Thanks for the thoughtful response!
That makes me very curious to try the AirPods Pro 2, since I’d previously assumed they probably weren’t far off from the Buds2 Pro.
Unfortunately I’m not an Apple user so the APP2 are somewhat crippled feature wise from what I understand, but maybe if they sound good enough they might still be worth it. (Or, god forbid, they make me consider switching to Apple.)
So, as far as I know, the main features you’d be missing on Android are gonna be Spatial Audio and dB monitoring. Otherwise you still get ANC and transparency mode. Anyone in the thread can feel free to correct me, as I’ve never owned an Android (and thus this is hearsay).
How wide is the nozzle?
5.37mm as measured by DMS.
I got these IEMs about a week ago, and I have mixed feelings. It probably has more to do with my limited experience with IEMs in general and high expectations set by positive reviews.
In terms of tonal balance, frequency response and timbre this IEM is amazing, one of the best things I’ve heard so far. The mids are spot on, the bass comes in plenty, and the treble is perfect to my taste. The buss rumble is there, some punch, decent sound staging and great layering. But there is one “but” that my non-audiophile wife expressed better than me when she first listened to them: it just isn’t very engaging. I haven’t been able to decipher why exactly so far.
Maybe it’s because of the tips. I tried all the stock ones and all third party ones I had at home, none of them give me both the fit and the sound that I would enjoy at the same time. So I’m waiting for 2 more sets of tips to arrive to give it another try.
Do you think this “not engaging enough” sentiment could be mostly related to the neutrality (it’s hard to call an earphone with a strong bass shelf and pronounced treble “dead neutral”) or is it more common in IEMs compared to over-ear headphones? The best other IEMs I heard before are probably Moondrop’s Blessing 2 and Kato, and I wouldn’t call them very engaging either. My reference point is more like over-ear headphones: HD650 and Focal Clear.
Thank you. Unfortunately, I doubt that info.
The smallest IEM nozzle I’ve measured was cca. 5.6mm. However, there are numerous comments like “diameter of the nozzle … is a bit big”, “nozzle diameter is on the larger side but the length is short”, “metal nozzles are collared, wider than average in diameter”.
I’ve also found a claim that for Mega 5P, the widest part of the nozzle was 6.5mm.
So, if somebody has 5EST and a caliper tool, please enlighten us.
I don’t have a caliper unfortunately, so I just measured with the ruler: ca. 6.1mm. DMS measured the nozzle in the middle, while the thicker part is at the edge, because it retains the tip. And yes, they are a bit thick if you ask me, so the “wide” tips that they come with sound good but don’t fit into my ears properly as they are too short. That’s why I’m waiting for wider and longer tips.
I get what you are saying. The tips that really woke them up for me are the moondrop mis foam tips I used with the blessings. Maybe worth a try.
The reviews of these IEMs looked very promising to me. DMS released his ode to Mega5EST exactly when my wife was visiting their hometown - Chengdu, China. So, I pulled the trigger on them and a few days later my wife came back home with this nice souvenir.
As I shared above, I was a bit confused in the beginning whether it’s my thing. Recently I took the Mega5EST to the Munich Hi End 2024 and used it as my reference IEM there. After the trip and rolling a gazillion of eartips I can give it a better review.
TL;DR: Hisenior Mega5EST is a great Harman-like-slightly-V-shaped reference IEM that can do a fantastic job if you find the eartips that make these IEMs shine for your ears. I would appreciate a bit less sub-bass and a tiny shift towards mid-bass though.
Tonal balance
Well, you can see the frequency response measurements in the posts above and it sounds like it measures.
There is a plenty of sub-bass. If you don’t get it, then the seal is not working, try larger tips. It’s not crazy overdone and most people will find the bass of this IEM very pleasing. To my taste, the sub-bass shelf is actually the main issue of this earphone: it masks the mid-bass, and because of that the bass does not feel so punchy and controlled as it potentially could. I haven’t tried to EQ it, but it would be interesting to see how sub-bass reduction would change the character of these IEMs.
The mids are pronounced, clean, and clear. The vocal-centric tracks is probably not the main reason to buy a V-shaped earphone, but Mega5EST is good at vocals too. Depending on how the track is mixed, it is capable of reproducing them as “in your head” as well as “out on the stage”.
My favorite part is the treble though. This is where the preferences may vary the most I guess. To my taste, Mega5EST gives me exactly what I want: a strong treble presence without excess energy, lots of detail without sharp spikes, and nothing that I would complain about (i.e. sibilance). The cymbals sound like what they are, the brass shines and sizzles like you are in a Jazz chamber. I was listening to several over-head e-stats at the show, and the little Hisenior was on par with the better tuned ones in the treble region.
