@Precogvision Where would you put the MEST on your ranking list?
I still havenāt decided yet, the MEST is hard to get a bead on. Also, Iād prefer not to incur the wrath of the certain Sith Lord who loaned me them haha 
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If you want more of that THICC bass and subbass from the MEST, but are having trouble with getting a deep seal with standard foams, try out some Symbio W Foams!
I found the bass on the MEST overwhelming at times. Iām lead to think a source with a higher OI would have fixed this problem but I didnāt have access to one at the time. Taken on its own it was possibly the most satisfying ābass experienceā Iāve had on an IEM. At times it was like drifting on an endless sea of wub wubsā¦like if the Z1R went on a bender didnāt hold anything back.
more OI = more bass on mest
Thatās a very apt description and certainly a quote of the day!
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Just a quick gripe about thisāmy audiologist canceled my appointment the day before I was due to get my impressions because theyāre closing the office indefinitely until COVID numbers drop again. So, no custom MEST for me & the wife for the foreseeable future.
That happened a week ago, but Iām still stewing about it. At least I have my universals. But Iām bummed because these were supposed to be a Christmas present for my wife. There was a 3-week wait to make an appointment in the first place, and then I got the rug pulled out from under my plans.
sigh
Hopefully the wait wonāt be too awful. I should be able to regroup eventually and get this done, but I was looking forward to comparing custom vs universal, and now thatās not happening any time soon.
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Oof that sucks. If budget was of no concern, and I didnāt have the fear of more upgraditis, Iād absolutely get a custom mest as well.
Same situation here with impressions in general throughout Colorado. It also sucks we donāt have anywhere I get custom scans done either, Iād love to have them just on file.
Fun fact: UM will send you back STLs if you ask from what Iāve read!
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Yes, Iāve heard that as well. Might have posted above, but in any case was told so by Andrew @ MusicTeck. Now the trick is just to get the molds made, lol.
Hey everyone, I am about to join the MEST club. Very excited.
I scanned through this thread and did not see any suggestions, please forgive me if I missed it.
I āneedā a balanced 2.5mm cable for these. My EarMen Sparrow has a fantastic balanced out 2.5mm that sounds great and Iād like to use that for these. I also have an XLR to 2.5mm balance adapter for going straight out of my DAC.
Any suggestions as it relates specifically to the protruding 2 pin on these MEST?
Thanks for any advice.
Ummmmā¦
ā
I finally managed to get my audiologist appointment scheduled (itās a week away), and UM springs this curveball on me. Do I get v1 or v2? What to do?!
Nominally, changes include shell design and a new (ādual-sidesā) bone conductor with a greater involvement across the frequency range. The design changes seem reasonable, even if messing with a recipe I enjoy so well has me concernedā¦
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Yea I am aware of this. 
UM said theyād send me a demo unit in 3 weeks when they become available.
It looks promising if what they say is true ā smaller shell design, improved tuning based on reviewer feedback, etc.
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So, MEST MkII landed a couple days ago, and Iāve been bouncing back and forth between the new MEST and the OGsā¦
In a word, the new MEST are a warmer, darker take on the original. Yes, they do have MOAR BASS. And, no, itās not too much. Somehow.
The first thing I noticed about MEST MkII is that the overall presentation is a bit smoother and more even-keeled. OG MEST always felt a little wonky to me, even if I couldnāt pin down exactly why. It wasnāt wrongājust not quite real or natural. MEST MkII reminds me a lot of Sennheiser 6xx in that the treble is somewhat restrained and no longer cuts through the mix to draw attention to itself.
At first I really missed the laser-sharp treble details of OG MEST. And itās not like I asked for more bassādid anyone seriously think MEST bass was weak or lacking??? However, the MkIIs have grown on me.
Both OG MEST and MkII have extremely well-behaved bassāgreat slam and good texture and grip. MkII is both more ridiculous and better-executed. When a track calls for heavy bass, MEST MkII lays it on as thick as anything Iāve heard (seriouslyāitās like a subwoofer), but thereās no mud, no bleeding into the mids, no overwhelming the track. And when the bass is meant to be present as an anchor or supporting element, it fades into the background, albeit with fantastic texture that makes it easy to focus on in isolation or take in as part of the mix. āWhy So Serious?ā is a must-listen to see what the combination of pounding sub-bass can do with finer details.
