Peddler
1000+ Head-Fier
MPOW are making some pretty impressive sounding inexpensive headphones - they’re focus appears to be on wireless bluetooth models and they are proving to be very popular. MPOW very kindly sent me a pair of their all metal, dual driver in ear monitors free of charge to review.
Background
Long ago I used to have a really nice turntable-based hi fi system. I spent a lot of time listening to it - fine tuning it and getting the sound I wanted. When my first child came along I decided that it would be more practical to downsize and use headphones rather than large speakers - and that’s the way it’s been for me for a long time now. From cassette-based Walkman’s through portable CD players, Mini Disc and eventually MP3 players, I tend to use portable equipment rather than full sized for convenience and rapid access to my music.
My current listening equipment consists of the following:-
Players
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (rooted, running Viper4android, Neutron and Spotify).
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (running stock Android, Neutron and Spotify).
Topping NX2 dac / amp
Apple imac
Apple IPOD Nano
Headphones
Audio Technica ath-m50x
Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10
Sony XBA-H1
MPOW Swift
My listening tastes have become somewhat varied in recent times - rock, classical, folk and electronic - this means that I want headphones which don’t favour one particular genre of music but rather work well with all sorts.
MPOW Dual Driver IEM’s
The MPOW’s certainly look impressive. Completely metal (with the exception of the cable and rubber tips of course) and surprisingly lightweight considering what they’re made from. They have a neat grill in front to prevent earwax and other nasties from getting inside the works and they come supplied with three different sizes of tips. The packaging is very basic - a cardboard box and bravo to MPOW for doing this - fancy packaging should be made a criminal offence in my opinion.
The cabling is the flat style like that used on the Sony XBA series and the headphone jack is of basic construction - no fancy braiding or heavy duty metalwork on the plug side but nothing to raise concerns either. The rubber tips are very good - slightly firmer, slightly rough (which helps with keeping them in place) and slightly red. The phones also feature a single button remote control on the right hand cable which works perfectly fine on both my Android devices and the Apple IPOD Nano. The cable attaches to the buds in a very secure manner - I gave them a good tug and they didn’t break.
Sound Quality
Right. Down to business. It doesn’t matter how well designed, how space age the materials are or how comfortable the fit if the headphones themselves sound like a bucket of bolts. The MPOW’s sound extremely bassy. Mind-numbingly bassy. They go so deep in the bass that heat from the Earth’s core started to warm my ears. With this in mind I turned up the volume and started to rock-out. I like my sound to be neutral and these definitely are not that. The thing I did like about these phones is that they are not at all harsh - very mellow. Perhaps a tad too mellow but certainly not fatiguing - and that’s something that I do like. With this in mind I fired up Viper4android and started altering the EQ to try and level things out a bit - take the bass down and bring the treble up and had another listen. Still mellow but with some really nice detail coming through. Listening to The Wall by Pink Floyd revealed some details in the background that I had never heard before - impressive.
Even with EQ applied the lower end of the audio spectrum is really pushed out hard. I personally don’t like this type of sound balance when intently listening to music. I do like it at low levels at night - the additional bass boost really works nicely. This balance can also be nice when listening to some older recordings that are perhaps lacking in the extremes. The headphones are very efficient and can be driven pretty loud from portable sources.
For the price, these are pretty nice headphones - especially if you like your bass. They are certainly very well made and I suspect you could stand on these without them breaking - this makes them ideal for use in harsher environments.
All in all, a cautious recommendation.
Background
Long ago I used to have a really nice turntable-based hi fi system. I spent a lot of time listening to it - fine tuning it and getting the sound I wanted. When my first child came along I decided that it would be more practical to downsize and use headphones rather than large speakers - and that’s the way it’s been for me for a long time now. From cassette-based Walkman’s through portable CD players, Mini Disc and eventually MP3 players, I tend to use portable equipment rather than full sized for convenience and rapid access to my music.
My current listening equipment consists of the following:-
Players
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (rooted, running Viper4android, Neutron and Spotify).
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (running stock Android, Neutron and Spotify).
Topping NX2 dac / amp
Apple imac
Apple IPOD Nano
Headphones
Audio Technica ath-m50x
Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10
Sony XBA-H1
MPOW Swift
My listening tastes have become somewhat varied in recent times - rock, classical, folk and electronic - this means that I want headphones which don’t favour one particular genre of music but rather work well with all sorts.
MPOW Dual Driver IEM’s
The MPOW’s certainly look impressive. Completely metal (with the exception of the cable and rubber tips of course) and surprisingly lightweight considering what they’re made from. They have a neat grill in front to prevent earwax and other nasties from getting inside the works and they come supplied with three different sizes of tips. The packaging is very basic - a cardboard box and bravo to MPOW for doing this - fancy packaging should be made a criminal offence in my opinion.
The cabling is the flat style like that used on the Sony XBA series and the headphone jack is of basic construction - no fancy braiding or heavy duty metalwork on the plug side but nothing to raise concerns either. The rubber tips are very good - slightly firmer, slightly rough (which helps with keeping them in place) and slightly red. The phones also feature a single button remote control on the right hand cable which works perfectly fine on both my Android devices and the Apple IPOD Nano. The cable attaches to the buds in a very secure manner - I gave them a good tug and they didn’t break.
Sound Quality
Right. Down to business. It doesn’t matter how well designed, how space age the materials are or how comfortable the fit if the headphones themselves sound like a bucket of bolts. The MPOW’s sound extremely bassy. Mind-numbingly bassy. They go so deep in the bass that heat from the Earth’s core started to warm my ears. With this in mind I turned up the volume and started to rock-out. I like my sound to be neutral and these definitely are not that. The thing I did like about these phones is that they are not at all harsh - very mellow. Perhaps a tad too mellow but certainly not fatiguing - and that’s something that I do like. With this in mind I fired up Viper4android and started altering the EQ to try and level things out a bit - take the bass down and bring the treble up and had another listen. Still mellow but with some really nice detail coming through. Listening to The Wall by Pink Floyd revealed some details in the background that I had never heard before - impressive.
Even with EQ applied the lower end of the audio spectrum is really pushed out hard. I personally don’t like this type of sound balance when intently listening to music. I do like it at low levels at night - the additional bass boost really works nicely. This balance can also be nice when listening to some older recordings that are perhaps lacking in the extremes. The headphones are very efficient and can be driven pretty loud from portable sources.
For the price, these are pretty nice headphones - especially if you like your bass. They are certainly very well made and I suspect you could stand on these without them breaking - this makes them ideal for use in harsher environments.
All in all, a cautious recommendation.
