The yincrow was recommended to me by Amar, who goes under the monikers of UncleRuckus and GhandisFist.
I bought one which included a microphone
The first and most important thing about earbuds is the fit, unlike the monks I own the foams on these didn't irritate my ears, neither did they feel rough. Despite apparently being the same shell these seemed to not cause any fatigue issues like the monk which would press into my ears. The included clip mean that I could quite easily go for a run in them without them falling out.
Overall the fit of these are really good and would stay in where beater devices would usually fall out due to poor ergonomics.
Moving onto the sound the two main strengths of these earbuds are the dynamics and bass extension.
Usually, an earbud falls apart in jazz or even modern pop because they don't have the extension to even have any form of midbass. The extension of these was enough to satisfy my requirements even in films. Aside from the extension, the bass performance itself was really good, it could accurately convey texture in drums to the point where you could determine between how hard the drum was struck, etc.. mainly because you could hear the difference between sustain and notes on kick drums. This same ability was present in cellos and double bass instruments in the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack.
Moving onto the lower mids, the bass was well integrated with the lower mids, there is no real sense of bleed even in modern pop songs (like Havana) where the fundamentals and bass line were clearly separate and were resolved as such. The integration of the lower mids and dynamics leads to a very convincing sense of imaging (I will explain this in more detail later) since what you get in the lower mids is a good sense of spatial cues from the music. You can get a feel for the movements which make the sound happen. Obviously not to the extent of an hd800 or even hd580, but it is better than most other budget offerings. The timbre of the lower mids can be considered a bit wet, a lot like the HD6x0, where the decay is pretty liquid and it doesn't sound too fast, maybe even a bit slow for some.
The upper mids are in line with the mids and don't feel dipped or necessarily bumped, maybe slightly dipped compared to my hd580. A nice thing about this earbud is that the upper mid resolution is quite good for something at this price. it leads to the lower parts of the decay being in place because you have a sense of space.
The presence region of these earbuds presents some issues. There is a sense of congestion with these earbuds which comes across particularly in this region, it's more that the music feels stuffy as opposed to hazey like something with a 5k dip would cause. It's not really spiked either given that it definitely doesn't come across as nasal
The lower treble isn't dipped like the presence region seems to be and because of that cymbals have a good amount of sibilance as opposed to sounding damped like on the hd580, realistically there is a serviceable level of texture in this region compared to more expensive offerings.
the mid-treble and upper treble are dipped compared to flat FR speakers and headphones known for treble extension. These aren't the strengths of these earbuds and really anything at this price range. One thing I will mention is that the upper treble is considerably more present than a lot of iems simply because you have a greater sense of air.
The imaging of this earbud is really natural, I would consider it wider than the monks with a bit more depth using the full foams. what it does within this stage is really nice for an earbud, there isn't any significant rounding at the edges like most other earbuds, the decay seems well textures and expands into the stge, the congestion means that the seperation isn't quite as good but I wouldn't consider it smothered.
All in all it's my favourite cheap earbud which works well for running.
I bought one which included a microphone
The first and most important thing about earbuds is the fit, unlike the monks I own the foams on these didn't irritate my ears, neither did they feel rough. Despite apparently being the same shell these seemed to not cause any fatigue issues like the monk which would press into my ears. The included clip mean that I could quite easily go for a run in them without them falling out.
Overall the fit of these are really good and would stay in where beater devices would usually fall out due to poor ergonomics.
Moving onto the sound the two main strengths of these earbuds are the dynamics and bass extension.
Usually, an earbud falls apart in jazz or even modern pop because they don't have the extension to even have any form of midbass. The extension of these was enough to satisfy my requirements even in films. Aside from the extension, the bass performance itself was really good, it could accurately convey texture in drums to the point where you could determine between how hard the drum was struck, etc.. mainly because you could hear the difference between sustain and notes on kick drums. This same ability was present in cellos and double bass instruments in the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack.
Moving onto the lower mids, the bass was well integrated with the lower mids, there is no real sense of bleed even in modern pop songs (like Havana) where the fundamentals and bass line were clearly separate and were resolved as such. The integration of the lower mids and dynamics leads to a very convincing sense of imaging (I will explain this in more detail later) since what you get in the lower mids is a good sense of spatial cues from the music. You can get a feel for the movements which make the sound happen. Obviously not to the extent of an hd800 or even hd580, but it is better than most other budget offerings. The timbre of the lower mids can be considered a bit wet, a lot like the HD6x0, where the decay is pretty liquid and it doesn't sound too fast, maybe even a bit slow for some.
The upper mids are in line with the mids and don't feel dipped or necessarily bumped, maybe slightly dipped compared to my hd580. A nice thing about this earbud is that the upper mid resolution is quite good for something at this price. it leads to the lower parts of the decay being in place because you have a sense of space.
The presence region of these earbuds presents some issues. There is a sense of congestion with these earbuds which comes across particularly in this region, it's more that the music feels stuffy as opposed to hazey like something with a 5k dip would cause. It's not really spiked either given that it definitely doesn't come across as nasal
The lower treble isn't dipped like the presence region seems to be and because of that cymbals have a good amount of sibilance as opposed to sounding damped like on the hd580, realistically there is a serviceable level of texture in this region compared to more expensive offerings.
the mid-treble and upper treble are dipped compared to flat FR speakers and headphones known for treble extension. These aren't the strengths of these earbuds and really anything at this price range. One thing I will mention is that the upper treble is considerably more present than a lot of iems simply because you have a greater sense of air.
The imaging of this earbud is really natural, I would consider it wider than the monks with a bit more depth using the full foams. what it does within this stage is really nice for an earbud, there isn't any significant rounding at the edges like most other earbuds, the decay seems well textures and expands into the stge, the congestion means that the seperation isn't quite as good but I wouldn't consider it smothered.
All in all it's my favourite cheap earbud which works well for running.
I am running them from a Keces DA-131 DAC into a Keces HA-171 amp and sound is nothing like you mention in your review. I'll continue to evaluate them but right now I'm impressed... listening to some Lee Ritenour tribute to Wes Montgomery.