You are kind of missing the point here, tuning and "better technicalities" is pretty much something that's directly related so these two will likely perform differently anyway.

Not necessarily really, if anything just using the Olina drivers will likely make them sound worse altogether since those drivers weren't designed to be used with the TE0 shell.

Yeah but what changes do you actually expect? Again what I meant is making changes so that it affects the frequency response, there isn't actually a magic button they can press that "improves technicalities" really.

Knowing audiophiles one way to do so would be to increase the price of the IEM.

There is no real way for acustic engineers to "improve technical performance" besides making changes to the drivers, the IEM shell itself or using different meshes and these will directly affect the FR too.

Why does it matter lol, the sound signature is different and that's kinda all that matters really.

Probably still gonna be the preferred one anyway, just because it's newer doesn't mean it's better really.

Meh at this point it's more a matter of personal taste when it comes to the IEM market anyway.

And this looks nearly identical to the 7Hz Zero so eh.

Yeah I mean that would be because their intention is after all to sell their products and adherence to the Harman target is, for a variety of reasons, a good way to achieve that.

erm what IEMs are you using exactly where the US Apple dongle is not enough, if I may ask?

Like for real even my EU one is plenty enough.

Eh I have both and sound wise it's up to preference really, technically speaking the Chus are closer to the Harman target so they will likely be slightly preferred overall but it's a minor thing anyway.

Eh I don't really use them anymore due to their treble lmao.

Also come on Chus and 7Hz Zeros aren't anywhere near as bad as the DT990s are.

Mh you might have particularly low tolerance to highs then, I would definitely not call the Aria harsh by any standards.

Also don't read too much into the peaks on graphs beyond 8K in general, they generally aren't necessarily there for your ears but only for the coupler.

It really isn't unless you are getting a bad fit.

Well that does kinda tell me you didn't actually try doing what I said above, it's expecially apparent with IEMs since you remove a lot of variables with them.

>Technicalities are acoustic properties that aren't related to subjective aspects such as tuning or timbre. Technicalities cover areas such as soundstage, resolving ability and attack/decay.

There are definitely a few things that needs to be said about this statement:

a) Tuning isn't really a subjective aspect but it's very much objective, you may say that tuning preference is subjective but even that could be argued a bit since there is clearly a trend when it comes to preference among the general population.

b) Technicalities are also very much a subjective criteria (As oratory1990 himself noted) and you often have disagreements when it comes to that aspect even among well known reviewers.

c) As you can see from that comment technicalities in general are very much directly related to tuning since in the end that's pretty much the main aspect you have when it comes to audio transducers (Barring audible levels of nonlinear distortion), the thing is that it's generally kinda hard to quantify what aspects of the tuning makes the difference between a "highly resolving transducer" vs one that just has "good timbre" really.

It can be argued that FR graphs aren't the most accurate compared to how they would actually sound in your ears but again eh, it's also the only thing acoustic engineers have to go by when it comes to tuning their stuff besides listening with their own ears (Which are different from yours too) and of course a test group if said manufacturer is big enough.

>Yeah basically this, I've yet to see anyone able to EQ for more accurate imaging, better layering, or faster transients. Though sometimes more treble can give perceived wider/bigger soundstage.

It really doesn't take much to demonstrate that you can indeed EQ to get better technicalities, just buy an in-ear with a shitty FR you can find the graph of online then EQ it to Harman/VDSF or a target that you find "technical", even better if you can use oratory1990's EQ list so that way you can stay sure that you didn't fuck up something in the process too.

While it will never sound exactly the same (Expecially in the "air" section of the FR) as other IEMs EQed to that target you will still get much better technicalities.

Well it's gonna be a bit hard to tune air performance with it which is where the Chu (Just like basically every IEM with a single DD driver) suffers from.

That being said yeah they should be able to make something like the Chus but even better since they can tune the bass response which is where the Chu was lacking a bit to begin with.

Fair but eh if on Windows the volume controls are fairly granular.

Which is interesting considering the CHUs definitely stuck already lol, this isn't really necessary unless they fix the filter issues (They won't), make it a detachable cable (Doesn't seem like it from this photo) or I guess perhaps they just gave it the Quarks treatment and made this a DSP Type-C version.

Only thing I can see besides that is maybe add a bit more bass, wouldn't really call that a refinement though.

POCO X3 Pro is a based phone until the motherboard randomly dies like they usually do.

Also do remember to disable the audio effects on it lol.

Depends on personal preference really, I personally think the Chus are better (They have more "bite" in the lower treble region which I really like at the volumes I normally listen to) but you will have plenty of people disagreeing here.

Of course statistially speaking the Chus will likely be the preferred ones (Strictly sound wise) over the audiophile population if we go by the Harman research since they deviate less from the target, that doesn't really mean you specifically will prefer them though.

This is technically an incorrect statement since technicalities is FR since again on minimum phase devices it is the most important thing by far before we go into other aspects like distortion which even then don't seem to matter as much as is often assumed on audiophile circles.

Good example would be the Moondrop Chu which is often considered technically mediocre due to "low bass impact" (Which I guess is true since they are a bit light on the bass but eh) so people speculated it was due to high distortion in the drivers yet distortion on them is fairly excellent in practice even compared to much more expensive sets.

