Category Archives: Review

Focal Spirit One (mini review)

Posted on by
Reply
Focal Spirit One headphones
Focal Spirit One headphones

Ini­tial Impres­sions:

Sound Iso­la­tion:
For portable head­phones, iso­la­tion is key and the Spirit One does a pretty good job as it has enough clamp­ing force.

Although the Spirit One is listed as a circum-aural (over ear) design, the cups are more supra-aural in that they’re small, cov­er­ing most of your ears (medium size), but not all.

Design and Con­struct:
The size of the Spirit One feels nice an com­pact and looks good when you put them on.  The head­phone cups don’t stick out when worn and the head­band is thin enough so that when you wear the head­phones, it won’t mess up your hair (this is impor­tant as you’ll be wear­ing them out).

Although in pic­ture and even in per­son, it looks like the head­phones are made of all alu­minum (chrome), they’re an amal­ga­ma­tion of alu­minum (outer part of head­band arms, mid­dle of the cups), rub­ber (head band and outer cups) and plas­tic. The head­phones feel very sturdy on and off. The ear pads are of syn­thetic leather. The fab­ric cord with remote con­trol is very nice — the cord is per­fect length for portable use.

Sound:
Most impor­tantly the Spirit One sounds just about right for a $279 head­phone.  I would char­ac­ter­ize the sound sig­na­ture as being neu­tral and balanced.

I think the highs are where the Spirit One shines.  The highs are clear, not as detailed as some full sized head­phones, but very good for portable head­phones.    Vocals sound alive and have clarity.

The upper mids to mids are smooth and well defined.

The lows are a bit on the thin side, but you get enough bass when the music calls for it.  How­ever, if you’re a bass head then the Spirit One won’t appease you.

Sound Stage is about where it should be for portable closed back head­phones.   I’d say above average.

The Ver­dict:
If you’re look­ing for a great mid-fi portable head­phone suit­able for most genre of music, then the Spirit is the “One” to look for.

Shure SRH1840 Initial Impressions

Posted on by
Reply

Impres­sions so far:

After about 25 hours of burn in period — Com­pared to Sennheiser HD800, they’re not as dynamic sound­ing or as detailed and slightly less bass, but we’re talk­ing about half the price of an HD800 here.  Com­pared to AKG Q701s, the SRH 1840 has a more pro­nounced bass.

Very com­fort­able and feels light on your head (267g w/out cables).  Due to its size (smaller than HD800 or AKG Q701) and light weight, the SRH1840 doesn’t feel over­whelm­ing when worn.

more to fol­low soon…

Shure SRH1840
Shure SRH1840

Comply Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers Review

Posted on by
Reply
Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers with package
Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers with package

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
My ini­tial response after try­ing on the Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers is that they REALLY make the Apple Ear­buds com­fort­able to wear.  How­ever, once I started lis­ten­ing to a track, I was sorely reminded that the music was still com­ing out of infe­rior Apple Ear­bud drivers.

The Sound: 7 / 10
Even with the Whoomp! EE, Apple Ear­buds sound hor­ri­ble for highs, mids, and lows.    How­ever, Whoomp! EE does add some bass, but only up to a point, it doesn’t make the bass tighter or deeper.  The sound stage is some­what improved, but still AE qual­ity.  Basi­cally, the Enhancers are good, but doesn’t per­form miracles.

So how does the Whoomp! EE improve AE?   With the Enhancers on, the music is deliv­ered directly into your ear-cannel, so you get a more inti­mate and engag­ing sound.  Plus, you can decrease the vol­ume one or two lev­els down and hear the same loud­ness.  I took the left Whoomp! EE off the AE and tested the qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence hav­ing the Enhancers off on one side.  With the Enhancers off in one ear, I felt like sound was leak­ing and music, fur­ther away.

Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers with nano
Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers with nano


The Looks: 8 / 10
Whoomp! EE looks very nat­ural on the Apple Ear­buds.  The “upgraded mod” looks as if it was designed by Apple.  Looks wise, Whoomp! design is great, but the grey foam part wor­ries me.  As it looks like it may turn yel­low after a cer­tain period (like other grey Com­ply foam tips).  How­ever, the foam tips on Whoomp! EE look to be dif­fer­ent in mate­r­ial, so time will tell if they’ll turn yel­low­ish (I’ll post an update to the pos­si­ble colour change).

Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers hanging
Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers hanging

Func­tion: 7.5 / 10
The Whoomp! EE doesn’t greatly “enhance” the sound qual­ity, but it def­i­nitely makes the Apple Ear­buds com­fort­able to wear and pro­vides added functionality.

With the enhance­ment, you can now use the Apple Ear­buds for work­ing out / jog­ging with­out the ear­buds slip­ping out of your ears every 5 min­utes.  Actu­ally, the  ear­buds stayed firmly on my ear and felt very light weight.  It actu­ally felt like I had cot­ton swab in my ears.

For peo­ple who feel that AE just don’t fit in their ears prop­erly, Whoomp! EE might pro­vide a bet­ter fit as the foam tips are mal­leable to dif­fer­ent ear-cannel shapes and sizes.

The Enhancers also pro­vided slightly improved sound iso­la­tion, which would make the AE bet­ter for com­mut­ing pur­poses (or for any other sit­u­a­tions requir­ing sound isolation).

Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers closeup
Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers closeup

Boom for you Buck Rat­ing: 8 / 10
Is the price worth the upgrade of Apple Ear­buds?  Son­i­cally speak­ing no, but for $10 you get great com­fort and fit and for me that’s worth the price of upgrade.

Total: 30.5 / 40
The New Com­ply Whoomp! Ear­bud Enhancers are for indi­vid­u­als who don’t mind the sound qual­ity of their music, but want bet­ter comfort/fit for their AE.  Whoomp! EE almost makes the Apple Ear­bud enjoy­able to lis­ten to… nah who am I kidding.

Pros: very com­fort­able to wear, easy to apply the upgrade on AE
Cons: dura­bil­ity of grey foam tips, mar­ginal gain in sound quality

Orotofon e-Q5 Review

Posted on by
Reply
Ortofon e-Q5 and box
Orto­fon e-Q5 and box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
The Orto­fon e-Q5 is a bright, accu­rate sound­ing IEM.  Slightly heav­ier as a result of it’s solid alu­minum acoustic cham­ber.  With a fit that isn’t the most secure, when com­pared to Shure or West­one IEMs.

The Sound: 9 / 10
I have been lis­ten­ing to the e-Q5 for the last 3 weeks and I have to hon­estly say that I’ve grown to love them.  At first I thought they were lack­ing in bass, but as I lis­tened to them for a longer dura­tion, I didn’t miss the bass much and really appre­ci­ated how detailed and crys­tal clear the highs sounded.  The upper mids were clean and airy.  Which leads me to the sound stage of e-Q5.  So far the e-Q5 has pro­vided one of the best sound stage I’ve heard on any IEMs.   Even though the ear tips were plugged straight into my ears, the sound encom­passed my ears like I was wear­ing head­phones.   As men­tioned above, bass isn’t e-Q5’s strong point, but when lis­ten­ing to music with lots of bass, the e-Q5 pre­sented a tight although slightly thin response.  The use of West­one E6 head­phone amp made the e-Q5 extremely plea­sur­able to lis­ten to as the amp pro­vided enough bass for music to sound fun (noted in West­one AMP’d review).

Ortofon e-Q5 and nano
Orto­fon e-Q5 and nano

The Looks: 9 / 10
The Orto­fon e-Q5 comes in red, black, and sil­ver.  The red anodized alu­minum I reviewed was the first thing I noticed about these IEMs.  The red chrome alu­minum and it’s cylin­dri­cal shape makes the e-Q5 look very mod­ern and chic.  WIth sil­ver accent on the bot­tom, these IEMs look like state of the art elec­tron­ics pieces.  When you wear them, they stick out like Com­bos crackers.

Function: 8 / 10
I tested the e-Q5s in var­i­ous envi­ron­ments and activ­i­ties and here are the results: pro­vides great sound iso­la­tion for com­mut­ing and lis­ten­ing to music at home in peace.  For light car­dio the e-Q5s stay in your ears firm enough.  How­ever, for inten­sive work­out I found myself read­just­ing the IEMs for a firmer fit. The Com­ply foam tips (included with sil­i­con tips) pro­vided a securer fit for my ears. The trick to achiev­ing a securer fit is to put the wire over your ears. This helps to sup­port the weight and the IEMs don’t droop down.
Dis­tin­guish­ing between right (red) and left (black) was very easy as the e-Q5 comes colour coded (bot­tom of the cham­ber).  The bot­tom part of the cable is flex­i­ble, soft, and thick pro­vid­ing tan­gle free usage.  The upper left and right part of the cable which con­nect to the alu­minum cham­bers is thin­ner and as a result prone to micro­phon­ics.  If you loop the cable around your ears then you have bet­ter pro­tec­tion against micro­phon­ics as  the Y part of the cable becomes shorter and less prone to come in con­tact with your clothes. Loop­ing the cable around your ears seem a bit awk­ward as the IEMs are not designed to be worn this way, but a) pro­vided a securer fit, b) pro­tects against microphonics.