Mids were never bad on OG MEST, but there were some times where I kind of wanted to lean into them a bit. Not so on MkIIātheyāre forward and forceful. Coupled with the crazy bass and, yes, they still have outrageous imaging, MEST MkII are like a mini surround sound theater.
OG MEST have a greater treble emphasis, less cartoonishly excessive bass, and slightly recessed mids. I tend to like slightly bright tunings. MkII does sound a little too smoothed out to me at times, yet theyāre an undeniably more exciting than the OGs. Furthermore, Iāve yet to find a genre that MkII doesnāt work with.
As far as bass cannons go, I never cared too much for my Fostex ebonies / purplehearts beyond the guilty pleasure of breaking them out for comedic levels of bass on something like āWhoomp! There It Is.ā The mids are suffocated. I much prefer 1770s for bass-heavy listening. MEST MkII are like Fostex levels of bass with better-than-1770 levels of control. Highs are not goneājust scaled back to where theyāre really not piercing.
I really did expect MkII bass to get fatiguing, but somehow it has not. Itās just thunderous good fun.
Iām still undecided about which MEST to get for my customs, but I think Iām leaning MkII now. Both are IEMs I can (and have / do / will) listen to for hours. I just need to figure out which flavor I want in custom-fit.
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When considering a universal to custom conversion, just make sure that you understand the tuning may slightly changeā¦ primarily in how the treble range responds, but that can affect the perceived bass and mid-range as well when looking at the FR holistically.
In my experience, the lower treble response tames down and its spread out through the treble range and into the upper treble area. This is primarily the effect of insertion depth and resonance response inside your ear canal.
While this illustration below is not totally accurate, it is the measurements of the UM Mest v1 with Universal in black and custom in red. That lower treble energy which many people hear in the universal isnt there for me when I listened to it in the custom, and is actually very representative to the red measurement of my CIEM, cause I do experience more upper treble energy around 10-14KHz.
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Well, I confirmed my order this morning for 2 sets of MkII customs (for my wife and myself). And now the final wait begins. The estimate is still 2-3 weeks to turn them around. My other customs (Noble K10s) were through Drop and took over a year, lol. So this will be a comparatively easy wait.
Iām surprised MkII won me over; warm is not my favorite signature. Iāve previously only enjoyed warm tunings as a change of pace and tend to immediately wish for something more neutral and balanced. Truthfully, what I really donāt like is extra bass asserting itself in every track, whether those tracks call for (elevated) bass or not. MEST MkII manages to toe a fine line where bass-heavy tracks are as visceral as Iāve ever heard them, but that monster bass will take a back seat when itās not supposed to dominate a track.
The real key is that after listening for several days a wide variety of tunes across a whole spectrum of genres, I never did find any tracks that donāt work with MEST MkII. There are a few I donāt care for with OG MEST; theyāre rare, but they exist.
That was a key deciding factor. And since plenty of tracks still exhibit MEST magic with MkII, thatās my clear choice for customs. I do still like the treble on OGs, but I like the mids on MkII better. Thankfully, OG universals arenāt going anywhere, so itās just a matter of which flavor I want for long-term listening, and thatās MkII.
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So when the customs arrive, you got:
1 x Mest OG, universal
1 x Mest MrkII, universal
1 x Mest MrkII, Custom
I think it is safe to say, that you are hooked on the Mest tuning and thus sound 
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Lol, definitely. You can blame MEST OG for that. I loved them enough that extended listening sessions were making my ears sore, so I decided I needed customs. That would have been the end of it, except MkII showed up just as it was time to pay for my customs, and I had to know which version to pick. Iām glad I took a chance on MkII universal, because, in the net, I did end up preferring the new version.
What really has me hooked is how MEST handles staging and imaging. Iāve never heard anything quite like it. Itās absolutely addictive, and has prompted me to lay in the dark for hours rediscovering my music. There are other IEMs that are objectively ābetter,ā have better technicalities in certain areas, more balanced presentation, and even tuning closer to my ideals, but nothing else that captivates quite like MEST.
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Is there gonna be a tour? Cause, this is quickly becoming the most interesting IEM for me.
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