ETA Mini S Review (Follow-Up to Mini C)

Yea, I know what you're saying - you're right. But due to the hybrid on ear design of the Mini C and straight on ear of the Mini O there's a clarity in the presentation that is sort of in the same realm of ability to resolve. Like to my ears, the Minis carry more clarity than my Sennheisers and TOTL. It doesn't resolve like those headphones, but the clarity just puts it up into the leagues of those headphones oddly enough. At least that's how I compare and hear it.

 

likely shitposting:

There are times when I actually find listening to music outdoors more immersive because the way that ambient sound bleeds into what I'm actively listening to offers something like an illusion of greater cohesion and real presence outside of the illusory headstage, inasmuch as ambient kerfuffle would obviously obfuscate lower-level information; would the greater clarity in presentation borne specifically due to the hybrid on-ear design of the Mini have something to do with it? Definition of specific terms when comparing notes about sound is always messy.

This is going to be a massive pain but it might be interesting to compare headphones that are voiced and technically geared as similarly as possible outside of one being supraaural and the other being circumaural.

 

Hah, funny that you mention that because the most musical and amazing headphone experiences I've had is walking around listening to a Koss KSC75. I think you've explained it way better than I've be able to, but all of the sudden the music becomes a soundtrack to your life and it doesn't sound like soundstage anymore but two speakers following you around and rotating around you incorporating into everything external.

I think a lot of the clarity is just pure ear drum to driver interface that's immediate and close with on ears that you just don't get with over ears. And Mini C/S has that sort of interface since your ears rest on the driver enclosure and that driver sits very close.

 

As an owner of Mini C / S and the HD650 (no kilobuck gear), I can say that the Minis definitely do 'scale', but maybe not in the same vein of the Senns in that they sound outright shitty out of regular underpowered gear and then they start to sing with more powerful (and expensive) stuff. I do get better staging and a whole lot more low end slam and texture with a beefy amp compared to portable sources, I can also get murkier mids and unresolved highs due to the presence of more shit in the chain (depending on gear), moreover, these are the first headphones with which I readily picked up cable differences without ever meaning to. This is meant to encourage owners and prospective owners to think differently of these and the purpose of their gear, I've read several impressions of owners that are happier with an iPad than a desktop rig due to improved clarity, it's best to try for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Don't forget to try the lowly stuff, you might be surprised.

 

I agree, the Mini C and Mini S can reflect the quality of the chain leading up to them pretty well. They start from a higher level of performance so they have less to improve compared to Senns, which I find unlistenable from many sources and lower end gear.

 

Guess so.

 

They don't need TOTL/kilobuck gear to sound good. I use a Vali 1 with my 650, planning to use a Piety. I don't think they're the best with some of the lower powered amps like a Fulla e, even though the Fulla e sounds surprisingly good with a wide range of headphones (I love Fulla e). I do think the 600 and 650 in particular need an amp with a little oomph to get them going. Just my experience with them.

I do think they need some of the upper tier amps to really open up and meet their full potential.

 

Low quality. Youve already disagreed and did not try to add anything new. Good discussion otherwise.

I agree with @BlackLotus. I find drivers closer to ear make up for driver’s lower resolution capability, like Porta Pro sounding exceptionally smooth and clear relative to cost. Im guessing less loss in transmission. An extreme analogy: midfi stereo speakers positioned well in a great acoustic room is much preferable to hifi speakers positioned terribly in the corner of a booshelf inside a closet under the stairs and youre seated in the living room. Porta Pro would be like listening without the room or speaker enclosure variables because open back with minimal baffle and open-foam pads (ETA’s Mini-open)… Anyways, good discussion is good otherwise history will repeat and we’ll end up with 3 new remodels of ETA GenG by this time next year.

Mini-s looks like AQ Nighthawk. Nighthawk I believe aspired for that “tactile” room feel. And more recently Ollo S5X added similar enclosure details (front wave guide and semi-closed cups) to add to the listening to “speakers in room” sensation (id link Ollo video but cant seem to find on youtube anymore).

 

This is a bit rich coming from you, but I digress. What I’m hinting at is that categorical stuff akin to ‘this shit don’t scale’ does more harm than good, many people will write the product off just by reading that, what’s wrong with just stating: ‘I heard no significant improvement with my better gear’? Many of us have experienced differently when switching gear around, yet many tend to favor simpler sources with less crap in the chain. YMMV all the way.

 

Exactly! It really means something when even I think your post is low quality.

Thank you!

 

Dude, f'ing knock this shit off.

 

I'm curious, can anyone give a rough qualitative comparison in terms of relative isolation:
HD25 vs Mini C
Portapro/ksc75 vs Mini S
? I mean, Marv has some charts but no idea how that translates into standing next to a highway or on a bus or train.

 

Porta Pro vs Mini S: A LOT more high frequency isolation, outside voices sound muffled and have to take them off to talk to people, not enough isolation to fully enjoy on a noisy street or place, probably enough for a quiet coffee shop.

 

I felt like Spoony’s short response was being totally dismissive without any reason of Chacha’s experience. Spoony’s later follow-up reply articulates his disagreement. I misjudged tone of his original post. Sorry Spoony! Ill remove the ‘dislike’. And sorry others for the derailment.

I dont get it. Please send pm or chat in profile post if need public lashing.

 

My experience with Mini C is that it does get better with better gear, but there's no need for a big tube setup like an HD650 needs for it to truly shine. It gets more clarity, focus, midrange micro-stuff, and slam from my SW51+/Walnut X.1 stack than from my Macbook Pro laptop jack. I also did hear a noticeable difference between Corda Classic and SW51+ with it. And as @spoony posted above, the difference in cables and sources can be discerned a tiny bit easier with Mini C to me – at least with my mid-fi gear. It doesn't scale as much as HD650 obviously but that headphone sounds outright bad from a laptop jack while Mini C sounds more than fine.

For my preference, Mini C gets more head time from me nowadays out of the best stack that I have (SW51+/Walnut X.1),. HD650 sounds great and is synergistic out of SW51+ but Mini C still has deeper, more textured low-end, richer more "cohesive" sound that I prefer, a bit more precise staging, and no slight 5k-6k midrange spike which bothers me a bit after a while. I'm confident that, even compared to HD650 with kilobucks gear, Mini C still beats it handily in low-end performance and staging. To use a TV analogy, Mini C is a 1440p OLED screen with a bit of crushed blacks while HD650 is a 4k LED TV that provides greater detail after (a lot of) calibrations. YMMV of course, it's going to be up to your sonic preferences in the end.




Above is the graph of my impression of the two's scaling capabilities. I made this really quickly during a Zoom meeting; the point where the two intersect should really be more to the left. It feels to me that HD650 starts at 5 but can scale up to 11 while Mini C starts at 7 and hits the ceiling at 9. If that makes sense...

 

OMG why people are being butthurt over opinions regarding a pair of headphones?

 

What is the Y axis, more gooder?

I only bring it up in reference to another chart or set of graphs
Hope we can get a headphone that goes to 11 one day.

and where do some other headphones stack up on this race to the top? I had the chance to try everything myself, seems impossible really. Especially when different music preferences are dominant.

Would be fun to see others listed, as many headphones seem to be objectively different in how they prioritize the sonic landscape and many components simply do pair well.