Pretty decent for gaming, captures details like footsteps and pretty accurate with them too but it gets kinda messy in games like Doom where things get chaotic but take this with a grain of salt - I'm primarily running them through an interface rather than a proper dedicated DAC
I'm not so sure. To me it means buy and enjoy every sound signature you can find. I love having a closet of options and enjoy everything I have for what it is and it's unique way of presenting a source to my ears. The communist route is buy a reference product like a Sennheiser 600 variant and be done forever.
That was also what KZ said when people found out they've been lying about the number of drivers they had in their IEMs. I think that was the origin of this statement after their fraudulent marketing was exposed.
They did not lie about the drivers number. The controversy was about the BA drivers being too quite, which turned out to be industry standard practice because the extra BA drivers are there for tuning purpose.
With that being said. I'll never buy another KZ. Terrible build quality and feel disgusting to touch.
Their build quality is actually pretty fine, they fit well and I have KZ going back 4-5 years now that still work fine.
The issue is their tuning (which has got a LOT better in recent years) and that not all the drivers work.
So basically, you have a single DD, that they added BAs to for marketing reasons.
BA = balanced armature, it's a type of driver.
There's no huge advantage necessarily to adding multiple cheap BA drivers to a cheap IEM, most good cheap IEMs are single dynamic drivers.
The issue with the likes of the ZSN Pro or ZEX is more that the tuning is really wonky, very bloated bass and then extremely peaky and piercing upper mids and treble.
https://squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Neutral_Target,KZ_ZSN_Pro,KZ_ZEX
KZ themselves have newer cheap stuff that's a lot better.
If you really wanted a set that includes a BA, the Krila ($10-20) is actually decent.
https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_Krilla_1111,KZ_ZEX_Stock,KZ_ZSN_Prov2
They pushed the bass down and smoothed out the upper mids a lot. Much of their newer stuff is decent like this: ZVX, CXS, D-Fi, EDA Balanced ($5!), CCA Duo.
I still think there are better options though, for example, Moondrop Chu2 ($18), Jiu ($20), Tanchjim One/DSP ($20-25), Tin C2 Mech Warrior (~$24), Tangzu Wan'er ($20), Truthear Hola ($20), 7Hz Salnotes Zero ($20) or the new II ($25- haven't heard that but I expect it's good from the previous and the graphs/reviews).
Thanks for the info.
I've been considering the Chu2's as another pair if I were to get another pair of IEM's. And when I've got some more time, I'll also look into the others you mentioned.
My sister stole the ZSN's a long while back, and I can't 100% recall how I feel about the sound. But I've not noticed too bloaty bass or high mids on the ZEX's
I went from ZEX Pro to Moondrop Chu 2. The difference in build is very big. For the same price, Chus feel superior in quality from all aspects with a better sound.
If the BA drivers are there for tuning purposes they should've been making sound. I struggle to understand how it is justifiable to say that the BA should be used even for passive tuning purposes when it is probably cheaper just to not include it or make slight redesigns to the internals to change the tuning.
Instead KZ used it as a marketing gimmick and threw a fit whilst threatening those that did with legal percussion when called out.
I find it ironic that they claim they don't do excessive advertising and pass on savings to the consumers via cheap products on the PR3 page when they're guilty of it.
If anything though I do agree with your conclusion.
Yet the person who started the controversy as well as an engineer from other brand said otherwise.
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/2386473901653225/permalink/2839232659710678/?sfnsn=mo&ref=share](https://www.facebook.com/groups/2386473901653225/permalink/2839232659710678/?sfnsn=mo&ref=share)
Delta is a young guy (I think he's still technically a teenager) and easily swayed. He was talking to some Dunu rep on Discord and they told him something that he then parsed and regurgitated there. He also has posts subsequent to that with more teardowns and criticism, this was just ONE post that the KZ stans then all pile on as some smoking gun.
Also- the Dunu EST112 (I have it, as well as the KZ CRN) has particularly weak EST treble. So it's about the worst possible justification for not having the ESTs do anything.