Now though whatever or not we can correctly define what (to an extent subjective too) aspects of the FR (And that's talking about FR at your own eardrums and not FR graphs too) constitute "technicalities" is another matter entirely and that's without mentioning subjective bias you add into the discussion that doesn't have anything to do with the inherent properties of the transducer like price for example.

>There is next to no acceptance of the in-ear target, I can't offhand think of anyone who thinks it is optimal. Most lean far closer to some variant of IEF neutral + bass, or Oratory 1990's USound, i.e. less shouty ear gain, slightly more mid-bass, and a flat rather than dipping transition through the mid-bass to the sub-bass.

Any data to back that statement? Because just saying something doesn't really make it true expecially when the research itself has shown similar predicted preference results in laboratory settings and in practice you see plenty of mainstream TWS adopting the Harman IE target too.

Excellent examples being the (Well acclaimed among audiophiles) Samsung Buds lineup in general as well as many of JBL's offerings and even a few companies that aren't sub companies of Harman international like Sony and Beats.

>Oratory I believe is talking about the over-ear targets there. I'm not talking about them, and they are widely accepted. There is actually a big difference with the in-ear target, the original one of that was super out there, it went WAY up and then dropped absolutely off a cliff. They revised that in 2019 to something far more sane.

Should apply to the IE target as well and those differences are due to different (And larger) sample population for the most part.

>Also, if you are saying you like the Chu, you don't like Harman in the bass then. The Chu is nowhere near Harman bass. I actually do like Harman bass- the Variations, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, these are great.

well "nowhere near Harman bass" is a bit of a stretch lol, it is relatively close (Which is why they get quite high scores to begin with, low deviation from the target itself) and I did mention that I don't love the bass specifically when it comes to them and I do agree with you that the ones you mentioned are generally better in that regard.

>I just take issue with this idea that Harman IE is a broadly preferred target. I don't think it is, there is a very consistent trend of people who have issues with it, far more than the over-ear curve, and I can't think of a single reviewer who takes Harman IE as their ideal IEM target.

Again 64% (Assuming that number is probably within range for the IE target as well) does imply there is a good 36% of people that wouldn't like it and that's still a significant number of people complaining in a community like r/headphones with 1 million active members, let alone the audiophile community at large.

And it's perfectly fine to prefer oratory's IE target (Which in itself is a variation of the Harman target to begin with) over Harman IE and in fact I actually do personally find it is the better one when it comes to using IEMs in nosy enviroments (Which is the premise of that target actually) but eh you are talking about the individual vs the overall population in this case, you shouldn't make assumptions on the latter based on the former since that would be considered an error in statistics.

>Except that just isn't the case, I don't think there are many who would. I certainly would rank the Kato, Starfield, Aria above the Chu. And many of the other IEMs they have below it, like, I don't know... the Monarch Mk2.

Well I mean you have two people who would rank the Chus above the Arias right here so eh we clearly exist lol, the Arias just sound a bit too "laid back" for me (Expecially at the volume levels I usually listen too) while I can only complain abou t the bass a bit when it comes to the Chus.

There is a difference between subjective sound preference and saying "I don't think there are many who would" though expecially when you add inherent biases to the discussion like "the Arias are more expensive than the Chus so they are better" and so on, you would need to do a proper blind test in order to determine which one sounds better for most people and the Harman research suggests it would indeed be the Chus.

>It's close, but it's not quite right. Many others also don't think Harman IE is quite there. And it's not as if there's only one either

The Harman target isn't really something that 100% of people will like though, just that the majority would prefer it (For the AE/OE target it was 64%, not sure if that is applicable to the IE target too).

>Harman themselves pretty radically changed it. So the first one was "wrong".

The differences are very minor between each revision really, as oratory1990 pointed out too.

>I prefer either Oratory1990's USound IEM target, or IEF neutral+bass. And the reality I think is most people prefer this over Harman, too, and a lot more IEMs are tuned in that direction.

Again, mostly a matter of preference in this case and i'm not hating on those targets at all since I do own pairs tuned to it too, I just personally prefer the Harman target for example.

There is data that points out to the Harman target being the preferred one by a significant margin of the population and in order to contest that further scientific research would be needed.

People often forget that the Chus are the fourth highest scoring pair of IEMs so far when it comes to Harman preference ratings without having major issues like the Quarks' 3K peak or distortion issues since the Chus are actually fairly excellent when it comes to that.

That does mean that statistically speaking the majority of listeners will generally prefer the Chus (At least according to the Harman research) over pretty much Moondrop's entire midrange lineup (KATOs, Arias, Arias Snow, etc.) since they tend to sit around the mid to low 70s instead.

Still triggered by the fact that they don't have removable cables by the way.

Honestly if the reason you are using IEMs is you need sound isolation you may want to buy a pair of Sony XM4s or XM5s (If you can afford them, of course) people here will blast me for this suggestion but their comfort is very good, you generally don't have wax build up issues like you do with IEMs and you can EQ them to sound much better than they do stock too.

Otherwise do check out the JBL 760NC, they have excellent tuning while still offering NC features.