The BGVP NS9 was an iem that I wanted to get for a long while, back when I was a full on basshead (which I still am but not to that extreme extent anymore) and the graph of the ns9 looked interesting. But from then, I have tried and owned many iems, many of them being tuned more like “audiophile” iems. And many reviews of the NS9 have come up since it’s been out for a couple of years.
Reading all the reviews and discussions which was mostly critical, I was expecting to be disappointed, but I’m not. Though the first thing I noticed was, lack of incisiveness. Things sound like they don’t have an edge to it.
Vocals are not really recessed, but still lack that crisp definition that I have in some other iems. Pretty good staging.
And it’s not really a subbass beast like the graph would indicate, actually it’s on the tame side I think, but the midbass is fairly prominent.
I haven’t really brought many iems with me to home, as I was in a hurry, I have the Elysian Pilgrim with me which is going to be the most unfortunate match up for the NS9, as the pilgrim is the most incisive sounding iem I have.
One more thing I noticed is, it’s not that “cohesive”, different parts of a song seems to be separated out and played “independently” and not as one whole thing, but I actually like it, feels like it enhances separation and is more expansive/immersive.
This is probably due to the high driver count.
I got it for 54$ used and I’m pretty happy with it, but probably wouldn’t recommend to anyone looking for a proper “hifi” experience, because even at 50$, I think there’s iems that have better incisiveness, mainly in the vocals and that’s what I think a lot of people primarily check to decide if an iem is good or not. But it’s probably better than a majority of iems in imaging and separation.
Can you give examples of those ~$50 IEMs?
The one I compared it against was the iBasso it00 as that’s the other iem I brought home other than the pilgrim. It has slightly more crispness to the vocals than the NS9.
Not sure if the it00 is even sold anymore, but it’s my go to “beater” set
But the thing is the NS9 isn’t terrible with the vocals, it sounds pretty natural, and crosses the threshold for the level of crispness I’m looking for. IIRC, only the TRI i3 pro is mushier in the vocals than I can accept these days.
I’ve been using the ns9 for the whole day and going to the pilgrim, it feels like the pilgrim is unnatural sounding. Brain burn is very apparent.
Hmmm, it comes with “vocal” wide bore tips. Let me try that on and see if it changes anything. Been on the bass tips.
Meh, not much. Bass tips look better and isolate better too.