[MightyBalzaq]

It's subjective, but my type is Fiio HS18 and if your size is M it's worth to consider ePro Horn Shaped tips (M is only size made well). Audiosense s400 is nice with narrow nozzle iem like Dq6s

I like what I've seen about the HS18s except for the very thin shell that I have seen some people say is very hard to get a good seal.

 

[requal]

I like what I've seen about the HS18s except for the very thin shell that I have seen some people say is very hard to get a good seal.

As I wrote, it's individual. For listening at home those tips which I recommend are great. Outdoor usage can be problematic sometimes, because it's very thin and soft material. Outside I prefer something stiffer, usually it's KZ Starlines or Sancai narrow bore tips.

 

[AdamPA1006]

From what I can see there are less than ~ five of us hyping unless I've missed something. :- D Seems like Trio has all the hype.

Hope you enjoy them. I nearly ordered the Bass version today to sample those too.

My favorite config on the Harman so far is UDDD.

You know what's funny with my Castor Harman? First out of the box, I listened for maybe 30 seconds at default DDDD before doing UDDD. I haven't touched the dip switches since. That's how impressed I was when I first heard that configuration. It just nails Harman. Technical are even above average for the price point also.

 

[MightyBalzaq]

As I wrote, it's individual. For listening at home those tips which I recommend are great. Outdoor usage can be problematic sometimes, because it's very thin and soft material. Outside I prefer something stiffer, usually it's KZ Starlines or Sancai narrow bore tips.

Well at home I listen to my IEMs and roaming around outside I use my TWS earbuds with a pair of Starline tips that I got with my PR2s so the HS18 tips could work...we'll see as I went ahead and put an order in on Aliexpress for a kit containing six pairs (2 each of S/M/L) for just under $10 shipped.

I read elsewhere that the fit issue with the HS18 tips can possibly be alleviated by using the small size so you get a deeper insertion.

 

[requal]

Well at home I listen to my IEMs and roaming around outside I use my TWS earbuds with a pair of Starline tips that I got with my PR2s so the HS18 tips could work...we'll see as I went ahead and put an order in on Aliexpress for a kit containing six pairs (2 each of S/M/L) for just under $10 shipped.

I read elsewhere that the fit issue with the HS18 tips can possibly be alleviated by using the small size so you get a deeper insertion.

I have 2 packages, one with S/M/L and second with only M size (6 pairs).
Hope you'll enjoy this cheap and great tips.

 

[SpaceOperaVillain]

Mrs. Rabbit did me a blind test for cable influence to sound. Today she chewed through two wires in an 8 wire cable. I only realized a while ago, now I have a 4 + 2 cable

That's hilarious - cute rabbit, though!

You know what's funny with my Castor Harman? First out of the box, I listened for maybe 30 seconds at default DDDD before doing UDDD. I haven't touched the dip switches since. That's how impressed I was when I first heard that configuration. It just nails Harman. Technical are even above average for the price point also.

I was immediately impressed with the Castors at the default configuration in DDDD, and listened for about a day on that setting through various genres. I don't really believe in burn-in but I figured since they were both dynamic drivers, and in the interest of poking at pseudo-science, that I'd run them overnight. So I treated the Castors to a scarcely qualifying 14 hours of Mastodon's Crack the Skye on a loop at a healthy volume. Zero change to my ears, as I'd expected, and I don't have the patience to wait 80 or 150 hours after tying up a laptop and amp when these already sound close to perfect.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Harman target but have begrudgingly accepted that it has a place in the world of headphones. For one thing, there is no single Harman target and the manufacturers love moving the goal posts around. Even so, what is nice about Harman is that it's closer to my preferences by falling somewhere in between a strong V shape and dead neutral at the other extreme. For jazz and classical, where I spend a lot of time, there's just no air and no sizzle in the usual Harman tunings and the Castor is on par with other sets I've sampled claiming allegiance to the curve. Fortunately, this is very easy to rectify with a bit of EQ by boosting at 3, 5, & 12 kHz to reinflate the top-end and *bingo* - ** chef's kiss ** personalized perfection.

