Posted by: @billb4techwriters-com

@gasdoc - That is the plan, but we need to get enough Canadian requests to justify the request due to expense and customs risk.

TRIAL RUN: I should also point out to the new Canada tour group that this is a trial run as there are some costs to consider. It cost me $35 to ship the VE tour kit to Canada which hurt - this is just a hobby for me. There is also a cost to ship it back to me in the US that someone in the Canadian tour group has to cover.

SHARING COSTS: These expenses add up and I am not sure how we will deal with them. Right now, it looks like the last person in the tour will have to deal with that expense of shipping back to the US with the signature required so you may want to discuss a sharing system for that cost. To get the signature required option going to Canada, it required me to choose REGISTERED MAIL which is the most expensive option.

SIGNATURE REQUIRED: But we do require sending "signature required" between members to track responsibility and to avoid the expense of having to insure which would be much more costly. When you ship signature required, the manufacturer takes on the shipper risk. 

US SHIPPING COST COMPARISON: In the US a tour kit costs between $10 and $18 to ship between members including an additional $3 for signatures. I am not sure what the Canadian mail costs are.

Thoughts?

I think all Canadian participants in this tour should reimburse Barra's shipping cost.

Hi Bill,

For registered mail between Canadian members with signature it will certainly be more expensive than in the US.  That being said, we don't usually get to trial iems.  We typically just close our eyes and press the purchase button.  That alone is worth the price of admission.

If the tours continue, a rotation of the last Canadian member might be easiest.  The better question is how we can ensure your continued involvement and success.  Happy to start by covering the cost of the VE shipment.  

Regards, Adam

I’m also happy to kick in for the initial shipping cost to Canada. As said by @Gasdoc, for many of us, the only chance at these iems is through purchasing.  

A question beyond the signature is insurance.  What is the policy on shipping insurance?

It will certainly be more expensive for us for shipping but most things are more expensive up here.

Stuart

@sbranson - as mentioned above, the host is taking on the shipper risk as long as you ship out "SIGNATURE REQUIRED". This is important to remember to do this as otherwise, you are liable for shipper risk. The signature helps assign responsibility to the next person based on the signature so make sure you are doing the signing. Once confirmed in good shape and in good working order by the receiver, your responsibility ends. If we had to insure, shipping would be very expensive considering the kit prices.

A rotation for the first / last person of the tour is a good idea. Something we could do is let these people keep the items for a bit longer too (2 weeks instead of 1 or whatever) !

Hi Everyone,

This is DJ from Mississauga, ON. I was referred to this forum by Titienne and I'm pretty interested to be a part of this tour.

Here's my Head-fi profile for reference:

https://www.head-fi.org/members/dheepak10.486624/#showcase-reviews

Regards

DJ

Hi All, I received the tour kits and there is no additional fee.  Thanks again Barra.

@tanjiro - Cool, good to hear. Enjoy, and keep the conversation going. 🙂

OMG！  Elysium sounds so great to me.  Just listened 1 song with stock cable and it's already much better then VE 8 with Athena 8 braids.  Now switch to Athena 8 braids is even nicer.

The only drawback is power hunger.  Needs high gain 70 on my WM1A to sound good.

Living in Canada was impossible to experience Vision Ears IEM in the past, as there is no such thing like CanJam held here. This is my first time experiencing VE IEMs with the help & effort of Barra. Let me show my sincere appreciation to him once again for making this tour come true. As English is not my first language so please bear with me.

I was very excited and had expectations from VE Elysium. And I must admit that I was completely blown away by its vocal presentation when I first heard of it.

I hesitated to listen with the stock cable in the first place, as it comes with a 2.5mm plug, but my DAP is WM1A with 4.4mm balanced jack. I am not sure how much impact on the sound would be when using the converter. So I jumped right into my own cables and experienced the Elysium. After 2 days, I decided to give the stock cable a try as I was curious about the original sound tuning. Below are my impressions of Elysium with AZLA SednaEarFitLight Short tips and stock cable.

Elysium is a fun & energetic IEM, and it is a W-shaped IEM to me. It has a wide and holographic soundstage. Its instrument separation and layering are excellent.
Base - The base is quite punchy and I am surprised by the level of sub bass delivered from a single BA. However, I wouldn't say the base is tight nor deep though.
Mid - Obviously the vocal is the highlight of this IEM. Vocals are full of body and emotion. Never heard this kind of vocal presentation from my own IEMs before, and I am absolutely impressed. It sounds great with all genres I have listened it with.
Treble - The treble is crisp & clear with lots of micro details. It's kind of bright to me maybe because it's driven by EST, but I haven't heard any sibilance at all. However, I heard "sss", "sish" in certain songs (especially when listening to Japanese pop and K-pop, while songs in English are okay) which bothered me a lot. Sadly, this is a real deal-breaker to me as I listen to J-pop & K-pop mainly.

