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February 2025
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Releases Radar (Noteworthy Releases?)
28/02/2025
Not sure if it's the same anon that did the noteworthy releases posts, but I'll take it.
>Releases radar<
>Project Daybreak [1DD+2BA+2planar] ($<200)
Seemingly an EPZ P50 rebrand but with a metal faceplate with the crin logo
>Project Meta/Reference [?] ($<300)
Meta is a limited run of 500 units. Reference is still a WIP. Both full metal shells
>DUNU Vulkan 2 [2DD+6BA] ($?)
Recently teased. No ETA
>Moondrop Harmon [3DD] ($?)
ETA early March
>Tangzu Wan'er 2 [1DD] ($20)
ETA early March. New shell with flushed 2pin and a new cable. Tuning is likely the same
>ZiiGaat Lush [1DD+4BA] ($?)
>ZiiGaat Arcanis [2DD+5BA] ($?)
Likely pos
>Symphonium Giant and Meteor replacement [?] ($?)
Showcased at canjam, typical overpriced SG pos with no front venting
>Tanchjim x Effect Audio Force [2DD] ($<300)
Only news is the canjam rep said it's lower than $300
>Generic brands
skip>Tanchjim Stargate II ($38)
Dongle with the popular CS43131 but with ADC and DSP (8 band PEQ)All those shitty Chinese brands. Yuck.
>they keep trying to beat edc pro + eq
lol!The amount of ziiiiiiigggggaaaat/thiefaudio/collab spam leaves me a great disdain to linsoul, they're literally KZ but expensive.
same thoughts here. ziigyatt is just linsoul's ~$200 kayzed
>Troondrop Shartmon
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Does /iemg/ have any shame left?
27/02/2025
would you feel comfortable wearing it in public?honestly no
most non-white iems make you look like you're wearing a weird earring which is already gay imagine now wearing a gay troon weeb proto-earring thing
I prefer fox.
i'm not an incel so i just wear these when i go outGay sex doesn't count.
airbuds are the embodiment of "brown/indian looking pos"
right, you're just a conformist
imagine buying airpods, there's no way anyone would be that braindead
oh waitYes, reminder that how people judge you is 100% down to facial genetics. If you're a chad people will see those and think its charming that you're quirky, if you're an incel nothing you wear will change that.
Cables? No.
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Tanchjim Origin Review
24/02/2025
Just found my old Tanchjim Origin review, so I'll post it again for the Gazette. This was back when I didn't do my usual measurements.
Non-sound impressions:
Built beautifully. I just love the way it looks with the logo. The Oxygen is similar, but lacks the refinement; the slight border that accentuates the shell shape, the angel logo without the lettering, the slight embossing against the gray face, everything adds up to what is in my opinion the best mirror finished IEM >I've seen in a while.
The packaging is fine like what others have said. A bulky yet high quality case, excellent T-APB tips, useless nozzles that have modding potential, and a somewhat lackluster cable in that it behaves like custom cable without having the feel and weight of one. I switched mine out for a custom gray-ish cable that matches the stainless metal and look.
The fit is fine. These things are seriously tiny, I thought they would be a bigger Oxygen/Hana in both thickness and shell size, but it seems like only the former is true. The faceplate/body is still really small, and the fit with the extended nozzle and thickness is much better than that of the Oxygen/Hana in my experience. It's not the most secure or custom molded experience, but it works.First impressions:
Bass is definitely the weakest link. It's present, it's good, but on certain tracks it lacks volume. Every bass instrument/track is present, but it's almost always never the center focus. The mids and treble are great. It's essentially a perfected female poison tuning; really vocal forward that skirts the line between being too bright/shouty and being "revealing".
Overall, in terms of tonal balance, it's pretty great. Most impressive is the treble quality, they somehow managed to make 1DD that imo needs very little to no tweaking for my ears.
