Which Way Up? [Part 1]

I'll like to talk about 'upgrade' for portable rig this week. One thing I want to make clear first is, I am merely providing an idea of how an sensible upgrade path should be (or at least I think what I will be talking about is the most logical approach), and you should adapt it to your own situation with flexibility. My theory for finding the upgrade path is simple - it is nothing more than identifying the weakest link in your current setup.

It might seem obvious to you now when I tell you to look for the weakest link in your setup, but it is often not. I have seen many people going the wrong way when it comes to spending money on new gears trying to improve on what they have currently.

The main goal of having a portable setup is to simply enjoy high quality music on-the-go. For many, it means getting a good headphone to replace the stock earbud or IEM that comes with your digital music player - well, that is both right and wrong. Think about this, if your are listening to 128kbps of .mp3 files or 96kbps of .wma music, getting a substantially good headphone will only reveal the flaw in your music (the artifact left by the low bitrate encoding process). After all, a good headphone by definition should be revealing. It supposes to show detail that you previously missed, but sometime it can do too good of a job. So what is the more logical approach of upgrading portable rig ? I rank them in importance:

Music
Source
Headphone
Amp
Others

Chapter 1: Because in the Beginning, There is Music...

First thing first: you want to make sure you have at least 192kbps of .mp3 files in your music collection. At this point of time, low bitrate music like 128kbps .mp3 is simply not acceptable. Of course, the higher the bitrate the better, but you also want to consider:

1) The size of the music files against the capacity of your player. If you rip music in extremely high bitrate or in lossless format, you might not be able to fit as many music in your player when there is limited space.

2) The format your music is in and the format that the player will support. This is mainly about how conviniant it will be for you to store, manage, sync and play the music. If you want to store lossless format in PC (as digital archive), than convert and sync music in low bitrate, that is fine. However, you might want to consider a high lossy format so it will work well for both PC and portable playback. Of course, choosing a good software to mange the music is important too. Remember, you will replace your DAP in the future, but you won't want to rebuild the whole music library every time just becasue you change your player.

3) Whether you can differentiate between format and bitrate. If you can't tell between 256kbps from 320kbps or lossless, or maybe .mp3 and .wma sound the same to you, than you might want to pick a good enough bitrate (not too low or high) that you find good sounding, and a format more widely accepted. In this way, you ensure you can still get good music and you don't need to worry too much into compatibility on future upgrade. In that sense, I can tell you right now those low bitrate music you bought online will not likely to survive to the next decade. You will be better off with high bitrate or lossless in DRM-free format, maybe even some old good compact disc.

To Part Two.

Last Week's Most Interesting

Two semi-interesting news: First, Monster (the cable company) was inviting people to review their soon-to-hit-the-market IEM called Turbine. They do insist of calling their own creation as In-Ear-Speaker instead of In-Ear-Monitor to show that it's sound quality is a totally new level above everything on the market, though some early reviews seems to suggest it is just another entry to mid-fi IEM (despite the name). On second news, JVC finalized the detail on their latest noise isolating + canceling IEM called HA-NCX78. For those who missed the news, it was first announced back at CES2009. Basically it is a hybrid of both technology, probably designed more of cutting out noise rather than introducing good sound. NCX78 will be released on March for around US$80.

Hit the read link for the press releases or save yourself some time by just looking at the pictures. Seriously, there is nothing you'll miss.

Read more... Monster Turbine

Read more... JVC HA-NCX78

Last Week... Not Much.

Really, not much happened at all, not that you should expect anything major at this point of time just after CES. There were some minor news, but I won't bother telling them to you just for posting sake. I do, however, get something I really want last week - a new digital audio player, the Sandisk Sansa Fuze 8GB. It is meant to replace my aging iriver clix2 8GB which I have enjoyed over the last 1.5 yrs. Fuze might not be as sleek looking nor has the smooth interface and top notch AMOLED screen as clix2, but it does has great sound quality and an SDHC expension slot (which already occupied by a 8GB SDHC card, effectively doubling the player's capacity). No need to say, I am quite happy with the new player and it will be part of my main portable rig from now on.

