So I received my pair of Hexa’s today (on sale for $67.99 on Amazon) and gotta say, I am quite blown away by the liveliness, detail, sub-bass texture and extension, treble extension, soundstage, imaging/instrument separation, build/fit/comfort, and more.
For reference, I own quite a few other IEMs (Final E5000, Honeydew, Fiio FD3, QKZ x Hbb Khan, Blon Bl-03, Truthear Hola, KBear Rosefinch, Dumpling and Little Q [extremely underrated btw, I own three pairs since they’re $10 and are truly amazing for the price, but that’s for another post]). As you may notice, those are all warm and/or V-shaped, and single dynamic driver IEMs (with the exception being double DD Khan). I wanted a hybrid IEM that would provide with more detail/airiness than what I have already, thinking that I would be sacrificing bass in exchange. And as someone who owns Honeydew’s and loves them for certain music, then you know I love my bass.
I listen to everything from post-punk/art punk, synth pop/dream pop, new wave, neo-psychedelia/classic psychedelic music, ambient, folk (including free folk, avant-folk), experimental rock and other experimental music like Musique Concrete, all kinds of electronic (excluding EDM), jazz, classic rock/prog, trip hop, new age, minimalism, classical, etc. The Hexas can DO IT ALL. In particular, I have been extremely in love with Asia Menor’s new album Enola Gay which I listened to twice with the Hexas and noticed a lot of new details I hadn’t before.
To my great surprise, the bass is still there on the Hexa’s, but they do basically everything else better than the rest of my IEMs. Note I am using the included foam tips because I found the others uncomfortable and difficult to get a good seal, but with the foam tips they seal perfectly and I have been wearing them for 8 hours without fatigue or discomfort, most of the time forgetting they’re on my head. I don’t feel that the foam tips sacrifice much detail since they have a large hole. Isolation is also comparable to ANC.
Take note I am using a +3db low frequency shelf at 220hz for some added midbass/thump through my Qudelix 5k, although the bass boost is really not necessary for everything, mostly just electronic and some rock, and I can pretty confidently say these are my new favorite IEMs and daily drivers. It usually takes me some time to get used to/appreciate IEMs, so I can only deduce that these will continue to sound better and better for me. It is really incredible what you can get in low price ranges these days (Little Q and Rosefinch and Hola for $10, $13, and $16 respectively, the QKZ Khans for around $35 as a sort of modern upgrade on the Bl03 which i still enjoy for it’s timbre, and for less than $80 the FD3 and now, HEXA’s, as well as stuff like the Aria which I owned once but returned even though they were decent).
I may write up a full review once I have spent some more time with them, but I thought I’d contribute another post praising the Hexas. As someone who has stayed away from bright/neutral tuning, I was afraid they would be shouty/fatiguing and/or have anemic bass, but instead they are extremely smooth, musical, with great sound all across the frequency spectrum and finally, more detail that I was looking for, to hear the finer intricacies of a lot of the music I listen to.
Can’t recommend the enough, especially at the discounted price right now. They actually remind me a lot of my HD6xx’s, my all time favorite headphone, even more so than my LCD-2c. The only IEMs really left on my bucket list are the Sony XBA-N3 and Letshouer s12 pro, but I’ll wann sell my E5000 before that because they keep sounding worse and worse to me (extremely dull and way too dark) even though I really liked them at first.
I’m pretty impressed with them.
They are my first of these chi-fi in ears (most of my 'phone listening is a DT880 through a tube amp or DT770 when mobile).
Response across bass frequencies is dead-on for me. The only thing I do for EQ is a small bump around 6-7k (from memory) that balances out the upper mids and treble to my taste.
I liked the foam tips and small hole silicon, the big hole ones lost all bass no matter which size. Bought some spinfit CP155 and they fit my ears better which seems to have increased detail while maintaining a nice frequency balance (this stuff is probably all anatomy dependent).
They’re definitely good enough that I don’t feel any great desire to seek out anything better.
I may try some different tips as well even though the foam ones give me a great fit I probably am missing a bit of detail. I’ve got a bunch flying around, I figure some of the ones from my FIIO FD3 would be worth trying out since they send a huge tip selection. I usually like final e series the best though so I might need to get some more of those, however everyone keeps talking about spinfit for the Hexas, I hear both the W1 and the CP155. Not sure which of the two choices would be best.