Ortofon e-Q5 closeup
Orto­fon e-Q5 closeup

Boom for your Buck Rat­ing: 9 / 10
Priced at $300 CAD, these IEMs sit between Shure SE 425 and SE 535 in sound and price per­for­mance.  Cheaper than Klip­sch X10i by $50 dol­lars, the X10i pro­vides bet­ter bass and comes with a remote con­trol, while the e-Q5 has bet­ter highs and sound stage.

Total: 35 / 40
If you like pre­cise, real­is­tic music then e-Q5’s sound sig­na­ture is the per­fect solu­tion for you.

Pros: crys­tal clear highs, good sound stage, looks great
Cons: slightly heavy as a result the fit isn’t as secure as some IEMs

Note: Orto­fon is a Dan­ish com­pany famous for mak­ing great phono car­tridges.  And Oro­ton Japan pro­duces the e-Q5 IEMs.  The e-Q7, it’s older sib­ling, has been discontinued.

HEADFONEshop featuring Westone’s AMP’d Promo (mini reviews)

Posted on by
3

For a lim­ited time, West­one UM2/UM2 RC (remov­able cable) and West­one 2 / 3 IEMs will come pack­aged with a free West­one E6 by FiiO (sim­i­lar specs to E5, but in a lighter, smaller pack­age with options for gain con­trol (through EQ)- low gain for IEMs and high gain for head­phones with higher imped­ance) …will add my impres­sion of the West­one E6 head­phone amp in a cou­ple of days.

This is a great chance to upgrade your ear­phones and get into portable head­phone amps. Although major­ity of IEMs do not nec­es­sar­ily require a head­phone amp, it will improve upon an IEMs’ sound level, bring out the details, gain body or punchier bass, and make the over­all music sound smoother and less raw.  And if you already own a pair of head­phones with high imped­ance (the amp can han­dle head­set imped­ance: 16Ω~300Ω), you can pair it with this amp for an ultra portable rig.

You can visit HEAD­FONEshop and test out the IEMs with West­one E6 head­phone amp or pur­chase the below prod­ucts online at www.headfoneshop.com/eshop.

Westone IEMs with Fiio E6 promoWest­one IEMs with West­one E6 Head­phone Amp by FiiO

West­one E6 Head­phone Amp by FiiO mini Review:
IEMs used: West­one 2, 3, and UM2
Head­phones used: Sennheiser HD 598 and AKG K272 HD

The West­one E6 has 4 dif­fer­ent set­tings. Neu­tral (no light), Extra Bass (red, made the SQ sound arti­fi­cial and muddy), and what seems like high gain (blue) and low gain (pur­ple). Through out my test­ing I pre­ferred the blue light set­ting. With this set­ting I was able to get a tighter, full bod­ied bass.  With super low bass fre­quen­cies, dis­tor­tions were less appar­ent. The mids sounded smoother and less raw and the songs gained a bit more detail in the highs.  With the dif­fer­ent IEMs used, the E6 accen­tu­ated the par­tic­u­lar IEM’s pluses.  For exam­ple, West­one 3’s bass (espe­cially the low low bass) was even more preva­lent with the amp.  And the UM2’s over­all bal­anced low/mid/highs were high­lighted.  With the West­one 2, the bass became tighter, and slightly more emphasized.

Westone E6 Headphone Amp, Westoe 3, and Nano
West­one E6 Head­phone Amp, Westoe 3, and Nano

Paired with head­phones the E6 will gain you the extra oomph in power to drive them with at a higher vol­ume level (higher the ohm level, the more use­ful E6 becomes).  I noticed a more promi­nent bass response with the AKG K272 HD and a fuller tighter bass with Sennheiser HD 598.

