Mysterious Focalprice IEM's = AMAZING! Impressions and comparisons inside - Page 19

Got 'm! Well, they sound very nice at least. Not as muffled as the CX300 Ive had. You find quickly though why they're so cheap, they have to fit exactly 100% correctly in your ears, otherwise, the sound's terrible (a 30-60-90 triangle, starting at the low end not existing and only having few mids and lots od top ends). Also the cable is next to trash, very badly made (pity for such a quality sound!).

Burning them in now, and they already sound even better after 2 hours of medium volume. 

 

Pity too is, that I bought these after the CX55 were out of stock at a site. Theyre in stock now. http://dx.com/p/genuine-sennheiser-cx55-in-ear-stereo-earphone-with-carrying-bag-3-5mm-jack-120cm-cable-844034760?item=1

As they're totally refreshed on the site, all hundreds of reviews are gone, they were very very good though. And I believe they are real real, so anyone to give these a try? 

Hi folks ! My batch of XKADUNs from tinydeal just got here : black CK-700, purple CK-M700 and white/aquamarine blue CK-820. The package for CK-700 got a bit squashed in the mail, but IEMs survived unscaved. None is DOA, none suffers from out of phase problems some of you have experienced. Prior to that only IEMs in my stable were Sennheiser CX300 and Philips SHE3581 (white  3580), and only after receiving XKADUNSs now I know how driver flex sounds like. Not severe and equally distributed among above three, but I least now I know how it is like.

 

I will listen a bit, for about an hour to each, then they go to at least 50 hour burn in. Next time there will be pics to show their relative size to each other, here two unboxing videos for

CK-M700 I found on youtube:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rnRELHoShk&feature=relmfu 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn3FekiYWE8 

 

I am not the kind of person to lose too many words on packaging and accessories to cater to the ego of the buyer unless really meaningful to sonics, but packaging provided with the CK-M700 at the asking price of EUR 4,27 delivered is over the tops. And it does provide a very safe delivery of its contents.

 

What I will tend to highlight in my future reviews is actual functionality of everything in the package. I can confirm that the quality of the tips tips provided alone is worth the price of admission and to be used on other IEMs of the same dimension of nozzle regardless of price. 

 

Diameter of the nozzle ( measured with electronic caliper) :

 

CK-700 : 5,71 mm

 

CK-M700: 5,52 mm

 

CK-820: 5,71 mm

 

Sound? Pretty much like a bag of cats all going into different directions, but first listen indicates CK-820 with the mic will not be exclusively used for its intended purpose for Skype - right out of box it menaged to survive playing of Richard Wagner The Ride of the Valkyre from Sheffield direct to disc LP  without falling to pieces either on brass or massed strings which is no easy feat for any headphone, let alone at this price level. It is bassy though, probably midbass hump.

 

More in about a week.

Hi all, just posting my (not an audiophile) experience with these budget IEMs

 

I ordered 2 Black CK-700 about 8 days ago and got them today (China -> San Francisco) Both sets are wired correctly but let me just say they sound a little different.

 

The first set i opened sounded really good. Blew me away in terms of price vs sound quality, much better than I expected. Definitely a good set of beater IEMs for whatever. 

 

The second set, however, sounds alright at best. Not sure what's wrong with them but the highs can get a bit piercing and the lows aren't as low as the first pair. I'm sure a little EQ tuning can fix this issue. These might need some burn-in and let everything settle.

 

Overall, even the bad pair still sounds much better than my old EP-630 and Skullcandy Ink'd. Is it worth $10 to get one good pair? I'd say yes. I'm fairly happy with my purchase, but had both pairs been good it would be an amazing deal at $5.25 a pair.

 

Songs used to judge sound quality (to me of course ):

UGK - Intl. Player's Anthem

Kanye West & Jay Z - N***as In Paris (feat. T.I.)

Zedd - Spectrum (Original Mix)

Invader! - OMG

Michael Buble - Me and Mrs.Jones

Adele - Rolling In The Deep (FLAC)

Foo Fighters - Band On The Run

A Perfect Circle - Judith

Edited by neige - 8/17/12 at 3:52pm

I got my black pair a couple days ago and I'm finally getting around to checking them out.

