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sxiller t1_j9ws07u wrote

Reply to comment by YummyBaldy in From KZ to S8: impressions by mmry404

This. The S8's benefit greatly from a balanced cable. One of the few IEM's in my collection that makes a noticeable difference.

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mmry404 OP t1_j9xeg5e wrote

Oh, really? That's super interesting, can you please tell me more about the differences? I am a little skeptical about the balanced connections, but was considering upgrading the dac, so why not?

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sxiller t1_j9xfnx8 wrote

Really the biggest changes from what I can tell is the power in the delivery of the bass. Also male vocals become more prevalent and less recessed. Everything else stays pretty similar but with a noticeable bump in general volume.

I highly recommend you try it, it's pretty night / day difference to me.

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mmry404 OP t1_j9xg8ep wrote

Wow.. Yeah, the volume thing, I noticed the S8 to be a bit power hungry, or maybe I just love to turn them up. You mean bass gets more energetic at the same volume relative to unbalanced? There's no way I can demo it, so I guess I'll just go balanced then, thanks!

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sxiller t1_j9xia69 wrote

Surprisingly it has even more of a punch than I didn't think BA drivers could manage. Even at lower volume levels.

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mmry404 OP t1_j9xfvdk wrote

Also, what kind of a dac would you recommend? I recently learned about the moondrop dawn, would that be a good match? I don't want to use a DAP and would gladly just continue with a dongle

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sxiller t1_j9xidzp wrote

I power all my IEM's through a FiiO BRT5 which is a portable dac / amp combo.

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mmry404 OP t1_j9xoi43 wrote

Dang, been reading about bit perfect streaming all morning and my head is beginning to hurt, there's just so much more stuff to learn... guess I'll do my research before any future upgrades regarding DACs, DAPs and streaming

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sxiller t1_j9zvpcs wrote

Don't worry about streaming quality really. Bad or poor audio mixing in certain albums will always be more noticeable. A couple of examples are System Of A Down's self tilted album, and A lot of Avenged Sevenfold's earlier albums. Those will always sound poor regardless of the streaming quality or the medium you are listening through.

Just make it easy, get a portable dac / amp combo and let your IEM's do the rest of the work and you'll save yourself the headache and worry.

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mmry404 OP t1_ja0337m wrote

Oh sure, as a musician myself I understand that very well! There are many horrible sounding albums out there... Guess that was my compulsive perfectionism kicking in :) I'm better now, haha

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