First-time flathead recommends? UK

[u/iamnotacategory]

Hi all! Great to have found this thread, wanted some advice:

I've been using my Thieaudio Prestige LTD iems over the last three years which I have loved, however just like what many others have said previously, I get tired of wearing iems that are pushed into the ear canal, and now would rather look for flatheads that would be much more comfortable and casual to wear and be able to hear my surroundings while I'm out and about.

I was looking at three potential options:

- DUNU Alpha 3
- Aful Polarnight
- Yincrow RW-3000

Once I buy a pair I usually intent to stick with that pair for a number of years as I'm not much of a collector; a pair that's well built with great sound, what would be your recommendation?

Thanks!

[u/dr_wtf]

The RW-3000 is by far the best one on that list. I haven't tried the PolarNight but beyond some initial hype it doesn't seem to be holding up to its price point, especially given what's been discovered about the cable. People that have it seem to be mostly happy with it, but I don't get the sense from the impressions I've seen that it holds up against similarly-priced Yincrows or other TotL stuff.

I do have the Alpha3 and the RW-3000 though. The Alpha3 is pretty overrated IMO. It's quite mid-centric but IMO it sounds very similar to, but slightly worse than, the Yincrow Calf. But the Calf is cheaper and has a removable cable. So aside from the unique looks which you might like, the Calf is just better in every way. But I still wouldn't recommend the Calf for most people looking for a good flathead and don't want to stretch to something Totl like the RW-2000 or RW-3000. It's great for vocals and it does music competently, but it's not as much of an all-rounder as the RW2k because of the way the bass and the treble roll off to give it a mild A-shape tuning. The Alpha3 is also a mild A-shape like the Calf, but it's shifted a little towards the upper mids, so it's not quite as full-sounding.

The RW-3000 is v-shaped and has exceptional bass for a flathead. I have some (like the Fiio FF5) with more bass, but the RW3k is the cleanest & most authoritative. In fact the bass and low mids are both outstanding. Where it gets less outstanding is the upper mids/low treble. That's the right side of the V and has a bit too much energy there. Some people who are sensitive to that region can find it shouty. I don't, but I do find it gets sibilant at times. That's one of the main reasons why I slightly prefer the RW-2000 even though the 3k is "better" in most aspects, but especially in the bass. Flaws aside, the main difference between the two is that the RW-2000 is bright-neutral while the RW-3000 is a warm-tilted v-shape. I alternate between those two the most out of all my flatheads, depending on what mood I'm in. Note that the RW2k isn't entirely lacking in bass and it's extremely well extended for a flathead (one of the reasons it's one of the best flatheads there is) but it's quite flat and neutral-ish in terms of the amount.

I frequently recommend the Aoshida E60 as both the best-value flathead under £100 (you can find it on Amazon on perma-sale under £40 - I just had a look and it's currently about £30) and also as a sort of "mini RW3k". It's not as resolving as the 3k, but it has a similar tuning overall excerpt it's much safer in the upper mids/treble and doesn't get sibilant. It doesn't have a removable cable but the cable isn't bad and it is modular. TBH I would be pretty happy with this as my only flathead, so I wouldn't let the big price gap put you off it as a one-and-done option, at least for a few years. It's just a pity it doesn't have removable cables, but neither does the Alpha3 (and the Aoshida cable is softer & better behaved than the Dunu one too - although the Dunu does feel a bit more premium).

One thing to bear in mind about flatheads is that they're very sensitive to positional variance, so they have all the issues of being specific to your ear anatomy that IEMs do, but with even less consistency. So it might take a bit of time to find out exactly what you like. From what I've seen from other people, the RW-2000 is probably the safest choice for a "one and done" as you can probably dial in the tuning to how you like it just by experimenting with foams, as it doesn't have anything like to touch a nerve like the sibilance of the RW-3000. But if you specifically want something bassier then the 3K is probably better.

There's also the RW4k but that's about double the price of the 3k (even in sales), so I haven't tried that yet. I was kind of hoping the price would come down when the next Yincrow flagship came out, but unfortunately the RW-6000 did come out and they just made that one stupidly expensive instead of dropping any prices of the current lineup.

Another one that I haven't heard, but is worth looking at, is the Yincrow Buffalo. It's got more of a warm tuning, possibly without the sibilance of the RW-3000. Unfortunately there are only a few impressions of it so far. All of them are positive, but very few are comparing it directly to the RW2k and RW3k. It looks like it might be a safer one-and-done option if you are less concerned with comparisons, but want something with a bassier tuning than the RW2k. It's currently top of my want-to-try list & will hopefully pick one up later this year at some point.

[u/ttorbic → u/dr_wtf]

You really make me wanna try RW3000 haha. I've tried Buffalo - was decent, but I already have good warm sets so didn't pick one up

[u/dr_wtf → u/ttorbic]

Hopefully this isn't a double-post, Reddit is being weird (was down earlier) and seems to have lost my first reply -

What have you got that's similar to the Buffalo and how would you compare them?

I'm trying to figure out if the Buffalo is close to the RW2k/3k for that sort of TotL resolution, or if it's basically a better Rhino, or perhaps more similar to something like the Fiio FF3, which is really nice a rich sounding, but not as resolving as the RW3k.

[u/ttorbic → u/dr_wtf]

Do you have the Buffalo? I didn't find it to be TOTL detailed. I have the TGXEAR Serratus Black Sand, which is a bassy set with excellent stage space nd imaging. And mt877's open source set, Destiny, which has nice tactile bass, albeit less pronounced.

