(Anecdote alert): Why are more and more manufacturers dropping memory wire from their IEM cables? Simple. Their bosses wear glasses. They feel the pain. And, being bosses, they know what they want. What do they want? Ear liberty. Spectacle autonomy.
Read moreWhat volume matching isn't
If you see the term volume matched in an audio review, or other pertinent audio article, you should ask is: how were volumes matched ? The response to which should (at minimum) be: with a voltage meter, or, with an external ADC.
Read moreGlasses: informing the headphones you wear
I took up an interest in better-than-average headphones the same year I started wearing glasses. In no way are the two correlated. I was twelve. One was an all-day, every-day, affair borne of necessity. The other was fuelled by a growing musical independence from my parents. Through the years, my glasses have changed. No more tiger stripes. Thinner and thinner indexes. My musical preferences have changed, too. I totally dig trance. I’m still a fan of Canadian hip-hop, but I’m in it now more for Classified and John River more than I am for Snow.
Read moreBarun C reviews Aedle's VK-1
Epic Headfonia and Head-fi, commenter, Barun Chanda, who is keen on loaning me stuff to check out, curates the assiduously pruned YouTube channel, Barun Chanda. His review of the Aedle VK-1 is clearly edited, and well explained.
Coincidentally, Barun has lent me his Final Audio Pandora VI for about a month. Many thanks, Barun.
Ocharaku Sakura Plus/Akazakura Plus 400Hz shift
The above illustration (found here) demonstrates the dimensional differences between phase correction tubes in Ocharaku's latest Sakura Plus and Akazakura Plus earphones.
Read moreA date with Ocharaku's Sakura Plus & Akazakura Plus
While my impressions of Sakura Plus are wobbly and immature, my knowledge of Mr. Yamagishi’s office is explicitly adult. Ocharaku occupies a narrow bit of space in Kyodo, a famously old and comfortable part of Tokyo. And, as ‘cha’ means tea and ‘raku’ means ease, there’s one thing you can’t miss when meeting Mr. Yamagishi. Tea. Good tea.
Read moreMyST Nail series - Nail?
The MyST Nail series is aberrant among modern earphones. It looks cheap but it isn’t. It fits like an Etymotic ER4. It’s accessory set is its ear pads. Its cables are fixed. In a market focused on most everything that it isn’t, Nail isn’t a product that sells itself.
Read moreAudio Head: Noble Audio Savanna giveaway
[Update] this post has been edited for taste.
Audio Head doing a snazzy giveaway of a Noble Audio Savanna. Nice.
Follow the jump for giveaway details: An Audio-Head Giveaway – The Noble Savanna IEM
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Andromeda and the demands of the opinion cult
Insanely-active headfi user, moedawg140’s objection to incessant reader demands to compare TOTL earphone against TOTL rivals, is spot on. A non-engineering review is written from opinion. No matter how assiduous, extended comparisons between earphone A and earphone B reveal nothing but personal bias; more colloquially, they reveal that we all hear different. Obsessing over and acquiescing to reader demands is a never-ending, soul-destroying campaign of self-flagellation and risk. Self flagellation: kowtowing to a single demand necessarily insinuates more of the same in the future. Risk: maintaining a fleet of TOTL earphones, amps, DACs, or DAPs, is expensive both to the wallet and to the attic.
Read moreCampfire Audio Andromeda - excitement engine
Achebe oversimplified things. Some things fall apart. Others compound into something exquisite. Baby bum-smooth Andromeda is as polished next to Jupiter as Jupiter is against a pre-production version of itself. It is my - perhaps self-serving - opinion that the two earphone manufacturers most violently busting through the limits of industrial manufacturing and branding ceilings are Campfire Audio and Noble Audio.
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