 4 dB and still have great sound? Very few.

 

[Art of sound]

How did you check for the differences? What spatial qualities exactly?

Timbre is entirely consisting of FR, and this is very close to Harman here, so how possibly could the timbre be off?

Are you sure? Do you also claim there is a differnce in bass thump betwenn DD and planars? Or is this maybe a myth?

What technicalities specifically?

oh10 has a wide sound stage and kato's have decent stage but kato's suck at pin pointing a center image and instruments while oh10 is average. Both the s12 and variations are on another league when it comes to seperation of instruments and voices precisely. this brings a lot of enjoyment to music listening irrespective of AB testing.

 

[Garrincha]

I know they don't. I have different IEMs from Shure, Moondrop, Samsung, JVC, Massdrop, Pinnacle and others. Also headphones from Sennheiser and HiFiman and Koss. They can all be eq'd to offer the same frequency response very easily these days on PC or mobile. They absolutely do not sound the same even when EQ matched. Similar(ish), yes, but a long way from identical. All these publicly available correction curves like at AutoEQ are great for correcting gross errors but in fact you can't make them all sound the same. It's also worth remembering that almost all IEM measurements over 8000Hz are known to be unreliable, so using them in a parametric EQ correction doesn't make much sense. And anyway most EQ corrections require really significant precut, -7 and -8 dB is not unusual; how many phones can really lose even 3 or 4 dB and still have great sound? Very few.

In practice this might be true, but the interesting question is the purely theoretical one, if two IEMs, that have different driver types, numbers, initial FR etc., but have both low distortion and are capable of being EQed to the same target curve without wiggles and resonances, will they sound the same?

 

[Art of sound]

In practice this might be true, but the interesting question is the purely theoretical one, if two IEMs, that have different driver types, numbers, initial FR etc., but have both low distortion and are capable of being EQed to the same target curve without wiggles and resonances, will they sound the same?

This is partially true in my experience. some drivers sound less impressive when you EQ and lose the sub bass shelf of the original. You can add some of it back with another filter below 150hz and sound match but they will sound slightly different. but comparable tonally.

 

[julian_hughes]

In practice this might be true, but the interesting question is the purely theoretical one, if two IEMs, that have different driver types, numbers, initial FR etc., but have both low distortion and are capable of being EQed to the same target curve without wiggles and resonances, will they sound the same?

No, because it's not just about FR and distortion and you can't EQ resonances (or absorption). They may well have different decay, be made of very different materials which absorb or reflect sound differently, fit into the ear differently and so on.

 

[AM88]

I just purchased a pair on Amazon. It will be interesting to be able to listen to one of the items reviewed on ASR finally. Even more interesting will be, judging by the number of people buying these IEMs, there will be a common reference for a lot of people when comparing to other headphones etc..

 

[amirm]

10 ohm impedance.. I gotta talk to crin about this. We're going in the wrong direction here.

I looked at another review for this thing, I wonder if people who were studying 2D illustration in school four years ago thought they'd be working for audiophile companies I also now wonder if Amir got an audio waifu

mine is the one on the left. Crin apologized in advance saying he had nothing to do with packaging.

 

[Garrincha]

No, because it's not just about FR and distortion and you can't EQ resonances (or absorption). They may well have different decay, be made of very different materials which absorb or reflect sound differently, fit into the ear differently and so on.

So you did not even read the question properly, nevermind.

 

[Chromatischism]

The bass looks pretty good on them to be honest, you could EQ up 20Hz by 5dB with a peak filter, but apart from that they're matching Harman.

Amir said bass distortion crept up easily.

 

[Ismapics]

Anyone has these and Tin T2 to compare?

 

[PeteL]

So you did not even read the question properly, nevermind.

Sorry but I think he answered your question, it was a closed question, yes or no. He thinks no. You really want to push that 2 identical frequency response with low enough distortion will sound exactly the same. It’s a fair belief. It make sense, but unforunately you won’t get a consensus on that. Not from research, not for the engineers working in designing headphones, not from science in a wider sense. Yoû’ll get opinions, It appears that your opinion is that the scope of what is being measured in a suite of standard measurments like we see in these page is all and complete in defining audio reproduction of transducers, all else, details « technicalities », etc, are meaningless. Me, my opinion, I agree they are meaningless, they are just word trying to describe Subjective assessments. But then, after we said that. It’a a large stretch, between « meaningless » and « all differences are imagined » From then on plenty of theories and hypothesis, Dan Clark don’t thinks everything can be measured, Putzeys think everything can be measured but it’s not necessarily the most obvious measurments that are the most defining, other have their views. Bottom line there is no consensus one ideas like « speed don’t exist » or « details is just more high » or Soundstage, etc, etc. Me I think that for electronics, pretty much sorted. In transducers… Even Amir will always put value on his listening assessment for speakers and headphones. Me I think, opinion, You ask questions that will not get you answers that are backed by facts, I think you have to accept that and accept that it’s ok for someone to say: It’s not obvious from this suite of tests, but this sound better to me than this. Because, well, the acoustic part of the reproduction chain is not all sorted, headphones sound differents, speakers sound different, once this is cleared out, well this is the factual part, then it’s interresting to try to find out why But it’s no simple binary solution to this.

 

[amirm]

Do people really think that different IEMs and headphones that have the same frequency response measurements sound exactly the same?

How well an IEM couples to your ear makes a massive difference in bass. If you put that aside, two IEMs with similar frequency response will statistically be equally good or bad. You can rule them out, or in that way. Without the measurement, it would just be a game of chance.