oluvsgadgets

Oluv’s audiophile collection #29

In the late 70s and early 80s a music style called “smooth rock” or „soft rock“, some may call it intelligent pop or adult contemporary or even easy listening had its peak with acts like Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Toto etc. Including some advanced production qualities and more sophisticated chord progressions and vocal arrangements this genre is still celebrated by many modern acts nowadays sounding nearly the same like back then. Will you spot the classic vintage tracks among the m...

Earfun UBOOM L - WIP

I got 2 samples of the upcoming Earfun UBOOM L and used the recent days to fine tune the final sound.

Although it looks quite similar to the Sony SRS-XB33 it’s definitely smaller and lighter, although still larger than the JBL Flip 6. Apart from an additional “outdoor mode” which reduces bass and true wireless stereo pairing with another one, there are no other special features like light...

Wer viel misst, misst Mist...

this is a popular German saying which plays with the equal sounding words "misst" which stands for "measuring" and "Mist" which means crap. Thus "someone how measures a lot, measures a lot of crap" which unfortunately is true when trying to analyse my measurements of the Free Pro 2 to have something which I could quantify. I did some tests recently especially as I am trying to get some kind of final "target" which not only will be used for compensating the audio samples for IEMs I am planning...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #28

It’s been a year ago when I started my audiophile collection series. Some of you maybe don’t know that I am polish origin and to celebrate this anniversary I wanted to post something special this time with music solely by polish artists. It could be maybe interesting to those who never had contact with polish music. I also decided to post a new audiophile playlist every week from now on as I have collected lots...

Earfun Free Pro 2 - sample variation

I wanted to bring up this issue again as I just checked the response of 2 other Free Pro 2 units I got recently and like visible from the measurements they differ quite a bit compared to my reference unit and also my other 2 units I am using regularly. I had another unit which I purchased recently for a friend and when I measured it, it was more inline with my previous units, therefore I don't know if this difference is just random or based on different production batches. 

You can...

Coming up…

I was trying to do some further optimisations for the reference tuning lately and although I managed to achieve an even smoother response, it started to deviate too much from what I perceive with speakers and I reverted back to my original settings which I only minimally readjusted for myself.

To have an even more reliable neutral reference I ordered a used pair of Neumann KH80 monitors which should arrive next week. Together with their internal DSP correction the KH80 should hopefully ...

"Reference" tuning with alternate bass settings

Here you can find some additional bass settings which should offer you more lower bass boost for those who need it. The standard setting should offer a flat bass response that you would also get from a heaadphone with a flat bass. Depending on the unit and sample variation your unit may need either less or more bass reduction, my current setting seems to work quite nicely as average over all my units (black curve):

80Hz -13dB Q0.2

2022-04-05 13:03:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Earfun Free Pro 2 - discount

I just ordered a 5th Free Pro 2 unit for €47 with the current discount and an additional code I got from Earfun recently which I would like to share here: 

(Code should also work for Amazon US now)

Discount code: EFP2OLUV3

Amazon DE: https://amzn.to/3me4xQm

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3k9Gp09

I have 3 different units which all sou...

Earfun Free Pro 2 - reference tuning for all resonances

I finally prepared some further settings to cover additional ear canal resonances and will need your help to optimise those settings by some trained ears.

My own setting was achieved by endless hours of listening and fine tuning towards neutral references like various speakers and headphones. The achieved response was then measured with my own ear canal resonance of around 6000Hz which results in the following curve. You can see 3 different measurements trying to match my resonance as c...

Newsweek

Hi guys, first of all thanks for your continuous support. Recently I got lots of Patrons asking for refunds, not being satisfied with the content etc. I must confess I had a hard time lately and concentrated solely on achieving the best possible sound out of an IEM, which is not something you can do within some days. But I think I finally managed a really satisfying result with my latest setting at least for me. I cannot offer a decent sound to anyone else if I don't even manage it properly f...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #27

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-27/pl.u-76oNpeMFWB1Jab

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4AVU8sIjJIZrGBhZhWQmmx?si=Iwn-F7JnT0qf9TXV9A9gEQ

Oluv’s audiophile collection #26

For today I wanted to dig a bit deeper into some obscure Brazilian jazz and fusion. I selected some nicely recorded tracks with this particular Latin vibe, I hope you enjoy it. Unfortunately 2 tracks are missing on Spotify:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-77/pl.u-76oNExBCWB1Jab

2022-03-16 21:05:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Earfun Free Pro 2 - reference tuning

I would like to post my first result of the new reference tuning, which replaces all previous tunings I did in terms of fidelity or neutrality or however you would like to call it. After weeks of trial&error and endless hours of listening sessions I have finally a setting for my own ear canal resonance frequency which I would regard as satisfying enough to be shared with you. It should work well for resonances close to 6000Hz, mine is slightly higher now and closer to 6150Hz but it sounds...

Upcoming “reference tuning”

I spent the recent weeks mostly with trying to optimise my own target for headphones and IEMs trying to match the perceived spectrums I get from all of them which in the meantime seems close to impossible to me, but at least I was trying.

