General Headphone Audio

[mrk]

Listen to this on headphones that have wide staging and imaging qualities. Such a nicely mastered song especially her voice pickup and timbre sitting just smack in the middle of the stage and the echo carrying into the wider stage.

It's made me appreciate what the HE1000se is capable of even more than before as it's the only song in my entire playlist that lifts up vocals in this way thanks to how its been recorded/produced.

Interestingly it's a 24-bit track on Spotify too, not that I think that makes much of a difference. Most songs seem to be 16/44.1.

 

[Angst]

Stumbled upon this thread and it makes for an interesting read and gives a much better understanding of DAC reconstruction filters.

"I can hear them church bells pre-ringing!" - A (mostly) time domain investigation into DAC-like reconstruction filters

INTRO I've recently encountered a couple of posts about pre-ringing in linear phase reconstruction filters in DACs. Most claim the usual: How they can definitely hear the difference between filters, how that evil pre-ringing makes linear phase much worse and so on. Impressions from...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[mrk]

Excuse if I'm crossing wires or something but that is interesting and after a lot more recent listening to music between DAC filters I have some thoughts on this and whilst that thread is geared on measuring the filter output and how faithful it is to the ground truth by tools, I can't hear the difference between NOS and all but one of the other DAC filters on the X8, the De-emphasis filter is brand new and exclusive to the X8 and is claimed to replicate the AKM Velvet house sound of the X9. For the most part this seems to be true, it is audibly less detailed at the top end vs the other filters which coincides with the X9 having a more laid back signature without the extended sparkle/detail at the top that the X8 does have along with a slightly more forward midrange.

The key point I think is that the above thread is focused on /DAC/ only with its respective filters (specifically ESS), and not accounting for the accompanying sections of the whole unit around the DAC that further filters and/or tunes the sound before reaching the ears since models like these have different characteristics in this sort of context.

So whilst it's right in that there's a lot of misunderstanding out there from users to reviewers and a lot of marketing bs by brands and dealers, the reviews aren't reviewing purely the DAC stage alone, because changing a filter can gel differently with the surrounding components within the DAC's local chain/ For example, the X8 uses dual mono parallel channels in its amplification stage with the quad CS DACs per channel and that as a whole produces a sound that is not what you get from any other CS based DAC including the Topping Octo (same chips, slightly less detailed and more laid back).

I think what's needed is all available models compared both objectively and subjectively from one outfit, at present there is different info and takes from hundreds of different sources and all saying their own things, GPT is great at averaging what's out there and giving a good impression of what's what, but still, things could always be better?

 

[Angst]

Excuse if I'm crossing wires or something but that is interesting and after a lot more recent listening to music between DAC filters I have some thoughts on this and whilst that thread is geared on measuring the filter output and how faithful it is to the ground truth by tools, I can't hear the difference between NOS and all but one of the other DAC filters on the X8, the De-emphasis filter is brand new and exclusive to the X8 and is claimed to replicate the AKM Velvet house sound of the X9. For the most part this seems to be true, it is audibly less detailed at the top end vs the other filters which coincides with the X9 having a more laid back signature without the extended sparkle/detail at the top that the X8 does have along with a slightly more forward midrange.

The key point I think is that the above thread is focused on /DAC/ only with its respective filters (specifically ESS), and not accounting for the accompanying sections of the whole unit around the DAC that further filters and/or tunes the sound before reaching the ears since models like these have different characteristics in this sort of context.

So whilst it's right in that there's a lot of misunderstanding out there from users to reviewers and a lot of marketing bs by brands and dealers, the reviews aren't reviewing purely the DAC stage alone, because changing a filter can gel differently with the surrounding components within the DAC's local chain/ For example, the X8 uses dual mono parallel channels in its amplification stage with the quad CS DACs per channel and that as a whole produces a sound that is not what you get from any other CS based DAC including the Topping Octo (same chips, slightly less detailed and more laid back).

I think what's needed is all available models compared both objectively and subjectively from one outfit, at present there is different info and takes from hundreds of different sources and all saying their own things, GPT is great at averaging what's out there and giving a good impression of what's what, but still, things could always be better?

