people put too much stock in someone else's rankings, reviews and targets

Agreed, but there is some merit to taking into consideration the opinions of a guy who has listened to, like, all of the IEMs.

So he's going to rerank over 1000 iems, from years passed, based on his memory of them? That's a bad idea.

Bruh, how are people willingly using twitter when it tells me to sign up after less than 2 seconds of scrolling, wtf

It sounds like he’s retesting them. He had a video recently about his new testing setup.

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I love his reviews and his website, but also realized that I have different preferences than his. Especially in the headphone category

Sometimes opening on an incognito window prevents that from happening

by having a twitter account

I'm guessing the three S- will be: MMKII, IER-Z1R, and U12t.

Someone should archive the current list.

The way I read it is that he's simply scaling down the list due to the quality of IEMs increasing very quickly. I imagine most whatever IEMs are just being shifted down a couple of sub-ranks.

This guy sounds more and more like click-bait as time passes.

But if you know How your opinion differs, it is almost as usefull as if it was identical.

that's sth i need to try, thanks for the tip

That means a revisit of Zeppelinandco, TREOO and other IEM shops in Singapore

It depends honestly, you find out what he likes and apply to what you like and find the differences, then use him as a guide to what would work best for you. My preference is close to his ideal target but with more bass and less treble. Was easily able to find my favorite IEMs by using his list and rankings. It works best if you have similar tastes as the reviewer though.

And hearing. If I make a list 1 year and then again another year or two down the road it will undoubtedly be different because my hearing has changed.

id say that the anni will be placed in s- instead of the mmk2 but we'll find out soon

The top ten are all Moondrop collabs. Some haven't even been released yet. Weird.

And his ranking can be bought, I think if u pay him $1k u can put any headphone to S tier. It’s on his sponsor link I think

you definitely don't keep up with the market

idt treoo has a physical store; I think you mean jaben

you can rerank any iem not give it S tier (well that's a part of it but you get the point), so far noone ever did that

Yeah, not an excuse for him to get another pair of those fine Sony IEM's in the S rank that he really loves. Hmm he should make a video review of them

I like to hear Crin's opinion but I don't take it too seriously because he's done so many collabs. One or two is cool but after awhile it feels like he just gets paid to put his name on it and shill it.

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I remember when crinacle opened a stream ranking stuff. It was IEF + harman targets overlayed and he was going through the squigs and then ranking them based on memory. I'm not gonna judge this method... But I am not expecting it'll be very different than that.

Meh, I think his graph database is extremely useful, but his reviews never seem to align with what I hear so they're useless to me.

Let me guess: Blessing 2 Dusk and other products with Crinacle's 'blessing' are the only products on -S?

/s

I feel the same way about video games. I follow lots of reviewers (such as Jeff Gerstmann). My preferences do not often align with his, but he has reviewed so many games that I can use his perspective as a baseline to determine if I’ll enjoy the game or not. The important thing is that the reviewer is consistent and transparent with their methods and biases.

I agree, but the reviews and rankings are helpful to a certain extent considering not everyone has the ability to demo the products being reviewed.

Are you referring to the $1,500 a month patreon tier that he explicitly says is a joke tier?

You can use nitter.net instead.

That's one thing I cannot stand when you tubers do, they call back on headphones they heard years back and recall how they sounded in datail when I know human memory for how something sounded is shaky even when a/b testing with seconds between swapping headphones/iem

You're right. It's impossible to keep up. lol

I'd be surprised if it isn't archived on a daily basis.

iirc he's retesting them on the B&K standard instead of the GRAS one he's been using

How is S-tier GONE?? I didn’t know that was possible!

He doesn't really review his own collabs in the tier list though

The Moondrop Katos will come out on top. :)

I mainly bought the IER-M9 because crin's ranking and pricing of it looked like a good deal, wonder where he will put them now

No but he's not exactly neutral about them either, which makes sense, but it does take away from his objectivity IMO

But it really doesn't matter what his opinions are on his own collabs because they're never presented in comparison to other stuff (ranking list). It's totally fine for him to make a video about his collabs and be like "omg guys collab wow!!" but he doesn't really say that "this is better than this other one or worse than this other one" in those videos, or put them on his ranking list

In your opinion. Mine differs. Isn't it cool how that works?