This definitely helped me a lot to optimise my recent own tunings since I started all this madness and make them simply more correct in order to really get at least a similar smooth kind of natural spectrum from all sources. The real problem are upper ...

Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 - new firmware update

Sorry I was sure they sent me up to date units but they still had an early firmware installed. I updated 1 of the new units to compare it to the original firmware and also to the old Stormbox Micro. Although I think there is still some potential for improvement regarding upper mids and treble. Let me know what you think.

Here the link to the latest firmware you n...

Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 - new Tribit app with user EQ

Why does tuning take so long?

I want to apologise, but I won't manage to finalise the current Free Pro 2 tuning with all resonance frequenices for February. I was fighting to optimise the settings since RC2 but it will take even more effort to finish everything. Meanwhile I got several messages asking if there was a way to revert to the default factory tuning. Therefore I prepared a very quick and rough setting, which should simulate the original response of the Free Pro 2 more or less. This setting is purely based on mea...

Minirig Sub winner

Minirig Sub to give away

I found a spare Minirig Sub during cleaning and wanted to give it away to someone who needs one. I am not sure which version it is, but I assume it’s the Sub 2 although packaging says 3, but maybe it’s even the newest one, not quite sure.

So everyone with a Minirig system still lacking a Sub please leave a comment and we will pick the winner by random tomorrow or on Monday.

Oluv’s audiophile collection #25

This time I wanted to again share some great vintage recordings mainly from the 70s but also 60s. Of course there can be some slight hiss or other artefacts in some tracks due to their age but still impressive how great many audio engineers were able to mix already more than 40 years ago, putting most modern pop recordings to shame.

https://music.apple.com/at/playli...

Bose Soundlink Flex compared

I am actually suprised how well the Bose fares against all these speakers with just too much dynamic compression at levels close to maximum, but I was also suprised how well the Denon still sounded after all these ears being maybe the best sounding speaker in this video. 

Unfortnately the DJI Action 2 overheated close to the end, that's why I returned it again, if it cannot even record 1080p for half an hour it's useless.

Earfun Free Pro 2 - newtral revision

Having achieved a smoother neutral kind of headphone sound with my new HD600 EQ, I continued approaching the same kind of sound for the Free Pro 2 using the recent "newtral" as base for further tweaking. I may still try to improve some things, but after some hours of tweaking I am already way closer to the timbre of the neutralised HD600...

Finding "neutral" - my HD600 EQ profile

For those wondering, I spent the last couple of days with hours of measuring, listening, comparing and fine tuning the HD600 to achieve a really "neutral" kind of target.

It took me several approaches to get a spectrum which I would regard as natural and smooth enough being comparable to pink noise coming from a frontally placed speaker. 

First I measured a speaker placed around 30° off-axis for both my left and right ear, and I also measured the HD600 trying to match both r...

Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 - first impressions

This video was shot with the DJI Action 2 which unfortunately fails to stabilize properly with horizon balancing enabled. The movement appears very jaggy, which I was not aware of before. Therefore please appologize the bad quality, I will try another mode next time hoping that it won't overheat...

Audio was recorded with my new "old" microphones, which means they are the same capsules and housings like my usual ones, thus should offer exactly the same result, but they can still deviate...

The next logical step in audio...

I actually lost most interest in buying every new released headphone to find the "best one", as from my own personal experience I managed to make with sound reproduction over headphones and inears so far, I came to the conclusion that you will probably never be able get the "perfect" sound personalised towards your ear if you do not fine tune it by yourself either by listening and comparing other sound sources like speakers or with more precise options being personally measured HRTFs and appl...

Earfun Free Pro 2 - the new "newtral"

Based on my findings from here with an additional dip trying to recreate some measured effects of my outer pinna I spent the last couple of days optimising this new setting and hopefully achieve an even better result, if possible at all. I mean there must be some point where there cannot be any improvement done, but so far I had the impression that every iteration I did led to some significant improvement approachi...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #24

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-24/pl.u-38oW5k8FPVajRe

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7s97EpPefdlJ6i5t1ZVDJy?si=OTfx-PhtShGQOfHY6B1Ddg

Let's talk about "sound quality"...

The discount code for the Earfun Free Pro in the video description should become active in some hours.

The mentioned IEM was the 64 Audio U12t which goes for around $2000. I based my EQ on a measurement I got from Crinacle which was obviously measured with a resonance around 7000Hz, I have no idea how it would measure at 6000Hz but tried to follow the graph as close as possible without that additional peak at 14k:

2022-02-07 12:14:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Earfun Free Pro 2 - HRTF optimised EQ

Based on my measurements and findings I did lately I tried a quick first adjustment to get a spare filter left and be able to adjust an additional dip which I measured with my ears.

I remodelled the bass using just 1 filter now and used the spare filter to create an additional dip which shows up in my in-ear measurements as a result of my personal HRTFs. I also readjusted some other nearby filters as the bala...

Airoha AirReps adjustment tutorial

Tony has created a detailed step by step tutorial how to adjust the internal EQ of the Earfun Free Pro which many newbies may be interested in seeing before trying their own luck. He also shows how to deal with the app restrictions and get higher values than +/-12db etc. 

Thanks Tony!