BudgetAudiophile

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KintsugiUwU@lemmy.world

KZ Castor Pro are almost good. This bass though… what the hell? What should I try next? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago by QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world to c/budgetaudiophile@lemmy.world

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I’m exploring budget IEM’s and got the Chu II and Castor Pro. I think the Chu’s are great for the money and the Castor Pro’s are almost great for the money but the bass is making my head swim. I feel like I’m experiencing a cabin pressure change on takeoff. I turned off the manual switches and EQ’d but good golly.

And it’s not even bad sounding bass. It’s just too much. Also, the instruments are hidden. Lots of bass and mid-bass, great vocals but the crack of a snare or complexity of a riff are just fine.

Anyway, I think I need to return them. Should I be looking for something that’s just considered balanced? I listen to bullshit that isn’t recorded particularly well and I have no idea what to buy. I was looking at the KZ PRX next.

And to be clear, I listen to bands like Thou, Mispyrming, Deathspell Omega, Marduk, Djevel, Alice In Chains, Immortal, Emma Ruth Rundle, Blut Aus Nord, mgła… if you’re familiar.

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[–] pilferjinx@piefed.social 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If you look for crinacle and his collaborations you can't go too wrong. He likes balanced/treble focused tunings that are close to harman values. Some people criticize that they're a bit boring and clinical, but honestly, in my experience they're not that bad. There's all sorts of options based on budgets.

https://crinacle.com/collabs/

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

I would agree except that the recent Crinacle Divine and Diablo are crazy, IMHO; I couldn't even bring myself to listen to a full song with them, and they're rather overpriced. This video gives a decent impression of them: https://youtu.be/mi6TGuNB5kA

But I generally agree, the Crinacle collaborations have been very good generally. And CrinEar has been a huge success, especially the CrinEar Daybreak.

[–] QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was originally going to try the 7hz x Crinacle 2 before reading that the Castor was better for bass. Little did I know, "better bass" just meant way too much bass. It sounds like Crinacle is what I'm after but now I'm wondering if the 7hz is a side-step and I should start with the Truthear x Crinacle Red.

[–] pilferjinx@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Honestly, I wouldn't spend too much without knowing what you like first and I hear pretty good things about the salnotes 2 that might suit you perfectly.

[–] QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ahh I just logged back on to say that I’m just gonna wing it and spend like 50-80. Should I not just buy Truthear Zero Red?

[–] pilferjinx@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I own it. It's excellent and pretty. But I've come to enjoy more balanced and detail focused iems over the years and it's a bit of departure from the typical v-shaped signatures that are everywhere.

[–] QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I’m doing quite a bit of research and they seem like they’re great but not what I’m after. As chaotic as my music is, there are layers and details that just don’t come through on my more fun headphones. For now, I want something that’s clear, good instruemnt separation and detail with modest amount of sub bass, clean mid bass and clean treble. I suppose the term is balance but I keep reading reviews about popular IEM’s and what people are willing to put up with and I’m just like… the excellent sub bass doesn’t matter to me if the instrument separation is muddy. At this point I’m just going to order the Kefine Delci or Truthear Hexa maybe.

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I haven't tried any KZ IEMs personally, but your description doesn't surprise me. The Chu II, I have tried though, and I gotta say, they are not that great IMHO.

Vocals have unnatural timbre and are too forward, bass is unclear and untextured while obscuring the midrange leading to reduced clarity. Clarity and sound stage do improve slightly when driving from a proper DAC/amp stage instead of a high impedance output (e.g., laptop or PC headphone jack), but even so, I was disappointed. The metal build quality is great though, and they're super small for IEMs, so I use them for falling asleep to ambient music now.

Given that you listen to quite tonally complex music, I would make clarity a priority. Check out these two IEMs, they might be of interest: https://graph.hangout.audio/iem/5128/?share=JM-1_Target%2CZero2_S1%2CGate&bass=0&tilt=-1&treble=0&ear=0

I also highly recommend using squig.link as a resource, and getting a feel for what kind of frequency response you like. Remember that the actual frequency response will be different for you because of your unique ear canal, hrtf, etc.

Also see this Super Review video on recent releases: https://youtu.be/GTNXnIzZ6G0

Good luck on your IEM journey! It's a wonderful hobby :)

[–] QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Great response and much appreciated. I've always been an over-ear headphone listener and I'm really excited to start collecting IEM's. I'm dabbling with cheap ones for now and once I know what I like, I'll start buying more substantial IEM's.

As far as the Chu go, I definitely agree with you. I suppose I meant that for 20 bucks, something that I can keep in my pocket for when I need a pair of IEM's while grocery shopping, tinkering in the garage, listening to podcasts, riding my bike, etc. they're great. I tried sitting down with them and running them through my ifi ZEN DAC this morning and I won't be doing that again.

Just curious, what's you opinion of budget planar IEM's? I don't think I'll mess around with KZ again but AliExpress has great sales on KZ right now and I was considering trying them one more time. I believe it's the PRX that I was considering for $15. $63 on Amazon.