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TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero IEM Review

Rate this IEM

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 13 2.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 21 3.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 73 12.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 493 82.2%

  • Total voters
    600

F1308

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Oh dear...

I have discovered that a strike (just a single one of the very many played along the three minutes the piece last) on a taiko in my latest song was played too softly and decayed too fast.

Zero from Truthear, a very revealing masterpiece down to 8 Hz.

I think perhaps they might be named ZERO because they start reproducing from 0.01 Hz, but I have no means to check it...
 
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solderdude

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Every driver can move down to DC.
 

F1308

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Are you sure you aren't hearing harmonics of this tone?
Tell me what should I do to remove those, if any.

Play a single sine wave ? On my way...

Done with a new instrument playing a single sine wave.

Tested with the lowest right hand pair of silicone pads, the largest with the smallest bore.

C0 at 16 Hz clearly heard but beating a bit.

C-1 still heard also at 8 Hz, but need moving volume from 12 to 3, and felt as a single very short burst.

When tested with the black pads the sound is too bright and lacks sub-bass. C0 barely heard, C-1 not at all.

Back to the pipe organ, and to the standard 440 Hz tuning, meaning C-1 @ 8.18 Hz I am enjoying it immensely.
 
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xaviescacs

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Tell me what should I do to remove those, if any.

Play a single sine wave ? On my way...

Done with a new instrument playing a single sine wave.

Tested with the lowest right hand pair of silicone pads, the largest with the smallest bore.

C0 at 16 Hz clearly heard but beating a bit.

C-1 still heard also at 8 Hz, but need moving volume from 12 to 3, and felt as a single very short burst.

Back to the pipe organ, I enjoy it immensely.

When tested with the black pads the sound is too bright and lacks sub-bass. C0 barely heard, C-1 not at all.
The driver produces its own harmonics.
 

cbracer

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Adjust the bass with EQ and you won't have to spend any money. :)
I'm not sure spending money is the main issue for me. For my headphones I don't always listen to them on one device. So it's hard to have an EQ on every device you listen to when they are moved from laptop, desktop, phone, airplane multimedia, other amps, etc. Yes that would be ideal but i suspect headphones / IEM could be made close enough that you wouldn't need EQ. Speakers are much harder to do that with due to size and room and EQ becomes more necessary. And when my family members ask what to buy it's hard to recommend something that needs EQ.
 

Jhify

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Just received my pair and tried them out. Fit great. Clarity great. Tone great. Bass.... well just a tad too much. Others feel that way too. But for $50 there is not much to complain about. These will be my new airplane earphones which I take for travel. It's sometimes nice to hear different speakers when they are still good but different because I enjoy small changes in the music I listen to. Kind of as one would go to a live show the sound is not what was released on the cd But when the bass is too great, it just keeps reminding you when you listen to your songs. What's out there which is just as good but with less bass?

Same... I bought the AKG HPs that follows the harman target to compare and I hear noticeably more bass with the IEMs compared to the headphones or any speakers system. Might be due to how my hears work. I EQed it out and it makes them great.
 

F1308

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Same... I bought the AKG HPs that follows the harman target to compare and I hear noticeably more bass with the IEMs compared to the headphones or any speakers system. Might be due to how my hears work. I EQed it out and it makes them great.
I find the sound very much dependant upon the pads being used.

It goes from too bright to too obscure and to simply perfect when the appropriate pad is in use.
 

pkane

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I plugged them in a RME ADI-2 Pro fs I'm using for headphones listening.

Woaw. Now we are speaking !

Nice, really.
Not perfect, but damn' good.

Mirrors my experience. The iPhone dongle is good, but ADI-2 grabs control over bass and doesn't it let it go :) I had to lower the volume to something like -45dBr in ADI-2 phone output to get it to normal listening levels for me.
 

Stoutblock

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I have a simple life when it comes to portable personal listening. A hot rodded iPod 5 (Wolfson DAC) with 1TB SSD, 3000mAh battery running Rockbox. This thing has been around the world several times over the many years. The outside has scars but its always plays my 800GB + 16/44 FLAC library reliably. Now that I’m retired it only serves yard work duty and it has not faired any better. The IEMs I’ve used have given up so I’ve been in the market for some replacements. Tempted to spend serious coin on some well reviewed options but just could not see spending such on something that sees little use. These buds work perfect for my use and this iPod has never sounded better. Rockbox has a great EQ and I had to set it back to flat for now (my previous buds needed some bass boost). I really hear no reason to mess with EQ with these. Thanks Amir for making up my mind on what to buy to replace my old IEMs!
 

F1308

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Cheeeeses, how hard it is testing devices...

Change pads, listen, change again, not sure, plug, unplug...

So, after testing single music instruments I went into some songs of mine so as to decide what plug is best for me.

The first tried was great for sub-bass, but I found that viola playing pizzicato a bit obscure for the orchestration, so went for the next pair upwards, the ones on the second right hand line and now it is great. I see they are the ones used for measurement in the review.

