Truthear x Crinacle Zero:RED IEM Review

[Zim]

I'm in this camp, my favourite 'budget' IEM at the moment is the P1 Max Panda, highly underrated IEM, perfect tuning in the 2-6kHz region, so glad Tinhifi choose to go against the grain for this Planer, no offence to Crinacle but I'm not sure why the Red is being held up as an important contrary to the IE Harman target when other IEMs have done a better job in my opinion, there is obviously a large group of people out there that are just tired of the 2-6kHz region bleeding thier ears, even Resolve from The Headphone Show said in his review of the Red, and I quote, "I do still think the upper mids could do with a littler bit of extra refinement here, in particular around 4kHz", Resolve is bang on here, and it's no surprise why he is a big fan of the 64 Audio U12t that is better tuned in the region.

Preference. We're all still waiting if and when there's more data to suggest a more popular/"better"/"neutral" alternative to the Harman IE. But until then, I think it's perfectly fine for people to create products with different targets and market them as an "alternative" or "refinement" of the Harman IE in the pursuit of finding finding an alternative. For as long as they don't call them the "one-true" middle-ground/neutral target without any data backing it.

I'm still inclined to believe the Harman IE curve is a benchmark, middle-ground or even *gasp* "neutral" target for as long as there is no data to suggest otherwise.

And tere may be a large group that are tired of 2-6kHz bleeding but perhaps, they are ultimately still a minority. 10,000 (or whatever arbitrary number) is a lot of people but 10,000 relative to 1,000,000 is still a significant minority. If you get my gist.

 

[PacketofCrisps]

...

And tere may be a large group that are tired of 2-6kHz bleeding but perhaps, they are ultimately still a minority. 10,000 (or whatever arbitrary number) is a lot of people but 10,000 relative to 1,000,000 is still a significant minority. If you get my gist.

Maybe, but then IEMs like the SA6/Ultra/MK2, U12T, and the IER-M9 (3kHz dip) that are all very highly regarded IEMs say otherwise, I just think that the IE target needs a lot more refinement in this region.

 

[amirm]

Folks, we need one standard that catches on in both production and playback. Once there, if you want the sound to be different, just use EQ. The Harman curve is close enough to not need EQ for most content and most people. That is all we ever going to get out of a single standard.

 

[PacketofCrisps]

Folks, we need one standard that catches on in both production and playback. Once there, if you want the sound to be different, just use EQ. The Harman curve is close enough to not need EQ for most content and most people. That is all we ever going to get out of a single standard.

Do you believe that the Harman IE target has had enough research though? I personally don't, Headphones, yes, but IE is a totally different ball game.

 

[amirm]

Do you believe that the Harman IE target has had enough research though? I personally don't, Headphones, yes, but IE is a totally different ball game.

How do you know something better can be had? As I explained, this is not a problem that has a specific solution. We simply need to get close. The rest of the way is solved by the owner using EQ. This relies on having a low distortion IEM/Headphone where EQ won't produce artifacts. That is what we have in this IEM.

 

[PacketofCrisps]

How do you know something better can be had? As I explained, this is not a problem that has a specific solution. We simply need to get close. The rest of the way is solved by the owner using EQ. This relies on having a low distortion IEM/Headphone where EQ won't produce artifacts. That is what we have in this IEM.

I gave examples of highly regarded IEMs that chose to tune the 2-6kHz region differently, I don't think there is anything wrong questioning the IE Harman target, after all the Red is supposed to be contrary to that target so the gate is open now really.

 

[markanini]

FWIW, this is my own target, in blue. Just what I like.

It's still within 1dB or Harman IE 2019 between 300-3000Hz. So are other IE target efforts that can be assumed to be similarly data driven. What makes Harmans stand out is that all relevant details of it's development were documented. That's why it's what we know about a generally preferred IE response, and everything else is speculative or personal, for the time being.

 

[brandall10]

How do you know something better can be had? As I explained, this is not a problem that has a specific solution. We simply need to get close. The rest of the way is solved by the owner using EQ. This relies on having a low distortion IEM/Headphone where EQ won't produce artifacts. That is what we have in this IEM.