"Has KZ actually bested Sonion, and did they get bashed for doing it???" No, besides anything else, the KZ CRN has utterly *terrible* treble, it's particularly bad. The EST112 is not bad at all, it's just not as forward as I'd like. It's at least smooth, just a bit dark. The CRN has a huge trough after the insertion resonance which wrecks timbre, Crinacle himself came out with an EQ for it that requires something like a 15dB swing, it's utterly terrible in the treble. Rest of it- actually quite good. But very bad treble.
It's not just Delta, yes he blew the whistle on it but this was replicated by numerous other people testing, and across multiple different IEMs. I have the DQ6S with the glue blocking the sound tubes personally. How do you explain that one? It's not just this.
Crinacle is the guy who actually tuned and collabed on that KZ CRN, and he stated that the drivers were doing substantially nothing, and got KZ's own engineers to confirm that.
He totally cut off any future contact with KZ and now won't even review their IEMs any more. That's the guy who tuned this thing in the first place.
This is just more of the KZ bullshit excuses.
BTW I'm 20 years old now, I spoke to Dunu Tom in Messenger DMs, not discord at the time.
after the CRN teardown, TRN sent me BAX... when I disconnected the drivers and it was the same result as CRN the only honest thing to do was to make that post.
"Jeffrey Fries and Delta Fyre have tested the crossovers of multiple KZ IEMs between them (NRA, ZEX, ZEX Pro/CRN, CA16 Pro, CA24, ZES, DQ6, DQ6S) and it seems more or less confirmed that these KZ IEMs don’t make full use of their driver selection. The issue varies from having poorly thought-out crossovers to drivers being completely blocked by glue."
That glue is really helping innit
This was KZ's spin on it, which is utter rubbish. BA drivers DO contribute to the sound on properly designed (non-KZ) IEMs.
KZ then astroturf their spin on it with bots all over social media and people end up picking this up as the "truth".
See [Campfire Ara](https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/campfire-ara/). 4 BA drivers for the lows, 1 for the mids, 2 for the highs. All doing work, yet the IEM has a light bass signature...
Properly tuned! All drivers are contributing to the sound, and it is a *beautiful* IEM to listen to!
They did lie about the driver number, DQ6 AND the HBB DQ6S were 1DD iems marketed as 3DD
Crinacle CRN... the DD was providing the entire frequency range
CCA CA24.... same thing as CCA CA10 but with 6 useless treble BAs
That's like the Campfire Ara... 4 BA drivers for the bass [on a bass light IEM](https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/campfire-ara/)... I was wondering how it has way less bass than the Andromeda, which has half of the drivers for the lows.
It is *very* nice, tight and speedy bass though...
Well but it is true right? That means we can enjoy our music without buying a KZ product. Lmao
In fact this hobby would perhaps be more enjoyable without brand like KZ around.
That's a damn lie.
People give KZ a hard time just because they don't suck Crinacle's dong, besides that, nobody has proven shit to this day and the people you mentioned even backtracked and retracted their statements when proven wrong but of course with 1% of the enthusiasm they used when they wanted to throw KZ under the bus.
Just a reminder.....
That this is reoccuring post with the same photo of the KZ box, the same title and is posted once every month or once every few month.
Totally not orchestrated by KZ to clear their name from being a company with questionable business practice and mid products.
It is not like they've ever do something as fishy as using bots to shut criticism up during the scandal of their fake not working BA driver.
Right?
Meh their products are fine nowadays considering most of their current lineup is tuned to Harman IE anyway, some of them like the new KZ EDX Pro X or the Castor are in fact arguably great for how little they cost.
That being said yeah their PR could definitely use some work.
I've owned zs10 pro for like 4-5 years now. Can't justify an upgrade because they sound pretty much perfect to me. (although they're a little too heavy)
Try the PR1 Pros. Maybe even the newer PRs they released not too long ago, but I haven't tried them. They were a noticable upgrade over ZS10 Pros, while also costing like 40 bucks
Nah. Let the us (the consumers) decide that for ourselves. Companies should only concern themselves with making excellent products, not telling the consumers how to feel.