Techs and dreams:
Overall, it's really tech-y for a 1DD. Soundstage is surprising; usually, a tuning quirk in FR is used to enhance soundstage. An example would be killing the upper midrange on the andromedas, or elevating the treble on many other sets. In my experience, I rarely notice this change in soundstage, and instead the flawed timbre is what pops out. For the Origin, the mix of very separated midrange and bass, with non-peaky yet still elevated treble creates a sense of soundstage that is subtle but noticeable. I don't think this effect is going to stay consistent or even be present for long after my brain gets used to it. The imaging is just like any other IEM, but the enhanced soundstage makes it seem like everything is more separated, leading to a seemingly more focused sound presentation.
Bass techs are where I find them to be the most complicated to connect with FR. Soundstage and imaging become similar for different sets if I EQ them to proper timbre, but techs related to bass often requires much more effort to remediate. The Origin has very low bass, but using EQ is effective and requires little fiddling to get to good levels for genres that need it.Ok final Origins impressions:
It's great. Doing this type of very mid/treble forward signature is very hard because it has to be balanced. Many sets try to boost that 3-8khz region because this leads to usually leads to more clarity, but very few manage to make it work with good treble like the Origin does. And the treble is really good to my ears, to the point where I'm not even remotely tempted to use EQ.
I don't really know of any other 1DD that is this clean, energetic, and competent in what it sets out to do.
I still think the bass is a bit lacking. A small cut at 250hz with a shelf at 125 seems to round out everything, but I only use this for hip hop and rap. Most other genres fare just as, if not better with the stock tuning where the bloat compensates for the forward mids.based Orijimmy.
I spent some time the other day listening to the nozzles and settled on Light for my ears. Of course we know what the measurements say, but I encourage an earnest listen.
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NiceHCK GreyDragon Impressions
23/02/2025
>NiceHCK GreyDragon cable
As expected of this style thicker 4-core cable. Has some rigidity and weight but lies still without any memory kinking. Nice hardware bits, and the chin slider is more functional than many others. audiofool approved/10
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More IEM Impressions by Hangout Store Squatter
22/02/2025
Another blogpost, been busy so I haven’t got the chance to audition much pos:>Dita Mecha
Warm-fi with a weird treble dip at 7khz. Okay midbass but low-end feels bloated. Uppermids and treble leaves more to be desired as the Mecha suffers greatly from a lack of resolution. Poorly executed kilobuck 1DD which only makes the Softears Twilight and Nightjar Singularity seemed more impressive by comparison. 5/10.>Acoustune HS1900X SHINOGI
Bright neutral, reminds me of the Cadenza 12 2024. Suffers from peaky treble subjected to your HRTF. Cymbal splashes can get real hot, and the resulting sibilance masks finer details in the music. Tried tip-rolling but it didn’t help. Uninspiring pos, gets mogged in resolution by its kilobuck peers like the C12 2024 and Crimson. 4/10.>Canpur Deep Blue
Impressive build for 80 bucks. Unfortunately, it sounds like shit – low res and everything sounds recessed even on high volume. The mesh filter grill that Canpur used is atrocious and kills resolution.Sounds like a shitty Zero:Red/Truthear Gate. 2/10.
>Sounds like a shitty Zero:Red/Truthear Gate. 2/10.Wtf TOTLzo ears are cracked, rly weird pos from canpur
>rly weird pos from canpur
it's a low-effort cashgrab to bait poorfags into thinking they are getting cp622b performance for $80. canpur just grabbed the cheapest 10mm DD on the market and packaged it in a nice shell but spent zero time and effort on the actual tuning/engineering.
Your greed knows no bounds, and you will face deserved wrath when your time comes.