Edit: LOL down votes for literally the most truthful thing possible. Gotta love Reddit fanboys

But, how in the world would I know that I bought the hottest thing since sliced bread if my choice isn’t getting validated by some stranger from the Internet who is just a regular dude, but through convincing other normal dudes that he is an „expert“ got some authority on what is good?!?!?

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haha same here, the blon bl03 it's still my favorite budget iem, it may not be strong in the microdetails part but in tonality is still the king of entry level iems a long with the tin t2 plus(which he did rank this one very high at least, no idea why he has the blon so low)

Bad take. Not even gonna elaborate.

If Crin gets paid for a colab, then a cheaper, better rival shows up, how likely is he to damage the prospects of his business partners by being fully honest about a model that might take sales away from his colab? Anything in the price range of any iem he's sponsored/planning to sponsor is now suspect.

Possibly. Off the top of my head, the collabs I can remember:

1. blessing 2 dusk: I think he still has the blessing 2 at 3* value on his ranking list

2. 7hz dioko: the 7hz timeless was at 3* value on the list, and I don't think he's updated it to include the LETSHUOER S12 yet (pretty common theme going forward)

3. truthear x crinacle zero: he made a video about this one, but it's not on the list. tbh I'm not sure what competes with this, but there's been a massive explosion of budget IEMs recently and none of them are on the list, so I'm really not sure what to compare it to

4. 7hz Salnotes Zero: he made a video about this one too, but it kinda blew up in popularity before he made a video on it, because it was the first post moondrop chu budget IEM that matched its tuning and had a removable cable. it's not on his list either, along with any of its competitors (wan'er, Quarks DSP, cadenza etc) and the only one on his list currently in this realm is the Moondrop Chu with a 3* value rating too.

I don't really know what else he's done, I guess something in the $200 range and something above $1k? But so far it seems like he's been pretty impartial about not letting his collabs influence his ratings, and I hope that kinda sticks with the revised list. It would definitely be suspicious if he rates all the budget IEMs as 2 star for example and just says "worser than the 7hz zero", but I think if he just compares them with each other and excludes the 7hz zero (as an example) then it's pretty legit

Yeah, of course it’s a joke, probably his sponsors pay him at least 10 times that price to move tiers. If u think his opinions/recommendations are completely unbiased by money then u are naive, his value is his graphs not the ranks, for they are easily manipulated.

The whole getting collabs thing wildly skews points of interest here. How do you know he isn't intentionally favoring brands that have worked with him in order to get more collabs with them? How do you know he's reviewing products that compete directly with his collabs fairly? Not reviewing the products he helped make should be given and not some kind of "look i'm not biased" statement.

what’s a iem?

I think he's said at some point that he's only done one collab per price bracket, and afaik it's mostly brand agnostic (with the exception of 7hz dioko/zero, which were done together)

No.

> S-tier is COMPLETELY wiped. Only S- is left.

"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"

That’s a fine option too

IER-Z1R may be S rank, but it is hands down ergonomically the WORST IEM I've ever had, and many would agree. The oversized and jagged shaped shell digs into my ear. They may sound good, but it's physically painful to wear them.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just rank the best headphones as S tier and rank the worse ones accordingly?

Crinacle: Only 3 are S- tier.

That’s the power of measurement and standards. As long as Crin is consistent, his data is useful.

They have their office and demo place in tai seng area. Its on their website

Pretty sure he doesn't rank or review any of his collabs at all.

Yeah, I'm implying that he may have changed his mind ^^

In Ear Monitors

I am still salty over some of the other changes that he made (some of which I disagree with like the Drop JVC HA-FDX1 which can easily compete with the Blessing 2). The tonal ranks are only useful when they account for the sound signature first (which people seem to miss for some reason when they talk about the rankings). For example, having A rank for a warm sound should not sound the same as A rank for a bright sound.

