Sound:  Heavy, warm and rich.  So in a completely different turn from the 99’s these are all warm and sumptuous.  The bass is warmly rich, rather largely scaled and very rolling, pleasing on the ear.  They are very weighty with a strong follow through.  Everything on them is so easy on the ear, warm and rich, smooth, oh so smooth a presentation.  Everything on them sounded so pleasing and enjoyable.  Never hurried, dry or open they don’t really suit stuff that needs to be so, they also really can’t convince you of a breathy presentation.  They make everything warm.  As such slow, more bassy, smooth vocal tracks with a relatively light treble work best.  The treble is moderately detailed but its softened and slightly meted presentation means that treble heavy stuff, well it gets warmed up considerably.  If these were a drink they would a creamy mug of hot chocolate with some marshmallows floating, slowly melting on the surface.  While it is lovely and is perfect for certain things, like of a snug winters evening but if you want something to jolt you awake with its clarity and lightness, this is not it.

Aesthetics:  These grey pair looks great to me and they come in a crazy blue too.  They look too vibrant but these I think look very civilised and mature.

Sound:  These are heavily bassy and with that high clamping force, with the tightly sealed cups and the tight seal on the ear pads, oooh they punch.  Punchy punchy punch punch.  Now me, that was fun for a little bit but oh my, it just wouldn’t stop with the punching, thumping bass lines.  So much vigour, so much aggressiveness in the bass I found it rather tiring.  Like a hyperactive child, fun in small doses but god it never tired or mellowed.  Super crazy party bass time.  Now if that’s what you want, awesome.  With their snug fit and energy they would be great for a run or for an hour at the gym.  Securely on your head and driving you on with its relentlessness.  Not to mention that with the +’s ability to be its own source its perfect for those places where you don’t want your £700 phone around for it to be potentially damaged.  They are just full of bass, hard punchy bass and if you get them it’s for that.  The mids are really nice and they can do vocal heavy stuff well.  The treble too is nice but they are a little lacking in abundance.  They respond well to EQ but the treble is clearly aiming to be very forgiving to bad bit rates or bad mastering.  You know like mainstream chart topping stuff tends to be. 

Sound:  These are heavily bassy and with that high clamping force, with the tightly sealed cups and the tight seal on the ear pads, oooh they punch.  Punchy punchy punch punch.  Now me, that was fun for a little bit but oh my, it just wouldn’t stop with the punching, thumping bass lines.  So much vigour, so much aggressiveness in the bass I found it rather tiring.  Like a hyperactive child, fun in small doses but god it never tired or mellowed.  Super crazy party bass time.  Now if that’s what you want, awesome.  With their snug fit and energy they would be great for a run or for an hour at the gym.  Securely on your head and driving you on with its relentlessness.  Not to mention that with the +’s ability to be its own source its perfect for those places where you don’t want your £700 phone around for it to be potentially damaged.  They are just full of bass, hard punchy bass and if you get them it’s for that.  The mids are really nice and they can do vocal heavy stuff well.  The treble too is nice but they are a little lacking in abundance.  They respond well to EQ but the treble is clearly aiming to be very forgiving to bad bit rates or bad mastering.  You know like mainstream chart topping stuff tends to be. 

 

Sound:  Like their siblings the Vyrus these are beasts.  Loads of vigour and potency encapsulated in such an itty bitty package.  Their dual driver, push pull configuration means that the bass especially is so unyielding and firm.  Its gloriously good and manages to pull off a magnificently dark and grand acoustic signature.  So epically scaled in their power that to borrow from my Vyrus review, paint an image of dark and stormy night.  That foreboding sky, so dark yet with flashes of lightning flittering across the broad expanse of sky.  The darkness, the brilliance of the lightning, the bass the mesmerizing shimmer of treble providing contrast.  It is all an extravaganza of wonder that you seldom see these days.  So often bass, that darkness comes with great dollops of richness and warmth, not that they are bad things but I find this dark, this more greyly monochromatic presentation comes across sooooo much more clean in its presentation.  It may not be for everyone but I find it to highly refreshing whether you go for stupid amounts of bass or blindingly bright in your filter choices.  There is just something so pallet cleansing about the Sabre’s sound, love it.

Value:  Stupid good.  Right now it seems to have had a price cut and I’d be surprised if it stays there long.  For smooth and mid centric gentle listening it is a steal.  Bluedio have just totally undercut the rest of their range but for those buying it’s hard to find a reason against grabbing one of these.