Detail retrieval
This IEM is perceived as very detailed. Acoustic information is present evenly across the frequency spectrum, there are no areas where it rolls off or misses something. Now add perfect layering in the mix, thanks to the tri-band design.
In busy passages with fast transients and a blend of high and low frequency phrases this IEM keeps doing a great job where many other headphones and IEMs give up and produce an indistinct mish-mash. In slow pieces with strings or brass you can feel the texture and tiny vibrations.
This quality together with a good tonal balance is what I guess makes others say that this $500 IEM outperforms many >$1000 IEMs, which it really does.
Punch and engagement
This is not the punchiest earphone, but it can do a pretty good job at hitting your eardrums and making you tap with your foot, if you find the right eartips.
Earlier I complained that Mega5EST sounds very well balanced but somehow distant and not very engaging. Some posters here commented that this can be fixed with tip rolling, and I confirm. After a lot of trial and error I found the tips that liven them up for me.
Sound staging and imaging
Is also very tip-dependent. Some tips make you hear everything like the sound drilling inside your head. Some other tips open everything up and put the instruments in space around you holographically. With some tips it’s somewhat in the middle.
Amplification
Sorry, what? Aplification for IEMs? Yes, an Apple dongle or a standard 3.5mm output on your laptop won’t do it for Hisenior Mega5EST. At least because it comes with a 4.4mm-terminated balanced cable 
For IEMs they are not super-sensitive, which means you can experiment with the pairing a bit. I found them to sound very pleasing on the new Aune S17 class A amp. Significantly wider and more musical than my Questyle M15 dongle that I was carrying with me.
Tips on tips
Try a lot of them. Different tips will work for different people. E.g. the best ones for me so far were the ML-sized tips from A&K Zero2, but for my wife they sound too much “in the head” and don’t feel comfortable. For her, the M-sized Kinboofi silicone tips did the trick.
The stock tips are a miss IMO. The “wide” tips give better staging, but are too shallow, so that for my ears there is no punch and the IEMs feel like they can fall off any time. The “narrow” tips are a bit longer, but the narrow hole ruins the sound stage for me. Both silicone tips are very thin and give me some weird resonances in bass region. Foam tips - can’t say anything about them, they just don’t fit in my ears.
The nozzle is indeed quite wide - it’s 6.1mm or even a bit more in diameter in the wider part at the edge. I’d go for wider inner diameter and denser silicone material for the tips in general with these.
So, if it doesn’t work out of the box, try other tips from third party. I’m still waiting for Divinus Velvet tips to arrive.
Divinus Velevet tips have just arrived, and OMG do they make a difference!
Overall they change the tonal balance quite significantly towards more V-shaped. The bass is boosted even more, but is more clean and articulated than with other eartips. As a result, with these tips the Mega5EST slams the hell out of you. Such a change of character!
Highs are also boosted. It is still not so harsh as with inherently bright tuning, but I’d say that’s on the edge for me. Of course, it helps with even more perceived detail and soundstaging effects. But if you’re treble sensitive, these tips are not for you.
Like always, more V-shape means less focus on mids, and that’s a downside of these tips. If you’d like the mids to be more present, I’d say go for Kinboofi tips instead - they are more balanced and are a safer bet in general.
I took Listen-r’s EQ settings for these, applied them in Equalizer APO and then converted them to autoEQ for wavlet app (although i added 2db bass boost). file is here for anyone who has the mega5est and is interested: mega5est Listen-r + 2db bass GraphicEQ.txt - Google Drive
if u have the wavelet app, you can try the autoeq tune i posted above. it’s listen-r’s EQ adjustments + a small 2db bass boost
I’ve tried many tips, including the Divinus Velevet, SpinfitCP100, and SednaEarfit Xelastec. The Xelasec were my reluctant choice until I got the “SpinFit CP155” for Wide and Long IEM Nozzle. Those worked best for me. By the way I’m using the Mega5EST with a newly purchased iBasso DC-Elite USB Dac. Sounds great to me.
SpinFit CP155 arrived this week, thanks for the tip!
These eartips definitely reduce the bass shelf, which helps because the sub-bass usually dominates the mix with these IEMs which masks everything else. Even though there is less bass, there is actually more punch than with stock tips or e.g. Kinboofi. This confirms my hypothesis of sub-bass masking the mid-bass and making Mega5EST sound less punchy.