It was under less rigorous conditions than the OE target research. So an appeal to having the same standard, to get closer.

As far as EQ'ing, I'd push back a bit for something like a budget IEM. For instance, those who want to drive these from iPhones have no good solution aside from something like a Qudelix-5k which 1) costs more than this device and 2) adds unnecessary bulk if the goal is to have a good sounding pocketable rig on the go.

 

[Blorg]

How do you know something better can be had? As I explained, this is not a problem that has a specific solution. We simply need to get close. The rest of the way is solved by the owner using EQ. This relies on having a low distortion IEM/Headphone where EQ won't produce artifacts. That is what we have in this IEM.

Harman over-ear used a large cohort of people and was extensively researched, peer reviewed and published. Harman OE has extremely broad acceptance, a lot of people in the headphone community (reviewers, enthusiasts, etc) like it.

Harman in-ear used 10-15 people internal to Harman, was not peer reviewed, and was not published. Harman IE has pretty narrow acceptance, and very few people really like it. A lot of the very same people who love Harman OE, don't like Harman IE. And it's always the same criticisms, the exact same issues, too shouty, too rolled off treble, too thin lower mids, too sharp of contrast between the lower mids and the bass.

Most of the people criticising it aren't saying throw the whole thing out, it's just little tweaks, a few dB here, a few dB there. So even the people criticising aren't saying the general shape of Harman IE is totally wrong, all these other preferences are just slight tweaks. But they are almost all of these different people want to tweak it in the exact same direction, everyone is saying a bit less upper mids. I have not seen any popular target that looks at Harman IE and goes, no, that's not enough, I want MORE there.

Even Harman themselves frequently release products which are tweaked in exactly the way away from pure Harman IE that the Harman critics want, they are very very close but they deviate in exactly the same ways the everyone criticising Harman IE wants. And they are much better for it. This is the thing, most people criticising Harman IE don't want something totally different, they just want a few DB here, a few there. And Crinacle's IEF neutral+bass shelf is pretty much that.

This is Harman's own latest, presumably biggest selling IEM. This is what Harman themselves are putting out. And it's closer to IEF Neutral than it is to Harman IE. And of course Sean Olive will say "but it's very close to Harman", sure it is. IEF neutral+bass is very close to Harman. But it's different in the exact subtle ways that everyone criticising Harman IE is saying. So presumably they have found this themselves with their own internal research.

 

[MayaTlab]

Harman over-ear used a large cohort of people and was extensively researched, peer reviewed and published. Harman OE has extremely broad acceptance, a lot of people in the headphone community (reviewers, enthusiasts, etc) like it.

Harman in-ear used 10-15 people internal to Harman, was not peer reviewed, and was not published.

I'm going to be one of those annoying "well actually" kind of guy here, but Harman published on AES quite a few articles related to finding an appropriate IE target, and some of them used a larger sample of listeners. Some examples :

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

I wish these articles weren't behind a paywall.

I also think that the IE target research is less robust than the OE target, but not for these reasons .

View attachment 288385
View attachment 288387

This is Harman's own latest, presumably biggest selling IEM. This is what Harman themselves are putting out. And it's closer to IEF Neutral than it is to Harman IE. And of course Sean Olive will say "but it's very close to Harman", sure it is. IEF neutral+bass is very close to Harman. But it's different in the exact subtle ways that everyone criticising Harman IE is saying. So presumably they have found this themselves with their own internal research.

I observe that this is the Buds2 pro in passive mode, results per Crinacle's measurements, when ANC is turned on, are a bit different - but then I also believe that, when using 711 couplers at least, you should be careful about comparing active IEMs with a feedback system to passive ones or to targets designed for passive IEMs, so... this is just me but I'd be hesitant to use that model as an example of a deliberate departure from the IE target.

Also, do we know if Samsung and Harman share teams and resources when developing headphones ?