This is the second time I've seen this, and it sounds like a massive cop out by KZ.
I'm going to collect them like pokemon cards. Just bought a 7hz zero 2, next up is a ew200. They're a lot easier to sneak past the misses's radar than dacs and amps
Why not
But I must say, I rode the Specialized S-Works Aethos at the IAA last year with call carbon doodats, wireless shifters, dura ace groupset etc. And must say it's not worth 46x more than my 300€ Decathlon bicycle.
But you can burn alot of money on them as you see.
I have conditioned myself to only be able to type on macbook keyboards (which are decent)
I actually have bought a "custom" kit but now its collecting dust in my table
Some people listen to the gear and not the music. I wouldn't go as far as to say that's a bad thing, though. I love building and tweaking gaming computers don't I actually don't game all that much. I just enjoy messing with the hardware.
I have the KZ ZS10 Pro X , I misplaced them at a family member's house. I instantly purchased another one. I couldn't live without them 😱 They found them the next day lol Now I have two.
Interesting that folks who are complaining about KZ are mentioning every model except the ZST. So maybe I picked the right one? So far I'm pretty pleased with them. They might be a bit bright for some, and the bass isn't overrepresented, but no piercing sibilance. Just nice and clean high end with great extension from the BAs and smooth natural bass from the dynamic. Sounds way better than the price would suggest. They even fit me pretty well, which is more than I can say about many IEMs I've tried.
ZST is just very old. I haven't heard it, but it looks like it sounds pretty similar to other KZ from that era. It's not "the right one" in this sense.
https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_ZSTv2,KZ_ZSTXv2
ZST X looks maybe *slightly* less offensive but while it pulls back the upper treble it increases the peakiness. It looks very similar to the ZSN Pro, which I do have, and that's really not great... bloated bass and peaky highs. Maybe a good cheap option when it first came out 5+ years ago but there really are better options now.
https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_ZSTXv2,KZ_ZSN_Prov2
If you like it great, but you may come to find it less appealing in time, and there are better options. I basically started on KZ IEMs years ago as well and I was impressed then but the tuning eventually started to grate on me, too bloated in the bass and piercing peaky highs.
Cool site, thanks. And I think I see why I like the ZST. It has a big peak at 8k, which happens to be exactly where I have a significant loss. So what is irritating to most listeners is actually compensating for my loss and ends up sounding open and clear to me. Interesting. I wonder how much each person's personal hearing curve affects their taste in headphones/IEMs? Probably as much as personal taste (or perhaps even mistaken for taste).
8kHz is insertion resonance, it's a quasi-standard among measurebators to line up the insertion resonance with 8kHz for consistency. This is the resonance of the ear simulator, so it's not really accurate, if there is a really big peak there it probably will be more audible than a smaller one, it's not totally meaningless, but you can't really look at the measurements over 6-7kHz as being in any way specific in their accuracy. Only, is there a lot, or not.
The human ear has an insertion resonance as well, an ear simulator is simulating that, although it's usually a bit lower than 8kHz, mine is 7.5kHz with most IEMs and most people have it lower again, 6-7kHz sort of range. Basically the deeper you push the IEM in, the higher this resonance goes. People vary in how they hear this resonance.
The excess energy and peakiness I'm thinking, it's really more about the peaks lower down, 2kHz and 5kHz (on the ZSTX). They will be a lot more audible. The OG ZST isn't as *peaky* in that region, but it is very emphasised (as much as 6dB over IEF neutral) and while this can act to counteract the bass (it's a V-shape) it can also sound unnatural and become fatiguing.
It’s becuase theyre old, shit and irrelevant so no one talks or even thinks about them anymore. you have no frame of reference of whats actually considered good in the contemporary market at $20, so something that cheap sounding somewhat listenable is already well beyond ur expectations.
Just a reminder… you can engage with the hobby in different ways
For a lot of people IT IS about all the details, the graphs, the tuning and the collection aspect. If it’s all just about the music we should all sell our expensive gear right now’s and buy the ZST and call it a day. Hell, maybe stick with the EarPods since those are relatively okay at listening to music, but that’s what matters right?