Sound:  Oh so much of an acoustic contradiction.  They have such a scaled, darkness to their body, their bass is so firmly ridged.  Solid, like some darkened gothic castle wall.  The treble instead of injecting light is more like a flash of lightning across a darkened stormy night.  There is the flash streaking across the sky, a brilliant, delicately beautiful fractal like streak yet that crack of thunder booms forth announcing its raw power.  Visually lightning is so fragile yet cracks out of nowhere, then it hits the ground and obliterates whatever it hits.  The bass here is that thunder clap, dark and foreboding yet such unyielding power.  The treble like the crackle of lightning across the sky, a light flash of brilliance.  You can of course play about with the relative abundances of them both with the stupid number of filter options.  You want more flashes of light?  Swap to a more trebly filter.  You want that solid unyielding bass to diminish, swap to bass lighter filter.  Personally I went with the Gold with dampener and it was like an acoustic thunder storm and very much fun.

Sound:  There is no way around the fact that these are bass monsters.  They have gobs of bass and it’s overwhelming at times, oppressive, suffocating to the mid rand treble ranges.  The bass is the star of the show and it’s not in the least reticent about letting you know it.  Big bass cannons, monsters well and truly.  If you’re after something with huge bass and you want Bluetooth then you’re onto a winner with this one.  The bass is vast and ever present.  Its depth is a little so so in the lower reaches the bass is mostly in the middling and upper bass ranges where it dominates.  The bass influences the entire spectrum and does throw a bit of a veil over vocal details and treble.  It’s a not a detail orientated headphone and its softened treble is super highly forgiving of badly recorded, mastered or bad bit rate music.  Just the sort of thing many might want for charty top 40 stuff.  Gobs and bobs of big, weight, hearty, thickly warm bass.

Value:  Very nice, with its Bluetooth, micro SD card playback, aux in and not to mention its own control app that even lets you set up a daily alarm clock its very versatile.  It does need a little EQ to be its best but it’s got some nicely competent drivers in it.  It’s a great value little thing. 

Sound: Excellent.  In every acoustic aspect I was impressed by these.  They are quite boosted in the bass so purists may not entirely happy with them but its quality is excellent.  I loved its quantity too, sure it’s a bit overly boosted but for most that isn’t any sort of problem.  The mids are also superb, a bit creamy which errs them towards intimacy but they have great detail levels are gloriously flowing over the ear.  The treble too is excellent quality.  For a BA they have a faintly rounded impact and a bit of a weightily warmed decay.  Bright and airy stuff is little bitty oppressed, there is a darkened slant and a bit warmed but it perfectly pairs with my own tastes.  Love it greatly.  The bass is rich and rather deep, it hasn’t the mast amazing depth but for the money, its most impressive and capable.  The mids too are sumptuous and flowing, there is such a creamy effortlessness to them they just flow round the ears with such ease.  No matter what they do warm things a smidge but I love their rich tonality.  The highs too are spot on to my tastes.  They are a hair rounded in the initial impact and they have a slightly over quick decay but again, that price tag, seriously excellent stuff for their price. 

Value:  At £66 it is rather capable for its tiny size and if you want tiny I don’t know anything better.  However at £130 for the wood one, err, no.  Sorry LG but its launch price of £150 is just crazy.

Pro’s:  Myriad functionality.  Acoustically competent.  Versatility

Sound:  Bass.  Like the blond girl who thinks she’s fat says, “All About That Bass.” Just as with their siblings these have some slight acoustic differences but they are clearly cut from the same cloth.  The bass is what is dominant, it’s very noticeably apparent too.  They are bass cannons pure and simple yet they are quality bass cannons.  The bass might not be HD600 quality bass but the quantity level, that is on another planet.  Its hugely beastly, mammoth, gargantuan bass that is either going to be exactly what you want or you’ll hate it.  It isn’t purist, audiophile headphone with just a bit of added bass its loads of added bass.  It isn’t something that you’ll be playing back Susan Wong or Diana Krall.  These are poptastic, top 40 headphones for slamming you with their basslines.  What is a great boon to their sound signature the bass has been nudged down a little in the mid/bass cusp region so while the mids and treble are influenced it’s not massively so.  The mids especially have a bit of space so they have a better clarity than that bass level would suggest.  The treble too retains a credible degree of composure and competence. 

