Your favorite IEMs?

[JJB70]

Apologies if I've said this before earlier in the thread and forgot, but I'll nominate the 'free' AKGs that used to be bundled with Samsung Galaxy mobile phones. I had an S10 and still use the AKG earphones as my daily 'beater' four years down the line it is still very solid. No I don't like it better than my favourite Etymotic ER4SR but as something which wouldn't reduce me to tears if I left it on a train or destroyed it doing something stupid when outside the 'free' AKG is amazingly good and I am not just being wilfully contrarian to say it isn't disgraced if compared to other IEMs which cost a lot. I find it an amazingly competent product for something which Samsung just bundled as an accessory with their phones.

 

[Wegi76]

@JJB70: I have to agree. My wife is happily using the original galaxy buds that came with the S10 and I just bought a set of Galaxy Buds Pro for less than 100€ brand new from Amazon Germany. They lack detail but over all the sound is very balanced and the fit is great. The original buds survived Sony XM3s in our house, that only have like 45 minutes of battery left meanwhile, too. For _this_ little money, the buds are a no brainer.

The Galaxy Buds Pro are not the favourite IEMs in my collection (64 Audio U12Ts are) but I think it`s hard to find better TWS with ANC and a very decent sound for less than hundret bucks currently.

 

[Phoney]

I don't touch the lows of IE300 as it's spot on to me. However, tried a IE300 to IE600 based on Crinacle's measurements that work on similar areas of your example: PK/1000/-1.3/2.0, PK/2550/4/1.0, PK/5500/-4/2.0. Your HS however seems rather radical to me.

In the end this felt like the sweet spot for me. This focuses on the Oratory target curve which is slightly different than crinacles. Apparently a bit more energy at 100-250hz is fine with IEMs. Incresing band 3 opened up the sound a bit more, and band 5 took care of siblance from cymbals (hiss) as well as "s" and "t" in vocals. Band 5 is the same as Oratorys solution on IE900 which measures about the same above 10khz. This feels balanced with just about any genre, while still having powerful bass. The bass area is obviously subjective though.

 

[JJB70]

@JJB70: I have to agree. My wife is happily using the original galaxy buds that came with the S10 and I just bought a set of Galaxy Buds Pro for less than 100€ brand new from Amazon Germany. They lack detail but over all the sound is very balanced and the fit is great. The original buds survived Sony XM3s in our house, that only have like 45 minutes of battery left meanwhile, too. For _this_ little money, the buds are a no brainer.

The Galaxy Buds Pro are not the favourite IEMs in my collection (64 Audio U12Ts are) but I think it`s hard to find better TWS with ANC and a very decent sound for less than hundret bucks currently.

Wireless IEMs (and indeed headphones) are now very good, and there is no doubt that the convenience of wireless can be very attractive. The Samsung and offshoot AKG models seem to be excellent, my wife had the AKG wireless neckband IEMs (sorry, can't remember the model designation, but I note that they're still sold in Samsung shops here in Singapore) with ANC and I honestly thought their SQ was very good and more than up to allowing me to enjoy music without feeling like the transducers were holding anything back. I still prefer wired IEMs but part of that is not having to worry about built in obsolescence as the internal batteries degrade over time. I have wired headphones I've had for literally decades that still work perfectly well and my ER4SRs are quite a few years old now, but performance wise Apple, Samsung, Sony and others are making some genuinely excellent wireless IEMs that are very reasonably priced given the SQ, tech and convenience.

 

[Colin5619]

KZ AST is my favourite

 

[rcmo]

In the end this felt like the sweet spot for me. This focuses on the Oratory target curve which is slightly different than crinacles. Apparently a bit more energy at 100-250hz is fine with IEMs. Incresing band 3 opened up the sound a bit more, and band 5 took care of siblance from cymbals (hiss) as well as "s" and "t" in vocals. Band 5 is the same as Oratorys solution on IE900 which measures about the same above 10khz. This feels balanced with just about any genre, while still having powerful bass. The bass area is obviously subjective though.

Given some raving reviews of the IE 600 and because I couldn't put my hands on them, I've been playing with a poor man ;-) version of it. This is my take on an IE 300 to IE 600 i) according to Crinacle's measurements and ii) from 1K to 10K (bass to me is very overjective). Pre-gain -5 (on Qudelix)

 

[frix]

Interesting. I have the IE300 as well. I'll try that EQ. Without EQ the IE300 is not really enjoyable. That treble is so damn spicey. I have several EQ attempts with the IE300. Though the treble remains problematic and has some unpleasant peaks/sharpness to it. -6dB broad reduction does help, but the unpleasant character of the treble remains.

 

[Phoney]

Interesting. I have the IE300 as well. I'll try that EQ. Without EQ the IE300 is not really enjoyable. That treble is so damn spicey. I have several EQ attempts with the IE300. Though the treble remains problematic and has some unpleasant peaks/sharpness to it. -6dB broad reduction does help, but the unpleasant character of the treble remains.