With the E6 you’ll hear a slight hiss­ing noise in the back­ground if you have the amp plugged in, the vol­ume high and no song play­ing.  But you won’t notice any hiss­ing when you’re lis­ten­ing to music or if you have the amp vol­ume on 40–50% (about 10 clicks on the dig­i­tal rocker) and con­trol the mp3 player’s vol­ume level.

Westone E6 clipped front
West­one E6 clipped front

Over­all, the West­one E6 will improve your IEMs/headphones’ sound qual­ity just enough for you to want to use the amp when­ever you can.  And with the diminu­tive size you can carry it with you wher­ever you go.

The Bad: Add another device that’s a fin­ger print mag­net as the lac­quered black fin­ish just loves fin­ger oil.

Note: A fully charged bat­tery should get you around 10 hours.  I’ll add a def­i­nite bat­tery usage after I test it out for a week.  You can uti­lize the E6 with your lap­top to improve it’s sound qual­ity as well.

Westone E6 clipped back
West­one E6 clipped back

Update (Aug 31st):  After hav­ing used the West­one E6 for the last week I can say that it’s def­i­nitely worth using this device for any IEM.  I’ve been using the E6 with Orto­fon e-Q5 and I’m really enjoy­ing the e-Q5 for it’s great detail, accu­racy, and clar­ity.  While the E6 helps boost the e-Q5’s slightly lack­ing bass to a level that’s just enough (even at E6’s blue set­ting).  I think the two are a great pair­ing. (bat­tery avg. about 3 days of usage <8-10h>, pow­ered off when not in use)

ALO cable and Orotofon e-Q5
ALO cable and Oroto­fon e-Q5 con­nected to nano

CAUTION: The 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable that came with the E6 is now non func­tion­ing.  I’m los­ing sound in my right chan­nel.  When I first plugged in the jack I noticed that the jack was freely swing­ing around when the amp wasn’t clipped to my pocket (or the clip acci­den­tally became lose as I was mov­ing around).  I also found the sup­plied cable length to be a bit awk­ward, not quite short or long enough.  Either the cable is of very cheap con­struct or I wasn’t care­ful enough.  I’m now using ALO’s 30pin to 3.5mm LOD cable and I have to say the Wesston E6 looks and sounds bet­ter (the cable is about 4 times the price of the amp).  Plus you only have to worry about con­trol­ling the vol­ume level on your amp.

West­one E6 Review:
(by Emer­son) / IEMs use: UM3X RC

… once the ampli­fier is plugged in with my iphone and UM3X RC ear­phones the sound qual­ity is enhanced slightly. Lows go lower and the highs seems crisper, mids are roughly the same. The over­all sound sig­na­ture seems to have bet­ter depth as well.

The bat­tery life on the ampli­fier is pretty decent, can prob­a­bly get through two days of nor­mal usage (around 4–5 hours per day).  The equal­izer set­tings are rather vague (since I can’t find a menu/manual to tell me what each of the colours for the EQ set­tings mean) but in gen­eral the Red is a bass booster, Blue is prob­a­bly a tre­ble booster and pur­ple is a com­bi­na­tion of the two. There is also a set­ting where the EQ enhance­ments seems to be turned off (colour­less) as well..

Besides that I think there is not much to say about the ampli­fier. It pro­vides pretty decent enhance­ments to any head­phone that I use. I also use it to enhance the sound out­put from my lap­top to my 2.1 speaker set at home as well. It pro­vided more sub­stan­tial sound enhance­ments than when paired with the West­ones… It is a nice lit­tle add on to the earphones!

Westone 1 Review

Posted on by
Reply
Westone 1 with boxWest­one 1 w/ box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
Try­ing on West­one 1 IEMs for the first time, I noticed an absence of bass but was drawn in by the  clar­ity of vocals and the extreme com­fort of wear­ing them.

