TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero Red

[markanini]

So do you dislike the method itself or just that he doesn't use the exact the same rig as in the research?

That can't be for Amirm to answer. "Guy Incognito" is referring to Harmans method, but using a different method. Effectively positing the claim that his method is equivalent. That's ok if he want's to do that, he doesn't need to recreate Harmans method 1:1. He just needs to provide the statistics to back up his method.

 

[kysa]

That can't be for Amirm to answer. "Guy Incognito" is referring to Harmans method, but using a different method. Effectively positing the claim that his method is equivalent. That's ok if he want's to do that, he doesn't need to recreate Harmans method 1:1. He just needs to provide the statistics to back up his method.

He produced «virtual IEM» reviews long before he bought his Chinese clone coupler. For me, the question of his intellectual honesty has long been closed.

 

[Lunafag]

…Which implies that there's a noticeable difference between the real IEM and it's «virtual version».

In non-linear domain most definitely. Which is why stuff like Quarks DSP is unusable.

Do you really not understand that the whole argument revolves around how close the virtual IEM sounds to its real version?

For GRAS it's 98%, for clone couplers - who knows. If the whole argument is "if it's not 100% then it's invalid" then I'm not interested in continuing.

"Guy Incognito" is referring to Harmans method, but using a different method.

Here's their method.

The only difference is in the rig.

 

[markanini]

The only difference is in the rig.

Let me correct you. Disparate rigs, plural. Gizaudios clone coupler, and Amirms RA00402.

FIR filters are specified by Harman, the kind that allows arbitrary filter shapes IIRC, and limited above 12kHz. Has Guy Incognito specified his EQ setup? If not, how can you be so sure?

 

[Music707]

That is *exactly* what is going on! I read comment after comment after his video and folks are oblivious to this because he does just a poor job of saying what he is doing. They all think he is actually listening to said IEM when he says the highs are bad, etc., etc. When in reality he has entirely different IEM in his ears and just applying this or other EQ to it.

If people really realized this is what he is doing, they would roast him alive. The reason they are not is that he is not giving proper notice that this is what he is doing. Worse yet, he is not willing to listen when you tell him all of this as I tried to do so extensively in messages to him. He thinks he has figured all this out and is running 100 miles an hour...

Sadly, reading his description of one of his videos it seems to be clear that any advice must be lost on him:

"In the greatest headphones video of all time, I give you everything you need to know to become a true headphone mastermind. This is the last headphone guide video you will ever need to watch and is a true headphone mastery guide."

(Just for the record: Of course I did not bother to watch that video.)

Well, I don't know why, but somehow I feel compelled to give one of my favorites yet one more listen:

 

[MayaTlab]

I believe the clone KB501x pinna is supposed to look like this, based on the official photo from manufacturer, which is a little bit different from yours.

My apologies if I wasn't clear enough. Explanation below.

Spoiler: see here

The pinna I received looks like the advertised photos (and is an attempt at cloning the KB501x) :

What you're looking at in the photo you quoted is this very pinna, screwed into the casing of a disassembled clone coupler, seen from the coupler's POV :

 

[Blorg]

"In the greatest headphones video of all time, I give you everything you need to know to become a true headphone mastermind. This is the last headphone guide video you will ever need to watch and is a true headphone mastery guide."

(Just for the record: Of course I did not bother to watch that video.)

It's actually a pretty good introduction to audio science as relates to headphones and is mostly correct. This is the frustrating thing with him, he actually has a good understanding of much of it, but is also needlessly contrarian and trolly. He has a tendency to be very binary in his thinking, everything is 100% black or white, no matter what the topic, there's no nuance. He fixates on certain specific things and they become for a time the most important thing, and whatever his current take on it, it's 100% correct. He's Mr Absolute Polarity at the moment, and if you see someone pushing this on various forums/social media there's a very good chance that's where they got it.

Any minor flaw removes the perfection necessary for something to be truly good and immediately makes it utter trash. A corollary of this is his notorious flip flopping, he'll go from something being the best in the world one week to it being utter trash the next. The Etymotic ER2SE suffered this fate, it was the best IEM in the world, now it's garbage after he got the Variations and decided he prefers Harman. They can't both be good, in his world, it's one or the other, so now Etymotic is trash. He later decided that the Quarks DSP is better than the Variations, now "The Moondrop Variations is Garbage"... then subsequently decided no, Quarks DSP is trash and the Variations is back as the king. It's not possible that they are all decent, but not perfect.

