Audiophilepure

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/shure-aonic-5

‘Bright’ does exactly what it says on the tin – but for us, it overcooks things. The emphasis on the top end is quite marked with highs sounding more cutting and less pleasant, in our opinion. The strings and electric guitar in Mac Miller’s Cinderella sound quite brash and the track makes for uncomfortable listening.

While it’s a stark jump from ‘balanced’ to ‘bright’, the extra impact and fullness switching to ‘warm’ are a little easier to live with. The situation doesn’t feel quite as unbalanced and you can hear an increase in weight and substance although it is quite subtle. Bass notes don’t become overbearing, but after to-ing and fro-ing between the trio of tips, we’d still suggest sticking with the balanced nozzles, for the best, er, balance of weight, agility, detail and refinement.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/technics-eah-az40

Up at the top end, the Technics are this close to hardness – the confidence they demonstrate further down the frequency range is very nearly overplayed here. Certainly there is a degree of bite to treble sounds that makes turning the volume right up something only the very brave indeed should involve themselves with.Advertisementhttps://f8fccae954b6130965d78ff7f9a8e318.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

This kind of attack makes for a fairly dynamic listen, mind you. From the solo Piano of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 to the wedding-cake pile-up of Wilco’s I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, the EAH-AZ40 have no problem making both broad and minor dynamic variations obvious. But it also seems to impact the Technics’ ability to properly express rhythms, and not in a good way. They don’t flow so much as trudge, and the closer your music edges towards the dancefloor the more uncomfortable the Technics sound.  

The FH9 IEM feels fabulous in hand, and I think based on the titanium design, it should be a reliable item for extensive usage. The chassis is tooled with a 5-axis CNC machine. So everything is beautiful and complete, and the shells are simply fantastic.

FH9 comes with a high-purity silver cable with 9 branches of 28 wires each, for a total of 224 wires. Each wire is individually isolated. They are braided together in a Litz pattern. The cable feels very high quality with good flexibility and tensile strength.

The FiiO FH9 has an ergonomic shape for most ears out there. It’s quite round, like the previous models, but the difference is that this design provides a fuller fit. The fit is more complete and ergonomic for a Universal IEM.

The supplied tips work very well. I chose the silicone ones, despite me usually liking the foam tips more. That’s because the IEM fits very well and I don’t have to use the foam tips to get a flush & secure fit. The silicone tips do the trick and they’re enough to give you nice isolation. You can opt for foams to get more isolation though. SpinFits are also an option if you like those.

The package is separated into two sections. The top gives you all informational material, a thank you card, an instruction manual, extra meshes should the installed ones get dirty, a little booklet about the Phönix and a cleaning cloth. Then below the warranty card, which comes in a black leather credit-card holder, you’ll find the leather carrying case.

The bottom part is where the good stuff is hiding though. Here you have two separate boxes again. The top one holds your new jewel-like IEMs and the supplied cable. A quick word about the cable. It’s manufactured by HanSound Audio – a premium aftermarket cable manufacturer. VE’s website tells us, that the cable is a 23AWG silver/gold alloy copper litz cable, very much like HanSound’s Torfa. The cable itself comes with a pre-configured 2.5mm balanced termination. And if you look closely on the barrel, you’ll see it has VE etched all over it. That’s the kind of attention to detail that VE is famous for.

The Variations IEMs have an elevated, impactful, and full-bodied bass reproduction. The sub-bass is slightly more prominent than the rest of the bass range, however, the bass feels abundant all together. The textured, powerful bass contributes to the fun factor of the IEM. The Moondrop tuned it carefully to prevent the bass from bleeding into the lower mid section. The detail level is also good. The Variations perform well in this regard, the bass is controlled, very powerful, and quite exciting to listen to. 

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/jabra-elite-3-wireless-earbuds

The lowest frequencies are nicely managed, and controlled enough to demonstrate a nice straight edge where the attack and decay of individual bass sounds is concerned. They can sound rather remote from the rest of the frequency information, it’s true, but they at least fight against the overconfidence that can unbalance quite a few of their price-comparable rivals.

Up in the midrange, that peerless vocal is loaded with detail and, as a result, this is quite a thrilling listen. The top of the frequency range is just slightly edgy, but there’s plenty of substance and drive to treble sounds, rather than the ill-defined presentation some alternatives indulge in.

First of all it’s important to mention that the U6t plays perfectly with all kinds of sources, and it’s dead silent at all times with a pitch black background. My favorite modules for the U6t are the m15 ones (gun metal grey like the IEM color) and the below impressions are based on that.

Sound stage wise the U6t scores well, but there is margin for improvement, so let’s call it moderate. This is especially the case when it comes to the sound stage width. The U6t extends better at the bottom than it does at the top, but you overall get a more intimate presentation. There’s nothing wrong with that actually, and many people prefer this kind of tuning. What I do like is the depth in the U6t, and that both for the bass and mids. Together with the lovely depth, you get good layering and that’s something I always love hearing.

The bass has good texture and impact and the tuning of the 7 mm driver is very nice and controlled. Lows have good resolution and rumble, with nice mid-bass and sub-bass balance. The fatter bass of the Nanna was a deal-breaker for genres like Jazz for instance, but the Baldr 2 has an excellently refined and controlled bass response.

So instead of the lift in the sub-bass area (Nanna), you get a more balanced and linear bass response with the Baldr 2. I’m hearing more and more dynamic drivers that are nicely refined and controlled lately (Softears Cerberus), so it’s a very good sign. The driver almost feels like BA one, with great dynamics and speed. So this is not a typical dynamic driver, it’s tuned smoothly and nicely here.

The MEST MKII is a 4-way quadbrid inear monitor and it features a combo of Dynamic drivers, Balanced Armatures, Electrostat (EST) and dBC-S (Dual Side Bone Conduction) drivers. In total we have 7+1 drivers in the following combination: 1 Dynamic Bass Driver + 2 BA Mid Drivers+ 2 BA treble Drivers + 2 EST Ultra-High Drivers + 1 Full Range B2 Bone Conduction Driver. These hybrids are getting sophisticated!