PS : I've noticed that people tend to use the default Y scaling in Crinacle's tool, you can adjust it by grabbing the handles here :

 

[Glen20]

I'm going to be one of those annoying "well actually" kind of guy here, but Harman published on AES quite a few articles related to finding an appropriate IE target, and some of them used a larger sample of listeners. Some examples :

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

E-library page - AES

AES E-Library ← Back to search

www.aes.org

I wish these articles weren't behind a paywall.

I also think that the IE target research is less robust than the OE target, but not for these reasons .



I observe that this is the Buds2 pro in passive mode, results per Crinacle's measurements, when ANC is turned on, are a bit different - but then I also believe that, when using 711 couplers at least, you should be careful about comparing active IEMs with a feedback system to passive ones or to targets designed for passive IEMs, so... this is just me but I'd be hesitant to use that model as an example of a deliberate departure from the IE target.

Also, do we know if Samsung and Harman share teams and resources when developing headphones ?

PS : I've noticed that people tend to use the default Y scaling in Crinacle's tool, you can adjust it by grabbing the handles here :
View attachment 288389

Thanks for the links to these papers which led/lead? me down a happy rabbit hole of Sean Olive's blog with multiple entries are related to the above topics.
For those who don't know, Many of his post contain links to his slides (not paywalled) from the (paywalled) AES presentations , Also a Good 10 page article he wrote in 2022 for acoustics today. and a podcast :.Predicting-headphone-sound-quality-sean-olive/

Audio Musings by Sean Olive

A blog about the science of sound recording and reproduction

seanolive.blogspot.com

The Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality- What Do Listeners Prefer? - Sean E. Olive

acousticstoday.org

TWiRT Ep. 337 - Predicting Headphone Sound Quality with Sean Olive - GFQ Network

How many times have you bought headphones or earbuds, only to be disappointed with their audio quality? Or maybe you were pleasantly surprised! Sean Olive is the Acoustic Research Fellow at HARMAN International. He’s doing headphone qualitative measurements that mean something, both for...

gfqnetwork.com

Thanks again G

 

[brandall10]

This may have been posted earlier in the thread and/or referenced by other folks and if so my apologies, but here is the recent interview of Sean Olive by Crinacle discussing this. It's only 7 minutes, but within Dr. Olive seems a bit surprised by the amount of slope increase vs. OE and concedes the criticism and a suggestion on how to further the research have merit.

 

[asrUser]

Did anyone get a shipment notice from Shenzhenaudio already?

 

[Jimbob54]

Did anyone get a shipment notice from Shenzhenaudio already?

Got my shipment notification yesterday. I tipped too.

 

[markanini]

I ordered before the weekend, hoping for a notification next week. Shenzenaudio shipping was pretty fast to Europe last time.

 

[Glen20]

Did anyone get a shipment notice from Shenzhenaudio already?

I think read somewhere that they were blown away by the respose to the release of the reds , implying that they sold out of the preorder and that production is ramping up for the next couple of weeks to catch up. they are usually very fast at shipping out orders that they have in stock. My last order 2 weeks ago had shipping notification with tracking number assigned in under 2 hours .

Edit: from shenzhenaudio red page

PREORDER: Estimated shipping time: May 25 - Jun 5 (shipping according to order sequence)​

 

[asrUser]

Got my shipment notification yesterday. I tipped too.

This time I didn't tip, but hopefully I won't need to wait some weeks and remind them again. I don't know what status I got on my account. Probably something like "this guy can wait".

 

[markanini]

Graphs.

 

[Elitzur–Vaidman]

I ordered via Amazon and received a shipping notification a while back. Package departed Dongguan yesterday.

 

[MacClintock]

How do you know something better can be had? As I explained, this is not a problem that has a specific solution.

Well, if there would be put in the same effort like in the OE2018 target, I would think there should emerge a target more people would agree upon.

We simply need to get close. The rest of the way is solved by the owner using EQ.

Istn't it the best case to have an IEM already that close to the target that it doesn't need EQ? So I would think it would be ideal to have a target with really great approval and manufactorers providing IEMs coming close to.