Granted, I’ve only been using the Edition XS for a couple of hours. I have the Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite IEM’s as well. I like the Kiwi’s much more. I feel like I can hear more detail and I just like the sound of them more than I do the Edition XS.
Also, My ears still touch the pads inside the Edition XS and it drives me nuts. I guess I’m just sticking with IEM’s going forward because I have not been able to find a headphone that doesn’t bother the heck out of my ears and I’ve tried quite a few headphones and returned due to comfort issues with my ears. Freaking stupid dumbo ears >_<
I have the Kiwi’s EQ’d and they sound amazing and I can’t get the Edition XS to match that. Am I nuts? I feel like I’m nuts from all of the reviews I’ve watched and read.
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I can report that when I first auditioned the Arya Stealth, while it sounded agreeable but not mind-blowing compared to my Jabra Elite 85h (reasonably neutral) amid my perceptions at the time, I was surprised when on putting on either the Edition XS or Meze 109 Pro, they somehow immediately sounded off in tonality and imaging compared to the Arya Stealth, Audeze MM-500, Sennheiser HD 800 S, and Focal Clear MG. Otherwise, if you’ve seen my posts on Head-Fi (as “MrHaelscheir”), it has been quite a long objectivist journey after that. Maybe it is true that trickling technology from the HE1000se that far down yields such noticeable losses, else the problems lie in frequency response artifacts for your own ears best assessed with the help of listening to sine sweeps and pink noise, and at best, in-ear microphones. For matching the tonality, you might be able to try using a tone generator or slow sine sweep video like “Hearing Test HD” and volume-match the pure tones between your EQed IEMs and target Edition XS EQ. Comfort-wise, I don’t think there are very many headphones with deeper pads than the HE1000 derivatives.
I vastly prefer the Ananda Stealth over the XS
Samesies. Also prefer the Ananda over a he6. Dont know what it is but the Ananda is almost perfect to my ears.
Nothing will help your ears situation but give the sound signature a week and report back.
This honestly, the hifiman eggs tuning are basically the antithesis of the kiwi ears; bright, shrill and aggressive as opposed to warm,smooth and relaxing. Personally I disliked all hifiman eggs with the stock tuning (1-2k hole followed by 3k peak and elevated af treble makes absolutely nothing sound tonally correct to my ears, except for electric guitars), so give it some time, but if you still disliked it after that then the XS is just not for you.
Alternatively you could EQ like you did with your kiwi ears.
I spent about 30 minutes playing with EQ and I wasn’t impressed. The Kiwi’s just sound more clear and detailed. I boosted the bass and even the bass sounds as good, if not better than the XS. I really enjoy this IEM.
I still recommend you to spend a solid week with the Edition XS. It takes time to notice and hear the differences. Subjectively of course, one will be better.
I just got mine and they sound DIVINE. So maybe, yes. I am coming from the DT 770 so take that as it is.
You’re not nuts, some headphones don’t mesh with your specific ear shape.
That said, if your ears and brain are very used to a certain sound signature it can take a few days of listening for them to ‘click’ with your new cans.I have a pair of hifiman sundaras and just got a pair of xennes mangird tops and although the tops are more detailed the sundaras are more comfortable since they’re not inside my ears. I think you’ll find that the edition xs are more relaxing while the the orchestra lites are more analytical once you’ve spent more time with the edition xs.
Typical brain burn in scenario. I own 10 headphones, 8 of them required mental burn in until I got used to the sound and could hear their strong points. It gets easier if you often listen to different pairs often, but even then I still needed at least a day or two to get used to some of the last additions.
Additionally, to me they are at least as detailed if not more detailed than the Blessing 3.
And no you’re not crazy for not liking them. Give them a few days or a week. If you don’t warm up to them, it may very well be that they’re not your type of headphones.
Comfort is of course a totally different thing altogether, nothing you can really do on that front.
I returned my XS after A/B testing with a pair of Koss KSC75 (headband and yaxi pads), couldn’t justify the cost for not much improvement
No, i hated the XS when i got it. Immediately started the refund process as soon as I listened to one song.
IEMs will inherently sound more detailed a lot of the time than over ear cans or speakers. Barring maybe electrostatics like STAX
Agree, iem inherently have more microdetail while headphone have better layering and soundstage
Can you give them 2 days instead of 2 hours?