Introduction Up for review are a pair of Sennheiser’s IE800 dynamic driver in-ear monitors. They were first released in 2012 at around $1000, but pricing has fallen to more reasonable levels, with Sennheiser’s MSRP at $800 and used pricing on the market under $500. There was a lot of controversy due to the cable design, dynamic drivers, price, and the proliferance of fakes on the market. Are they still worth picking up? Let’s take a further look.   I purchased this pair of IE 800s on Reddit after coming across them for a price I couldn’t...

Just got my Shozy Stardust yesterday. As background, Stardust is the second earbud in Shozy's lineup after the Cygnus, with a better quality cable and more refinement at the top end. These retail for $165US from Penon Audio, I got these from Shozy at the pre-order price of $150US shipped, so they are quite in line with VE Zen 2.0 in price, which I have replaced with these. Here are some impressions on Stardust/BK from me after a few hours of late night listening, with comparisons made to to VE Monk/Zen/Campfire Andromeda:   Build quality...

Stopped by Bay Bloor Radio this weekend to audition the Sennheiser HE-1 Orpheus 2 set. Only had 15 minutes, so impressions are very much stream-of-consciousness. The Sennheiser rep played snippets of three test tracks, and I had time to play two/three more snippets of songs of my own choice (all lossless, TIDAL quality or higher). Here's some notable open-back setups I've had experience with as a frame of reference in addition to my current setup of Andromeda + Mojo. I know, source gear is pretty crap but school doesn't free much much disposable...

This is a review of the FitEar ToGo! 334 4-driver balanced armature IEMs. FitEar is a Japanese IEM company, whose products have gotten a lot of praise on head-fi for their sound and build quality. Expensive as all get out, and pretty hard to pick up new outside of Asia due to the limited number of suppliers. Some comparisons to UE 900s are noted below, as that is the IEM I was coming from.   Build, fit and other non-sound related factors: Generally, these are built extremely well. FitEar apparently does a full acrylic injection for the IEMs or...

Holy hell, these are great. Nicest stock cable I’ve used, very flexible and the silver looks fantastic. Build quality for the IEMs are very good, but the aluminum has a bit of nicks from use, no big deal. Comfort is actually extremely good, despite the abundance of hard edges. With the right tips, these just disappear in the ear. I’m using JVC Spiral Dots/Ortofon L tips which have been working great. These can be summed up by having a very slight U-shaped sound signature, with very good coherence. Coming from FitEar ToGO 334!, these have much more...

Really quick, bought this at Canada Computers for a song, and it's been a great piece of kit! I had been agonizing on picking on a portable DAC/Amp combo for use with my laptop on the go, and this fit the bill perfectly. Blows the stock audio jack out of the water for sound quality, tightening up the low end, and opening up soundstage on the cans I've been using with it (SHP9500 and UE900), and construction quality looks like it's built to last. 

This little DAC is a definite upgrade over the on-board sound card on my laptop. When listening to my Westone 3s on it, the soundstage is wider and deeper, there is greater resolution in the higher frequencies, and the bass has more impact. Thing's built very nicely too, with an all-aluminum housing. There can be a bit of background hiss on more sensitive headphones/earphones; but then again, it's $15 and it's no worse than the laptop soundcard. I don't know what more to say other than the fact that it gave a noticeable improvement for $15, hard to...