 

I'm surprised to find that they DO sound significantly different than the white pair. The driver sounds like it's probably the same, but the black pair has thicker bass, sounds less cold and also mostly lacks the issue I mentioned where you have to position the IEMs in a very specific way to make the sound come through correctly.

 

I actually prefer the white ones - I like that the bass is represented really nicely in bassy songs but it doesn't seem overpowering in other types of music. The bass on the black ones permeates the sound more than in the white ones.

 

But the black ones win because they're less sensitive to ear positioning. I think they also look cooler. They also seem less prone to making certain types of recordings sound harsh.

 

Both sound great. I'm really glad I found a new beater headphone that actually sounds listenable and not just "relatively good for the price".

More thoughts on these-

 

The build quality is pretty crappy, as is to be expected with $5 headphones. I never yanked the cord, but my black pair developed a short in the plug within a couple weeks of wearing them while running every day. People should probably wrap some tape around the plug's strain relief for extra support.

 

Going back to the white pair, I have to say that the black version is superior. The white ones sound thin and cold in comparison. Still great sounding though.

 

It's almost like the treble and bass ratio is inverted between the two pairs. The black ones are better for hip hop and other bassy genres, and the white ones are better for rock. How appropriate.

So Id like to buy (I have the black pair) another set as a present, for somebody who listens rock. The other pairs mentioned (the red for example) do I want to take into consideration also.

 

Should I buy (besides I need one as present) some of this brand to try them out? Or are the black far superior?

Could you tell me a bit more about the CP-M700 and CP-820?

 

Thanks in advance,

Ruben

I don't recommend purchasing these as a gift since the quality control is pretty poor. If you want to give a very nice sounding IEM that is cheap, spend a few buck more and pick up the JVC FX40 or the JVC FX101/Philips SHE3580 if they like bass.

Excuse me for the late reply! Ill look at those, many thanks for that. 

I received this IEM (white CK-700) several months back. I let it burn in for about 100 hours, then didn't really listen to it much after that. I've just been carrying it around in my backpack as a backup. I listened to it some tonight, and was pleasantly surprised with how it compares with my Sennheiser CX485 and my Audio Technica ATH-CKM50. It doesn't sound as veiled as the Sennheiser and has a flatter FR and less sibilance than the Audio Technica. The CK-700 has the best mids of the trio. The ATH has a thicker, meatier sound, but that's probably due to its borderline excessive bass. Where the ATH sounds like a system with the subwoofer turned up too high, the CK has sufficiently deep bass without low frequencies dominating the rest of the frequency range, similar to the CX485..

It's not all good, though. The cord leaves much to be desired, and it doesn't have any cord reliefs at the earpieces. The comfort isn't quite as good as the Audio Technica, which itself isn't particularly comfortable. (Neither is remotely comparable to the comfort of the Sennheiser.)

The CK-700 isn't a giant killer, but it's still a decent IEM that offers tremendous bang for the buck at its price point.

Thought these were pretty good even ignoring the low price with stock tips. Now I'm using them with some narrow triflanges inserting them as deep as I can and it transforms the acceptable but fairly uneven treble (with an obvious peak at ~8-9kHz). Now it's much more even and has better extension too. Results will vary depending on how deep you can get them to fit, though.

Every time I come to this thread, the word 'mysterious' always makes me chuckle a bit. 

Like, they're MYSTERIOUS, in some kind of spooky sense.
 

I know this is my mind, but, whatever. I find it humorous.

They are made in a arms-guarded cave deep in the forests of China. No one knows who runs the factory, they just call him Gold Ears.Tyll Hertsens once tried to sneak in and barely made it out alive.

I bet it's Clint Eastwood, because, you know, he's omnipresent.

Just bought them from this post. I'm pretty excited to get 'em

Id like to know how they compare against the CK-700 and if possible the CK-M700. They are nice presents, so do I give the CK- and CK-M700 away. Everybody likes them, so that's a recommendation for you!