Moondrop KXXS IEM Discussions | Drop

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Moondrop KXXS IEM

Aug 6, 2019

Meh it seems Head-Fi reviews have had a direct effect on this iteration of the Moondrop over ear cable IEM's. Everyone complained about lack of accessories, and mentioning of a long stem with the Kanas Pro. Now you have a shorter stem, and cut down retention where tips can easily slide on and off. In an effort to provide more accessories, they've now cut back on the cable provided, it's not some tangly meh-cable with no angled relief on the connector, so less ergonomic. You do get more accessories though, like the blue case. But the problem is, KXXS's are like jewels, I can't imagine any sane person throwing them in any case without their own separate compartments as they would simply bang up against one another and you'd have a million scratches. These things are mirror polished where simply looking at them they would scratch, so who would just throw them into whatever would be a highly peculiar person. But the worst part is, now it's performance is worse, the Total Harmonic Distortion metrics are a wash. The Moondrop were the best measured performing IEM's I've seen when taking Frequency Response + THD into account. Extremely low and consistent THD measurment. The KXXS is still somewhat okay and good compared to other IEM's, but a massive blunder if comparing it to the Kanas Pro. The KXXS THD is similar (sort of worse actually) than the $99 Sennheiser IE 40 Pro. Where the sub bass region (like on many dynamic headphones like the HD600 650 660 800) raise substantially in distortion. Going by measurements, the cable aesthetic, the IEM dimensions/aesthetics... The Moondrop Pro's discontinuation is a massively unfortunate event considering how good of an IEM it was. But the misinformed market of consumers speaks, and their baseless hype of the latest and greatest costs us sometimes. Get the remaining second-hand Kanas Pro's while you can folks, it's looking like it's going to be a long time till you see something so nice looking and so well performing again for this price point.

(Edited)

Aug 6, 2019

Arjaylistens

Aug 7, 2019

JJayJJThank you! Finally someone understands it.

Aug 7, 2019

rawrus

Aug 8, 2019

JJayJJDam what a bombshell to drop. I had been wondering if the KXXS was a true successor like they had been saying to the Kanas Pro. I have the former, still worth it to buy kanas pro? Female vocals and anime music is a part of my juice. I still feel like I’m missing out on not having the Kanas Pro

Aug 8, 2019

Vote

JJayJJ

472

Aug 8, 2019

rawrusIt's hard to tell in a one to one comparison. There's no bombshell being dropped to be perfectly honest. I've noticed this throughout the headphone world (especially Chinese IEM's). They really are decent folk that do listen to their users, and try to offer as much as they can always it seems. The problem sometimes is, they miss out on the fine details that made them great, and also sometimes the customers (us mostly) have idiotic desires (like better packaging and things like presentation/accessories). I'm not saying the KXXS is bad from a performance point of view, it's actually still a really good IEM (most others have horrendous Total Harmonic Distortion metrics, and when I say horrible, I mean atrocious reaching near the top of the graphs in the images I provided). I simply thing because people requested more things, and the fact that companies are always scared of offering the same product for too long, forces them to make changes that sometimes leads to unintended results. The only companies that don't change much are the long established ones, or the luxury companies. This can be both a good and bad thing. Good if they have a great product (which something like the Kanas Pro is, and deserves in my opinion to be one of the finest examples of what an IEM should be like from performance, to ergonomics, to overall package), but if a company has a bad product or a mediocre one - then staying the same doesn't do them much favors. But there are enough brainless folks out there to always buy even voodoo hyped nonsense, so companies live to see another day. My biggest personal issue with the KXXS is the cable (I simply cannot stand seeing straight cable connectors, it simply makes zero sense to me from a human anatomy perspective). And also the nozzle, while it's not too bad, it can get annoying where deeply inserted tips won't come off sometimes when taking the IEM's out of your ear, on top of the stem itself not being as long anymore. They're still better than many IEM's on the market if you ask me, and personally speaking, their sound quality and signature isn't all that different from the Kanas Pro in reality. You'd have to be concentrating to tell the difference based on the graphs I posted if you're listening to normal mainstream music. And again, Moondrop has been chasing the Harman Target for a while now so the sound signature will suit most people. Unlike other Chi-Fi IEM's that are simply a random dart throw on a wall.

Aug 8, 2019

LordSmashington

Oct 11, 2019

JJayJJThey don't scratch that easy my dude. Also, neat trick. If you do scratch them, rub them a little with some cardboard and it will shine like new.

Oct 11, 2019

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