Truthear x Crinacle Zero:RED IEM Review

[Blorg]

@markanini Timmy gives it a glowing review here, he's saying it's neutral and mids-focused which it is and this is actually his own preference, he prefers that personally. He only used the word boring once in that review and it was to say IF you prefer a more "exciting" signature (more v-shaped), you might find this more "boring" because it is flatter, more neutral, more mids focused... which it is. And he's comparing there directly to Harman (the blue Zero), which is more v-shaped with more bass and upper mids. So it's only even in the context of a direct comparison, if you have the original Zero already and like it.

He gave it two thumbs up which is his highest score, and ranks it B+ among other IEMs in that tier ranging from $150 being the next cheapest (Sennheiser IE200) to $1,299, it's by far the cheapest IEM he has at that level, and he puts it near the top of that tier as well. This is also one tier up from the original Zero, so he personally prefers it to that as well.

This isn't a remotely bad review, this is one of the best reviews he has ever given to anything. There is no cheaper IEM above this on his ranking and if you want to go up to the next tier, the cheapest IEM there is $330 (Blessing 3 / Blessing 2 Dusk), six times the price. He likes this a lot.

 

[delta76]

Gizaudio ranks the ZERO RED between the MOONDROP Aria and the MOONDROP Blessing 3. Do you think this ranking is coherent and justified, taking into account its price in relation to its sound quality ?

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anyone can review and anyone can have their list of "recommendation". and in most cases those rankings are useless.

 

[kysa]

Makes sense. By that logic you do not recommend any product I presume because there is no way to know for sure?

There are sane limits to inclusiveness. I certainly won't turn down a TV recommendation, knowing that there are blind people... It is difficult for me to grasp the point of your comment. We shouldn’t articulate our experience with product?

 

[CapMan]

Well my Reds arrived today after only a few days waiting. This is my first purchase on the back of an ASR review and WOW !

These little guys are just fabulous; detailed but still natural, bassy but still balanced.

They are super comfortable with the foam tips and have a serious sense of air and space.

This is balance I would love from my HiFi !

Thanks @amirm for such a great review.

 

[IAtaman]

There are sane limits to inclusiveness. I certainly won't turn down a TV recommendation, knowing that there are blind people... It is difficult for me to grasp the point of your comment. We shouldn’t articulate our experience with product?

If you can not see the difference between articulating an opinion and what you have written in your initial post, I do not see how we can continue this conversation in a constructive manner.

 

[markanini]

@markanini Timmy gives it a glowing review here, he's saying it's neutral and mids-focused which it is and this is actually his own preference, he prefers that personally. He only used the word boring once in that review and it was to say IF you prefer a more "exciting" signature (more v-shaped), you might find this more "boring" because it is flatter, more neutral, more mids focused... which it is. And he's comparing there directly to Harman (the blue Zero), which is more v-shaped with more bass and upper mids. So it's only even in the context of a direct comparison, if you have the original Zero already and like it.

He gave it two thumbs up which is his highest score, and ranks it B+ among other IEMs in that tier ranging from $150 being the next cheapest (Sennheiser IE200) to $1,299, it's by far the cheapest IEM he has at that level, and he puts it near the top of that tier as well. This is also one tier up from the original Zero, so he personally prefers it to that as well.

This isn't a remotely bad review, this is one of the best reviews he has ever given to anything. There is no cheaper IEM above this on his ranking and if you want to go up to the next tier, the cheapest IEM there is $330 (Blessing 3 / Blessing 2 Dusk), six times the price. He likes this a lot.

You make it sound like I want to single out Gizaudio and disagree with his review. Words like "safe" "boring" "jack of all trades, master of none" are part of the vocabulary of a larger body of audio journalists, which Gizaudio happens to be part of. I'm pointing why this is not as bad as it sounds, in the context of a good generalist IEM. This may be obvious to someone like you, that's been around. But, it's obscured context to someone that's new to this, they may think it's a issue with the product and the neurolinguistics of it primes the user toward an "upgrade path" of products that are more sonically flawed.

 

[kysa]

If you can not see the difference between articulating an opinion and what you have written in your initial post, I do not see how we can continue this conversation in a constructive manner.

I hit enter before finishing the message. I know, based on my experience, that my ear canal dimensions are considered average for my race (me being asian). Keeping this information in mind, I came to the conclusion that these IEMs definitely should not be recommended to everyone.

Turns out, Hexa is even bigger, sitting at around 6,4 mm. Truthear products are really not for everyone.

