Panasonic RP-HJE900 Zirconia Review

[Confuseling]

I'm curious about your first answer though - you stuff foam inside the normal silicone tips? Are you a crazy person? Why would you do that...?

I might fill mine with marmalade.

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

To improve isolation. I don't like foamies - the feeling, the hassle, the fact that they get dirty so easily - but stuffed inside silicon tips they work just fine for my ears and provide increased isolation.

[Confuseling]

It's a good idea, but I'd expect it to affect the sound, and so only be usefully applicable to some IEMs. I'll give it a go though... Cheers.

[dfkt]

How should it affect the sound? It's outside the sound nozzle, not in contact with the driver air movement at all.

[Alon93]

Originally Posted by dfkt

To improve isolation. I don't like foamies - the feeling, the hassle, the fact that they get dirty so easily - but stuffed inside silicon tips they work just fine for my ears and provide increased isolation.

Reminds me of these

[Confuseling]

Hmm... If it doesn't, it doesn't. I guess I just assumed that the sound was 'calibrated' to a certain construction, and that that would include the tips [ETA - the material of which must be vibrating, even if it isn't directly in the path of the sound]. After all, changing tips is supposed to change the sound, isn't it? But maybe that's purely because it affects isolation...

[dfkt]

Soft material firmly lodged into one's ear canal doesn't really vibrate or resonate. The housings of IEMs do to a certain extent (especially dynamic driver designs), but not the tips. The only parameters here that affect the sound are the nozzle inner diameter, nozzle length, and the refractive/dampening properties of the material (dense silicon vs porous foam) - since the foam stuffed behind the silicon tip doesn't alter either of those parameters, it doesn't change the sound you get with that specific silicon tip.

Alon93 - are those Sony Hybrid tips stuffed with foam?

[Leen]

I have a question about the panasonic.
How good/bad the isolation is? I saw the chart and it says "medium". How low is "medium" compared to "high"? I've been using Shure SE530 with the small black olive tip all the while and I love the amount of isolation I get. I want something that can shut the noise in the plane down, like SE530 did for me (not 100%, but close).

If I get the panasonic and replace the tip, say with the Sony hybrid, how much does the isolation increase/decrease?

Thanks for answering. The $78 tag is really tempting as I have no idea how long it will last. >.>

[The Larch]

I think they are back to $89 still a great deal.


Sorry, Yes they are still 78 directly though J&R.

[Kt_]

iim about to buy these, all i need to know is : these + sony hybrid tips = win?

[Confuseling]

@ dfkt

That makes sense - it's basically about surface properties.

Mine have just arrived, anyway, quicker than expected.

Couple of initial observations. Build quality is good, but the mesh falls off *very* easily. The effort of putting a different tip on pushed one of my meshes into the 'nozzle'. The tips themselves are smaller than the Sennheisers - whether for good or ill I can't tell you yet.

I can detect a harshness at higher frequencies, and less bass, but more detail throughout - the word 'punchy' was used earlier in the thread, and that fits. I think for my purposes (basically, as many hours of clear speech reproduction as I can listen to without getting a headache) they'll work - although I will certainly consider putting something in the nozzle.

For music, they undoubtedly sound clearer, although I haven't listened to anything high quality enough yet to test them properly. At the moment it feels a bit like watching a film from 1973 on a modern plasma screen, and noticing that the sets are obviously made of cardboard.

And they do pick up hiss from my netbook more than CX400s - although neither pick anything up from my Clip+. Significantly less microphonics in the Panasonics, and the cable is *just* about long enough for me (a little over 6' 1") to clip my Clip onto my trouser pocket, and comfortably loop the cables behind my ears.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by Kt_

iim about to buy these, all i need to know is : these + sony hybrid tips = win?

Sony Hybrids have a rather small inner nozzle diameter, they would certainly change the sound a bit. I haven't tried them with the HJE yet, I'm using Super.Fi tips with the same inner diameter as the default Pana tips.

[Leen]

What about isolation? That's my biggest concern to be honest. I travel a substantial amount and I want something that blocks a lot of outside noise for me.

[Alon93]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Alon93 - are those Sony Hybrid tips stuffed with foam?

These are the new hybrid tips that come with the MDR-EX1000 along with the old hybrid tips, AFAIK they are simply hybrid tips stuffed with some kind of dense foam.

[Confuseling]

Originally Posted by Leen

What about isolation? That's my biggest concern to be honest. I travel a substantial amount and I want something that blocks a lot of outside noise for me.

They don't seem strikingly different to the cx400s, if that helps...

Edit - I'm going to try the stuffing some foam in them trick in a day or two (I've run out of marmalade), so I'll let you know what effect that has.

[Alon93]

Originally Posted by pspr33

I went and collected them this morning. They are indeed the real deal. They were originally bought from a big UK retailer (price sticker on the back) and were unopened (I somehow think they might have been stolen).

Time to break them in.

I just bought a pair from the same person

[Leen]

Originally Posted by Confuseling

They don't seem strikingly different to the cx400s, if that helps...

Edit - I'm going to try the stuffing some foam in them trick in a day or two (I've run out of marmalade), so I'll let you know what effect that has.

I've tried cx300 and I'm guessing cx400 is similar if not slightly better in terms of isolation. cx300's isolation seems to be pleasing in a relatively quiet place, but I don't think it perform as well as my SE530 black olive.

Please tell me the effect with the foam stuff. Isolation is very important to me. I don't think I'll be buying it in the nearest time. The price jacks up from $78 to $90. Deal's off for me. Gotta wait for perhaps black Friday or Christmas sale.

[dfkt]

The SE530 are pretty much the best isolating non-custom IEMs (next to Etymotic) I've heard, there's really not many universal IEMs out there that can reach that level of noise attenuation.

[kasrhp]

dfkt, The filter screen came off one of my buds. I remember you talking about this previously. Anything I need to worry about with having the open phone?

[dfkt]

I don't think so, it's not like people produce that huge amount of earwax that the driver could get damaged. (Sorry for being so gross. )

If they're too bright for you, just stuff some foam in the nozzle - if you like their sound as-is, just leave it. FWIW, the Hippo VB and some other IEMs also come without a mesh on the nozzle, and they work just fine.