Don't rule out micro drivers for bass response. Ever tried the JVC HA-FXH30? That little iem is godly. Bass of a dynamic, speed and detail of a balance armature. Fantastic!
asigalHi, many thanks for your review. You said that in the sound signature, the mids and lows are recessed but people say it's neutral/flat sounding. I'm not doubting you, but are you sure?
Also, it's odd for a neutral sounding IEM to have a Soundstage that lacks depth. I would have thought a flat sound signature tends to produce a cube-like/squarish Soundstage in width, depth and height.
KMprRight. The discrepancy is partly due to the fact the I had not allowed for sufficient burn-in time for my IEB6's at the time. Also, my point of reference is probably different from the other reviewers, as my daily driver for two years has been the Macaw GT100s.
However, you are correct when you say my assessment of the soundstage is strange. I was perplexed at first, but came to realize that this was due to two different conditions:
1) Low quality DAC in the Nexus 6P I was using
2) The driver is a 5mm micro driver, which is inherently limited in terms of sound staging. This is based off of my current understanding of the way modern audio drivers work, so if I am wrong, please correct me.
Given these two conditions, I tried to mitigate them as much as possible. I tried to use the best DAC I had access to at the time: whatever is in the HTC One M8. This improved conditions, but not so much that I really thought to report it. I am working towards getting better hardware to test my headphones off of, but as you might know, this is rather expensive.
If you have further questions, please ask away.
asigalIn regards to your soundstage comment, JVC and Yamaha have done a good job of addressing the soundstage limitations of small drivers by mounting theirs right in the tip. Soundstage isn't huge like on the Havi B3 Pro 1 or Titan 1, but they have own unique strengths. Would love to see more manufacturers take on this tip-mounted design, maybe with even smaller drivers (such as V Sonic using a 3mm dynamic in the VC02) to make them more comfortable.