I think this binary thinking is what also leads him to put too much confidence in the measurements and review through EQing. I don't think this is totally useless, I have EQed stuff I have to other measurements to get a feel before getting the real thing and I think you do get a good idea of the tonality. I don't think you go and "review" IEMs you don't have doing this. But with him, it either works 100% or not at all, there's no idea it can be something that is useful but limited. The other aspect of it is simply that he doesn't have access to the actual IEMs so there's an element of self-justification in it too.

That video though is one of his better ones, it's mostly free of his trolly persona, there is a lot of information it presented concisely but clearly and without him getting on his hobby horses and most of the information is good. He even put on his good shirt. I'd actually rate it as one of the better introductions to all this, you should watch it. The rest of his stuff, it's entertainment.

 

[Music707]

It's actually a pretty good introduction to audio science as relates to headphones and is mostly correct. This is the frustrating thing with him, he actually has a good understanding of much of it, but is also needlessly contrarian and trolly. He has a tendency to be very binary in his thinking, everything is 100% black or white, no matter what the topic, there's no nuance. He fixates on certain specific things and they become for a time the most important thing, and whatever his current take on it, it's 100% correct. He's Mr Absolute Polarity at the moment, and if you see someone pushing this on various forums/social media there's a very good chance that's where they got it.

Any minor flaw removes the perfection necessary for something to be truly good and immediately makes it utter trash. A corollary of this is his notorious flip flopping, he'll go from something being the best in the world one week to it being utter trash the next. The Etymotic ER2SE suffered this fate, it was the best IEM in the world, now it's garbage after he got the Variations and decided he prefers Harman. They can't both be good, in his world, it's one or the other, so now Etymotic is trash. He later decided that the Quarks DSP is better than the Variations, now "The Moondrop Variations is Garbage"... then subsequently decided no, Quarks DSP is trash and the Variations is back as the king. It's not possible that they are all decent, but not perfect.

I think this binary thinking is what also leads him to put too much confidence in the measurements and review through EQing. I don't think this is totally useless, I have EQed stuff I have to other measurements to get a feel before getting the real thing and I think you do get a good idea of the tonality. I don't think you go and "review" IEMs you don't have doing this. But with him, it either works 100% or not at all, there's no idea it can be something that is useful but limited. The other aspect of it is simply that he doesn't have access to the actual IEMs so there's an element of self-justification in it too.

That video though is one of his better ones, it's mostly free of his trolly persona, there is a lot of information it presented concisely but clearly and without him getting on his hobby horses and most of the information is good. He even put on his good shirt. I'd actually rate it as one of the better introductions to all this, you should watch it. The rest of his stuff, it's entertainment.

Thank you for your reply. Obviously we are addressing different aspects. For making hopefully proper use of my lifetime budget, one of my heuristics is staying away from people who come along like carnival barkers. Being a heuristic, it is of course not 100% perfect and will eventually make me miss something worthwhile (which according to your assessment might be the case with said video) but protects me against wasting too much time on hot air. Surely, everyone is free to use his or her own set of heuristics.

Fortunately, ASR, websites like https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/ and original research publications (I love first-hand knowledge) have given me the opportunity to pick up so much about headphones (of course strictly for my private purpose) that I am optimistic that said video could at best offer me a limited benefit anyway.

 

[well...]

What you're looking at in the photo you quoted is this very pinna, screwed into the casing of a disassembled clone coupler, seen from the coupler's POV :

In that case I would say, that if your hypothesis is real and it will create a choke point between the coupler and the pinna, it probably wouldn't only happen in KB501X pinna, since the KB500X pinna needs similar screw structure when mounted on the 43AG and 45BC, which is an Ear Simulator Holder, GR1874.

You can find the holder in the picture of headphonetestlab's 43AG, which is the screw part.

And this is KB501X:

So, if it is truly like you said, the measurements are not comparable between KB501X and metal ear extension, they would probably also be incomparable between KB500X and metal ear extension.

