Giving the XE6 more time specifically on the LPGT TI, it’s actually pretty interesting, because this really is doing something special that’s starting to grow on me that no other iems I’ve heard have been able to pull off, but it’s also still a hard sell at the current moment. Something being unique isn’t a magic bullet to get me to keep something. It’s an iem that prioritizes emotion and feel over everything in every aspect.
Stage is the biggest standout to me, It’s hard to describe but it’s almost like the feeling of open baffles/dipoles in a very lively and untreated room, somewhat like a combination of the stage and presentation of like hekse + dv2, but more aptly it reminds me of one specific headphone: hawks. Spatially it’s not super large, but it’s very grand and huge sounding, and very open within it’s stage. It’s really hit or miss depending on the music and the source, and how they stage and present. If music + source doesn’t have that natural space, the fir will add it really well and make it sound super enjoyable. If it does already, it could conflict and sound artificial and exaggerated. This will feed into bass in a second, but the time domain on the XE6 is both fucked and really cool at the same time, decay is really exaggerated and things linger a fair bit, lending to the untreated and overly lively sort of sound, but it’s not accurate, lends itself to becoming distracting and artifical sounding that can get on my nerves.
Bass is the 2nd stand out, it manages to be very warm, rich, and somewhat slightly softer and more rounded while providing a perceived strong level of movement, control, and macrodynamics without getting too uncontrolled. Pretty forward and sometimes over prominent. I wonder if that’s the whole kenetic bass thing going on, not sure, but the way it does bass while not the most technical ends up being extremely fun and direct feeling. I think the bass also goes along with the spatial thing since that’s what really stands out there, it’s like having a sub and/or big woofers in a smaller room (not always a good thing), unique for sure. It’s like the combination of the regular bass driver and kenetic stuff merges and combines traits of both which is uncommon, surprisingly well implemented
Midrange surprisingly is on it’s own and bass bleed is kept to a minimum which you wouldn’t expect for it’s signature. It’s inoffensive, rich, and prominent, but not as forward as the bass. It’s good, not remarkable, I can see the appeal, but for me it’s not technical enough to be stand out, sounds sort of both sweet yet bland and average at the same time. Not much more to say here
Treble really needs a lift since it’s lacking some energy, and it’s simply not well composed and technical enough for my liking. Needs work, and needs a brighter source and cables to compensate imo. Barely acceptable right now
Dynamically it’s got a very strong macro focus that goes a great job at conveying mainly bass and sometimes midrange directness and energy, just solid here.
This really needs better technicalities. It just does, it is NOT holding up to the price point they set it at. Microdynamics is a bit weak point, it has great macro but no micro to back it up, resolution and low level information is weak for the money (although what it does has ends up sounding more exaggerated and prominent because of the time domain things mentioned above), separation can sometimes be weak, texture is ok but it needs to be better, etc. I know they could keep it just as fun but give me better technical ability, it genuinely does feel like a step below the m5 in basic technicalities like speed, separation, resolving power, microdynamics, placement accuracy, etc stuff like that. The overall iem does feel more casual smoother and softer but lacks the technical performance and true coherency to feel liquid imo.
Speaking of coherency, it’s really weird. Signature/tuning wise, it doesn’t feel coherent, but from implementation and technicalities perspective, it actually does. It’s conflicting, it has some aspects that feel very together working as one piece and then things that just really take away from that in terms of tonal balance.
Currently I think that while the thummim is very different from what this sounds like, it is something I’d use for the same goal being casual and fun listening, and for that same goal I do think the thummim feels like a much better option, at least for myself. It’s spatial recreation while more focal esque spherical rather than the hfm/abyss/audioquest room like of the xe6 feels more satisfying and involving to me working better with a wider range of things and offering a higher level of accuracy and immersion more often. Bass wise it’s not as warm and physical as the xe6 but it offers a better level of refinement, texture, and clarity while keeping a warmer and meaty sound. Dynamically it has much better microdynamics while getting close to the overall macro ability of the fir. From a resolution perspective it can pull much more lower level nuances and also represent a consistently higher levels of texture in the midrange. Speed and separation wise it also does a better job here. I will say the fir offers a level of directness that the mmr doesn’t that’s pretty appealing. Treble is so much overall better on the mmr. Both are pretty picky on cable and pairup. The mmr just does a lot more for the money, and better suits what I would use a warmer casual listening iem for.
But then again, I’m starting to see why people may like this and why it can really stand out in some aspects if you let it. It’s like the iem is in conflict with itself and while it can decide on what it wants to be, it can’t decide on how it should go about it’s goal. I think that issue for the price is a harder pill to swallow. Honestly if this was a 1.5k cheaper, a lot of the things I’d say would be super easy to overlook, but just given what it’s positioned at and what it tries to put itself up against, it’s not as compelling. Will continue to listen to them, since I think this has been the first time I’ve ever actually gone from hating an iem of this caliber to potentially liking it over time enough to make me want to more properly explore proper synergy with daps and cables (I’d really like to hear it with like a dx300 max ti + some different cables and see how that ends up being)
Basically, space is really something and main standout and I think should absolutely be further explored, bass is 2nd to that and again something special and also contributes to the sense of space, technical coherency is surprisingly good, very macrodynamic, and I do think the overall sonic goal is a worthwhile one. But treble is weak in general, tonal balance is iffy, it’s just not resolving enough, it can quickly become overbearing, microdynamics need a drastic improvement, and from a time domain perspective while it’s really interesting at trying to simulate a room and while I just listed this as a positive, it’s not natural and feels uncontrolled. but there’s something there, I just think it might take another model with further refinement and improvement to make that something worth owning as a whole. It’s really hard to describe what this is trying to do, but really though it’s just nighthawk iems on a much higher level, but even more experimental but also less mature/refined sound
Cool, but not for me, and it needs more work to justify it’s price point, for now. Who knows, perhaps a few more months and I might consider keeping it if things continue on as they have
Ah, and apex modules my short experiences with the different ones were that gold was leaning too far into what it does, silver is a bit less far and more balanced and my preference for sure, black tried to lean it farther away from it’s goal which I would have seen as a positive but felt like it messed it up to much leading to more unbalance w signature that I didn’t like as much.