For me equalizing the 14khz region down fixed the problem. Things like hiss from cymbals and vocal siblance were fatigueing before that. I didn't have a problem with the rest of the treble personally, except from the small dip I made at 7khz.

Now I did not test much before applying EQ as the balance sounded a bit off from the start so I immidiately started to EQ. But I do see that many people talk about the treble being too much from these. After my eq where I barely remove any treble below 10khz and even boost the lower treble a bit, they sounded neutral to me and I'm not even a fan of having much treble. Maybe just boosting the higher mids/lower treble makes up for the higher treble peak that was already there before EQ?

 

[rcmo]

For me equalizing the 14khz region down fixed the problem.

Excellent ears you've got there

 

[Phoney]

Interesting. I have the IE300 as well. I'll try that EQ. Without EQ the IE300 is not really enjoyable. That treble is so damn spicey. I have several EQ attempts with the IE300. Though the treble remains problematic and has some unpleasant peaks/sharpness to it. -6dB broad reduction does help, but the unpleasant character of the treble remains.

Try this. Discovered som more frequency response measurments to make it more accurate. I actually don't think these have too much bass anymore, I just had to shape the bass response a little. They are percieved as having too much bass because of the dip at 2-5khz, in which the bass ends up "drowning" the instruments. Boosting this area helps the instruments come forward again, to a point where the bass is fitting (to me). Also it has a peak at 9khz that I didn't try to fix before, but apparently that peak might be real and should be fixed. I didn't think so at first, because some rigs are unreliable in this area. Maybe that's why you were experiencing an issue with the treble.

 

[Jimbob54]

Try this. Discovered som more frequency response measurments to make it more accurate. I actually don't think these have too much bass anymore, I just had to shape the bass response a little. They are percieved as having too much bass because of the dip at 2-5khz,in which the bass ends up "drowning" the instruments. Boosting this area helps the instruments come forward again, to a point where the bass is fitting (to me).

View attachment 200731View attachment 200732

How does a 6db peak around 3k help with treble being too spicy on stock form?

 

[Phoney]

How does a 6db peak around 3k help with treble being too spicy on stock form?

In his case I don't know, but a lot of people experience siblance with this one due to the spikes at 6khz and upwards, and not because of the lower treble. This is pretty much harman based (adjusted for iems), do you think he feels the treble is spicy at the part where the treble is 6.5db below what is considered to be a neutral curve (neutral may not be the right word, but accoring to this curve atleast)? Stock tonality is a dark signature with siblance at the top.

 

[staticV3]

How does a 6db peak around 3k help with treble being too spicy on stock form?

Chances are the thing that's bothering frix is the relative lack of lower treble combined with an excess of upper treble:

If true, then boosting 2-4k and reducing 5k+ should alleviate the the issue

 

[frix]

Just boosting the upper mids makes them better, but I perceive the treble still as hot. It's not immediately annoying. Though it becomes tiring after 30min+. Not using them much lately anyway.

 

[Jimbob54]

Chances are the thing that's bothering frix is the relative lack of lower treble combined with an excess of upper treble:
View attachment 200733
If true, then boosting 2-4k and reducing 5k+ should alleviate the the issue

I hadn't looked at the measurements anywhere. That's a lot missing on that area. Apologies to @Phoney

 

[staticV3]

@frix what EQ program do you use? I can whip up some presets if you'd like.

 

[staticV3]

Here's something interesting I found while collecting IE300 FRs:
There are two distinct midrange characteristics among measurements.
One has a straight, gradual slope upwards from 1K:

The other has a distint, curvy profile:


I don't think this can be attributed to measurement rigs, as there are GRAS systems and 711 clones present in each group.
I wonder if there was a stealth revision or maybe suppliers changed or something.

 

[frix]

I'm using the poweramp PEQ. Maybe I should do some sinesweeps to better understand where some peaks are. Though I'm hestitating to surgically use EQ beyond 5-6khz.

 

[sq225917]

Just moved to fiio fh9, with a bit of peq they're sounding very balanced tonally. I don't think they're the last word in resolution across the board though. I'd love to see a watefall sweep for them to further adjust my peq beyond the basic raw FR.

 

[Phoney]

Here's something interesting I found while collecting IE300 FRs:
There are two distinct midrange characteristics among measurements.
One has a straight, gradual slope upwards from 1K:
View attachment 200757
The other has a distint, curvy profile:
View attachment 200758

I don't think this can be attributed to measurement rigs, as there are GRAS systems and 711 clones present in each group.
I wonder if there was a stealth revision or maybe suppliers changed or something.

Interesting. I would think that IEMs are not that hard to measure, right? How big of a factor is unit to unit variation with IEMs? Nevertheless I'm very satisfied with my final EQ, so I'm probably not going to refine it more as it sounds just about right to my ears currently. However I did remove 1db extra at 1.4khz from the oratory IEM curve (used crinacles measurments to try to mimic oratorys curve by comparing the FR to the IE900, which both have measured). This change did sound better to me (I believe I heard the difference), although not by much ofcourse.