SpaceOperaVillain
100+ Head-Fier
rambling a bit - the Vader Hires does look very tempting for us treble freaks. The thing is that my curve preference is kind of an extreme W shape, not necessarily a lean / bright phone. If you've spent any time with AKG 240's, you'll know how sad life is without bass. I won't tolerate it. I'm patiently waiting for the Castor Harman's to arrive before ordering any additional multi-DD IEM to see how well they respond to EQ. The Merga or Duo might slip into my cart before then ... I'm torn on it.
Trying to understand KZ's recent dynamic innovations:
* "Dual Driver" - So CCA Hydro is now top of the food chain with these vaguely described "dual driver" 7mm unit and single 8mm unit combination. Why is the 7mm "dual"? Are there actually 2 diaphragms stacked on top of each other?
* "Dual Chamber" is the description for the the CCA Polaris, but it's 10mm. I think this is the same driver used in the Trio?
* "Super-linear" - several different KZ/CCA pairs (including Merga) advertise this driver but it's not clear what makes it linear, much less super linear ...
* "Dual magnetic circuit & dual-cavity 2DD driver" - KZ DUO has the most word salad description of the bunch. I have no idea what this ish is.
* "Stacked Dual-Dynamic" - this is the setup in the Castor, which has a 10mm "dual magnetic" sitting on top of an 8mm dynamic, free of any other embellishment / wizardry.
* "Dual magnetic & cavity dynamic" - this is the description of the ZNA, which uses a 12MM plus whatever the hell the rest of it is.
* "5 microns" - the thin diaphragm craze of the CRA got lost in the DQS. This driver is also described as having 4 layer voice coil to try and remove weight, which theoretically should mean better detail. At 17 euro they're proud of this one.
Frankly, trying to sort all of this out is exhausting, which means that the marketing is working and keeps people buying them just to compare if nothing else.
No improvement to staging:
This is my subjective take, but when it comes to separation and layering and isolating instrument detail I don't think I have anything better than the ZAX, and much of that I would attribute to the open back design of the shell. Most reviewers complained that they threw a closed shell 10mm driver into an open back shell which is why the bass was a bit sloppy. The reality is that shaving off 1-2 db from 100hz is enough to clean it up without sacrificing subbass extension. Certainly the BA10 sound more coherent and are less V shaped IMO, but those lack the air and wider soundstage of the ZAX units. While BA10 is also generously vented, it's all BA design kind of pushes the air from a closed chamber fairly directly into the egress tube, so the sound isn't really resonating inside the shell. The openness of the ZAX shells was eliminated on the ZAS and apparently the new ZAR update, too, which is kind of a bummer. The new hybrid and multi-DD setups from CCA appear to all have some amount of venting on them, but there's not any indication from reviews I've seen which would indicate a wider sound stage beyond the rest of their catalog, which is a bit disappointing.
edit: I lied. The CCA CXS is touting an open back for better sound stage. NymPHONOmaniac's review is actually pretty positive.
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/cca-cxs.26138/
/rambling
Trying to understand KZ's recent dynamic innovations:
* "Dual Driver" - So CCA Hydro is now top of the food chain with these vaguely described "dual driver" 7mm unit and single 8mm unit combination. Why is the 7mm "dual"? Are there actually 2 diaphragms stacked on top of each other?
* "Dual Chamber" is the description for the the CCA Polaris, but it's 10mm. I think this is the same driver used in the Trio?
* "Super-linear" - several different KZ/CCA pairs (including Merga) advertise this driver but it's not clear what makes it linear, much less super linear ...
* "Dual magnetic circuit & dual-cavity 2DD driver" - KZ DUO has the most word salad description of the bunch. I have no idea what this ish is.
* "Stacked Dual-Dynamic" - this is the setup in the Castor, which has a 10mm "dual magnetic" sitting on top of an 8mm dynamic, free of any other embellishment / wizardry.
* "Dual magnetic & cavity dynamic" - this is the description of the ZNA, which uses a 12MM plus whatever the hell the rest of it is.
* "5 microns" - the thin diaphragm craze of the CRA got lost in the DQS. This driver is also described as having 4 layer voice coil to try and remove weight, which theoretically should mean better detail. At 17 euro they're proud of this one.
Frankly, trying to sort all of this out is exhausting, which means that the marketing is working and keeps people buying them just to compare if nothing else.
No improvement to staging:
This is my subjective take, but when it comes to separation and layering and isolating instrument detail I don't think I have anything better than the ZAX, and much of that I would attribute to the open back design of the shell. Most reviewers complained that they threw a closed shell 10mm driver into an open back shell which is why the bass was a bit sloppy. The reality is that shaving off 1-2 db from 100hz is enough to clean it up without sacrificing subbass extension. Certainly the BA10 sound more coherent and are less V shaped IMO, but those lack the air and wider soundstage of the ZAX units. While BA10 is also generously vented, it's all BA design kind of pushes the air from a closed chamber fairly directly into the egress tube, so the sound isn't really resonating inside the shell. The openness of the ZAX shells was eliminated on the ZAS and apparently the new ZAR update, too, which is kind of a bummer. The new hybrid and multi-DD setups from CCA appear to all have some amount of venting on them, but there's not any indication from reviews I've seen which would indicate a wider sound stage beyond the rest of their catalog, which is a bit disappointing.
edit: I lied. The CCA CXS is touting an open back for better sound stage. NymPHONOmaniac's review is actually pretty positive.
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/cca-cxs.26138/
/rambling
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