Some comparison pictures for you guys and girls:

[Review] LEAR Le01

Sorry to all for the delay on this review, I am quite busy for the last few weeks.

Here is a review of another Made-in-China IEM, the LEAR Le01. I was first contacted by a fellow member on another forum (GodLuvSxS @ Lowyat.net – I’ll take the chance here to thank him) asking if I would be interested in reviewing this IEM. If you haven't heard of an IEM company called LEAR before, don't worry - I didn't too until a week ago. In short, LEAR is a new startup and Le01 is their very first IEM attempt. They are so new, they didn't even have a website yet. As far as the end users' concern, LEAR are still trying to improve the Le01 even as it has already been released into the market, so don't worry if you received a slightly different Le01 than mine (i.e. I read on another HK forum, the next batch of Le01 will have Y-cord instead J-cord because of users' feedback, so more improvement might be implemented)

Here is the listed spec:
Driver units: 10.7mm Dynamic
Rated impedance: 20 ohm
Sensitivity: 112dB
Frequency: 10Hz to 26kHz
Distortion: <=1%94dB (20u pa) Channel balance : <=2% (at 500Hz) Rated input power: 10mW Maximum output power: 40mW Plug size: 3.5mm mini-plug Cord length: 1.3m O.F.C Eartips: 3 pairs single flange silicone tips (Large, mid, small) 1 shirt clip
Packaging, Accessories, and Build Quality

You can see from the picture above that the packaging of Le01 is actually quite nice. It has a very classy look to it. Inside, you will find the earpieces and the rest of the eartips sit in a piece of green dense foam. Underneath the foam, you will find the cable, a shirt clip and a user manual in English in a piece of soft sponge. I was a bit disappointed to see no case or pouch of any kind. I think even a cheap soft pouch can really enhance the overall package. The good thing is, they did include the shirt clip - as the cable they used are quite microphonics. The earpieces are made out of plastic. To improve the look, LEAR coats the outer facing part (white) of the earpieces with a clear coating. It is quite slick to touch and added a bit of scratch-proof to the 'LEAR' and 'L/R' marking. On the downside, it also makes the earpiece slightly harder to hold on to (which means not as easy to remove when you are wearing them). The earpiece design is basically a look-alike with many others Chinese made IEM though it is slightly slimmer, no much to really comment about. The included single flange eartips are thicker and spongier than you typical single flange. They tend to fit harder but mud up the bass a bit. In comparison, I find the bi-flange sounding most neutral and spacious soundstage wise. Unfortunately, the bi-flange doesn’t really isolate that well.

The overall build quality is quite good as LEAR is paying a bit of attention to the finer detail and finishing, however, I do see places that can use some improvement.

Sound Quality

Fresh out of the box, Le01’s bass is a bit overwhelming while treble is a bit lacking. It will take at least a good 3 days of burn-in to calm down the bass and bring out the detail. I’ll recommend for a full 100 hrs of burn-in before any serious auditioning. After burn-in, the overall fun sounding signature will still persist but more balanced and controlled than before. Bass hits quite strong but there are more mid bass than deep bass. Mid is quite full which in term makes the overall sound signature warm. Treble starts rolling off early but there is still enough detail and sparkle left. On the good side, it doesn’t have any sign of harshness at all. It does, however, makes it sounds a bit dark (just a bit). Soundstage wise, the warm and slightly dark presentation do limit the sense of space. In all, it is a fun and warm sounding IEM with good bass and a lay back signature. It kind of resembles UM2 sonic characters with slightly lesser detail and bigger bass. For those who don’t mind EQ, a bit of treble boost goes a long way.

Conclusion

Le01 is a pair of pretty easy going IEM. For its price (roughly US$40~$50), I think it performs quite well sonically. Personally, I’ll like to see a longer Y-cord on it instead of the J-cord. A pouch or case of some kind is welcomed too. If isolation isn’t top of the list of consideration, I think Le01 is a really good choice for casual listener, especially if you are a basshead.

For a quick sum up, you can read this.