In all reports used in Figure 4, the ear canal aperture height is greater than the width. The height ranges from 8.88 to 12.5 mm, while the width ranges from 5.7 to 9.12 mm. It is not appropriate to average the averages, but the height appears to be around 8.5 mm, and the width around 6 mm. Regardless of the gender or ethnicity, dimensional trends are fairly similar. However, Thomas et al. reported that in their study ear canals in people of European descent are significantly larger than in those of Asian descent, which are significantly larger than in those of African descent. The general shape is [URL='https://hearinghealthmatters.org/waynesworld/2014/human-ear-canal/']oval[/URL]. The data from Staab features mostly female ears. That is because the goal was to determine the smallest ear canal sizes (other than children’s) that existing electronic components could be placed into a listening device when fitted deeply into the ear canal.

The Human Ear Canal Length and Dimensions | Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Ear canal dimensions of the aperture, isthmus, and area beyond the isthmus, but before the tympanic membrane are important for earpieces that fit in the ear canal.

hearinghealthmatters.org

Ear Canal Dimensions | Wayne Staab, PhD | hearinghealthmatters.org/waynesworld/

Ear canal dimensions (ranges and averages) are superimposed on an illustration of the ear canal, with emphasis on the aperture, isthmus, and prior to the TM

hearinghealthmatters.org

 

[Blorg]

@markanini I wouldn't read it that way. Timmy's own preference is neutral, it's very close to this. He ranks neutral IEMs generally higher than the more "exciting" or "coloured" ones. So it's not a matter of priming towards an upgrade path, it's not that an IEM that not "safe" is better... it's usually worse. If anything many of the "upgrade" IEMs which Timmy likes are tuned quite similarly.

There is in fact a LOT of stuff he ranks highly that has this general signature, so it's not a suggestion you need to go to another signature for an upgrade or these is anything wrong with this signature.

It's my own preferred signature as well and I'd rank the Monarch Mk2 as my all round favourite IEM. It's very similar tonally. Subjectively, I do think it's better, maybe that's bias. Before I got the Monarch Mk2 I'd have put the Dusk there. These are all broadly similar tonality.

Honestly, this wasn't a bad review and you really need to wilfully misunderstand it to construe it that way, I think any reasonable viewer of this review would understand it's an absolutely great review. That he weighs up some possible drawbacks for users who have a different tonal preference isn't a problem, it makes it a better review.

 

[godsmack50]

The main problem with forums is that many people like me are looking for simple answers, without too much technique, and inevitably have fallen into hyper technical posts in which I understand absolutely nothing, please, even if I know that you like to get into technique, measurements...ect, also try to understand those who are not so educated in hifi, and try to give simpler answers, thank you guys !!! lol

 

[Blorg]

@kysa Hexa is a slightly tapered nozzle going from 6mm at the bottom to 6.4mm at the top. It doesn't have a "lip" but is just gently tapered, I think this looks like quite a good design to keep the thing as thin as possible while still retaining tips.

Both the OG Truthear Zero and Red are 5.8mm on the lower part but the lip at the top is 6.8mm. Subjectively, I'd feel these are actually larger than the Hexa.

 

[kysa]

@kysa Hexa is a slightly tapered nozzle going from 6mm at the bottom to 6.4mm at the top. It doesn't have a "lip" but is just gently tapered, I think this looks like quite a good design to keep the thing as thin as possible while still retaining tips.

Both the OG Truthear Zero and Red are 5.8mm on the lower part but the lip at the top is 6.8mm. Subjectively, I'd feel these are actually larger than the Hexa.

Lip being the closest to aperture is what really matters! 6.8mm... That’s a lot.

 

[Elitzur–Vaidman]

I just want to pop in regarding fitment. The Truthear Zero Reds with medium Spinfit CP145 tips fit me better than any other IEM I've tried, particularly fiio iems.

 

[Blorg]

@godsmack50 the simple answer is it's a good IEM and worth $55. But there isn't much scope for discussion if that's all we are going to say. The point of this place is to discuss these things.

Sharur is a contrarian and just hates everything. He likes one IEM, the Moondrop Variations. (Which is genuinely a great IEM.) Everything else, he'll nitpick some tiny thing even on something that is otherwise is very good. But this tiny little thing will make the thing utter trash. He actually knows his stuff but his reviews I think he's deliberately contrarian for views and he has a very trolly persona. Many of his reviews he's doesn't even have the IEM, he does it on a "virtual" basis where he EQs his Variations to the IEM. So I certainly wouldn't take his conclusions in these reviews (that the thing is trash) as gospel. Having said that, he often does make good and valid points if you can separate that out. Some of stuff he criticises is valid... it just doesn't matter half as much as he makes out.