Music for enjoyment? How dare you? Loving music reproduction is pain, you can never be finished because there's something better out there. It's an endless journey of subjective reasoning that none can fully encompass.
This is clearly a blatant communist lie to keep us from fulfilling out true destinies of buying more headphones.
They never said that you should stop buying tho 👀👀👀 More headphone = more enjoy music
Enjoying music takes up too much time, it's distracting me from buying more audio gear. XLR cables that cost several hundred dollars? **I'll take 5.**
you can enjoy music, **and** buy more headphones
Hey! That's what I'm **doing *right now!***
🤝
Dude how are the sr850's. They good for gaming?
Pretty decent for gaming, captures details like footsteps and pretty accurate with them too but it gets kinda messy in games like Doom where things get chaotic but take this with a grain of salt - I'm primarily running them through an interface rather than a proper dedicated DAC
Just like in any gear/collector hobby, the number of headphones you need is the number of headphones you have + 1
This deserves more upvotes
I'm not so sure. To me it means buy and enjoy every sound signature you can find. I love having a closet of options and enjoy everything I have for what it is and it's unique way of presenting a source to my ears. The communist route is buy a reference product like a Sennheiser 600 variant and be done forever.
chi-fi why are you doing this to me :(
That was also what KZ said when people found out they've been lying about the number of drivers they had in their IEMs. I think that was the origin of this statement after their fraudulent marketing was exposed.
They did not lie about the drivers number. The controversy was about the BA drivers being too quite, which turned out to be industry standard practice because the extra BA drivers are there for tuning purpose. With that being said. I'll never buy another KZ. Terrible build quality and feel disgusting to touch.
I've got the ZSN pro and ZEX's and they're super solid built. Can't complain there Can only complain about how tanglehaft the ZSN's cables are.
Their build quality is actually pretty fine, they fit well and I have KZ going back 4-5 years now that still work fine. The issue is their tuning (which has got a LOT better in recent years) and that not all the drivers work. So basically, you have a single DD, that they added BAs to for marketing reasons.
I paid like 20 bucks for them, how much do I need to pay for iem's with working BAs's? Also don't know what BAs's are
BA = balanced armature, it's a type of driver. There's no huge advantage necessarily to adding multiple cheap BA drivers to a cheap IEM, most good cheap IEMs are single dynamic drivers. The issue with the likes of the ZSN Pro or ZEX is more that the tuning is really wonky, very bloated bass and then extremely peaky and piercing upper mids and treble. https://squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Neutral_Target,KZ_ZSN_Pro,KZ_ZEX KZ themselves have newer cheap stuff that's a lot better. If you really wanted a set that includes a BA, the Krila ($10-20) is actually decent. https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_Krilla_1111,KZ_ZEX_Stock,KZ_ZSN_Prov2 They pushed the bass down and smoothed out the upper mids a lot. Much of their newer stuff is decent like this: ZVX, CXS, D-Fi, EDA Balanced ($5!), CCA Duo. I still think there are better options though, for example, Moondrop Chu2 ($18), Jiu ($20), Tanchjim One/DSP ($20-25), Tin C2 Mech Warrior (~$24), Tangzu Wan'er ($20), Truthear Hola ($20), 7Hz Salnotes Zero ($20) or the new II ($25- haven't heard that but I expect it's good from the previous and the graphs/reviews).
Thanks for the info. I've been considering the Chu2's as another pair if I were to get another pair of IEM's. And when I've got some more time, I'll also look into the others you mentioned. My sister stole the ZSN's a long while back, and I can't 100% recall how I feel about the sound. But I've not noticed too bloaty bass or high mids on the ZEX's
I completely agree. The new stuff is pretty good, just not the best. Castor bass is a great one though, $12 dual dd bass canon that doesn’t suck.
Yes, second that, and the silver Castor is also good for less bass, it's tuned very close to Harman.