I also hear in the treble that the 6kHz peak is moved more towards 8kHz compared to other tips. Combined with reduced bass, the treble change with CP155 brings back the details that are smoothed out with other tips. It also helps improving the soundstaging effects, though I have to admit that Mega5EST is probably never going to sound wide. As a downside, I can definitely hear that S’s and T’s are much more prominent and even sibilant on brighter tracks. So, these eartips definitely need a warmer amp pairing, and don’t work for every genre and recording.
Comfort-wise, SpinFit CP155 are on the narrower side and help a little bit with the “chunky nozzles” issue too.
After spending too much money and time on ear tips, I’ve taken @Listener review (on the Headphone.com review page) advice and settled on Spinfit CP100+ . Spinfit CP155 were good but I felt like it colored the sound and they sometimes got stuck in my ears when I removed the earpiece. Honestly I don’t know exactly why, but I’m enjoying the sounds from the combo of Mega5 and iBasso DC-Elite USB DAC immensely. This coming from a guy who was never sure my mind was playing tricks on my hearing. Take it as you will, but I don’t have much in audiophile terms. Mega5EST, DUNU SA6, Audioquest Nightowl, Jotunhiem …of them all, I prefer the Mega5 and the iBasso DC-Elite even at home
FYI listener posted an update regarding a silent revision to the Mega5EST on the Headphones.com review page with measurements to back it up. The revision is corroborated by Elise Audio on squig.link.
My impressions of my own Mega5EST unit, which I got last week, make more sense after learning of this silent revision. I wasn’t super impressed on first listen when my Mega5EST came in last week. I thought to myself “that’s it?” The overall sound came off as very clean, and the bass was tighter and more impressive than the Blessing 2 I’ve had for the last 2 years. Midrange was very solid though it lacked a bit of heft in the lower-mids I like for snare drums, male vocals, and electric guitars.
The two big issues came from the treble combined with the presentation. While I’m generally treble-tolerant, I thought my unit was a bit edgy when I turned the volume up past about 70 dB. The presentation reminded me of listening to the stock Hifiman Edition XS with how aggressively in-my-face it was. This was all with SpinFit CP100 tips. I ran straight for DSP to try to take the edge off, which kinda ran against the point of me buying this IEM in the first place.
This is where I’m currently at after playing with DSP to try to fix the issues noted above. Filter 7 is set to off here because where that resonance pops up will be extremely variable from person-to-person. I still haven’t really ran the informal A/B test against my Blessing 2 with DSP to figure out if I should keep the Mega5EST.
Preamp: -2.0 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 0.700
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 210 Hz Gain 1.0 dB Q 0.900
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 410 Hz Gain 1.7 dB Q 2.000
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1300 Hz Gain -0.5 dB Q 1.500
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3000 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 1.800
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 6100 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 2.000
Filter 7: OFF PK Fc 13500 Hz Gain -2.0 dB Q 5.000
Damn, the silent revision is unfortunate! I can confirm that my unit is also from this “new” batch and I was wondering why does it sound more V-shaped than it is described in the reviews.
I also relate to the initial impression of “is that it?”. I don’t think the original Mega5EST was much more exciting to be honest, maybe even less so, because it had less coloration. Its “party trick” was being the “new meta” reference, not being a fun IEM.
Hisenior probably read the reviews and decided that the wider audience want more excitement. So they added more bass and more treble.
For those who don’t use EQ (like myself, since I switch between several devices and can’t apply EQ to all of them), tip rolling may help a bit.
Depending on preference, I circle between the following tips:
Is there a serial number or other characteristics to find out from which batch you have one?
Hi, I am mainly on this IEM because of this very review. It was this review that got me so excited. So to learn I’ve received something different than what I wanted to learn was all the excitement about is pretty disappointing.
Can I EQ these into a 100% version of what it was before 2024 (like the one used in review). I only use my IEMs on Android so I would like to do it in UAPPs Toneboosters add on. But where can I find the exact bands?
Pretty disappointed by this tbh. This new version turned into a Davinci sort of Iem? But I already had that. Thanks for any help or replies.
Now there is a panic building up and people would chase the “right” revision via serial number… Reminds me of the Sundara’s 2020 revision chaos, reversed.
Looking at the graphs, FR doesn’t seem to be that different. Seems like it’s quite easy to fix with a couple of shelf filters in the EQ: -2dB bass shelf and -2 or -4dB above 5kHz in the treble.
Interestingly, the ear gain peak for the “silent revision” is at 3kHz, while for the original it is shifted towards ~3.2kHz.
It would be nice if somebody measured and compared both revisions in an A/B listening session before people start cancelling their orders and returning them massively.
At the end of the day what really matters is not what is written in the review but what you hear, especially if you got the unit already.