Acoustic Labs PILGRIM Hybrid Driver In Ear Monitor

Upon discovering the Azla Origin tips, I can conclusively say that my tip-rolling journey has officially come to an end. As you can see I have a decent quiver of tips, but I was seeking a tip that focuses big bass in order to bring new life to my beloved elysian pilgrim. On the tweaking tips review site, I searched "bass: 5.00" and only 7 results came up. After reading the favorable review I figured these were worth a try, and to my surprise these has exceeded my expectations. At first glance, I found them to be quite interesting. First thing I noticed was how thick the silicone was on the umbrella portion. Definitely the thickest of all my tips. But they still retain a soft pliable feel to them and are incredibly comfortable. I also noticed that they have a pretty wide bore (bass heavy wide bore?!) and a long stem, similar to the Spinfit W1, which makes them especially compatible for the pilgrim's. On my first listen, I knew I struck gold. They transformed the bass on the pilgrim to such a degree where it almost sounds like a completely different IEM. The bass profile sounds more akin to that of the thieaudio hype 4 or xenns tea pro, with regards to note weight and heft, while retaining it's signature speed and deep-digging rumble. In other words it sounds like it's filling in the midbass region, or similar to adding 2-3dB @ 200hz, with a wider Q (~0.7) on a PEQ using a regular tip. I want to highlight that this extra bass boost you get doesn't come at the expense the mids and this is what makes them special. The pilgrim still retains its beautiful realistic mids with zero bass bleed or masking. This also applies to the treble, as I'm still getting all the details and sparkle. If anything it might chill out the shout region (4-6kHz) ever so slightly which is very welcome. I'm usually a quiet lurker on this sub but felt compelled to write this purely out of stoke, and also due to there being limited info on this tip.To conclude, I feel that the Azla Origin are a mandatory grab for bassheads or those who seek to "save" bass-light IEMs. They are quite the anomaly in that they are wide bore and bass-heavy, shattering the whole notion that narrow bore = more bass. I'm actually starting to think that the extra thickness of the umbrella is the special sauce that contributes to the amplified bass. If you have any specific questions about these or other tips shown in pic, please don't hesitate to ask ✌🏻

Maybe you should consider the Elysian Pilgrim. Not for tuning reasons especially, but because it uses Pentaconn Ear connectors, which is supposedly the strongest connector on the market for where the IEM connects to the cable, so it's less likely to break if you fall asleep in them. They're pretty rare though, and Elysian is the only company I know of that uses them. And the Pilgrim is their only IEM that isn't in the kilobuck+ range. If you aren't swapping around between different IEMs all the time, you can just EQ them to your preferred tuning. Most portable DAC/amps these days have built-in hardware PEQ. I believe the stock tuning is neutral-ish but you can just add a bass & treble shelf to make it a bit more v-shaped, without having to mess around with anything else. I'm not sure if there's a solution that would work with an iPod though (analogue-only amps, let alone ones with EQ, are rare and expensive), so you'd probably need to use your phone instead, or get a modern DAP. Failing that maybe the FatFreq Deuce. The tuning is literally the Variations with more bass. It's not quite as technical in the treble as the Variations, but it gets surprisingly close considering it's just a 2DD without any ESTs. And it has deep-recessed 2-pin sockets, which are also somewhat more damage-resistant than the flush 2-pin sockets on the Variations. Don't buy from FatFreq directly though, because their customer service is the worst. Buy from somewhere like the Hangout, or even better Amazon if they carry them.

I agree with your opinions regarding the Que sounding congested from my admittedly short demo impressions of it. IMO the lift in the Que's mids around 1-2kHz is wayy overdone which results in instruments sounding closed in and honky and even sometimes, outright abrasive. From the graph I understand that it's trying to go for a Elysian-style W-shaped tuning, but really its competition in the Elysian Pilgrim and Hercules Audio Noah are simply better executions of that tuning. Another point worth bringing up is that the ear gain region of IEMs can be affected by insertion depth and personal ear anatomy, if you haven't already you could try tip rolling with longer/shorter tips. It is, however, completely possible that the effects of your ear anatomy or HRTF itself be detrimental to the tuning and eartips can't fix that.

Thanks for the options! The Elysian Pilgrims do look interesting, but it's not the ear connectors that keep breaking on me. It's the internals and the filters. Also the sound signature isn't what I'm looking for. In therms of EQ, The main device I use to listen to music is my iPod classic 5.5 gen, which doesn't have an EQ option anywhere in its software. I also find that when you EQ an IEM, they don't sound as good IMO. The FatFreq Deuce seemed okay, but funny enough, too far below my price range that I'm after. Still, I appreciate the suggestions!