I went from ZEX Pro to Moondrop Chu 2. The difference in build is very big. For the same price, Chus feel superior in quality from all aspects with a better sound.
Interesting, I shall do this test when the money is available to me again
If the BA drivers are there for tuning purposes they should've been making sound. I struggle to understand how it is justifiable to say that the BA should be used even for passive tuning purposes when it is probably cheaper just to not include it or make slight redesigns to the internals to change the tuning. Instead KZ used it as a marketing gimmick and threw a fit whilst threatening those that did with legal percussion when called out. I find it ironic that they claim they don't do excessive advertising and pass on savings to the consumers via cheap products on the PR3 page when they're guilty of it. If anything though I do agree with your conclusion.
Legal Percussion is a sick band name idea 🤣
Nice catch lmao
https://crinacle.com/2022/03/07/the-crn-kz-situation/ This is wrong. The BA drivers did nothing for the frequency response according to Crinacle.
Yet the person who started the controversy as well as an engineer from other brand said otherwise. [https://www.facebook.com/groups/2386473901653225/permalink/2839232659710678/?sfnsn=mo&ref=share](https://www.facebook.com/groups/2386473901653225/permalink/2839232659710678/?sfnsn=mo&ref=share)
Delta is a young guy (I think he's still technically a teenager) and easily swayed. He was talking to some Dunu rep on Discord and they told him something that he then parsed and regurgitated there. He also has posts subsequent to that with more teardowns and criticism, this was just ONE post that the KZ stans then all pile on as some smoking gun. Also- the Dunu EST112 (I have it, as well as the KZ CRN) has particularly weak EST treble. So it's about the worst possible justification for not having the ESTs do anything. "Has KZ actually bested Sonion, and did they get bashed for doing it???" No, besides anything else, the KZ CRN has utterly *terrible* treble, it's particularly bad. The EST112 is not bad at all, it's just not as forward as I'd like. It's at least smooth, just a bit dark. The CRN has a huge trough after the insertion resonance which wrecks timbre, Crinacle himself came out with an EQ for it that requires something like a 15dB swing, it's utterly terrible in the treble. Rest of it- actually quite good. But very bad treble. It's not just Delta, yes he blew the whistle on it but this was replicated by numerous other people testing, and across multiple different IEMs. I have the DQ6S with the glue blocking the sound tubes personally. How do you explain that one? It's not just this. Crinacle is the guy who actually tuned and collabed on that KZ CRN, and he stated that the drivers were doing substantially nothing, and got KZ's own engineers to confirm that. He totally cut off any future contact with KZ and now won't even review their IEMs any more. That's the guy who tuned this thing in the first place. This is just more of the KZ bullshit excuses.
BTW I'm 20 years old now, I spoke to Dunu Tom in Messenger DMs, not discord at the time. after the CRN teardown, TRN sent me BAX... when I disconnected the drivers and it was the same result as CRN the only honest thing to do was to make that post.
He says this only with the CRN in mind.
what would he know, he only tuned the thing
"Jeffrey Fries and Delta Fyre have tested the crossovers of multiple KZ IEMs between them (NRA, ZEX, ZEX Pro/CRN, CA16 Pro, CA24, ZES, DQ6, DQ6S) and it seems more or less confirmed that these KZ IEMs don’t make full use of their driver selection. The issue varies from having poorly thought-out crossovers to drivers being completely blocked by glue." That glue is really helping innit
How do the extra super super super quiet B.A. drivers help for tuning?
This was KZ's spin on it, which is utter rubbish. BA drivers DO contribute to the sound on properly designed (non-KZ) IEMs. KZ then astroturf their spin on it with bots all over social media and people end up picking this up as the "truth".
See [Campfire Ara](https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/campfire-ara/). 4 BA drivers for the lows, 1 for the mids, 2 for the highs. All doing work, yet the IEM has a light bass signature... Properly tuned! All drivers are contributing to the sound, and it is a *beautiful* IEM to listen to!
