IEM for a stupidly small amount of money

What cable is that?

 

Hey guys, the cable is from the very, very awesome ImpactAudioCables:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ImpactAudioCables

Lindsay was absolutely awesome to work with and built the cable to my exact specifications and charged me the very, very princely sum of $89 shipped, which is stupid good. Cable was built and shipped out within one week of payment (YMMV here). Build quality looks immaculate and I couldn't be happier with the quality of the cable. Do look him up if you're in the market for a highly functional cable and fairly priced cable.

 

Just tried all 3 models, and yeah this really isn't half bad. Local price (SGD) is about $50, 78, 102.
Series 1 has all the nice colour options, 3 and 5 come only in all black. I think the 5 sticks out of the ear too much.
3 really is quite good, but you have to be okay with a fair amount of bass boost, and a little treble boost (but not quite in the region of being harsh).

Little worried about how the connector holds up to prolonged use though.

 

TFZ series 5 on massdrop

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/tfz-series-5-iem

 

I still have not received the TFZ Series 5, yet. Ordered from Amazon and received Series 3. Returned those and waiting for a shipment from Penonaudio.

Anyway, I have not seen the holes that one pierces. These are the holes, right?

 

Too bad they aren't customs

 

Why do I get this feeling that if Rotijon hadn't brought up this little gem to our attention in the first place, that drop wouldn't have come into being at all?

 

Well... They type the introduction as:

So if Pika @Rotijon hadn't brought the series to attention here then... I think two of the big names mentioned are still more than powerful enough to hype up the TFZ.

 

Haha tbh, one of the reason i started this thread was because there was very little information on these in reddit or headfi. Only on the malaysian forums were they starting to blow up.

ON the other hand, how many Fostex X00 models and drops have there been already? Those drops literally never end.

 

Literally bought these when Rotijon started the hype train and it was posted on reddit. Thankfully I'm not disappointed but what I hear.

Granted I needed to harakiri my pair, they're still amazing for the price. Now if only you would do us the favour of getting the series 7 when it comes out so we know whether or not to board the next hypetrain

 

If the S7 comes anywhere close to the triple mod S5, I will be amazed.

 

If you don't mind, can i just double check all of mods that you have done on S05?

1. Poke into vent once with needle (Harakiri mod?) - Do we poke only once?
2. Remove metal nozzle cap and filter inside and put strips of alcohol swab across the nozzle.
3. James444 front mod (put a strip of silicone and mount with silicone tip.
4. Did you also apply back mod with small expanded piece of a straw?

Thank you very much.....

 

I'm usually skeptical on burn-in (difficult to verify, doh), but in case of the S5 it kinda floats around (even after 100h of use).
The shout is gotten slightly worse, clarity has improved. Bass is less spongy. Someone who has 2 pairs can verify this.
Might have been good idea to not do the harakiri mod.

 

You don't have to do step four at all! As a matter of fact, I've had these playing without the faceplates on and it seems to not impact the sound in any way whatsoever, so I'm not sure that there's anything you can do as far as "back venting."

Eh.... I honestly don't think burn in makes as much a difference as anyone says it does. I had two pairs and straight out of the box, the second pair sounded like total ass compared to my modded pair. I have found, however, that tips can make a huge impact on the amount of bass/clarity,sound staging.

The most balanced tips I've found to date (for my tastes anyway) are probably those generic red core tips from Penon:

http://penonaudio.com/3-Pairs-Grey-Red-Eartips?search=tips&sort=rating&order=ASC

The UE900 tips lead to the most bass:



The Ortofon tips seem to have pretty good balance as well. More sub bass than the Penon tips, but you trade off some air/treble for that. I'm guessing its because the silicon on the Ortofon tips is flimsier so the material transmits vibrations better than the stiffer Penon silicon.

 

Thank you very much. It was very helpful. Have you also tried foam tips? I usually get irritation from silicone tips and much prefer foam tips if possible and does foam tips increase bass quantity too much?

 

A friend has been kind enough to send me his modded TFZ 5 for a few days. I've declined pretty much all loaners lately because 1) I've found my end game IEM, and it's pretty much destroyed all desire to stay on the merry-go-round, and 2) Head-Fi has sucked the joy of the IEM search out of me. Still, he sounded so excited about how great it was, so I thought maybe this would be the IEM that brought back the thrill of the chase.

I've been listening to it, and I can see why you guys who did the mod like it so much. Detail is there, the bass is phenomenal, and it has a very nice sense of space.

I only have one problem with it, and it's something that pulls me completely out of the listening experience. For background, the IEM I chose as my endgame has very specific characteristics. The imaging is out of this world, the dynamic range is killer, the midrange is the best I've heard (most of my music has vocals or instrumental harmonics that depend on midrange fidelity), and perhaps the most important thing is that note weight is very even across the FR. What that means is that if I'm listening to something like a classical piece, the cello will be just as tactile as the violin. Even in rap, the rappers voice carries as much grunt as the bass-line, and the treble is weighty enough to have that natural reverb of a cymbal clash.

With the TFZ 5, I don't have that. To my ears there's a significant disparity between how great and weighty the bass is, and the relative thinness of the mids and treble. Vocals don't really carry as much conviction because they sound quite thin to me in comparison to the low end. It's one thing if the signature was even throughout, since we all know given times our brains can adjust to virtually any sound sig, but it's that weight difference between the (awesome) low end and the relatively lighter mids and treble. It nullifies the sense of realism for me, personally.

Still, the IEM is quite efficient at pulling detail, and creating a very tall wall of sound that you can only get from these custom-shaped universals.

I haven't written this much about an iem in a while...sorry if I didn't come across clearly.

 

What is your amp and dac ?

 

I have a sneaking suspicion they are shaped like Rockets...