I think they cover this in their post, saying that it doesn't cover anything else beyond a DAC's reconstruction itself because you've got to limit the scope of the testing somewhere, which makes sense.
I agree that other parts in the audio chain's analogue stage after the DAC can have an impact on the signal, but obviously, you want that original source waveform generated by the DAC to be as accurate as possible. If you start off with something "incorrect", it can only get worse as it passes through the chain, best case the amplification is wire with gain, and the signal stays the same. Worst case its degraded with added noise.
I think it also has a good visual demonstration of why the reconstruction filters are generally superior in fidelity to a NOS filter regarding maintaining the shape of the waveform.
The problem I find with GPT and other LLMs is that they are great at summarising information from many sources, but they have no concept of whether those sources are correct or absolute garbage, and as you say there are a lot of differing sources for these topics but a significant amount of it is complete crap that it will present as absolute fact.
Ironically i think the place you are most likely to find a single source of objective truth is ASR.

 

[mrk]

Yeah the GPT results must be manually eyeballed for sanity checking, but once that's done all's good, it's the reason I use Perplexity over the rest as it does a great just first time round at grabbing non wishy washy info and also then presenting the results with caution stating things like "be wary that some say...." and so on. It is just the most balanced of the lot for this sort of lookup and comparison.

Anyways the Fosi IM4 arrived today, I have to say the package and construction is excellent, beats the Kiwi Ears flagships I had not long ago easily. Not seen this before with other IEMs but these come with two sets of nozzles:

And 3 sets of tips:

The sound without any EQ going right out of the X8 is quite flat and unbothered. Soundstage is excellent as is stereo imaging, it feels more like a full size headphone for these two areas surprisingly, with a good grasp of treble detail without being bright. The midrange is quite forward though so depending on the music some may prefer to EQ that back a bit. I am not finding the tips create a full seal around my ears, always the way with certain types of rounded tips, even the Dunu tips don't seal fully enough with the way the IM4 seat into my ear it seems so I am glad I kept hold of those memory foam tips I got a while back:

I'm liking it more than both the Kiwi pairs, the soundstage especially feels spacious. Given these are Fosi's first IEM, it feels like an excellent starting point. For the times Idon't want big cans on my head, these will definitely do the job at the desktop.

Weirdly to get a balanced cable with this you need to select it at ordering stage otherwise the default is single ended. No adapter with this like you get on the Kiwi Ears ones, though on the upside, the R/L colour labelling etc are clearly labelled so no mistaking which way is which.

Oh and the visualiser also arrived, had a bit of fun with that earlier:

 

[Rroff]

On another note I also bumped into a new Joypad called the ASUS Raikiri 2 which has not long launched and seems to build on their existing Raikiri/Pro models. And what's interesting is that the older ones mentions an ESS DAC. I know we've had cotrollers on here on PC (Gamesir) that do that but I thought it was quite interesting that the marketing makes a big thing of it, albeit they may have dropped the point for the newer one. I do think having controllers on PC that can do audio is cool, albeir I suppose most people use wireless in those scenarios. Problem for ASUS is there's so many good, cheap joypads out there now this problem has been solved, but that's another topic.

Some monitors coming with ESS DACs now as well (though not entirely new - there are some old ones which implemented it as well) - though often a bit obscure which though the ES9118 seems to be the more common one used. I'm of mixed opinion how useful it is.

 

[Timber]

Some monitors coming with ESS DACs now as well (though not entirely new - there are some old ones which implemented it as well) - though often a bit obscure which though the ES9118 seems to be the more common one used. I'm of mixed opinion how useful it is.

Yep, to me having a DAC inside a monitor is less useful that say eARC/ARC, or optical outputs. That's often the issue with using a console with a monitor is there is no option to extract sound without some kind of separate audio extractor. But I guess it's so cheap to add a DAC chip that maybe there are people out there who use their headphones out on a monitor.