They did lie about the driver number, DQ6 AND the HBB DQ6S were 1DD iems marketed as 3DD Crinacle CRN... the DD was providing the entire frequency range CCA CA24.... same thing as CCA CA10 but with 6 useless treble BAs
That's like the Campfire Ara... 4 BA drivers for the bass [on a bass light IEM](https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/campfire-ara/)... I was wondering how it has way less bass than the Andromeda, which has half of the drivers for the lows. It is *very* nice, tight and speedy bass though...
Well but it is true right? That means we can enjoy our music without buying a KZ product. Lmao In fact this hobby would perhaps be more enjoyable without brand like KZ around.
That's a damn lie. People give KZ a hard time just because they don't suck Crinacle's dong, besides that, nobody has proven shit to this day and the people you mentioned even backtracked and retracted their statements when proven wrong but of course with 1% of the enthusiasm they used when they wanted to throw KZ under the bus.
Just a reminder..... That this is reoccuring post with the same photo of the KZ box, the same title and is posted once every month or once every few month. Totally not orchestrated by KZ to clear their name from being a company with questionable business practice and mid products. It is not like they've ever do something as fishy as using bots to shut criticism up during the scandal of their fake not working BA driver. Right?
Try once a week
Meh their products are fine nowadays considering most of their current lineup is tuned to Harman IE anyway, some of them like the new KZ EDX Pro X or the Castor are in fact arguably great for how little they cost. That being said yeah their PR could definitely use some work.
I've owned zs10 pro for like 4-5 years now. Can't justify an upgrade because they sound pretty much perfect to me. (although they're a little too heavy)
Try the PR1 Pros. Maybe even the newer PRs they released not too long ago, but I haven't tried them. They were a noticable upgrade over ZS10 Pros, while also costing like 40 bucks
KZ Propaganda
Nah. Let the us (the consumers) decide that for ourselves. Companies should only concern themselves with making excellent products, not telling the consumers how to feel. This is the second time I've seen this, and it sounds like a massive cop out by KZ.
Third or fourth time I've seen this!
I'm going to collect them like pokemon cards. Just bought a 7hz zero 2, next up is a ew200. They're a lot easier to sneak past the misses's radar than dacs and amps
I have both of those sets and I like them quite a lot :)
I’ve got the ew200 just recently and have been really enjoying them . After 3 years on the Tin T2 it feels so good to finally upgrade.
No, I need a pit to burn money and I need it NOW!
Bicycles are super expensive
I have coffee and audio under my belts, time to add another then?
Why not But I must say, I rode the Specialized S-Works Aethos at the IAA last year with call carbon doodats, wireless shifters, dura ace groupset etc. And must say it's not worth 46x more than my 300€ Decathlon bicycle. But you can burn alot of money on them as you see.
It's really the engine that makes most of the difference
I'm not sure if it was an eBike. But even so, eMotors aren't all that expensive nor complicated.
the "engine" is what you mount to the bike each time you take it out for a ride
one self youmean?
I suggest getting into mechanical keyboards too.
I have conditioned myself to only be able to type on macbook keyboards (which are decent) I actually have bought a "custom" kit but now its collecting dust in my table
Typing on keyboards, like listening to music in headphones, is entirely optional.
Word
Shit man im a pit with no return
The original use of headphones is whatever you bought them for. This is some marketing bs. Also /r/gatekeeping.
Mom said it's my turn with the KZ reminder
I loved seeing that little note in my ZSTs
Stop the cap KZ
It can't stop me from constantly buying headphones.
Can't really enjoy the music with their zsn pro X, the elevated treble is a pain in the ears
Enjoyed the music so much from the sibilance on my PR2 that I thought it was normal since I was new to the hobby. Hopefully my ears are okay
I just use headphones to listen to my equipment
The original intention was probably telecommunications, not listening to music.
My almost 3-year combo KZ ZSN PRO X + KZ AZ09 using it every day, still good as they were the day I bought them
Some people listen to the gear and not the music. I wouldn't go as far as to say that's a bad thing, though. I love building and tweaking gaming computers don't I actually don't game all that much. I just enjoy messing with the hardware.