Mass pos impressions part 2:>Thieaudio Valhalla
Classic Thieaudio V-shape (or U-shape according to consoomer guide). Similar timbre to Hype 4 and Prestige LTD. Slightly more res than LTD. But instruments sound lifeless. Violins lack shimmer and piano hits sound really dull. Also, Valhalla needs a tad more sub & midbass – it has a really stereotypical “pure BA” sound. >Barely better than Hype 4 desu. 6.5/10.>Ziigaat Odyssey
A cheaper Hype 4. Treble is mildly peaky but tolerable. Nice male vocals due to fuller lower-mids. But no, it doesn’t have that JM-1 timbre (M5E, Dusk). Reviewers need to stop calling everything new meta. 7/10.>StarryAudio Syzygy
Vocal-centric set. An Elysian Diva with good EST implementation. Female vocals have a nice breathy articulation. Tighter bass response than the Diva as well. Weeb endgame. 9.5/10.> Elysian Acoustic Labs “X”
Neutral version of Annihilator 2023. It doesn’t have Anni’s boosted sub/midbass, nor the airy treble extension. I prefer the V-shape coloration of the Anni more but “X” isn’t too bad, it’s rare to find neutral summit-fi nowadays. 8/10.>Nostalgia Audio Tesseract
Warm-fi with very boosted lower-mids. Grand-sounding, like being in a concert-hall. Great for classical and orchestral. Instruments sound really authoritative. >Boosted pinna gain helps the Tesseract remain relevant for vocal tracks unlike the Rossi&Wing First Light. Quite genre-dependent, I wouldn’t listen to power/death metal on this because low guitar riffs can overpower male vocals. Don’t blind buy this pos. 8/10.
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7Hz Barrel Impressions
22/02/2025
7hz barrel just arrived. Material wise the s&s is smoother than the barrel, but the stem on the barrel is much firmer, which helps some stability on the nozzle.
The barrel has more emphasis on the upper mid
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EPZ Q1 Pro & Q5 Pro Review
21/02/2025
EPZ review with measurements and shit.Had both for around 2 weeks, I'll try to keep this short.
Comfort: Both are incredibly comfortable. Q1 Pro goes more for a semi-custom shape (but not pronounced at all), while the Q5 Pro is more like a Shure. It should come down to preference in terms of IEM stability and if you like filling your outer ear or not. They are as perfect as it can possibly get.
Build quality: Both are resin shells, they're good enough. The Q5 Pro is, in my opinion, not a looker, but it's not bad. The Q1 Pro is amazing, beautiful faceplate proportions and design.
Accessories: Q1 Pro is standard, the cable is actually above average as far as stock cables go. Not really pliable, but the kinks can be worked out fairly well. The Q5 Pro's cable is atrocious, feels as stiff as old Tanchjim cables, unusable. The tips are generic, the rest is also nothing worth pointing out.
Measurements show very good channel matching on both sets, as well as very good distortion metrics. Really just dominated by 2nd HD, with 3rd not even being measured properly due to my noise floor. Insertion depth measurements show expected behavior; the resonance at around 5khz does get a bit better with deeper insertion.Sound quality on both is decent stock. Bright leaning, but there's at least an acceptable amount of bass, though not nearly enough for my taste. No immediate treble issues, but as always it could use some polishing. My EQ increases bass, reduces the 5khz range, and fixes the treble.
All in all, these are two excellent sets. While their sound quality is nothing special, and their accessories are decent, maybe even subpar, the comfort and build quality on these are so great that everything I just mentioned doesn't matter. I wholeheartedly recommend these for anyone and anything, they are just that nice fitting.
Here's a size comparison with other small fitting shells. The semi-custom one is the Tiandirenhe TD10MK2. They're all pretty good if comfort and fit is the priority. Both the EPZs are much better sounding stock, and are also my favorites in terms of comfort. The Tiandirenhe is also really good, but is slightly thicker (isolates better than the EPZs). The TinHifi T1S / T1 Plus are also very good, but aren't very stable for me. The last two also need a lot of EQ to sound good.bro you didn't label the graphs tho. i assume left with the slightly more pronounced 5khz bump is q5 pro
Correct about which one is which
Personally, when listening, I didn't find either of them to be all that different.and how is the tiandirenhe?
Sucks that I did that review before the Gazette was a thing.
In short, horrible without EQ, salvageable with. The only reason I got it is because it was (maybe still is) one of the cheapest, semi-custom IEMs out there. It fits really nicely, has potent isolation, and is built nicely. But it definitely needs a lot of EQ to sound right.
