Hypetrain Aftermath

bruh.wav · January 16, 2022, 5:29pm

As we’ve seen there are quite a lot of hype driving the audio industry. What are your thoughts on those hyped products after you tried it yourself?

A little note: don’t make this like a circle j*rk thread.

For myself, I’ve only tried four hyped items, the Blon BL-03, KBear Believe, L&P W2, Cayin RU6.

Blon BL-03
For its price, the 03 is a really nice IEM and considering the time when it was released, the BL03 was pretty much the only IEM that was not a muddied bass box or a murder treble. What I really appreciate from the 03 was the elevated bass while maintaining the mids quite clear. The highs are also handled pretty nicely. It went pretty well with most genres and overall a pretty nice sounding IEM.

In terms of its technicality, it’s not the best. The soundstage is narrow, the detail is okay and the layering is okay as well. Considering the 03 as a whole package, I think it is worth the hype.

KBear Believe
The Belive is kinda debatable for having a hype or not because it got discontinued before the hype really picked up, but I’ll say it’s a hyped item.

The Believe is a hit or miss in my opinion. They have an accentuated upper mid and lower high with also an elevated bass. They excel in rock and metal genres as it give you the slam and impact for bass and the sparkle for the cymbals etc., but it’s not really nice for everything else. The accentuated mid and lower high made some female voices a little bit sibilance and imbalance. So, overall I’ll say the Believe is a really specific IEM. It works great if you listen to metal and rock, but not so much for the others.

For that reason I’ll give it a somewhat worth the hype, but not really. Lol. I’ll give it a 50/50.

L&P W2
The W2 was hyped because everyone was curious to see L&P’s take on dongle DAC. I think they pretty much deliver what the hype suggested.

The W2 has a neutral with a tad bit of warmth in the sound. What I think makes it great is in the technicality. It has the best control, dynamic, staging and texture. Well, you can see where this is going. I pretty much liked everything about it.

So for that, the W2 is worth the hype.

Cayin RU6
The RU6 is the first (AFAIK) R-2R dongle DAC. What made people hyped about it is the fact that it’s R-2R. There’s this mystical view on R-2R as they’ve been used in high-end DACs, but I think that’s where it falls apart. It’s a technological marvel, but in terms of performance, it’s not the best.

The RU6 has an elevated bass and smooth sounding highs. Coupled with the soft transient and slow decay, it made everything sounded larger than it seems (in terms of soundstage). This feature also make the RU6 sounds so natural and relaxed, but for some music, these said features are not the most desired one.

It made hard hitting sound lose it’s impact and definition and kinda make it to overlap with other sounds. In my opinion it’s not the best for a fast beating music.

Does the RU6 give the taste of an R-2R DAC? Yeah I think it does, but it doesn’t really give the taste of the desktop R-2R DACs. The lack of technical performance is a little bit annoying to me. So, you get the taste of R-2R, but R-2R DACs can do so much more than that.

All in all, does the RU6 live up to the hype. Yeah, but not really. I was a little bit let down by it’s performance. For that, I’ll give a 80/100, 100 being “totally worth the hype” and 0 being “why did I even spend my money on this”.

bruh.wav · January 16, 2022, 5:33pm

Just some thoughts, maybe to make it easier I’ll make a little template.

If the item was never been discussed before

Name of the product in bold

A brief review on why it was a hyped product

Your thoughts

If the item had been discussed

Skip number 2

For everything else (comments, banter, etc.)

Just like the usual lol

Gothique · January 16, 2022, 6:02pm

This is an interesting idea. On the whole I avoid hypes since it takes me longer to decide to buy something than the general hype lifecycle. Sometimes I do try something later on out of curiosity.

Xduoo MT-602 Tube Preamp
It was hyped as part of the general and ongoing tube fashion where people are looking for low cost ways to experience their headphones in a different way than they are used to. My own personal opinion is that this is popular as most of the low cost mass produced dacs and amps currently all have very similar, relatively sterile sounds. I very briefly owned a Topping L30 and I am thinking of that kind of sound and cheap tube amps or preamps would be a change from that.

I think if used on such an amp it might well have more effect, on mine it was mostly a damp squib. Useless as a headphone amp as the output is so high, it’s tube stage only has a very tiny impact on down stream amps. It does have an effect but I don’t think the amount lives up to the hype. It also absolutely needs different tubes to have any additive effect. I found that it can add a tiny amount of sparkle and bass smoothness. I can see this being great on a cheap sterile amp but for anything else it is not really worth the effort when a more impactful effect can be had by using a more characterful amplifier, a better amplifier and/or a good headphone and amplifier synergy. I feel like the Zen Can I used to own did the same to sound only so much better and with one stage. I feel like my Audio-GD R2R 11 paired with HE400i gives a better analogue like sound.

I think it appeals if your interest or knowledge and budget are relatively light as more knowledge and experience can choose better for not much more money. For those who are enjoying their Topping and SMSL low cost options then perhaps this is a worthwhile preamp, but I am not really inclined to buy one to find out!

comfylife · January 16, 2022, 6:15pm

Blon BL-Max

To start my list off, I’ll piggyback off of one of the sets you listed, the Blons. The BL-Max I think was moderately hyped due to the success of the Blon BL-03, but the previously released BL-mini probably dampened a lot of that, considering that one was flawed out the gate.

