Al Krow

Like you, I had a problem with just one of my KZ ZS10s falling out which is a bit weird, but I don't think we're the only ones to have mentioned this! I think the ZARs must be a little heavier as they are bigger overall in size (I mislaid my ZS10s a short while back so I don't have them on hand to directly compare). Ear shape will definitely play a part, but the better seal for me on these I suspect also means a better overall fit and therefore less likely to come out than my ZS 10s. I'll find out on Sat night when I can put them through their paces with a live band.

KZ ZAR IEM ear pieces arrived today. Maybe they just suit my ear shape, but they are a better fit and, although bulkier, they provide a much better seal which was immediately obvious. The very much reduced "leakage" from external sounds is also going to have the added benefit of providing better ear protection, which is more than worth the entry price of these for me. I've just A/B'd with my Sennheiser IE300 which I found comparable to, if a little quieter than, my KZ ZS10s, and I can hear bass & backing tracks so much more clearly with this KZ ZAR pair. Very happy with them - already feeling like they could be a contender for the best bit of gear I'm going to get in 2024!

Apparently decent capos for bass exist 😊

@EBS_freak recently posted a very helpful note for setting up the EQ and, in particular, applying HPF for kick drum, as an incidental comment on his IEM thread in response to me commenting that "our desk hpf kicks in at 100Hz and up till now the view has been to leave the 50Hz+ region for the kick and just hpf everything else including my bass". I thought it would be very useful to repost it on here as an OP so that it remains easily accessible to anyone interested. I'm sure there is plenty of expertise on this the wider topic of EQ when setting up the PA and I suspect plenty of us have EQ related questions, which we can maybe explore further on this thread. Analogue desk settings suggestions when applying HPF to the kick drum (by @EBS_freak) There is an easy response to this. For each venue, try and listen for what works best. If you are running an analogue desk without outboard, your options are more limited in terms of processing (compression, gates etc) but it worth remembering a HPF, at say 100Hz, is not literally cutting everything (e.g. hard cutting) below 100Hz. There will be a slope associated with that drop off and that drop off may not be behaving as you think. Let me try and explain how even with an analogue desk, and without the flash toys, you can make your kick drum thud at that fundamental. For the benefit of this example I'll tell you that kick drum fundamentals (depending upon kick drum) are typically somewhere in the 50, 60, 70 Hz zone. (Depends upon type and size of drum, tightness of skins etc) So... I've googled generic analogue desk and the Allen and Heath ZED something or other came up. Quite a common mixer the ZED... so I downloaded the manual to find out what the channel strip looks like - So we've got (at the top) a HPF which is 100 Hz. I've looked at the specs of the roll off and it's 12dB/Octave. I'm not sure of the Q on the HPF as it's not stated in the manual - but I'll show that for the roll off, it's not that important anyway, especially when we're using the eq in the manner in which I'm going to show you. So... here's our EQ with no gains applied on any of the EQ filters and no HPF applied. As you can see, totally flat. If you feed in anything in the lows, it will get pushed to your output bus. First things first, let's push in the HPF button and see what that does to our frequency curve. As you can see, with a 12db/Oct cut, it actually starts cutting above 100Hz and tapers down as the frequency lowers in accordance with that 12db/Octave gradient. Now let me show you what is actually happening at that 100Hz point on the HPF... Before we move on too much, lets come back to the Q. In the above example, the Q (shape) is at 0.71... is we lessen it to 0.1, we can see how it impacts the roll off - And if we boost the Q we can influence the eq quite dramatically... But... it's worth noting, the last thing you want on a PA, is a huge bump like this when putting on a HPF (I'm just showing you for your understanding). In reality I would wager Q is probably around 0.75 or 0.71 so there is cut only (e.g. nothing going above the horizontal line in our graphs). So just to get us back on path, as stated before, with the HPF button depressed, your EQ is going to look something like this. OK. Now lets look at the LF filter on the channel strip... As you can see, this is at 80Hz and is a low shelving filter (as shown by the logo under LF) So lets whack that up to +15dB and see what we get... You can see that shelf curve in action (curves upwards and then flattens out (the orange section). Our resulting EQ curve shows we are still getting a boost of low end from around 50Hz and above. So thats our target kick drum zone right there... however... it's also probably including a lot of unwanted mush because of the breadth of frequencies being boosted. So what can we do...? Lets set the LF back to 0 to get back to just our HPF being applied. ... and now lets draw our attention to those lower mids on the channel strip. So bearing in mind I told you a kick drum fundamental could be typically found around 60Hz, lets apply a boost of 15dB with a Q of say, 2. (Obviously you'd be using your ears to determine how much you want to boost that frequency so it sounds right - and remember, the volume of kick controlled via this channel (for the overall mix) would be controlled via the fader) Well, would you look at that! A kick drum fundamental which is poking out like mad but with some significant cut between 70 and 100 where all your mush resides. And on the other side of the equation, you have mega cut from just above 50 which is getting rid of all the sub mush and unwanted energy sapping, speaker punishing frequencies. So there you go, you have EQed your fundamental on your kick drum channel... and you still have the upper mid to address any 200-400 boxiness. You've also freed up a bit of space in your mix for your bass guitar to reside! (although you may want to be EQing your bass channel with a different approach based on what you've just learned - e.g. still using the HPF albeit with maybe some LF and LM with different frequency centre points and Q. Granted, it all depends upon how feature rich your filters are on your analogue desk... but hopefully this has demystified HPF somewhat!