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Truthear Zero Red Impressions
20/02/2025
Been listening to the Zero:REDs for like 2 weeks since my Holas started experiencing channel imbalance. They JUST BARELY fit my ears which are around average, but they seal is good, I thought I would need a bass boost since the Holas are much warmer in the graphs, but the default bass on these (no impedance boost) sounds punchy enough, somehow punchier than in the Holas, which I credit to the quicker roll-off before the low-mids. I'd classify the Holas as "warm-neutral" while these are "neutral with a bass-boost". Much crispier and detailed.>channel imbalance
Clean or change the filters.
Single DDs are some of the most resilient drivers and to break the drivers, you probably need to destroy the whole thing completelyI cleaned the filters and made sure the vents weren't cloggled, nothing. Also tried a different cable. I want to sell them or at least have them working so I might play with my luck and tear the faulty unit apart. However, it was one of those cases where you adjust the channel balance in Windows, and then the faulty driver becomes even quieter with time to compensate. Might be related to some circuit.
>channel imbalance
Had the same problem, watch them die in a couple of weeks. A lesson to never get TURDear'd. Something about the sound felt whack compared to 1DD's anyway.the timbre is fine imho it’s basically 1DD with a dedicated dd as woofer.
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Schizophrenia Symptoms: Exhibit A
17/02/2025
Reminder that the Harman target, also (aptly) known as the Shartman target, was not specifically made with female vocals in mind. There's a reason male vocals are so subdued, thinned out and lacking the necessary heft in Shartman-tuned pos. There are ways to make female vocals really shine without emasculating male vocals in such way, so why?
The real aim of the Shartman target was to enhance vocals of troons. It's really simple: troons have unmistakably male voices, but they're trying hard to sound more female and escape what in their twisted minds is stigma and unfortunate fate, but their male vocal cords will always get in the way and reveal who they really are. That's why the Shartman target, which aimed to be another neutral diffuse field but developer further to add room-specific characteristics to the sound, has since strayed from the path of neutrality and, under the guise of being a target preferred by the general population, became a target which makes female vocals sound prominent and bright while performing castration on male vocals. Think of it: it's the logical way to rob tranny vocals from manly heft and emphasize the feminine shine troons try to obtain. The way the Shartman target executes it is with a deep, slightly recessed tuck in the midbass (often called "tranny tuck" here) to take from the depth and weight, while emphasizing 5kHz shrill to add upper harmonics that are much necessary to enhance femininity of vocals. As a result, troon vocals are noticably shifted towards feminine character, fulfilling their desire to mask their inescapable manly heft to a great extent.
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Softears Volume S Detached Faceplate
15/02/2025
another L
do i put it back together with superglue or epoxy?ive heard superglue fumes are bad for drivers and epoxy is safe
i think the original adhesive must have been super glue though
>moondropped
literally
Softears is Moondropuse T7000 or B7000
there's different color depending on application if you need transparent get the BYou put in in the box and send it back under warranty.
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Eletech / Jomo Audio Mass Impressions
13/02/2025
Went to Eletech/Jomo Audio HQ today and demoed some pos:>Ame Mousa
Very warm with tamed treble. Good subbass. No risk of sibilance. Noteweight is overly thick – string and wind instruments are too sweet and lacks proper air. Cymbals and triangle get overwhelmed by midrange instruments due to a lack of treble extension. Warmfi sets with some sparkle (like the Alter Ego/VE10) are more my taste but I could consider the Mousa as a “better” UM Multiverse Mentor. Mousa is just too relaxing for me. 7/10.>MMR Gáe Bolg
A five-year-old set. Too lean with disgusting Harman timbre. Female vocals sound veiled. Very low res, this set did not age well. I don’t know what’s going on with the squigs the Gaebolg sounds nothing like that. Even a $20 pos is better. 1/10.>Canpur CP54E
Thick lower mids with nice treble and air. Maybe the low-end is too boosted because female vocals sound drowned out at times. A 1k to 3k boost would help immensely because currently the Canpur doesn’t sound cohesive – I just get a lot of midbass and treble. If you only listened to male vocals you’d probably think this set is incredible. 5/10.>Canpur CP32E
A brighter CP54E. Sounds eerily similar to the Supermix 4 albeit with good ESTs implementation. Wide-bore tips are a must. 7/10.>Jomo Audio Nautilus
A vocal-centric V shape tuning. Sounds exactly like the squigs. Hefty low-end gives nice noteweight and timbre, coupled with a boosted pinna to bring female vocals to the forefront. It’s like a cheaper VE10 and just as resolving. Super underrated jpop/kpop set, I’ve heard other meme “vocals” set like the Diva, Verdandi, Supernova and I think the Nautilus mogs all of them. 10/10, bought it on the spot.