Frankly, I find it hard to decide if Zero Truthear is better or not than Salnotes 7Hz, which I tried some days back for 3/4 the price. The only obvious difference is that 7Hz calls for master volume at 10 while Truthear needs it at 2 to be able to hear the same note and its decay, easily 70+ seconds while damper pedal kept pressed for a grand piano at the lower octave. Tested with a A0/A1 octave chord, and being a fact that I don't quite understand since their sensitivities are 108 dB for 7Hz and 117.5 dB for Zero. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: ????
Impedances are respectively announced as 32 and 10+/-15%. Recommended by Roland for my keyboard is 65.

Anyway, very happy indeed with both.

.....

And finally and I stop here, I promise, I have gone using the pads next left and down to the ones I said before, larger size and larger bore, since with them I have better isolation and have achieved 76 seconds of decay while placing the volume back to 1 from 2 and it all sounds pretty much more detailed...heavy deep bass from thrilling passages sound as planned, tremolo, and not legato...:cool::cool::cool::cool:

And that's all, falks. Thank you.
 
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Jhify

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After hours of testing I can't over the fact they sound bass heavy to me. I like them way better and they sound more "neutral" or "natural" and close to what I'm used to with speakers and studio monitors when I EQ out the bass shelf of the harman target and run them flat from 200hz. And still they don't sound bass shy at all and are well extended.
Without EQ they sound like the sub would make everything in the room rattle I guess my ears are built differently. At least now I know what suits me best and what I should be looking for in future reviews :)
 

F1308

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After hours of testing I can't over the fact they sound bass heavy to me. I like them way better and they sound more "neutral" or "natural" and close to what I'm used to with speakers and studio monitors when I EQ out the bass shelf of the harman target and run them flat from 200hz. And still they don't sound bass shy at all and are well extended.
Without EQ they sound like the sub would make everything in the room rattle I guess my ears are built differently. At least now I know what suits me best and what I should be looking for in future reviews :)
I think a single IEM brings as many different ones as the number of pads you could plug it to.
 

Haider

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So I'm interested to see if the 600's fit, but I'm wondering why one would change the cable.

I like a lightweight cable so that it does not pull on the earphones. A lot of these aftermarket cables seem thick and heavy which is the opposite of what I would want. Maybe you could elaborate on why you decided to change.
Comply 600s fit a treat. I using the large size as they give a good seal and have a good amount of material on them to make them comfortable.

Tripowin Grace is a lightweight cable, it has a mic with a call button. I use them (Truthear Zero) with an iPhone + Lightning to 3.5mm headphone dac/amp/jack thingie-ma-jig. I can use these without EQing where as my Sundaras' are bass light without EQ...
 

Jhify

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Do you mean silicone tips ?

A quick google search gave me the answer sorry I am still in the process of learning english. I'll give it a go then to find if I get lucky with different ones.
 

MZKM

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After hours of testing I can't over the fact they sound bass heavy to me. I like them way better and they sound more "neutral" or "natural" and close to what I'm used to with speakers and studio monitors when I EQ out the bass shelf of the harman target and run them flat from 200hz. And still they don't sound bass shy at all and are well extended.
Without EQ they sound like the sub would make everything in the room rattle I guess my ears are built differently. At least now I know what suits me best and what I should be looking for in future reviews :)
IEMs sound different based on your physical ears. Mine decently follows the Harman target for bass, in that these don't have much 20Hz-30Hz bass, like notes my subwoofers can play and pressurize the room get dampened with these. 50Hz and up they are good though.
 

Chromatischism

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Oh dear...

I have discovered that a strike (just a single one of the very many played along the three minutes the piece last) on a taiko in my latest song was played too softly and decayed too fast.

Zero from Truthear, a very revealing masterpiece down to 8 Hz.

I think perhaps they might be named ZERO because they start reproducing from 0.01 Hz, but I have no means to check it...
If you really want low frequency extension, I would suggest equalization, or the FiiO FH3 as I have them and posted measurements a few pages back. They do a much better job at replicating the subwoofers in my main system. The Truthear Zeros roll off under 50 Hz quite a bit so they give a midbass emphasis. I'm very skeptical of hearing 8 Hz both from these or any speaker, but we'll see. I'm told mine will arrive in 2 days.
 

GaryH

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As a tuning fork though I'd be inclined to recommend an IEM that was already very close to target without EQ - and then you've got EQ on top of that to bring it totally onto target. The good thing about this IEM is that it's been measured here on ASR for other things apart from frequency response, so we know the distortion is low & good too. We also suspect it has very good channel matching and low unit to unit variation as evidenced by Crinacle's measurement of 10 samples (albeit they were sent by the company). That and sensible low price of these IEM's does make them a good "tuning fork" for folks here on ASR.
Yeah the apparent low unit and channel variance is a plus, but as you say they were sent by the manufacturer and measured by the collaborator, so this hasn't been independently verified with randomly bought units. As for distortion, this isn't usually an issue with even cheap IEMs (especially with dynamic drivers), as can be seen from the measurements here: https://www.hypethesonics.com/iemdbc/
 
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