The Sound: 8 / 10 
Like I men­tioned above, the West­one 1’s strong point is it’s upper mids to highs. The first thing you’ll notice when lis­ten­ing to the West­one 1 is how clear the vocals sound and the detailed sep­a­ra­tion of highs.  If you lis­ten to music and with a lot of vocals (e.g. clas­sic rock) or like acoustic songs, then you’ll enjoy these IEMs.  The West­one 1 does an ade­quate job of rep­re­sent­ing the lower mids to bass.  The bass was never muddy or dis­torted, songs sounded crisp and tight.  But what was lack­ing was that kick or oomph to the music.   I couldn’t “feel” the drum­ming beats or the thump­ing sound of the bass.  My yearn­ing for more bass might be a bias towards Shure SE 215’s sound sig­na­ture (pro­nounced bass) though.   How­ever, stacked up against SE 215 in tre­ble, West­one 1 is the “clear” win­ner.  I’d say the West­one 1 has bet­ter highs than even Klip­sch Image S4. Finally, I sel­dom talk about sound stage for IEMs, but while I was run­ning a com­par­i­son of the afore­men­tioned SE 215 and Image S4 to West­one 1, I noticed that the West­one 1 had pretty good sound stage (for IEMs).  There was a bit of airi­ness and open­ness to the songs not appar­ent in SE 215 and Image S4.

Westone 1 and nanoWest­one 1 and nano

The Looks: 9 / 10
The West­one 1’s design is a pleas­ant and mod­ern rep­re­sen­ta­tion of IEMs on the cur­rent mar­ket.  And the imprinted graphic logo of “1” using green as an out­line, gives the lac­quer black IEMs an edgy feel.  Plus, the inter­twined cables also give it a seri­ous and sophis­ti­cated look to the over­all look of the design.  Finally, the low pro­file right angled jack sits nicely to an mp3 player when plugged in (the jack doesn’t pro­trude out).

Westone 1 worn on left earWest­one 1 worn on left ear

Func­tion: 9 / 10
The West­one 1 feels a bit cheap when you han­dle it for the first time as it’s light, but the defi­ciency of it’s mass is a plus when you have them on. The IEMs are very com­fort­able to wear and the com­ply foam tips give proper seal, pro­vid­ing no dis­com­fort inside your ears. This is an impor­tant point for some peo­ple with sen­si­tive ears or for those who feel that stick­ing some­thing in their ears feels for­eign.  For those using an iPhone or mp3 player with a case that has a small open­ing, the smaller, low pro­file jack fits per­fectly. (unlike the cur­rent Shure SE line).  Speak­ing of cables, they pro­vide great pro­tec­tion against micro phon­ics and doesn’t tan­gle up eas­ily.   The West­one 1 is great for work­ing out, com­mut­ing, and for any activ­i­ties you want sound isolation.

Westone 1 low profile right angled jackWest­one 1 low pro­file right angled jack

Boom for your Buck Rating: 7.5 / 10
As the West­one 1 is around $20 more than SE 215 or Image S4. They’re not the best in Boom for your Buck Rating.

Total: 33.5 / 40
If you have sen­si­tive ears, demand com­fort, and inclined towards music with good vocals and upper mids to highs, then the West­one 1 will be a good choice for you.

Pros: low pro­file right angled jack, com­fort­able com­ply foam tips, clar­ity of highs

Cons: costs more than it’s com­peti­tors, grey foam tips change colour (yel­low­ish), requires extra effort to dis­tin­guish between right and left drivers

Sennheiser HD 238i Precision Review

Posted on by
1
Sennheiser HD 238i Precision with box

Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion with box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
The Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion felt a lit­tle cheap upon open­ing the prod­uct and touch­ing it.  But after hear­ing the first note, I was very impressed by the sound qual­ity and sound stage.

The Sound: 9 / 10
These head­phones are a great per­former in the sound depart­ment and that’s what you need from a pair of head­phones, right?  First of all, the sound stage is very good for a portable supra-aural head­phone thanks to its open back design.  The music has depth and vast­ness to it.  The sound stage is much bet­ter than HD 228s and although not as good as the HD 558s, you will def­i­nitely be impressed.  The lows/mids/highs are for the most part neu­tral on the HD 238i.  The vocals and instru­ments are clear and detailed.  Mids are tight and the bass is crisp and slightly empha­sized.   How­ever, the HD 238i sounds slightly strained when ren­der­ing the ultra low fre­quen­cies.  Over­all, I really liked the sound sig­na­ture of the HD 238i.

Sennheiser HD 238i Precision with nano

Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion with nano

The Looks: 6.5 / 10
I’m not overly thrilled with the design of these head­phones.  The remote con­trol looks com­pact and cute.  But the head­phones like I men­tioned in my ini­tial impres­sions looks and feels a bit cheap.  When you wear it though it looks alright on your head.  But if you have a big brain, the head­phone looks stretched.  To break down the design,  the dri­ver and the ear cush­ion part of the head­phone looks good, but the head­band part is flimsy looking.

