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Qwervy
464
Aug 19, 2020
I've been looking with an IEM that's hard to drive, seriously. I have to deal with crappy sources away from home in the P.A. world with a high output impedance and @kukkurovaca 's comment about good mids is making me very tempted...
QandX
86
Aug 20, 2020
QwervyMaybe you can try ZEN 2.0 from venture electronic. If you like their Monk, you will like zen 2.0, it is a earbud with 300ohm. You need an amp to drive it.
A community member
Aug 20, 2020
QwervyFor hard to drive iems the tin p1 might be worth considering. When I bought it I had a note 8 and now use a lg v40. Neither are enough to drive it properly. I use E1DA 9038S to drive it and my thx789 amp.
Qwervy
464
Aug 20, 2020
QandXI did have those earbuds in the back of my mind but I wanted the isolation from an IEM. This is, as I said, for P.A. usage which means most of the time I would like to have some isolation but thanks for the suggestion. I might have a look at it :)
Qwervy
464
Aug 20, 2020
The P1 is the first thing I thought of when I saw the sensitivity figures. However, it's the better damping on high impedance sources that I was attracted by. Thanks for your suggestion though, I already have P1's on the wish-list :)
A community member
Aug 20, 2020
QwervyI wasnt sure what you meant by P.A. usage to be honest. If I may ask what is that?
Qwervy
464
Aug 20, 2020
Pro-audio/Public-address; live gigs and live-gig equipment aka, mixers, audio interfaces. They normally have notoriously high output impedances which is never ideal for running IEM's. Also tend to have a bad noise floor.
A community member
Aug 20, 2020
QwervyOh ok. Gotcha. Makes much more sense now. Thanks for the info :-)
manezinho
131
Aug 20, 2020
QwervyHave you considered using an output attenuator? Easy way to create resistance with any IEM.
Qwervy
464
Aug 21, 2020
manezinhoI have, and in fact have made several L-pads, but they aren't very space efficient and are just another thing to carry around and remember. I wouldn't mind as much if I could get casings for 3.5mm - 3.5mm casings with enough space to fit 4 resistors but those are pretty hard to find. Plus, who doesn't want new audio gear? Retail therapy LOL
League544
535
Oct 6, 2020
QwervyWhy not just buy a btr5? Drives anything with zero hiss, cheap, portable, you need a dac/amp anyways to bring with you.
Qwervy
464
Oct 7, 2020
League544The btr5 doesn't have any analog inputs, and if it did it would just be amplifying said noise. Also, as with my previous comment, having another device in the signal chain is just bulky and hard to remember to bring. If I'm going to bring a dedicated DAC/AMP to a studio session for some bizarre reason I would be bringing much more than a btr5, plus a btr5 only has digital inputs. It would be much easier to utilize a coax, optical or analog input so I would probably just bring an Xduoo XD-05 plus. The point of having an "attenuator" built into the IEM makes it much more convenient to carry around gigs, and the next best thing is an L-pad. Bluetooth DAC/AMP's are unfortunately useless in about 99.9 percent of live gig/studio sessions and normal DAC/AMP's aren't a huge amount better. Thanks for your suggestion though.
League544
535
Oct 7, 2020
QwervyYou are one very extremely strange individual, I dig it. I don't know why you're afraid of Wireless I heard nowadays especially with ldac it's pretty much lossless, well with ldac it's completely lossless. I COMPLETELY agree with the attenuator, FA9 iems has a 16-32 ohm switch built in, it's amazing, probably what you're looking for actually. I have owned them for the past couple of months and they sound almost identical to my v14 iems, they definitely punch above their weight. Fa9s are great. You know what I'm actually trying to sell the FA9, I think I might sell them because I'm not trying to have a collection of headphones when I can only wear one pair. (v14) Can you notice a sound difference between AAC/android codecs and wired?
Qwervy
464
Oct 7, 2020
League544Lol, no its not that I dont like using wireless, I love good wireless. PA systems dont support bluetooth-out about 100 percent of the time, which means bluetooth DAC/Amp's are essentially useless and the only reliable way to process a signal on the artist side is through analog. Wow the Fa9 do look good, however, typically the output impedance for PA is between 10-50 ohms which means that if I want to follow the impedance matching rule of 8ths I would need to use an impedance of at least 160-ish ohms which is why the 80 ohm impedance of the ADV Gt3 superbass was appealing. Still, I will keep an eye out for specials on the Fa9, I have a pair of FH1's and I like the way Fiio uses their BA's. I can notice the difference between basic android codecs but Aptx and AAC are much harder to tell the difference on. The basic android codecs (a2dp and the like) sound compressed, unnatural and can have digital/grainy sounding high end. One of the interesting things about digital compression is that the highlights of a song (e.g. sax solo) don't stand out in the mix as well and get more covered up which is something that a lot of bluetooth codecs share. However, this is me being super nitpicky and realistically in day to day usage I dont notice it unless the bluetooth controller on the receiver side is particularly bad. The main things about bluetooth IMO are noise floor, that disgusting sounding high end and instrument separation on inferiors codecs.
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