Noble Sage

the marketing materials describe tham as the successor to the Savant, which I have enjoyed for the last eight months.

Supposedly retuned to improve bass extension, the alleged lack of which was a frequent complaint.

An improvement? We'll know soon enough; I took advantage of the 15% Black Friday discount, and Lot 18, number 7 is on the way. If you're local (OC) and want to check them out, let me know by PM and I'll see if I can arrange something.

Stay tuned for impressions.

 

Had a chance to give a brief listen to the Sage's vs. the Savants tonight.
Sorry to say, but I like the Savants better. The highs on the Sage's seem to be lifted more than the Savants, but are sibilant/strident. The Savants are not.
The bass didn't seem that much more than the Savants.

I will have to listen more thoroughly, but overall I think the Savants are more balanced and better highs.

 

@Out Of Your Head: If you found the Savant more even and pleasant to listen to than the Sage... then that doesn't say much for the Sage. Ouch.

Then again, I do tend to hear IEMs rather differently than others.

 

I wonder if it's your weird ears or weird brain? I found the Mee Audio Pinnacle P1 a shrieky, sibilant abomination, no matter which tips I used, or how shallow or deeply I inserted it, which was a massive disappointment and very different from the general experience. That one was definitely my weird ear canals.

 

No idea regarding the former, but I can certainly vouch for the latter.

Never heard the P1, myself. The varying reports put me off, although its price point is certainly competitive.

 

Although I'll eventually hear the Sage, I'm glad to hear this as I'm really enjoying the Savant too. But I'll be interested to hear what others have to say.

Just to be clear (both burns and OOYH), this is the 'newer' aluminum body Savant, correct?

 

No, the Savant I have is the first gen, all black plastic. I can't remember hearing the aluminum Savant before. I may have heard then briefly at a show.

 

I have the older, rounded, acrylic versions of both. The aluminum body Sage looks like something that should only be worn on St. Patrick's Day, so I took advantage of the 15 percent Cyber Week discount and sprung for one of the one-of-a-kind designs. It's real purty.

I've just started listening to get acquainted with the Sage, and won't have time to do any systematic comparison listening for a while. That said, after reading Darrin's comment on the Sage's treble, I went straight to arguably the most overcooked treble in my collection: a 192/24 Apple Lossless rip (mad using a Lynx Hilo and PureVinyl) of my first press of the original MoFi version of Little Feat's "Waiting for Columbus." Yes, Lowell George's slide guitar is extremely hot, especially on "All That You Dream" and "Mercenary Territory." But it was recorded that way, and I didn't hear the Sage over-emphasizing the hotness that is inherent in the recording (a criticism that could legitimately be made of my unmodified HD 800). I was able to listen to it a few times in a row, at much higher volume than my usual, without fatigue. And nothing else in my signal chain was doing anything to mellow out the top end (Resonessence Concero and Cavalli Liquid Carbon).

I would also say, as a very early impression, that the transient response is exceptional. Cued up some well recorded percussion ("Narthis," from Antonio Sanchez' "Three Times Three," and "L'Daddy" and "E Minor Shuffle" from the Sheffield Lab "James Newton Howard and Friends," and was EXTREMELY impressed by the crispness and tightness.

More to come.

 

I have to revise my initial impressions of the Sage.
The main problem I have with universals are getting a good seal and while I was using the JVC spiral dots before, the seal was not ideal.
Since then, I started using Comply tips. Alex from Audio Zenith also suggested that I should not push the tips on as far as I was. So I tried pushing the tips so they are pushed down onto the IEM tip as little as possible. This way the IEM tip isn't as deep into my ear canal.
Regardless, the difference is quite substantial in terms of taming the highs on all the IEMs.
While the Sage still has elevated highs, they are much smoother and a lot less harsh. It's like what the Super Dupont resonator does to the HD800's.

 

This is certainly a thing. Took me a fair bit of practice to finagle my optimal insertion depth with Comply tips. It also varies from IEM to IEM, which only compounds the difficulty. But proper adjustment is well worth the trouble, as the Comply presentation remains, to my ears, unmatched. Albeit in my rather limited experience.

Interesting that you didn't have much luck with the JVCs, actually. Those have rapidly become my favorite silicone tips, although they're not ideal for a deep insertion. But they seal better than others I've tried. They're also seriously durable, a definite plus.

 

Has anyone disassembled a noble sage before? Ive got some stickers thats supposed to reduce emi and Im supposed to place it where the crossover is, however the shell is opaque and i cant tell where it is. Dont really dare ask in the Wizard returns thread on headfi as the wizard himself roasted me before and i feel sad

 

Get some 3m EMI/RF shielding tape and tape the driver body

But are you going to cut so much small piece of copper tape.
Plus it is dangerous

And drivers are already shielded and crossover doesn't get that big of a hit with RF and EMI as there is no inductor in crossover.

So EMI shield doesn't make sense.

But it make sense if you can layer up tape on driver body to make it heavy. This will make body less resonant and so called added RF protection.

The added benefits is smoothening of rough response(which is also negligible, but still is a bonus