The list is mainly for sound but there are flaws in that. It is a tragedy when people buy expensive IEMs/headphones that have a high ranking, only for them to die a month later. It doesn't account for quality control issues, durability issues, comfort and fit issues, etc.

At the end of the day, his list is useful but you are not supposed to agree with it entirely.

Soon™? Is that a robtop refference?

Here is the most recent snapshot from Jan 27th and there are a shit ton more going back the last 3-4 years. +1 for the Internet Archive. Doing the lords work :P

https://web.archive.org/web/20230127072336/https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/

Edit: Here's the latest Headphones one from yesterday.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230129101923/https://crinacle.com/rankings/headphones/

It's a typo of item I believe.

If you know where your differences are, as long as he's consistent, they're just as useful. And imo, Crin is very consistent for the most part.

A few of his colabs were paid in a single lump sum (couldn't tell you which ones off the top of my head, just remember him mentioning this). Still, you have the idea of prestige, but even then from having watched him enough and listening to a lot of headphones his tastes lines up close enough with mine and my opinions, so eh idk I'm still fine following him for general recommendations

Data yes, opinions uh with a grain of salt.

Not everyone has ability to listen that much iem if any tbf. So its very useful. Once you listen to couple of pairst then you can compare and list become even more useful

The westone w40 is definitely gonna be in the top 10. Musicians love em

As far as tonality goes, I agree, but I can get that information just from looking at the graphs. The technicality scores sometimes seem completely random to me.

Games differ a lot more than iems. There's a lot more to review. Less shillery at play

I trust Crin, very happy to find he thinks my buds 2 pro are the best earbuds around. I concur

But it goes to 11...

Well you're supposed to. He's said this many, many times. But I also definitely understand why he rates IEMs the way he does after listening to them myself.

I believe his reviews are pretty consistent.If you own a few of the IEMs he has reviewed,you can just compare your personal experience with his experiences with those to find out what other IEMs you're more likely to enjoy.It has worked for me so far with crinicle and also with gizaudio.

Seems like fairly pointless speculation, like making up a bad thing about someone that they MIGHT do specifically to dislike them. I recommend not doing that about people, gets toxic real fast.

Crinacle doesn't put any of his personal collaborations in his ranking list. He does however graph them.

His graphs are god tier as always, but take note that his preference is into airy/reference/semi bright sounding iems. Always remember His ranking might not be your preference

I did get some of his S rank iems before like QDC anole vx, IER z1r and monarch and it were all pretty disappointing to me. What I did ending up liking and keeping tho is Andro og & Andro 2020 and ier m9, which he doesnt seem to rate as highly as others

so the list he made will always be updated? Wow so much for credibility

always love to read the reddit comments for my daily dose of cope seethe and mald any time Crinacle is mentioned

Um I'm not sure if that makes sense. If you both agree that x, y, z are bad but he hates one thing you love, you really have no way of knowing if the headphones he rates poorly are ones you'd like just from his ranking.

never heard of him till this. ranked my dt1990s pretty low on his list and i love them so i may not be in alignment with his tastes.

Use uBlock Origin. There is some instruction online that you can prevent the pop up on Twitter (or any other site)

Yea, I really think the video why you shouldn't trust me is pretty spot on. Although I don't always agree, I always love to see his opinions. One of my favorite reviewers

His YouTube channel and website are absolutely worth it, you should really give them a try, it's one of the best reviews out there

Wanna see the new headphone tests, not iems.

With proper stuff it's almost never 'good' or 'bad'. But if you know the reviewer tends to favor a slightly more bassy FR than you, or generally downplays the comfort. Then you can look at their review and have a good idea of how your opinion on said headphone would be.

yea.. I agree, it shouldn't be that low. BL03 have a great value for its price range, it's popular for that. but with that popularity and sales, I wonder why they still can't (or won't) change those weird gibberish typo on their packaging.