Pics of Eletech/Jomo Audio HQ
>MMR Gáe Bolg
>A five-year-old set. Too lean with disgusting Harman timbre. Female vocals sound veiled. Very low res, this set did not age well. I don’t know what’s going on with the squigs the Gaebolg sounds nothing like that. Even a $20 pos is better. 1/10.
Shame because it looks beautiful. It's not for sale anymore anywagy
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TOTL Anon redeems the... Jomo Audio Nautilus?!
13/02/2025
No judging, but... it's certainly a choice.
TOTLzo/Mass impressions anon here...
ended up buying another totl haha...Why did you buy that pos...
Wow TOTLzo i bet it sounds amazing ![...] And yes it does sound amazing
fuck you.completely missing the point of totl, they're meant to be very colored (ie shitty) so you get that hit of dopamine every time you listen to them
makes you go "wow, so much detail in this!"BA pos
>scam price
>pos
>RGBTQ keyboard
Sasuga iemg.too expensive
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Softears Volume S Impressions & Comparison
12/02/2025
Got the Volume S after returning a set of Performer7. The subbass is there for me until it goes to 40hz. Most of my music doesn't go that low but I do notice when rumble is missing on songs that have it. It can vibrate down to 1hz on a tone generator if I raise the volume, so maybe it's fixable with EQ. I thought the 10dB pinna gain was going to hurt me but it only gives some bite to guitars. Like the tryout anon said, the midbass is a little muddy and some vocals can sound veiled despite the pinna gain. It's song dependent.
That said, this IEM does give the feeling of "soundstage". It doesn't expand past your head or anything. What I mean is there is some extra space between instruments when they're being played at the same time. Some hybrid IEMs like the P7 have good layering but they just blast everything to your ears and it's overwhelming. The positional imaging is good for games. One thing I hated about the P7 was that panning sounds would quickly snap from one side to the other and barely touch the center. The Volume S does it normally I guess. Since the EPZ P50 graphs like the Volume S but has planars like the P7 I wonder if it has this same issue.
Everybody is sucking off volume S so much but if it fucks up female vocals it's a dealbreaker for me... Also it's kinda understandable cause for example dude from headphones.com doesn't even have tracks with female vocals in his "test rack playlist". How the fuck is he reviewing shit then LOL
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Moondrop Chu 2 Paint Issue
08-09/02/2025
saars do not redeem chu II
this is a piece of shit
this is bad
i needed to get paint out of my earsshould've went for the EDC pro baka...
just scrap the paint and enjoy the bare metal look
you buy the chu2 for the cable, not the paint chipping chang, this has been like that since the new aria
sweaty ears = full resin life, not metal
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Dove/Pigeon Earphone SHOCKS anons!
08-09/02/2025
behold peak iem designwhat in the actual fuck.
honestly great, the two dove iems actually measure well and look unique
Any more info on these?
woodenears has measurements for these, the one in pic is a er4 clone, the other is a decently well tuned tunable pos
Thanks, those both actually look fairly good. Wonder how they stack up against the ER2SE.