Sound:  Wow.  Dazzelying brilliant a cacophonous extravaganza of excitement and mesmerising dazzle.  The bass is super tight, lithe, so clean and punchy when you amp it well.  Somewhat less so from a phone but still it feels very fast for a dynamic.  The driver seems so light and agile.  The mids are nice, I could do with more a PL-50 buttery yumminess as these are bit open and slightly dryer than id find ideal.  Beautifully clear and can pair up very well with well recorded vocals.  A very good semblance of scale, openness and grandeur.  I would rather a bit more creamy and intimate presentation as it can feel a little coldly distant.  The treble, the treble really is the star of the show.  It’s insane, so talented, so fast, so ultra-cuttingly clean.  It is just so spectacularly talented, so much refinement which is just as well because there is lots of it.  In particular the extension here is very much more so than most.  It has a highly energetic far high end and it’s incredible.  It’s so praise worthy but my word, it was ever so tiring on my ears.  So spectacular, so desperately capable but this could never be my only headphone.  Like sucking a lemon these are something so clean, tart and refreshingly intense.  It just can’t seem to do chill and mellow.

 

Con’s:  Physically rather large.  Want amping.  So so Isolation.

Sound:  Ever the heart of the matter, the key attribute of an earphone is always audio quality however these aren’t just earphones.  They are also their own DAP and they are waterproof and they have a mic in them and they offer Bluetooth playback and phone call use.  You get a lot of stuff bundled into a small package.  Therefore I think you need to look at their audio in that context.  Their audio is squarely aimed at a poppy, lively, bouncy sound.  These are meant for use in the gym, running, swimming pool etc etc and so they want to be lively and engaging.  They are not aiming for a purist audiophile sound where you can relax or revel in some symphonic masterpiece.  No, they are for quick, punchy, thumpingly energetic tracks.  With that in mind that’s exactly what they deliver.  It’s a fun and entertaining, sprightly sounding earphone that helps to push you ever onward.  It’s nice, fun, happy stuff.

Sound:  Where the previous aspects were a bit so so, the sound quality is jaw dropping good.  For the price, delivered for US$26 is just insane, I mean how, how do they even post them for that never mind that they don’t just sound decent but sound incredibly good.  It really is incredible.  These being the 3^rd Superlux I’ve played with I feel I can stop with the constantly checking they send me the right thing, that I’m looking at the right price.  These sound phenomenally good for the price.  The bass is so clean and articulate.  Death is so so but open cans always are really.  The mids are filled with detail and nuance.  A little dry, which enhances the perception of clarity and openness.  The treble is likewise the same.  So detailed and nuanced but it does like to get a tiny bit over eager and when you play back bad treble it will very happily assault you with it.  It takes no prisoners and that can be rather wearing, tiring on my little sensitive ears.  However the quality is crazy.  In terms of balance they are rather even with a slight bump to the uppers so the bass in particular with its open lack of depth can be over shadowed.  Bass head cans these are not.  Perhaps treble head ones maybe.

Sound:  Wow.  These are so good and so cheap that I cannot escape the feeling I must be making a mistake.  That old adage too good to be true, these are so cheap that they cannot possibly be true.  They just cannot get a triple drivered IEM this nicely built and this good sounding in at this price, you just can’t.  Sorcery, witchcraft I say, PMV must have a pact with the devil, pitch forks and torches at the ready everyone!!!  Joking aside, I really cannot escape the feeling that these are too good to be true.  Their bass is bigish, rounded, warm, with very nice depth and though a touch slow is more than nimble and fast enough.  The mids are a touch warmed too but BA clean and forthright. The clarity more than covers the warm flavouring they’ve applied.  Not the best mids ever but good god for the price they have so much detain and nuance.  Highs, perhaps a little sedate for some, I like it.  It’s my favoured, warmed, tamed, only a tiny bit of an edge but with a goodly shimmery decay.  It’s so refined and of such a quality you will want to feed these nicely.  Good bit rates, good source etc etc.  The overall presentation is a little bit bass slanted a W so it’s not going to be perfect for everyone, I mean that bass is a bit over abundant and ever present for me but, *** they cost US$80.  How?!?!?!?  If when the worst I can say acoustically is they a bit too bassy and a touch over fond of instrument separation it’s not exactly damning is it.  These are good in a way you think a product double this price might be, not this.