Sennheiser HD 238i Precision close up top

Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion close up top

The Func­tion: 7.5 / 10
The Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion is a head­phone geared towards porta­bil­ity with great sound qual­ity.  The head­phones are very light weight and com­fort­able on your head.  The ear cush­ions are very com­fort­able to your ears and there was no fatigue what so ever wear­ing them for a pro­longed period of time.  I can’t stress enough how com­fort­able they are.  You can used them indoors for watch­ing movies or lis­ten­ing to music on your com­puter.  But these are portable head­phones so you’ll be using them out­side.  First of all the sound leaks (open back) and there is very lit­tle noise iso­la­tion.  So if you use these head­phones on the sub­way or in a noisy place then be pre­pared to crank up the vol­ume and be mind­ful of oth­ers around you.  But you shouldn’t be pur­chas­ing the HD 238i if sound iso­la­tion is a require­ment for you.  It’s a trade off between good sound­stage and noise isolation/leak.  The remote con­trol works with most iPods/iPhones for play/pause, rewind/fast for­ward and vol­ume.  The remote also worked on OSX 10.6.8 for the sys­tem vol­ume and in iTunes, you can con­trol all of it’s func­tions (play/pause etc.).  I tried the con­trols in Win­dows 7 and all the but­tons were non func­tional.  I sus­pect the com­pat­i­bil­ity of the remote is an iPod/Mac thing.

Bang for your Buck Rat­ing: 9/10
I put these on par with Klip­sch Image One, but with bet­ter sound stage.

Sennheiser HD 238i Precision closeup side

Sennheiser HD 238i Pre­ci­sion closeup side

Total: 32 / 40
Pro­vides great sound qual­ity and com­fort and if you’re sold on it’s design, then you’ll be delight­fully sat­is­fied with these headphones.

Pros: nice tight bass, very com­fort­able to wear, sound stage, remote con­trol
Cons: no noise iso­la­tion, feels a lit­tle cheap, fuzzy ear cush­ion mate­r­ial gets caught on hang nails (maybe just me)

Shure SE315 Review

Posted on by
Reply
Shure SE 315 and box

Shure SE 315 with box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
Shure SE 315 is like a mid­dle child, a solid per­former in every aspect (bass, mids, and tre­ble), but doesn’t gain the atten­tion that SE 215 or SE 425/535 receives.

The Looks: 8/10
The Shure SE 315 is slightly big­ger than the SE 215 with more rounded edges. For some­one with smaller ears, the SE 315 looks a bit over­sized.  The black model is painted in lac­quer black and the SE 315 model num­ber and Shure name is embossed in sil­ver.  This makes for a very clean mod­ern look­ing IEM.  The looks won’t wow any­one, but they’re aes­thet­i­cally pleas­ing set of IEMs.  As with the rest of Shure SE line, the SE 315 has mem­ory wires around the ear so that you can loop them around your ears and the nice thick cables are detach­able and Kevlar rein­forced for dura­bil­ity.  As a result you have a cable that’s very sturdy and doesn’t tan­gle up easily.

The Sound: 8/10
As I men­tioned above, the SE 315 is solid in low/mids/highs.  Com­pared to the SE 215 it has cleaner more detailed mids and highs.  I think the SE 315 per­forms very well with the mids but the highs are a bit flat.  Lis­ten­ing to jazz/classical or music with many nat­ural instru­ments and vocals in the higher fre­quency brings out it’s lim­i­ta­tion.  But I wouldn’t say it’s a big weak­ness.  Just com­par­a­tively speak­ing to it’s older broth­ers (SE 425/535), the highs are a bit lack­ing in detail and crisp­ness. As for the bass, it’s a bit recessed and more on the neu­tral side so if you’re a bass head, you might not be impressed.  I like bass myself, but I didn’t find the bass to be weak or defi­cient.  The lows are not as tight as SE425s, but with SE425s you’re going up a level with 2 micro dri­vers vs. 1 micro dri­ver for SE 315s.  I’ll get back to updat­ing the sound qual­ity of these IEMs after 100 — 200 hours of burn in period.