Again, the technicalities not the best, but at least from what I gathered, marked improvements in separation, soundstage, and better bass extension over the BL-03. IMO it stages just like my Moondrop Variations, so it’s become my budget alternative used to mull over bad recordings, especially with its recessed highs. My big criticism is that I had to tip roll and mod a solution to get a proper fit, since the things are huge (but not particularly heavy.)

Audio Technica ATH-M50s

I feel like this doesn’t need much explanation, given how much it was hyped in the past. However, in a nutshell they were the critically acclaimed studio headphones for a number of years (I think still are (?)) Their accolades had to do with their price-to-performance, comfort, etc…

I bought a used pair of these many years ago and swapped the pads and while initially enamored, the sheer claustrophobia of these headphones wore on me real quick. If anyone is familiar with the “idiot sandwich” meme, the set staged like those two pieces of bread. I felt like noise was being drilled into my head, and only a few months after I purchased a pair of Mr. Speaker Mad Dogs. I would almost never pick up the M50s again until the headband finally wore out and binned them.

Zero Audio Carbo Tenore

These were hyped back in I want to say 2015~ish, or at least that’s when I bought them. I used to watch a lot of Lachlan from lachlanlikesathing, so when he praised the IEMs, I felt inclined to purchase and gift them to my father as one of his birthday presents. He kept it for a bit, but eventually moved over to a set with a microphone, which he constantly used for work. They were mainly touted for price-to-performance and really wide soundstage for their price.

After the set was back in my hands, I fell in love with them. They’re still a pair I return to on a regular basis due to how convenient they are to just pop in my ears. I was also able to brighten the treble a bit by tip-rolling, which made them better than they already were.

Tin Hifi T2

Another set that doesn’t need a ton of explanation. They are another critically acclaimed set with a neutral, mid-forward signature that had huge price-to-performance gains.

I stand by that statement, and I actually find them clearer to my ears than my Etymotic ER2SE (likely due to the tuning.) A controversial opinion, but I find them to have a similar level of mid-to-treble clarity to my Moondrop Variations minus a bit of graininess. I don’t really use them anymore because their fit isn’t as good on me as my other IEMs, bass quality, and foams are the only tips that really do them justice, which are generally my least favorite type of tips.

I’ve bought a couple other hyped items like the Nuforce UDAC 2, Mr. Speakers Mad Dogs, Schiit Stack, JDS Atom Stack, etc. Actually, I’d consider almost all of my audio equipment “hyped” to some degree, mostly for good reason. I’ve had generally positive experiences with all of them, so

mochi · January 16, 2022, 7:12pm

GoldPlanar GL2000

I think this needs no introduction. I bought it out of a recommendation from a friend who preferred it over the Ananda. I also got it at the time when I was pretty much a noob in this hobby, at the time using probably using something like Modius + Magnius. I heard the Ananda a year later but I never heard them side by side.

Personally, whilst I do not think it deserves the praise the hype train has given it, I don’t think of it as lowly as most in this community. This is obviously based on memory from a time I wasn’t as experienced so it may not be accurate: at the time I thought it was reasonably technical with good soundstage width and height (not so much depth), imaging, bass quantity and extension from both ends (although nowhere near the price mark, more like a potentially more technical Sundara but less sophisticatedly implemented). I could also appreciate the tonality, being slightly V-shaped with some elevated bass and a fair amount of upper-mid to treble energy, as this is a Chinese headphone catered towards the Chinese audiophile community who tends to listen to a lot of vocal pop from the 80s-00s that aren’t always the most well-recorded. However, I did find it somewhat wonky which took me a while to figure out: the soundstage is exaggerated and artificially created through making the mid recessed, in a way tricking you into thinking if the sound is more distant then the stage must be larger. As a result, the mid has poor timbre and suffers from being grainy, and since the stage is not real, it does not sound immersive but more like two walls of sound with no depth. Personally I didn’t regret the purchase (but it might have been a different story if it weren’t that easy for me to get rid of it) as it did show me, who at the time only heard pretty much entry stuff, the capabilities of things towards the mid-range, but I did have my reservations about the tuning of the headphone and its price range. In my opinion if this was around 400USD, just a bit higher than the Sundara and didn’t boast itself as a giant killer i.e. better than Ananda and as good as the Arya I think it might not have been as poorly received in the aftermath as it was.

Lastly just a bit of personal thoughts, another similar product that is recently pretty hyped is the Hifiman Edition XS which I personally think may have potentially suffered from similar tuning issues and the potential backlash from the hype, although I do think it is a lot better implemented and more appropriately priced. I won’t go into details as I’ve already left my thoughts at the budget Hifiman thread and it’s still pretty new.

Hazi59 · January 16, 2022, 9:44pm

The only hype train I fell for was the Monoprice M1060 mod hypetrain. Everybody and their mother was saying they are LCD-2 Killers…more like a music killer. Even with mods, they are some of the most strident and horribly behaved drivers I’ve encountered in the hobby. The 5 kHz issues were not fixed by mods, contrary to what others have said (you can damp a driver, but you certainly can’t fix one that is as limited as the M1060).

Sidenote: The Hypetrain for the Thieaudio Phantom was humorous to me…same exact driver as the M1060, but with even worse build quality in the headband and yokes. But people still hopped on that hypetrain and I found it sad and humorous at the same time.

Souldriver · January 18, 2022, 7:58am

When i was looking for a commuter set i was told either the ath-50 or one of the vmodas. I listened to them and the ath was horrible, the vmoda wasnt bad, but the ultrasone hfi 780 beat them both. I still have the 780, even if its now a yard work set. Something about ultrasones that have a very real touch to them.