Single dynamics respond relatively poorly to EQ whereas clusters of BA weapons are ready to obey your every command in steps 500 hz. The Castors respond well enough to correct for my preference and let me call it a day. I thought one of the treble up settings would get it right for my preference, but all of 'em I tried were just a smidge too bright as a default case. I tried DDUU, UDDU, and DUUD. UDDD with some occasional EQ tweaking has been the winner for me, too.

What really sold me on these was the sound stage and the resolution in the bottom end. It's not super crisp like the Heart Mirror (and I presume the more expensive sets it's trying to emulate) but it has great resolution that outpaces my other KZ pairs, maybe sliding in around even with ZEX Pro < 400 hz.

There's a sequence in Sibelius' Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, 1st movement - Andante, ma non troppo - Allegro energico that divides pairs with textured bass from the melting pot of mediocrity, but it's not the section that plays in the free preview which showcases Castor's impressive timbre and snap from the timpani.



The fun sneaks in quietly around 6:40 when the double bass section starts this soft ascending scale in a repeating pattern - and just over that, the bass drum at the rear of the orchestra begins rolling ... softly, softly, crescendos and then rings out a trill just before the full strings come back to transition for the 2nd brass repeat of the "Allegro" section. So, here's the test: can you still hear the bottom of the bass string's scale separately from the rolling bass drum? On the Castors I can not only hear that, I can also tell a big difference between the encoding in Spotify and the FLAC downloaded version in Amazon Music's HD.

When I listen to this on the GK10's they're a shambles. I hear mostly rumbling and the strings are all but lost except the very top end of the scale. The CCA C12s mostly nails it but it's just a smidge sluggish on the decay. ZAX (sorry, ZAX) is a total miss as I'd expected them to be. BA10: these get a passing grade but there's not a lot of definition to the timpani's impacts in other sections. It is this lack of percussive texture and impact that I haven't bought any more all-BA sets despite loving the resolution of the mids and high end. Like davie504, for me the slap is life.

That leaves the ZEX Pro for what I have at hand, and the Castor Harman are about dead even with those in picking the bottom end apart. It's evident when the tubas are transitioning their parts into the trombone's and you can clearly differentiate these parts from the French horns coming in from the left channel. The big difference between these two sets is that, in UDDD mode, a) the Castor has a miles better tuning profile to my ears than ZEX Pro's recessed hi-mids and trebles, and b) there is just no comparison on soundstage - Castors just wipe the floor with them.

I'd just been complaining about the lack of soundstage in KZ and they seem to be on-track in correcting it. The depth is about perfect, and left/right reverb in live performances is, for an IEM mind you, good trending toward very good. Great staging is, for me, reserved for external speakers ... there's just no comparison. Higher end open back headphones can have great staging, but I find that open-backs tend to be a one-trick pony in this regard save for a few higher end pairs.

Sound stage is also irrelevant for the vast majority of studio recorded material. You will hear what the engineers and producers want you to hear, and that's that. If you want to gauge staging then you need to turn on symphonic music, acoustic only jazz, and opera. In my more formative years, I refused to listen to Pavarotti unless accompanied by a 40 of Crazy Horse or a couple of tallboys of Old English 800s but today I'm making do with a lukewarm cup of coffee.

Let's talk about timbre:



The clarinet solo in this lesser known of the Godfather's favorite singer's Best Hits sounds just beautiful in the Castors. And the vocals at the climax. Ahhh - wow! Just amazing. Those chord changes after 2:20 ...

Again there's a big bump in sound quality in the FLAC version, even at 16bit. The harmonic overtones from the clarinet solo are immediately apparent as is the timbre of his voice ... on both the ZEX Pro and the Castors. Also fun - just after the penultimate climax, at ~ 2:38 mark you can hear when the engineers switched mics to keep the final note from clipping which also adds a touch more reverb from the venue.

https://music.amazon.fr/albums/B0025D2X46?trackAsin=B0025D72LU&ref=dm_sh_0e39-464b-03ad-3a53-e7c50

Wrapping up: if you don't listen to music like this, the Castor's will probably sound "good" but probably aren't going to blow you away. For me, they're damned impressive for the price paid. I don't evaluate on any adherence to a curve and like that what KZ are doing with the tuning switches to fend off the usual below-the-belt crying about KZ's house tuning, so I think it's a big win. Ok, time to find this afternoon's bottle of Bordeaux.