Shure SE 315 closeup

Shure SE 315 closeup

Func­tion: 8/10
As with all of the SE line, the SE 315 has great noise iso­la­tion and they stay on your ears.  So they’re great for jog­ging, work­ing out, or com­mut­ing.  Also, if you live in a noisy house­hold they’re great for block­ing out the stres­sors of scream­ing chil­dren (blocks out around 30 dB).  For home enter­tain­ment  like watch­ing movies or lis­ten­ing to your CD/FLAC/Lossless music, I would invest in head­phones which pro­vide bet­ter sound stage.

Boom for the Buck Rat­ing: 8/10
The ques­tion is for twice the price of an SE 215, how do they com­pare? I would pay the extra dough for clearer more defined mids and highs. But thats just me. For IEMs hov­er­ing around upper $100 to lower $200 (CAD) range, it’s tough to find bet­ter IEMs.

Shure SE315 3.5mm jack

Shure SE 315 3.5mm jack with round end

Total: 32/40
Noth­ing too spec­tac­u­lar or infe­rior to out­line.
Pros: great all around in sound qual­ity, noise iso­la­tion, sturdy cable,
Cons: as with all the SE line, if you use mp3 players/phones with a case that has small open­ing and the jack socket is recessed  then the 3.5mm plug won’t fit

 

Klipsch Image X10i Review

Posted on by
Reply

Klip­sch X10i w/box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
Klip­sch Image X10i is styl­ish, metal­lic, tiny, and ultra light with great bass and they’re one of the most com­fort­able IEMs I’ve used to date.

The Sound: 9 / 10
When you look at the diminu­tive size of Klipsch’s top model, it’s easy to won­der if it can deliver in the sound depart­ment.  Well, I don’t know how they did it but Klip­sch has packed super charged bass with great mids and highs into a small pack­age.  I put these IEMs to the test with the bass heavy music and there were no dis­tor­tions to be heard, just tight bass.  At times I was over­whelmed by the bass.  The X10i didn’t lack in the mids and highs either.  The vocals and instru­ments were detailed and clean.  I didn’t think the highs were as good as Shure SE535 (if you pre­fer a clin­i­cal repro­duc­tion of sound, the SE535 is your answer), but hey you can’t have it all.  What the X10i has is flavour and funk that is enjoy­able to lis­ten to.

Klipsch X10i top of jewel box

Klip­sch X10i top of jewel box

The Looks: 9.5 / 10
In my opin­ion X10i is one of the best look­ing IEMs on the mar­ket.  Part metal­lic gold, part rub­ber with remote con­trol in black lac­quer, the X1oi is beam­ing with class.  The fine detail of the rounded RC but­tons with gold mark­ings add another touch to the sophis­ti­ca­tion.  And when you put these babies on, they dis­ap­pear in your ears and only the angled rub­bery part sticks out of your ears like boomerangs.

Klipsch_X10I size to penny

Klipsch_X10I size to penny

Func­tion: 9 / 10
Great for prac­ti­cally any­thing and any where (except near water).  From jog­ging, com­mut­ing, or watch­ing movies at home on your com­puter, these IEMs have great noise iso­la­tion and they stay put in your ears.  And the remote con­trol is very easy to use. There are three but­tons: 1 in the mid­dle for play/pause/talk/end call and 2 other but­tons for vol­ume.  Press the mid­dle but­ton 2x for fast for­ward and 3x to rewind.  It can’t get sim­pler than this.  The only knock on the remote con­trol might be that the mic hangs down to your chest.  So if you want to talk into it you should clip it closer to your mouth. Any­how, these IEMs will bring you audio­phile sound and the con­ve­nience of lis­ten­ing to your music and answer­ing calls on your iPhone. (Note: The vol­ume con­trol works on my Mac­book Pro OSX 10.6.8, and under iTunes all of it’s but­tons work, but under Win­dows 7 the con­trols are nonfunctional)

Klipsch X10i with nano

Klip­sch X10i with nano

Boom for the Buck Rat­ing: 8 / 10
I put these IEMs between Shure SE425 and SE535 for price and performance.

Total: 35.5 / 40
Per­fect for iPhone and iPod users who are look­ing for an audio­phile IEM with RC and enjoys bass.

Klipsch X10i with X5

Klip­sch X10i with X5

Pros:
super tiny and light, very com­fort­able to wear, awe­some bass, easy to use remote con­trol
Cons:
wires feel frag­ile, remote con­trol works only on iPhones and iPods

Klipsch X10i on top of carrying case and jewel box

Klip­sch X10i on top of car­ry­ing case and jewel box

Sennheiser HD 558 Review

Posted on by
Reply
Sennheiser HD558 box

Sennheiser HD558 box

Ini­tial Impres­sion:
The Sennheiser HD 558 has silky smooth sound com­bined with plush val­our ear cush­ions mak­ing for a sub­lime lis­ten­ing experience.

