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🕑 Added 2022-04-02 12:13:27 +0000 UTCHi guys, first of all thanks for your continuous support. Recently I got lots of Patrons asking for refunds, not being satisfied with the content etc. I must confess I had a hard time lately and concentrated solely on achieving the best possible sound out of an IEM, which is not something you can do within some days. But I think I finally managed a really satisfying result with my latest setting at least for me. I cannot offer a decent sound to anyone else if I don't even manage it properly for myself, but listening back and forth between speakers, my current tuning for the Free Pro 2 and my reference headphone which is the HD600 with my personal EQ I posted before, makes me finally satisfied to some degree. I can never be satisfied by 100%, but I am at a point where I think I finally managed a really natural sounding honest tuning which has no obvious flaws anymore and can really be called "reference" especially to be used for judging my upcoming recordings and sound demos. Any realistic headphone or speaker demo doesn't make sense if the result you are hearing doesn't remotely represent what I recorded. Therefore I think the first goal should be to find a common reference base so that you at least will hear something close to what I was hearing. After having finished all settings of the current reference tuning for all the other resonance frequencies, I will also need help from you to optimise those settings as well, which I cannot verify with my own ears anymore. Once done, I will start working on optimising the compensation for my binaural microphones, this way I should be able to get less colored binaural recordings thanks to having normalised my monitoring chain. Neither this is something which can be achieved within some days. There is lots of trial and error involved finding a smoothened average which would work for my recordings to sound similar to the real thing. Lots of listening sessions, continuous comparisons are necessary to really ensure the result I offer is valid and realistic. If I don't manage this at least for myself, it doesn't even make sense trying to "sell" this to someone else.
I am well aware of the recent announcements and releases like the upcoming Soundboks Go. One of my friends already got a unit prior to release and his first impressions were sobering.
The default sound presets sound just horrible, with a hollow boomy sound signature, the user EQ can help a little but it still won't sound any decent. It's basically a Soundboks 3 cut by half with just a single woofer and tweeter and cheapest components built in. Thanks to clever marketing and expensive advertisments they will still sell tons of them, but I highly doubt I would even consider getting one. I asked Soundboks if there was a way to get a test unit, but they ignored me so far, as I am obviously not promoting the products I am getting enough, unlike most other Youtubers who on top of this get paid to promote stuff.
I also noticed the new Sony Linkbuds which thanks to their unique open design looked quite interesting, but after having heard the first verdicts from some of my trusted sources, I definitely won't be getting them, as they may be decent for podcasts or as handsfree if you need to have your ears unblocked but still want to be virtually connected...
The most tempting headphone I noticed lately could be the Hifiman Edition XS praised by every reviewer so far. I may order one just to get an own impression. Once my recording setup stands and I am sure my sound samples are valid I will consider getting it.
I am also planning to get some popular IEMs just to confirm how unusable they all are. I got the new Earfun Air Pro SV, but didn't want to lose any words about this. It doesn't even fit properly within my ear. It also uses the Airoha chip and could be maybe tuned properly, but it doesn't remember the setting after power down. Earfun also released an own app for it featuring a simple 3-band EQ, which cannot really help to improve the sound at all. I suggested them to offer access to the full parametric EQ, but they refused and I simply diIdn't want to mention it at all. I also got the AKG N400NC TWS which was praised by Crinacle ais being the best sounding TWS IEM, but it sounds so bad that I put it away immediately. I am actually a bit unsure what is going on with the IEM market currently with some "fake-driver" IEMs, or hyped 700$ IEMs with responses beyond any logic, that I simply lost interest in this entire topic and see it just as some kind of business model trying to fool people selling them the same crap again and again. I have some IEMs on my list which I would like to order simply to proof my claims. I thought about getting these ones: The JBL Reflect Flow which got the highest rating from German Stiftung Warentest, the Nothing ear (1) was sold more than 100000 times within a short period of time, the Shure AONIC Free True Wireless could also be interesting just as the Anker SoundCore Liberty 3 Pro, or the Technics EAH-AZ60-S Premium Class True Wireless Inear and maybe I'll finally get the Apple Airpods Pro, if you have some further suggestions, or think there is some particular model which is worth trying, please let me know. I just need to find a way how to order them all at once and still be able to return them afterwards, because I cannot afford keeping them all, as it would be like throwing money out of the window. My only income right now is thanks to your support. With so many dropping off currently I am not sure I will be able to afford ordering them at all.
I should also be getting an upcoming speaker sample from Earfun soon which was repeatedly delayed because of some unexptected problems. I have no details about the speaker yet, just that it's called UBOOM L and I should give my expertise about the final tuning. The speaker may be marketed with my name as collaboration, but so far I had nothing to do with this product and I am not sure it could be something promising. I have only this rendering which would suggest a Sony XB33 clone:
I tried convincing Earfun about a future IEM based on my requirements etc, but they didn't show any interest. Also a contact to another company about a possible IEM freely tunable was so far rather desillusioning with maybe more details next year. But there doesn't seem to be much interest in producing something really decent sounding it would seem. It's all about mass sales because thanks to extensive marketing and praise from all popular influlencers people will buy it anyhow. This was confirmed by the product manager I was talking to. It would be a niche product, as highest sound quality doesn't seem to be the highest goal, but everything is based on possible sales and marketing. They would rather pay tons to have the name of a popular gamer on their product than having me involved in the tuning process. It was depressing hearing this from someone actually knowing the products and market, although even he complimented on my recent tuning.
If you have discovered other new interesting products which you think are worth checking out, please let me know. Maybe I will prepare an own post where everyone could comment about possible products for me to get for a review. But please keep in mind that I have to buy all these products with my own money, because I don't get free samples or sponsorships unlike all the other reviewers.