I paired Elysium with all my cables and here are the summaries:

Toxic cable BW22
Soundstage: Wider and stock cable
Base: Tighten up and go deeper a bit. Not much change is sub bass level
Vocal: Add more body
Treble: Clarity increased

PW Audio 1960s 2-wire
Soundstage: Little bit narrower than stock cable
Base: Tighten up, go deeper and more punchy
Vocal: Add some warmth and more body
Treble: Less crispy with less micro details.
Transform Elysium to a more organic way over all.

Toxic Cable SW22
Soundstage: Similar to BW22
Base: Goes deeper, tighten up more, more punchy
Vocal: Similar to BW22 plus emotion enhanced
Treble: Clarity increased further but smoother than BW22. Better control of those "sss" & "ish" sounds but they are still there sometimes.
I would say SW22 transforms Elysium to a much better W-shaped IEM. It gives a more 3D feel and more energetic. It is the best pairing to me.

Satin Audio Athena 8 braids
Soundstage: A tiny narrower than SW22
Base: Less tight and less punchy than SW22
Vocal: Less organic
Treble: Less crispy then SW 22 but still has control on those "sss" & "ish" sounds
Athena transforms Elysium to a less W-shaped IEM, a bit brighter over all.

Dita OSLO
Provides the sweetest vocal among all my cables. However, it sacrifices the base and treble quite a lot. It gives a reserve V-shaped sound signature.

That's all for my experience of Elysium.  Thanks.

VE8

I haven't tried the stock cable as it comes with a 3.5mm single end plug. I tried all my cables (except OSLO)and all of them give the similar song signatures as on Elysium (you can refer to above post). Once again, Toxic Cable SW22 is my favourite and below are my impressions.

VE8 is a very well-balanced and musical IEM. Its soundstage is not as wide as Elysium. Its layering is still very good even though it's less holographic than Elysium. Instrument separation is very good.

Base is fast, tight and can go deep depending on the recording. It's in a much better control than Elysium even with less punchy. I absolutely have no complaint on that as BA base.  A side note, base was a bit more punchy if I pushed VE8 towards my ears.  I think the overall base presentation would be better in custom VE8.

Vocal is with body and it's not forward. I can feel the emotion but not as strong as on Elysium.

Treble is really a strength in VE8 and it's perfected done. It's crisp, detailed with well extension - all in a silky smooth way. I heard details which I had never heard before on my other IEMs. Because of those "new" details, I can feel the treble presents in song most of the time but it's never in a harsh way nor overwhelmed. It provides a coherent package overall.

PS Forgot to mention that both universal VE8 & Elysium are as comfort and secure as custom. VE does give me the best universal experience. I really wish they could do more universal IEMs in the future.

$35 is not a lot split between 15 people Barra. You should have us just forward you $35/15 = $3/ea just to be part of the tour. Your time is easily worth more than that.

Let me know and I'll go ahead and send you my part of the shipping cost through PayPal. You're already doing us a great favour by taking care of the administrative work.

Likewise, we can also contribute to the shipping cost to the last person of the tour. Would be fair.

JUST SENT THIS OUT IN EMAIL TO ALL VERIFIED CANADIAN TOUR MEMBERS - LET'S CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION HERE:

Now that we are signed up and have started the VE tour, it is time to start considering other tour potentials. The Canadian tour group is only 11 people in size which means that we either need to grow our Canadian tour group, or a majority of you will need to participate in each tour to make it feasible. To set up an extension of a US tour to go to Canada, we need a minimum of 8 to 10 people to justify making the request to the manufacturer. However, if we get 16 or more people, we can justify requesting our own additional Canadian tour kit to be able to start right away.

So for now, we need some coordination and discussion between yourselves to make the next tour happen. Everyone is free to sign up for any tour and I will list you in a special Canadian tour section until you hit the numbers needed to request an extension or an additional kit – but this is highly ineffective. I suggest talking amongst ourselves to define a direction and goals to structure the next tour option.

If you look at our tour page, you can see there are a lot of options – you will need to organize as a group to see which ones you can reach that magic 8 participants to pursue. Thoughts?

Right now, to avoid SPAMING our 11 Canadian tour members with an open 11-way discussion, I have added this tour group to our BCC list so that you cannot reply all. Do we want to take this to our Canadian tour thread to avoid spam or do you want me to send out an open email where everyone can discuss? For now, I will assume that we will move this discussion to our CANADIAN THREAD. I don’t have visibility to see if everyone has subscribed to this thread to stay in the discussion, so if you haven’t but wish to stay involved, please click on the “SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW TOPICS” link to get notification of new posts.

Posted by: @colors

$35 is not a lot split between 15 people Barra. You should have us just forward you $35/15 = $3/ea just to be part of the tour. Your time is easily worth more than that.

Let me know and I'll go ahead and send you my part of the shipping cost through PayPal. You're already doing us a great favour by taking care of the administrative work.

Likewise, we can also contribute to the shipping cost to the last person of the tour. Would be fair.

 

Anyway, I just paid Barra back U$35 as I don't see many other tour members say anything regarding the postal cost split.

@tanjiro  I'm still getting used to this forum.  I'm more than happy to kick in for the shipping.  Since there's not much response on this I'm fine to send you $10 if that helps take the sting out of it.  If others want to kick in then that would be great too.