Timeless (Gen 1 / V1)

Those are my new daily driver IEMs after I upgraded my UM MEST MK2. The change is noticeable - handling of complex songs with lots of instruments playing is insane only time I had this experience is when I demoed a $4k Canpur IEM! Though, I think the OG Timeless is still the best one

Endgame for me would be something like Annihilator 2023. I think the Mangird Xenns Top Pro is a good “endgame” iem. I have the Top OG and although it was real good, I tried the annihilator, elysian x effect, u12t so now I consider endgame to be the best possible experience for me. I upgraded to the FatFreq Quantum and I’ll keep these until I can justify spending $2k-3k on IEMs.

I have been wondering what planar driver they use. I’ve had the first Timeless and those sound honestly so bad compared to the Top OG and Quantum. Do you have any more info on the driver? Tbh the Super Soundstage noah module is the only reason I love the Quantum. They have one of the widest sound stages I’ve ever heard, and the bass is pretty nice. EQ’s well too.

I have the OG timeless 7hz, I like how punchy the bass was but found the treble to be a little harsh (I am quite sensitive to it). I also found the detail of the low-mids and mid-highs to lack the resolution I was hoping for, in my ears it sounded "foggy" for lack of better terms. I recently got the moondrop meteors which are a hybrid iem and found them to be a significant step up and address a lot of my complaints from the timeless (though bass is a little lacking)!

In your position i would pick either Tangzu Heyday or 7hz Timeless (og) rather than Aether. However, if you want buget planar S12 (non pro) might be the best option as well as Artti T10 (non pro)

Of this list, my pick would be the S12 Pros. They can do the ethereal and detailed sound for things like small ensemble jazz or classical and then crank it up to 10 for harder metal and rock styles with equal aplomb. The S12 series have been my favorite ever since the introduction of the OG S12s which quickly replaced my OG Timeless. In the years since I've owned or tried most of the major players in the planar market and they have remained my favorite single planar until you get to the CFA Supermoons.

My first pair was some Fiio pair (o think the F3?) that everyone raved about for gaming and sound quality compared to how cheap it was....was one of THE WORST sounding hollow tin pieces of shit ive ever heard lol. I swore off all IEMs after that thinking they could never compete with "real headphones" but then I got pretty damn lucky; there was a pricing error on Amazon and I bought 2 pairs of EW300 DSP for me and my ex for $8 each (was supposed to be $80) and damn were they actually pretty fucking close, just had weird highs that I started hearing and didnt like them after 5 months, so I gave them to my niece and bought myself a used pair of 7Hz timeless and just cleaned them, absolutely my favorites so far. I fear this new hobby of mine is going to cost me more than my ex ever did, which she made off with $1000s worth of shit. Oh well I got better headphones/earbuds now 1 point for me; 3450 for her

The first wave of well-tuned planars (Timeless/S12/etc). That level of technical performance for 200 bucks (or less) was (and still kinda is) insane.

> The s12 pro are still fantastic in my books. Yeah, it and Timeless broke the meta for a good reason. Roll the clock back to 2020; good tuning was already widespread, but anything technical was >$300 for the very best stuff (like Blessing 2) and >$500 on average.