Bringing to you a special post sponsored by the one-and-only
@antdroid. Thanks for the loaners and be sure to check out his site
Audio Discourse for more reviews.
Thieaudio Legacy 3
Round 2 with this IEM - if you've seen
my original review then you know I don't think too highly of it. As a quick recap, this is a U-shaped, more laidback tuning. My two main issues were that 1) the thing suffered from serious BA timbre, and 2) the treble rolled off significantly. And I don't really know what to say - while I can't A/B, this unit most definitely sounds different from what I remember. Both issues have been somewhat attenuated, to the extent of which I think they're now fairly minor.
The L3's still a pretty poor contender for technicalities; layering capability and resolution are
severely lacking. Just turning up the volume a little bit really exacerbates that "low-res" hue. But I can actually appreciate the tuning on this one, go figure. I'm not going to change the score, just because I felt I was fairly lenient on the original unit, but this is decent enough for the price. As for whether I recommend it...what's more worrisome to me at this point is the quality-control.
Thieaudio Voyager 3
This one leans more towards your typical Chi-Fi, V-shaped tuning. And holy cow is it a mess. Starting from the bottom, you have your boosted bass. Don't get me wrong, I
love my bass. But this, this is horrible. The mid-bass emphasis makes clear how messy the attack is; there's zero semblance of control, not to mention dynamic slam. The midrange is also conveniently pushed forward more than the L3. The upper-midrange is the biggest culprit of this. You get an exclusive, front-row seat to the fat, fuzzy blob that it is. And the treble...well, let's just say I wasn't listening too hard at that point. It's all over the place.
The Voyager 3 shoves everything in your face unabashedly. I was going to make an inappropriate innuendo here, but let’s not. If you've never heard something good before, sure, maybe it could sound "fun"? But it also takes "low-res" to another level, and frankly, the L3 sounds like a gem comparatively. I can see why Antdroid prefers the L3 - it's not much of a contest.
Edit: I tried the "01" setting after someone mentioned this to me. I just assumed the switches did nothing like on the L3 - bad move. Yeah, just leave that switch on because none of the other settings are any good. It makes a profound difference to the upper-midrange, opening it up quite a bit. It's actually listenable now. Updated score as such.
Score: 3.5/10 for the Legacy 3, 2/10 3/10 for the Voyager 3
Stay tuned for the Etymotic ER2XR review this weekend - it gives these two the whammy.