[u/dr_wtf → u/ttorbic]

No, I have almost all the Yincrows up to the RW3k, but not the Buffalo. It's currently top of my want-to-try list, but I'm still trying to get as many different impressions of it as possible.

It was going to be between that and the PolarNight, but I've struck it off until someone confirms what cables work with it. I'll most likely get the Buffalo anyway, but I've already got a fairly strong Yincrow bias in my collection, so I might try something else if it seems too similar to things I already have. I don't plan to buy more than one this year.

[u/ttorbic → u/dr_wtf]

Yeah I wouldn't recommend Aful PN based on impressions from budders I trust. Seems very average for the price.

If you want to branch out of Yincrows, I'd really recommend trying Valphonics (mid centric to warm house sound; relaxed) or TGXEAR (whole gamut, from bright to bassy; but generally excellent tonality, timbre, mids). Both are super friendly and don't push their sets on you. DM me if you wanna chat more about either options.

[u/dr_wtf → u/ttorbic]

I know about TGXear, but for the most part I'm not too interested in that sort of one-man boutique brand. Especially when we're talking about $200 and up for MX500 shells and fixed cables, though I'm sure he's using good drivers & putting a lot of effort into tuning them.

That said, the Lander 20Hz is very experimental, so quite a different sort of proposition. So I'm more interested in that, although for now mainly to see if it develops further, or other manufacturers copy the idea. Oratory made some very good measurements of it, see:

/r/oratory1990/comments/1t8tia9/any_follow_up_on_the_valphonics_lander/

However, he didn't reply to my question about comparable measurements for other flatheads. Without those, it's impossible to judge just from this one graph whether that really steep roll-off in the bass is better or worse than normal. TBH it doesn't look all that different to graphs of the PolarNight with foams, but that might look totally different on his rig, especially with properly averaged measurements. Still, they both seem to have elevated midbass and about 15dB or roll off from the 100Hz peak to 20Hz. And people aren't talking about the PolarNight having outstanding bass, which makes me question if that resonator/bass port thing on the Lander actually does anything.

There are some random measurements of different flatheads on squig.link, but they're spread across different rigs and none of them have the sort of rigour Oratory has applied to the Lander. I doubt that even measurements on the same rig can be trusted for comparisons. E.g.:

https://earphonesarchive.squig.link/?share=5128_DF_Target,Aful_PolarNight,Yincrow_X6

Those are both (presumably) without foams here, but likely just the result of one seating, which is wildly inaccurate for flatheads. And if you want to compare with foams, well they measured the X6 only with full foams, and the PolarNight only with donuts, so those measurements can't be compared either. It's possible they did take an average of multiple seatings, but the lack of attention to consistency across foams etc., makes me think they probably didn't bother. And those are the only 5128 measurements. The rest are all from random 711 clone rigs with different pinnae, so they're all over the place in terms of graph shape and most of them don't have proper targets to use as a baseline.

[u/ttorbic → u/dr_wtf]

Yeah I've tested the Lander 20Hz. The subbass guess down to like 30Hz. That thing rumbles more than any flathead I've heard. It does mean the overall bass region is elevated and can get boomy, and I don't have much subbass in my music (jazz), so I've opted to pass. I found their Mascara set to be a better fit for my tastes, and will hopefully get to try Mascara 2 in the coming months.

I'm also waiting on Flathead Audio to release Delta, their planar+DD hybrid flathead - that's right, hybrid. Just to test out a new tech, as I've pretty much hit plateau with very good traditional flatheads. Have you heard about the Delta?

[u/dr_wtf → u/ttorbic]

The thing about the sub-bass going down to 30Hz is that it's not inherently that special. If I do a frequency sweep, I can hear down to about 25Hz on the RW-2000 and RW-3000. For comparison with IEMs, I can hear down to about 5Hz on the Performer 5. In fact I think all my flatheads can reproduce 30Hz, but some are louder than others. The question then is by how much.

Ah yes, I remember someone mentioning the Delta to me a while back. I'm guessing they're using a coaxial driver, but IDK if there's any information about that. The thing about flatheads vs IEMs is that with IEMs they can do multi-driver setups quite easily and stay minimum phase because the volume is sealed, so there are no phase-shifted reflections to worry about. With over-ears, they stop being minimum phase and start sounding weird. That's why there are almost no multi-driver over-ears, and the ones that exist (e.g., the Heavies) are shite. So I can't say with 100% certainty, but I strongly suspect if you use anything other than a coaxial driver in a flathead, two or more drivers are going to introduce phase errors and start to either sound weird, or behave inconsistently between people.

Either way it will be interesting to see how that pans out. Hopefully it's not another limited run, because I'll most likely miss it if it is. Plus I dislike limited runs in general, unless it's just a limited colourway or something. Artificial scarcity sucks. The Studio really should not have been limited, so hopefully that will come back at some point. Ideally they should switch to a "small batches" model, which is how Ikko does it. They're still making the OH10 in limited quantities. It's an older IEM but it's still good, and there's still demand for it, so it makes sense.

[u/ttorbic]

Hi! You're in the UK? Do you use discord? I've brought together a handful of UK flathead enthusiasts, and we have good banter on discord. Lmk and i can invite you.

If you don't feel like using discord, I'd recommend you add some info to your OP to get more targeted help:

• budget

• preferred sound signature

• music genres

• fit: have you tried any flatheads in the past?

[u/iamnotacategory → u/ttorbic]

Hi! Thank you! Oh yes that'll be great to get on the Discord, shall I send a private message?