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Quick Look: Tripowin x HBB Olina SE In-Ear Monitors

VSG

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Tripowin partners once again with audio influencer HBB to update its popular Olina set of in-ear monitors. The new Olina SE gets an updated driver on top of a more balanced tuning to make a best-selling set all the more relevant for those who thought the original was too bright and fatiguing.

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Yeah... am I the only having this or am I just the canary in the coal mine here...

For the price I actually like these though I usually buy in a bit higher. I will say that the case looks good rather than one of those flimsy things. Cable looks robust as well. All metal rather than resin is a bonus as well if it's tuned as that can backfire over resin. Lack of "half hentai anime child girl" on the packaging is a welcome bonus for a change as well, bleh. Two pin is the best connector and what most people want and notched is a plus as well. So all in all here it's what you should be doing.

Two trap falls. First is the lack of foams and this needs to end. I don't know if it's a chifi issue but if you are buying American you're getting foams as well and for a lot of us that's what's wanted. I get all the arguments against them. They break down, they get nasty, blah blah blah. But it's not that much to include and for isolation they are going to clobber silicons everytime. I remember when we got sponge tips (looks at old ER4-P) which were even more of a "sucking on your own ear wax before inserting to lube it up" health hazard, followed by the joke "eat more pineapple" (don't make that joke in public it's very bad taste). The next is do not offer filter screens if they are not swappable. This will clog. I get the logic and all as non screened clog faster but that's cleanable. A filter you cannot remove and clean is just asking for issues.
 
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Seems like the mids would be extremely harsh. :confused:

IMHO this is also about the dongle or other hardware feeding it. We all know some stuff pairs well and some stuff pairs really poorly.

EDIT- speaking dongles I implus bought this https://headphones.com/products/ifi...m=utm_criteo&utm_campaign=utm_similaraudience as it seems stupidly underpriced for the brand and the hardware but also I won't get mad if I lose it. Still making winky eyes and sexy face at the diablo though but I just cannot justify it. Especially sitting on a Mojo 2 which is in the same league if not better. Though looks stupid and runs hot (I'd argue the diablo also runs hot and looks stupid in Ferrari red). Plus I'm sort of tempted by https://www.moon-audio.com/earmen-angel-amp-dac.html but that's back to ESS land and I have a ton of their stuff. I get there is a price difference but that's like a steak, not even a steak dinner, worth of price here. That 200 dollar gap is like a medium quality bottle of wine or 4 hard drinks.

Or I can Pokemon collect them all and sit with the Mojo, Diablo, and Angel.
 
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