 

[MayaTlab]

In that case I would say, that if your hypothesis is real and it will create a choke point between the coupler and the pinna, it probably wouldn't only happen in KB501X pinna, since the KB500X pinna needs similar screw structure when mounted on the 43AG and 45BC, which is an Ear Simulator Holder, GR1874.
View attachment 287858
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View attachment 287862
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You can find the holder in the picture of headphonetestlab's 43AG, which is the screw part.
View attachment 287865
And this is KB501X:
View attachment 287886

So, if it is truly like you said, the measurements are not comparable between KB501X and metal ear extension, they would probably also be incomparable between KB500X and metal ear extension.

For now I've preferred to treat them differently as the exact mounting system remains different (screw system vs spring loaded balls for the actual coupling parts - I am not expecting the 43AG/KB5000 screw adapter to be a source of tolerancing / manufacturing / design issues), but as you said both systems could possibly result in the same phenomenon (choke point).

The thing is, @GaryH drew my attention to the fact the SoundStageSolo already compared the metal canal extension to the KB5000 (either using a RA0045 or RA0402), and showed inconsistent differences (lack of a constant transfer curve), so I'm not quite certain that my own observations would systematically apply to all IEMs or that the causal relationship I've proposed is pertinent in all cases, but what's certain is that indeed both KB501x and KB500x pinnae can introduce differences vs the metal ear canal, and occasionally quite significant ones.


(watch out for the colour coding, it is inconsistent)

SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com - Acoustic Research AR-E010 Earphones

www.soundstagenetwork.com

 

[Andysu]

Indeed but once we depart from measurement it is all my preference, which will be different to yours and different to @Sharur s etc

So I cannot trust Sharu's comment about treble, as being factual in any way - its just his hearing which includes his personal preference

I refer to his original comments about HF performance, while just looking at the plot and commenting about his prior experiences

preference so if bus comes to bus stop and the engine idles at 30Hz at 105dB for 5 mins as people get on and off would you sit there listening to it ?
personally myself i have earplugs in which only reduce small dB amount

 

[Music1969]

preference so if bus comes to bus stop and the engine idles at 30Hz at 105dB for 5 mins as people get on and off would you sit there listening to it ?

I don't follow but I have JBL ANC earbuds that match Harman curve nicely, great for engine noise

 

[Andysu]

I don't follow but I have JBL ANC earbuds that match Harman curve nicely, great for engine noise

its same with few sine wave tones 30Hz few below few above and they sound like an engine play that on headphones make sure get actual SPL dB at 105dB see how long you can bare it ? i can bare 30Hz for few seconds at that level less is more like some coaches there engines seem less dB noisier a car also less . audio , music some of it booms at 30Hz thou should be really shaking the place

try headphones and bass shakers while seated good experience

 

[lewdish]

I ordered it and like the fact it does not have Harman tuning.

Isnt it harman tuning more or less~

 

[GaryH]

Isnt it harman tuning more or less

No.
1. Those measurements are using Crinacle's innacurate (especially in the upper mids / treble) fake knock-off coupler.
2. That's the Red with the impedance adapter, not its stock response which is severely lacking in bass relative to Harman.
3. The default vertical image scaling on Crinacle's graphs is ridiculously squashed making everything look better / more similar than they actually are.

 

[GaryH]

 

[GaryH]

I ordered it and like the fact it does not have Harman tuning.

I don't listen to curves or pay attention to them.

LOL.

 

[Jimbob54]

Isnt it harman tuning more or less~
View attachment 314011

Target on your graph is Criancle's 2023 target, not Harman 2019 v2 and as others pointed out, you are looking at the bass plug measurement for the red, which is a lot closer to Harman bass.

Crinacle expressly wanted the Red to have less upper mids than Harman (and the original Blue Zero). That is his stated preference and seems to work for others too.

But ultimately, the industry seems to recognise that a decent bass shelf plus a hump from 1-8k is the way forward for IEM and indeed headphones and to many that is "Harman-like" regardless of the exact shape of the curves. Others take a more purist view and want greater compliance before considering a pair.

 

[markanini]

It's hard to take granular target adherence seriously, yet some people insist on it, as if it were a given. Adding a pinna to a standard coupler setup shows significant differences to the graphed response. That should indicate that the coupler can't tell you precisely what it will sound like personally fitted.

 

[Chromatischism]

It's hard to take granular target adherence seriously, yet some people insist on it, as if it were a given. Adding a pinna to a standard coupler setup shows significant differences to the graphed response. That should indicate that the coupler can't tell you precisely what it will sound like personally fitted.

So my ears aren't lying to me when they say there's too much in the 5-9 kHz region.