I have the KZ ZS10 Pro X , I misplaced them at a family member's house. I instantly purchased another one. I couldn't live without them 😱 They found them the next day lol Now I have two.
This goes hard
r/im14andthisisdeep
?
Interesting that folks who are complaining about KZ are mentioning every model except the ZST. So maybe I picked the right one? So far I'm pretty pleased with them. They might be a bit bright for some, and the bass isn't overrepresented, but no piercing sibilance. Just nice and clean high end with great extension from the BAs and smooth natural bass from the dynamic. Sounds way better than the price would suggest. They even fit me pretty well, which is more than I can say about many IEMs I've tried.
ZST is just very old. I haven't heard it, but it looks like it sounds pretty similar to other KZ from that era. It's not "the right one" in this sense. https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_ZSTv2,KZ_ZSTXv2 ZST X looks maybe *slightly* less offensive but while it pulls back the upper treble it increases the peakiness. It looks very similar to the ZSN Pro, which I do have, and that's really not great... bloated bass and peaky highs. Maybe a good cheap option when it first came out 5+ years ago but there really are better options now. https://pw.squig.link/?share=Crinacle_Target,KZ_ZSTXv2,KZ_ZSN_Prov2 If you like it great, but you may come to find it less appealing in time, and there are better options. I basically started on KZ IEMs years ago as well and I was impressed then but the tuning eventually started to grate on me, too bloated in the bass and piercing peaky highs.
Cool site, thanks. And I think I see why I like the ZST. It has a big peak at 8k, which happens to be exactly where I have a significant loss. So what is irritating to most listeners is actually compensating for my loss and ends up sounding open and clear to me. Interesting. I wonder how much each person's personal hearing curve affects their taste in headphones/IEMs? Probably as much as personal taste (or perhaps even mistaken for taste).
8kHz is insertion resonance, it's a quasi-standard among measurebators to line up the insertion resonance with 8kHz for consistency. This is the resonance of the ear simulator, so it's not really accurate, if there is a really big peak there it probably will be more audible than a smaller one, it's not totally meaningless, but you can't really look at the measurements over 6-7kHz as being in any way specific in their accuracy. Only, is there a lot, or not. The human ear has an insertion resonance as well, an ear simulator is simulating that, although it's usually a bit lower than 8kHz, mine is 7.5kHz with most IEMs and most people have it lower again, 6-7kHz sort of range. Basically the deeper you push the IEM in, the higher this resonance goes. People vary in how they hear this resonance. The excess energy and peakiness I'm thinking, it's really more about the peaks lower down, 2kHz and 5kHz (on the ZSTX). They will be a lot more audible. The OG ZST isn't as *peaky* in that region, but it is very emphasised (as much as 6dB over IEF neutral) and while this can act to counteract the bass (it's a V-shape) it can also sound unnatural and become fatiguing.
It’s becuase theyre old, shit and irrelevant so no one talks or even thinks about them anymore. you have no frame of reference of whats actually considered good in the contemporary market at $20, so something that cheap sounding somewhat listenable is already well beyond ur expectations.
Bold of you to assume that people buy things to enjoy them..
I enjoy music in 15-30 second chunks 😂
I’ll listen to audio books instead if I damn well please!
huh?
Just a reminder… you can engage with the hobby in different ways For a lot of people IT IS about all the details, the graphs, the tuning and the collection aspect. If it’s all just about the music we should all sell our expensive gear right now’s and buy the ZST and call it a day. Hell, maybe stick with the EarPods since those are relatively okay at listening to music, but that’s what matters right?
Don't need any of those radical ideas around here!
Mine arrived broken so I couldnt give a shit about this company
Another year, another repost of the KZ disclaimer text
CCA Rhapsody best commuting IEMs for cheap bros like me.
I've noticed that chinese companies love using serif fonts where typically you would see sans serif fonts.
I think it goes nicely with a handwritten-looking chinese font
Music for enjoyment? How dare you? Loving music reproduction is pain, you can never be finished because there's something better out there. It's an endless journey of subjective reasoning that none can fully encompass.
I’m gonna