Dual Driver Excellence
A Review On: InEarz Zen-2
Review Topics:
About Me
About the product/expectations
Build/Design
Comfort/Fit
Sound
Isolation
Value
Provided free of charge during Head-Fi.org Tour
Normal Retail Price: $369.00
Pros: Awesome neutral but full sound signature, wide sound stage.
Cons: Could use a little more sub-bass.
About Me
To get started, let me tell you a little about myself.
I’m a gigging musician (lead guitar/backup vocals), an audio forensic analyst, a novice sound engineer, and an avid music lover with a wide taste in music. Being an audio forensic analyst is a plus I find when reviewing audio products simple because I know what bad audio sounds like and usually know how to correct it. My experience allows me to be familiar with the limitations of my own ears and the equipment I’m using.
For the consumers, my perspective for all my IEM reviews will be based on these things. I won’t sugar coat things or make things sound better than they are. I’m just like you and I want good value for the money I pay for any product.
To the manufacturers, I’ll always give you an option to respond to any concerns such as quality that I have during my review. I’ll contact you directly and will do so before my review is published. I want to provide an honest and tangible review for your prospective customers without being unfair to you as a manufacturer.
I’ll always be fair and my review will be based on my perspective and my experience.
Now on to the important stuff.
About the product/expectations
I received the Zen-2 on a tour here at Head-Fi.org. The tour was courtesy of InEarz and was organized by yours truly.
I am a founding member and the lead guitarist for the hard rock band Rīvul. I'm an endorsed artist for InEarz and currently my on stage performance and practice IEM's are a custom Euphoria. However I'm not being compensated for this review in any way and all impressions are unbiased and are my own.
Build/Design
The build quality of the Zen2 is very good, very much the norm that I've come to expect from InEarz. The fit of these is better than almost any universal IEM I've ever used. After a short time, I forgot I was wearing them.
The stock cable is a standard IEM cable. I compared the sound from the stock cable to several premium cables from HAN Audio that I had in my possession, including the Venom and the sound difference was negligible. A good premium cable will widen the sound stage just a bit, but because of the 60 ohm impedance of the Zen-2 there was no difference in frequency response regardless of the source used.
Comfort/Fit
I found the form factor and size of the Zen-2 to be outstanding. I had absolutely no issues with wearing them for hours with little to no wearing fatigue.
Sound
The sound of these are top notch. They come with the ADEL B1 module stock and I personally would probably opt for the G1 in order to give them a slight bass boost. With that said, they handled EQ very well, and a little 2 to 3 dB boost in the sub-bass and bass region (below 100 Hz) was all that was needed.
The clarity was really good. The low end was tight with a very flat response and a natural decay. The mids were prominent but not overdone. The high end was very nice with just the right amount of extension and sparkle. No ear/sound fatigue even after listening for hours.
Source didn't matter at all to the sound signature, but when using 24bit 96Khz Flac source from my pro audio setup, i noticed they were able to resolve with more clarity. So the Zen-2 responds to source scaling very well, but even with lower end audio straight from my Note-8, they were very good there as well.
Compared to UE900s the sound from the Zen-2 was very much ahead of the UE's. They had more clarity, more separation, and a wider soundstage. The UE900s had more sub bass but the Zen-2 lows were tighter. The mids were very comparable. The highs also were very close. The difference here was the sound stage and the clarity, the Zen-2 outperformed the UE's without a doubt.
For grins, I decided to compare the Zen-2 to the KZ ZS-6. How did they do against a cheap $40 4 driver IEM? Simple they blew them away. There was no comparison in sound quality the Zen-2 was light years ahead in everything.
I would rank the Zen-2 near the top of my list of must have IEM's. Near perfection. But understand what you're going to use them for.
Isolation
Isolation was very good. Not as good as a custom but definitely on par with most mid to high end universal IEM's.
Value
Simply put, if you can get past the more drivers is better hang up, then InEarz could double the price of these and they would still out perform or be on par with that price point. I think at the price point of $349, the Zen-2 is an outstanding value and would do well for an everyday wear IEM or for someone just starting out in the HiFi audiophile realm.