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Moondrop Echo A Impressions
07-08/02/2025
impulse bought the new moondrop dongle
surprisingly has no hiss so that makes it better than every other dongle under $30
who knows how long it will last though. moondrop clicks only were good for a week before breaking. the JA11s ive had only lasted around a month of daily use.have you tried the jcally jm20?
i have not personally had a great time with jcally dacs in the past but maybe ill check it out in the next major ali sale
desu the biggest things that matter to me in a dongle is inaudible noise floor and durability. i know that at some point i should just get a q5x instead of dealing with these shits because the failure point is always strain relief area when in a pocket.same, most jcally dacs have been bad for me but if it's using the cs43131 hopefully the retards there can do a semi-decent job at implementing it
> jcally jm20
outdated meme
moonshit echo-a/b have dsp (different apps to eq, lmao)pretty sure echo a has no dsp
also
>moondropped dsp
lmao>moonshit echo-a/b have dsp (different apps to eq, lmao)
only the echo-b supports DSP and it's 4.4mm so it's a pos> pretty sure echo a has no dsp
Echo-A use CB1200-AU DAC chip (like the quarks 2) so you need to use chinkshit TTGK "Walk Play" app to fix>$20
yeah i'll just get a generic cb1200au instead>new moondrop dongle
For some reason I have faith that Echo A/B and the new Softears dong are finally decent implemented tail dongles. Praying your ears don't get BTFO'd by random tones.yeah did not expect to be immediately wowed by the echo after their history of dacs. if this does not shit out then i would look forward to a freedsp 2. if it does then i know shenzhen got me because they replaced and eventually refunded my click without question.
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Anon doesn't like fancy IEMs
07/04/2025
why do fancy iems always look so fucking ass wtf look at this faux plastic pseudogold finish. i won't even ask if you come out with these things in ears because you don't do it at all but if you did people would die looking at your toexpensive iem are retard tax
imagine not knowing about reshelling service and custom shell universal IEMs
then i have to also replace the cable because it looks like ass! at this point i might just fucking build them myself
get yourself a reniggering service
They're trying to capture some fox techs.
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Kiwi Ears Cadenza Impressions
04-05/02/2025
>Moondrop Aria paint is completely flaked off, plastic starting to wear down, generally unpleasent
>Order Kiwi Ears Cadenza as replacement
>The red ones arrive in a bright pinkThank god I'm only using those at home. Still hella gay.
show pics
Ignore my dusty ass workspace, I'm barely in here anymore.
But yeah, that's not red in any sense of the word.
So far, they sound like a step down from the OG arias but I need to throw more shit against them to see how I like them, I guess. Only listened to maybe 20 minutes of music so far.Curious to hear more thoughts on these. They seem like an ideal solution for me. Tuning similar to the Zero2, but not an enormous shell
they're fucking shit
>not an enormous shell
newfriend... cadenza shell is far from ideal ergonomics and shape. epz q1 pro, tkzk ouranos, etc. all have better contoured and slimmer shapeI have Q1 Pros already. Surely Cadenza are closer to those than the Zero2?
>already have decent budget 1DD and still want to buy another
guy.... just eq. no, as i already stated, cadenza's shell shape is far from ideal. fatter than q1 pro with a worse nozzle designI do EQ the Q1s are happy with them. I keep them at my office and like having a second set to keep at home, plus having variety is nice.
If the Cadenza isn't any comfier than the Zero2, I'll probably hold off another pos until there's some more budget stuff with the "meta" tuning, since that aligns pretty close to my preferences.I certainly wasn't prepared for the amount of treble in these, lead me to a somewhat "tinny" first impression. But that might also be me not being used to a V shaped tuning, coming from the Arias. They are very comfortable though, more so than the Aria.
Alright, after listening to those some more I'm probably going to return them. While they're described as warm, I find them way too bright. The treble is too much for me, doesn't fit with the music I'm listening to, at all. They seem to have "broken in" somewhat, or my ears got more used to it, but it's still very distracting.
Since the Aria 2 have the same paint chipping problem (what the fuck, moondrop), I have no idea what to get for a warm pair of IEMs with some understated treble, much like I feel the Aria have been.
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NiceHCK B80 Impressions
04/02/2025
This shit is so ass...bro...
LMAO fell for the meme, what's so ass about them
Can't play subbass, can't stay in my ears, basically unusable. Left earpiece has higher distortion.
why did u buy it...
I already have everything else.