The Sound: 9/10
Sennheiser is mar­ket­ing these head­phones as mid level (in price) audio­phile head­phones. And I was excited to test them out for myself.  I pre­pared for the lis­ten, by cat­e­go­riz­ing music with a lot of mids and highs, and music with heavy bass.  For mids and highs, I lis­tened to “Hotel Cal­i­for­nia” (Eagles).   And what an expe­ri­ence, I couldn’t get over how detailed the acoustic and elec­tric gui­tar riffs sounded.  The HD 558 deliv­ered a clean upper midrange and tre­ble.  I heard that “Kiss Me Through the Phone” (Souja Boy) was a song arranged mainly in mid fre­quen­cies so I give it spin and The HD 558 han­dled it with grace as it sounded smooth as but­ter.   For bass, I threw it “Love Lock­down” (Kayne West) and “Hip-Hop” (Dead Prez), damn… these head­phones are just amaz­ing.  The bass wasn’t strong, but I loved the tight, crisp thump­ing of lower fre­quen­cies and there were no dis­tor­tions even dur­ing the heavy bass parts.  And finally to test out the sound stage, I played some games and watched movies with these head­phones.   I was totally drawn in by the depth, real­ism, and spa­cious­ness of the sound.   Put it this way, if you’re lis­ten­ing to music with­out these audio­phile head­phones then you’re depriv­ing your ears of an amaz­ing experience.

Sennheiser HD558 logo

Sennheiser HD558 logo

The Looks: 7.5 / 10
This is where the HD 558 could see an improve­ment.  The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s all plas­tic.  Hav­ing all plas­tic with­out any rein­forced metal means wor­ry­ing about the endurance of the mate­r­ial, espe­cially around the extend­able head­band area.   And usu­ally for aes­thet­ics, plas­tic brings down the appeal of expen­sive­ness.  But Sennheiser off­set this design by adding ear and head­band cush­ions made of val­our.  Plus the sil­ver gran­ite oval trim­ming around the open back design gives the head­phones a touch of qual­ity.  If you’re used to head­phones with some metal in the design then the HD 558 might look cheap to you.  But look­ing at it sit­ting beside me, the word cheap doesn’t cross my mind.  Maybe it’s because of the big Sennheiser logo stamped on top of the head­band or the sonic high fidelity it deliv­ers.  The (detach­able) cord is way to long to be portable and the jack needs a 3.5mm adapter (included) to con­nect to portable devices.  I tried wear­ing these head­phones out­doors and all I can say is that it’s huge and there’s no cool­ness fac­tor involved in wear­ing them on your head or around your neck (it’s like hav­ing a neck brace).  But inside the com­forts of your home, who care.  Is it light weight and com­fort­able to wear for hours?  Yes and Yes.

Sennheiser HD558 cable and adapter

Sennheiser HD558 cable and adapter

Func­tion: 8/10
These head­phones are per­fect for enjoy­ing music or watch­ing movies in the com­forts of your home.  As these head­phones are open back design, they have very good sound stage, but lack in noise iso­la­tion (com­pared to closed back) and the sound leaks.  So if you’re lis­ten­ing to the head­phones on a sub­way lets say, then your music will be for pub­lic affair. If you are look­ing to use the HD 558 with a portable device and using it out­doors on a reg­u­lar basis, then you need to get your­self a shorter cord with a 3.5mm jack.  Or end up hav­ing to look like below.  Plus, I read some­where that extended use of the heavy cord cou­pled with a 3.5mm adapter will result in the line in tran­sis­tor becom­ing worn down.

Sennheiser HD558 nano

Sennheiser HD558 w/ nano

Boom for the Buck Rat­ing: 8.5 / 10
For around $250 (CAD) what you get is a great mid level audio­phile head­phone.  Could’ve included a car­ry­ing case and sup­plied a shorter cable for portable devices.

Total: 33/40
Pros: afford­able audio­phile head­phones, com­fort­able to wear
Cons: plas­tic mate­r­ial, noise leaks (prone to open back design), long cable (no addi­tional cables provided)