I bought these new in May 2017 from an official dealer in Germany. I receive and received no benefits from Audeze or any other party to write this review. This is only my personal opinion.
These were my first Audeze headphones and my second pair of planar-magnetic headphones. The other planars being a Hifiman HE-500 which I bought as an alternative for my Sennheiser HD 800. You will find a list of my headphones at the end of this review.
The reason for buying these was that I read a lot of good reviews about the Audeze Sine 20 and I was looking for something to connect directly to my iPhone and iPad to listen to my favorite streaming service Qobuz.
Since I bought the Sine 20 Audeze offered a 50 Dollar replacement program for their Cipher-Lightning cable, which is a 24bit DAC and DSP, and I used the offer. Especially since the original Cipher had some problems with my devices. There was often a low level, high frequency tone sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes both sides when I stopped a song using any iOs app. This happened not always but very often. The tone sometimes staid at the same frequency and sometimes changed to a different frequency. The tone staid for approx 3 - 4 seconds. None of the firmware updates changed this, but with the change to the new Cipher cable the problem is gone.
I use the Audeze HQ app with the Sine 20 which offers two presets and a 10-band equalizer but after several tries based on proposals here on headfi, I only do a 4db plus lift in the 4kHz region, maybe because I am above 50. The sound signature of the iSine 20 with the original Cipher has changed considerable and is now more laid back and less forward.
Audeze offers the iSine with the Cipher and without the Cipher. The price difference is only 50 Dollars, which I find very fair. The US market price being 599 US Dollar including the Cipher.
I tried different EQs without the Cipher cable offered by Dr. Karthick Manivannan, Director of Research at Audeze, he offered under the alias KMann on my Sony NW-ZX2 with the Onkyo app and also the Audeze Reveal Plugin for Windows 10. All of these options deliver a very similar result as using the Cipher cable.
I compared my iSine 20 with the LCDi4 inEars at the former German distributor in June 2017.
And without any doubt the LCDi4 are a completely different league also price wise with 2495 US Dollar at the moment of the review.
When considering the iSine 20, they are inEar but at the same time completely open. Which was one of the reasons for me buying them, as it makes me approachable while listening to music and it is even possible at the typical low volumes I use for listening, to have a short conversation.
Since I bought the iSine 20 I also bought via Indiegogo the Audeze Mobius, and as you can see from my personal ranking list, I would rate them very closely.
The iSine 20 are great inEars which makes it easy to listen to for a long time. They are resolving enought to hear differences between 16bit and 24bit files and they are easy to EQ to your own taste. They also sound great at low volumes and louder volumes which is a clear plus. If you are using them without the Cipher cable you have to EQ them since they sound in my opinion realy bad without EQ.
Sonically there are no negatives and only if you have listened to the LCDi4 you know how much more deep bass would be possible. With the LCDi4 I was not sure sometimes if someone had turned the loudspeakers on, in the show room of the former German distributor. A mistake that would never happen with the iSine 20.
Audeze offeres two possibilities of attaching the iSine 20 with either Clips or with so called Earhooks. I also bought the additional Clips and eartips they offered when they brought the LCDi4 to the market. To be honest none of them worked for me. So I ended up trying different eartips and finally found in the SpinFit which are specifically designed for the iSine. I can fully recommend them. When it comes to the clips I also had finally settle for a third party solution as Audeze clips where just too thin and too uncomfortable. Also they break easily. So I bought 3D printed clips which attach to the iSine from a fellow headfier and which allow clips from other inEars to be attached. Now the solution is great but I wished Audeze would have come up by themselves with great eartips and clips. But you can not ask everything.
Besides these caveats, I can full recommend the iSine 20 because of their good imaging, versatility to become the inEars you want them to by by EQing and their open build which is good for work environments and partners who want to be able to address you at all times.
Ranking of headphones I own:
1. Sennheiser HD 800 (with french Helmholtz mod)
2. Fostex Massdrop TH-X00 Ebony
3. Audeze isine20
4. Audeze Mobius
5. Beyerdynamic DT 1770 Pro 250 Ohm
6. mitchell & johnson MJ2
7. Hifiman HE-500
8. Sennheiser HD 630 VB
9. Sennheiser HD-25
10. Beyerdynamic DT 770 80 Ohm
11. Audiofly AF78M
12. Pioneer SE-LTC5R-T
13. KZ ZSA inEar
14. Hifiman RE-400
15. Ultrasone Edition 9
16. Etymotic ER4S
17. Audio Technica Sovereign ATH-EW9 Clip-on Headphones
18. Westone 3
19. Harman Kardon BT
20. Stax SR-001 MK2
21. Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7
22. iGrado
Previously owned:
AKG K-1000 with BAP 1000
Audio-Technica ATH-ESW1
Audio-Technica ATH-W1000
Audio-Technica ATH-W5000
Sennheiser HD 650 (with Cardas cabel)
Beyerdynamic DT 911
Stax 4040
Stax 4070
Stax Omega 2
Beats by dr dre studio original