"Belief, Letmusicburn, Oppoty, Nevergiveup, Annotation Music and Driams"

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XD

In what areas do they disappoint for you, small things that ended up as dealbreakers or just the overall presentation? I also still like my OG Andros.

The New Test-iem-ent is comming!

It's called trust, and you don't have to trust him.

If you're advertising your product, why would you be neutral about it? You're going to talk about it in a positive light, and the main thing Crinacle brings up is the tuning and the reasoning behind it.

And outside of him showing a graph with anything he reviews, there's not really any objectivity in his reviews. Go read a detailed page on whatever you're looking up if you want more objectivity.

That’s why it’s an opinion

Nitter

>If you're advertising your product, why would you be neutral about it?

I literally said it makes sense why he isn't, but all his fanboys present him as though he's a purely data driven authority when he isn't.

>Go read a detailed page on whatever you're looking up if you want more objectivity

Gee, I never thought of that!

You're right, I didn't see your nonexistent comment LITERALLY saying why he isn't.

I agree of course, but that's what the /s was for in the initial post.

I would like to know the reason for Crinacle to overhaul the list, and I'm merely/sarcastically pointing out he may have changed his mind re his collabs. I thought it was kinda obvious though, even without the /s.

If you know the real reason, I'd like to know as well. Then, however, I wonder whether he re-reviews based on memory or not.

Oh so his opinions on iems & headphones that hes listened to will change after he sees their new slightly-better-measured graphs. Nice

Try looking back to the comment you first responded to. The words "which makes sense" are right there in plain English.

I'm guessing you only remember the last couple words of what you read?

From my initial comment:

No but he's not exactly neutral about them either, which makes sense, but it does take away from his objectivity IMO

I also say "IMO", which means "In MY opinion" so chill the fuck out, fanboy

Change the nossle and then the gibberish(my driams).

But it's not ranked that low; he put it at C+ overall whereas the T2 and other budget IEMs like the Lea and CRA are at B-. That's just a single position difference. For the value rating he also gave it two stars - one lower than the Lea and CRA, but then again the Bl03 is twice as expensive.

He got a new, expensive measuring rig so he wants to re-measure all of them. You can check the recent video about it on his channel to get the details.

>I would like to know the reason for Crinacle to overhaul the list

Because of this https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxEVyuFhnC0l1Ajbgt2fPXZurzouk3ImqB

https://strawpoll.com/crinacle/results

From What I can remember

• Anole VX has really top tier resolution but is too airy that it doesnt sound natural in some songs
• ier z1r sound really good on some songs but has a weird midrange timbre on some songs
• monarch find it to be not resolving enough

I still kep my andro ogs to this day and bought a 2020 ver cuz I really liked their soundsid

Downvoted because I didn't really give an opinion, so saying "in your opinion" doesn't make sense. I'm just telling you what he's done so far

You said "it's totally fine". That's an opinion.

And the part under that?

A continued opinion.

Good to see. I wonder if he's also going to improve the filtering system? It would be nice to be able to filter by price. EG, filtering headphones down to £300-£500

As long as he's consistent you know what to expect from a product based on his opinion. If you know what he likes and you know what you like you should still be able to make an educated guess based on those.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the variance in FR he was seeing IIRC

I have no idea why you are being downvoted.

It's fine if they A/B with both right next to each other; however, I have heard/seen comparisons that were clearly from memory.

Memory is a horrible documentarian.

Likely because he compares in absolutes, with the HE-1 on top and Susvara right after that. And many people aren’t into the disproportionate amounts of treble in comparison to the other octaves.. he’s also not comparing it after EQ but that can definitely help.

You'd be surprised at the amount of important data not backed up

Honestly, I don't look at his rankings at point. I just go and find groups/ forums with similar tastes and go from there. No need to pay/ subscribe for him to give me recs. That said, still respect his overall work.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I would just listen to a reviewer to get the basics of what anything sounds like. From there ill try it out myself with a little insight as to what it is.