Timmy (Gizaudio), for me is one of the better reviewers. But a lot of this is going to come down to how well your own subjective preferences as to "good IEM sound" gels with the reviewer. Timmy happens to like a similar sort of sound profile as I do. So I find his reviews useful as his preferences gel with mine and I find he can describe stuff usefully and is reasonably low on the nonsense.

Timmy also uses measurements which give an objective picture of how something sounds. These graphs show the tonality of an IEM and if you can learn to understand them and how the graph corresponds to the sound, they are the next best thing to hearing it yourself to know what it's going to sound like. At base, it's just how loud the thing is at a given frequency.

 

[markanini]

@markanini I wouldn't read it that way. Timmy's own preference is neutral, it's very close to this. He ranks neutral IEMs generally higher than the more "exciting" or "coloured" ones. So it's not a matter of priming towards an upgrade path, it's not that an IEM that not "safe" is better... it's usually worse. If anything many of the "upgrade" IEMs which Timmy likes are tuned quite similarly.

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There is in fact a LOT of stuff he ranks highly that has this general signature, so it's not a suggestion you need to go to another signature for an upgrade or these is anything wrong with this signature.

View attachment 292656

It's my own preferred signature as well and I'd rank the Monarch Mk2 as my all round favourite IEM. It's very similar tonally. Subjectively, I do think it's better, maybe that's bias. Before I got the Monarch Mk2 I'd have put the Dusk there. These are all broadly similar tonality.

Honestly, this wasn't a bad review and you really need to wilfully misunderstand it to construe it that way, I think any reasonable viewer of this review would understand it's an absolutely great review. That he weighs up some possible drawbacks for users who have a different tonal preference isn't a problem, it makes it a better review.

Gizaudios review was referenced by another ASR member the thread, which raised questions, that I have responded to. My issue is with the vocabulary used by a subset of reviewers, and the context that's left out, making it worse. I couldn't single out Gizaudio if I wanted to.

I think our back and forth helped further uncover some of the obscured context, that should have been part of the review, when informing the consumer is the focus, like it should be. So I'm happy to end this OT.

 

[Matias]

The main problem with forums is that many people like me are looking for simple answers, without too much technique, and inevitably have fallen into hyper technical posts in which I understand absolutely nothing, please, even if I know that you like to get into technique, measurements...ect, also try to understand those who are not so educated in hifi, and try to give simpler answers, thank you guys !!! lol

The simple answer was given by Amir in the first post of the thread, aka the review. You decided to open a can of worms by posting a subjective ranking in an ASR thread, now bear the consequence!

 

[godsmack50]

So I have a simple question, if I'm looking for an IEM at a maximum price of 100 dollars, knowing that, as some here know, I like the warm sound of the 1980s hifi style with fairly round bass (I don't like neutral sound), but still a quality and reliable IEM, what would be the most suitable IEM for my listening style? Please try to make it as simple as possible, thank you guys !!!

 

[Robbo99999]

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Yep, that's a big difference, should be noticeable! The extra bass of the Zero Blue might cancel a bit of it's extra treble, but not the difference that is shown there.....so yes they will definitely sound really quite different.

 

[godsmack50]

The simple answer was given by Amir in the first post of the thread, aka the review. You decided to open a can of worms by posting a subjective ranking in an ASR thread, now bear the consequence!

Well well, I assume !!!! lol

 

[Robbo99999]

If you use the impedance adapter, it looks like below. The bass of the Red is more Harman and smoother. And the ear gain is below Harman, which is a good thing.. If only the treble were a bit smoother.

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That actually might make it sound a little worse, because it might cancel out more of the treble (in terms of tonality balance), and the Zero Red already is quite lean on the treble, so that impedance adapter might make it sound less balanced overall than when used without.

 

[Robbo99999]

So I have a simple question, if I'm looking for an IEM at a maximum price of 100 dollars, knowing that, as some here know, I like the warm sound of the 1980s hifi style with fairly round bass (I don't like neutral sound), but still a quality and reliable IEM, what would be the most suitable IEM for my listening style? Please try to make it as simple as possible, thank you guys !!!

Maybe the Zero Red with the bass adapter added (which increases the bass). From your description of "warm" it sounds like the Zero Blue would be too bright in the treble for you. Having said that, I thought the 80's & 90's was all about V-shaped, as that is what most people did with their Graphic Equalisers, even though I have no idea of how most of the systems measured, so it's hard to judge - but when you say "warm" then I think the Zero Blue will not be warm enough for you.