I'd probably bite my hand off for that vintage white 1025 now, too 😅 @Happypants - what do ya reckon? 😉

Nice one, thanks Russ!

It's maybe a personal thing - like you I could never quite bond with my 735A in the way I did with my 1025. There's just something about the passive BB's that Yamaha seems to have got so right.

Ah yes thanks, that's right...it was the older 414/5 that didn't have the laminate necks.

For a decent quality budget looper, happy to recommend the Lekato looper. It can record 9 loops with overdubbing and 40 mins recording time. Also has a built in tuner. Available for around 50 Euros.

Yes, absolutely 🙂 The pups in the 424/5 are flatter vs sonically richer / sweeter in the 1024/5. Plus more refined woodwork eg laminate neck (1024/5) vs single piece if I remember correctly.

Will defo try out applying hpf to the kick, which may reduce boominess we sometimes get, although our desk hpf kicks in at 100Hz and up till now the view has been to leave the 50Hz+ region for the kick and just hpf my bass? Can you talk us through your thinking and how you would go about applying "a sine wave on a gate" please? I'm not familiar with what you have in mind here!

Looks great!

Ah, just missed your suggestion @cetera, but thanks a bunch for digging that out and maybe someone else will benefit. When I was looking yesterday I kept getting "not available in your territory"! Have just ordered on the link Michael kindly provided (for which many thanks). £54 delivered including 20% VAT. Definitely worth a punt, at that price, for the current flagship KZ I reckon?

Just found this, which is a very decent review and dealing with some helpful comparisons. For KZ fans he rates the ZAR above the AS 16 Pro due to the ZAR having a more rounded high. I know a number of folk have commented on the harsher treble of the ZS10s so this sounds positive. For those who want something that delivers a strong bass, they're a good alternative to the PR1 Pro which he says are overall more rounded / hifi. He thinks the ZAR's are a little over priced as his main criticism, which I guess would be dealt with if there's availability on Ali Express (I'm only seeing on Amazon currently). But at sub £100 they still sound pretty decent value.

Coming back to my query, if I may... Has anyone tried the KZ AS 16 Pro or KZ ZAR IEMs and had positive or negative views about them?

Presets would have made it killer pedal for live use. I guess we're still looking at the Source Audio EQ or a multi fx to provide that.

Agreed. Coming back to the string harmonics point - my understanding (as I've just seen Bill has confirmed) is the guitar string won't be able to generate a sub harmonic (ie a string can't vibrate at a lower frequency than its fundamental) but it may trigger sympathetic resonance eg the kick drum to resonate and start producing lower harmonics and boominess? Is that right? If so, may indeed be worth setting the hpf cut off on the guitar, higher also?

Yeah agree in part. We apply HPF on the desk to everything already, including bass, apart from the kick: and as I think I mentioned, we're pretty happy with our FoH mix. I think the IEM issue I'm thinking about...is just an IEM issue.

Maybe getting a bit too complicated particularly, when the KZs already work pretty well. Am really just after folks thoughts on some alternative KZ options. Besides it's not EQ per se that's the issue. Cutting bass on the IEMs is not going to make the bass stand out better in my ear pieces, I wouldn't have thought?

Thanks Dave, the IEM aux feed is the same as the FoH feed (which we are very happy with) ie it's post EQ so not an option to tweak the EQ on the IEMs unfortunately on our desk.

Bit of a basic question from me, but... if the low E string fundamental is 81Hz, will setting the HPF at 80Hz for the guitar channel have an impact? I guess it's a string harmonics question ie do strings generate sub harmonics as well higher ones?

It's an interesting one. Not sure more armatures necessarily equates to better performance though, or what the optimum number is! The consensus seems to be the KZs outperform (and are considerably better value) than Shure IEMs, which have fewer armatures but not necessarily the Sennheiser's which also have fewer 😊

Interesting you're picking up on the volume point, too, Dave. My key starting point is being able to hear myself clearly i.e. cutting through the mix on my IEMs for bass, I guess in the same way that a vocalist is primarily concerned about hearing themselves sing. It's complicated slightly by using mid priced Xvive U4 wireless with our IEMs, and if I am having to max the volume then other interference issues can creep in, so having a set of IEMs that cut through well without being pushed is very helpful.

Thanks - I've just done a quick search and the ZSX seems to have been around since about 2019 i.e. a successor to the ZS10 Pro, but predates the more recent ZS Pro10 X. Reviews online seem a little mixed e.g. this one: KZ ZSX review: differently - Soundphile Review, but that's not to say they won't be very decent - look forward to getting your thoughts on them.