Hey guys, I just recently stumbled onto this thread because of the whole Phantom debacle, and I wanted to add my own two cents - however advisable that may be.
First of all - just to clear whatever may have been lost in translation - @flinkenick’s initial comments regarding the measurements being odd should neither be seen as a personal attack towards
@malvinviriya,
@crinacle or any of their efforts made towards this thread
NOR should it be seen as a ploy to fabricate a delusion where
everyone loves the Phantom. Nic was literally just responding to a direct question posed by another user asking whether or not the measurements matched EE's given Nic’s extremely intimate knowledge of the IEM all throughout its development. That question can be found below:
What are the odds of a measurement problem with the Phantom?
The couple of impressions/reviews I've read praise the "extension at both ends", but this falls off a cliff, particularly the treble.
Really dark...
@flinkenick does the measurement here for the Phantom match with your voicing of this iem and your listening experience?
Nic acknowledged that more reasonable measurements on this thread exist just as often - if not more often - than outliers like these, so I don’t see why his comments have been seen as - for lack of a better word -
digs towards this thread and the work that’s been put into it. Malvin, in both his measurement and his impressions, has been completely honest and no one has faulted that at all. The inaccuracies in the measurement - which I will consider so because of Nic’s involvement in the Phantom’s development process - may be contributed to a ton of technical variables (e.g. gear used, IEM consistency, tip selection, measurement processes, etc.). This is further supported by Malvin’s own subjective impressions which contain audible peaks and bumps throughout the frequency response. This also shouldn’t be taken as me faulting Malvin because what he hears differs from his measurements. As Malvin said, it's not out of the ordinary at all, and I'm just using it to support the very possible truth that the measurements - for one reason or another - don’t resemble the ones EE and Nic developed. It should be noted that the Phantom’s I tried at Euphoria aren’t the ones I tried at Zeppelin either. So, although unlikely, IEM-to-IEM variance isn’t out of the question.
Now, as far as subjective impressions go, I see the scenario as a very simply series of events. Several users express dislike at the Phantom for one reason or another, Nic expresses confusion towards
some (not all) of said reasons - because he doesn't hear the same - and attempts to logically determine why these discrepancies exist. From what I read, Nic isn’t trying to make excuses for the Phantom nor is he attempting to brainwash people into liking it - even if his position as the Phantom’s co-creator encourages him to explain why it
CAN be appreciated; not why it
should or
must. By collecting data such as sources used, tip selection, listening trends and impressions from other users that vary even
farther from the impressions posted here, Nic is trying to find out why noticeable audio cues exist (such as the sibilance) and not utterly denying that you possibly could’ve heard them. He's not trying to question why you wouldn't like an IEM that's bass-y and sibilant; he's trying to find out
HOW the Phantom can sound bass-y and sibilant when it shouldn't have been either in the first place. You can blame Nic for missing the one sentence where Malvin states the source he used, but it shouldn’t be seen as a demeaning generalisation meant to blame him or his gear for not praising the Phantom to the hills. Different gear
can be responsible for hearing different things out of the same IEM, but it’s completely okay if you still dislike said IEM if all those differences disappeared. However, if an IEM can produce auditory cues like bass-y-ness or sibilance when doing so should've been near-impossible in the first place, then something is definitely amiss.
As someone who’s spent the past three years studying in Singapore - with the majority of that time spent in places like Music Sanctuary, Zeppelin and Jaben - I also have a thing or two to say about Nic’s comments regarding listening trends there in general. But, I think Nic has apologised enough for any misunderstandings he may have caused, so I'll let that topic rest. I sincerely hope my comments don’t offend anyone or cause any further of a stir. All I'm trying to do is, perhaps, clear up any lingering misunderstandings or misconceptions. As a friend of Nic’s and a grateful member of the whole Head-Fi community, I found it important to - in some way - help as much as I humanly can.
Cheers.