 

[mrk]

Fosi IM4 gets my vote as an excellent IEM that is neutral and responds very well to EQing, I used the AI-EQ to generate and improved midrange vocal area and expand the lower mid bass punch as well as up the treble sparkle as bit. Very nice result and a really easy IEM to listen to for hours. This had to be done after using the thick memory foam tips I got off Amazon a while ago. They create a superior seal compared to Dunu and stock tips on these resulting in excellent bass performance. These will come in handy for when I don't want big over ears on my face. Very good for gaming too thanks to the holographic soundstage and imaging.

Kind of shines over much more expensive IEMs that don't have this kind of neutral stock sound that responds so well to EQ.

 

[Aurhinius]

How do the IM4 compare to the crinear daybreak, hexa and pure if you have any experience of those, seems to be in the same price brackets

 

[mrk]

Not heard those before so cannot compare!

 

[Jenz]

I ordered my Crinear Reference.

CrinEar Reference [Pre-order]

The World's Flattest In-Ear Monitor. CrinEar Reference hybrid IEM with HODWS dual woofers, Sonion & Knowles BAs, and durable CNC-machined aluminium shell.

hangout.audio

 

[mrk]

I'm always sceptical for IEMs at this sort of pricing, like how much better do they really sound vs £100 top tier IEMs? Having had the high end Kiwi Ears I just don't see (hear) it. The packaging and included accessories probably account for a large chunk of cost though.

 

[Jenz]

I'm always sceptical for IEMs at this sort of pricing, like how much better do they really sound vs £100 top tier IEMs? Having had the high end Kiwi Ears I just don't see (hear) it. The packaging and included accessories probably account for a large chunk of cost though.

Well I have many in my collection at prices from £25 to £400 and those at the higher ends are without doubt better in most aspects

 

[Jenz]

I think the other valid point on these is the neutrality. Like you say about the HE1000’s you want to hear what the recording is as opposed to it being “flavoured”.

I have many iems that I like for flavouring like the Penon Fan 3’s or the Ziggaat Odyssey’s, or the Crinear Meta’s etc. It’s a collectors hobby

 

[mrk]

That is very true, I just haven't had enough listening time with enough of a broad range of IEMs I guess across the price range like I have with big headphones.

 

[maj]

Does anyone use Equalizer APO and Peace UI for EQ? I've installed both and the Peace doesn't have any affect on the sound. Not sure what I'm doing wrong and APO is already asigned to the correct device in settings. Change volume? Nothing. Change gain? Nothing. The sliders do nothing at all.

 

[dave28]

Does anyone use Equalizer APO and Peace UI for EQ? I've installed both and the Peace doesn't have any affect on the sound. Not sure what I'm doing wrong and APO is already asigned to the correct device in settings. Change volume? Nothing. Change gain? Nothing. The sliders do nothing at all.

I watched youtube guides on how to use them and they worked perfectly. You open APO and assign the dongle / dac/amp and restart the PC as the first job if i remember. The Peace UI also has an on/off button/slider. Maybe that is in the off position with you.

 

[Angst]

Does anyone use Equalizer APO and Peace UI for EQ? I've installed both and the Peace doesn't have any affect on the sound. Not sure what I'm doing wrong and APO is already asigned to the correct device in settings. Change volume? Nothing. Change gain? Nothing. The sliders do nothing at all.

Is it set to the right output? You have to tell it which sound device to work with, if I remember correctly.

 

[maj]

I watched youtube guides on how to use them and they worked perfectly. You open APO and assign the dongle / dac/amp and restart the PC as the first job if i remember. The Peace UI also has an on/off button/slider. Maybe that is in the off position with you.

Is it set to the right output? You have to tell it which sound device to work with, if I remember correctly.

Seems to be working now after a complete uninstall and reinstall of both APO and Peace. Probably went wrong something even with how basic installing those two are.

Edit: Actually had same issue but then I noticed the EQ only works with Windows sounds. It has no effect when I play Foobar etc.

 

[Angst]

Seems to be working now after a complete uninstall and reinstall of both APO and Peace. Probably went wrong something even with how basic installing those two are.

Edit: Actually had same issue but then I noticed the EQ only works with Windows sounds. It has no effect when I play Foobar etc.

Is foobar set to asio/wasapi exclusive? If so set it to directsound/wasapi shared.