Marcus_C
1000+ Head-Fier
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In the absence of any other sort of review this is one for H20’s surge mini-pro. I think (correct me if I am wrong) I am about the only member of head-fi who owns these earphones. I’d be interested to know of other’s experiences with them. They have a cheaper/bigger brother which was reviewed by Joker in his mammoth thread. Either they don’t suffer the same problems though or he didn’t mention it.
I have three Sony DAP’s, an a818, a829 and b152. I also have a Dolphin Touch. I do have a full-size amp and dac but haven’t used them with these. As far as burn-in goes I can say I’m not a big believer but I’ve had these for over 6 months now so it’s not a problem.
Build/Noise:
H20 don’t call these mini for no reason. I’ve used the phrase before but “mini-tanks” is quite appropriate, they are tiny and pretty solid. (I couldn't find any american currency) The picture below was taken yesterday and they still look pretty new. The nozzles are very tough, 6mm wide without filters, Sennheiser tips will fit in place of stock. These come with the mother of all Jack plugs, a 30” double cable topped off with a 12” Y split. The cable is pretty slim but made of a fairly hard plastic and produces some noise. Microphonics can be cut altogether by wearing over ear although memory wire is always useful for that and the cable is very light which makes it tricky. Also because they are so small it's very hard to take them out of the ear by the body, yanking the cable is far easier, always risky but it hasn't caused any problems so far. If anything does go wrong, these come with a 1 year warranty extended to 2 by registering on the website. Mostly good so far...
Packaging/Accessories:
We all like clamshell packaging don’t we? No? This is about as bad as they come. In side you get your earphones and seven pairs of tips, warranty info and some blurb. There’s no need for a filter tool but considering you just destroyed the box a case of some sort might have been nice, it seems the normal surge's do include a case too which seems a bit odd to me. If you’re going to use them solely on the water the two pairs of foam tips are all but useless, on the land they’re fine though, they’re just tougher Shure olives with a wider aperture and a slightly more rubbery texture, isolation is, naturally, improved from the mediocrity of it before. The five pairs of silicone tips are pretty generous and should cope with most ears, be careful about picking the right pair though, more on that later.
They’re waterproof:
That’s right, forget miracle trips through the washing machine still working, I’ve dived head-first into the sea still listening to these, I’ve gone swimming, taken showers, given them countless rinse outs and they still work. It’s all very good but it does lead to a few problems. For a start when choosing eartips, I generally pick the smallest, put them in as far as they’ll go, if they’re not comfortable I’ll try the next one’s. I did this with these and they went pop in each ear and I had to put another 10 clicks on the volume to get it to a reasonable volume. If you have a very loose fit and one is falling out, you can re-place it and it will go pop, you’ll have to adjust the other one to match, though most of the time they go pop together. This is all written on the h20 audio site but without it I had a few frustrating days. You need to pick a tip that fits well and if you do you should always be on one of their pressure settings. The only problem now is battery life has just plummeted and make sure to turn the volume down if you use some normal earphones.
Sound:
As far as sound signature goes these seem to be trying to get the same balance of sound as the Sleek sa6, not that much or very extended bass, quite forward mids merging nicely into the highs when necessary. I like the sa6 but something is not as satisfying about these. I’ve been half tempted more than once to try taking that piece of cotton wool I’m sure must be in there out. It’s probably due to the waterproof driver but it’s not as realistic as the Sleek. My beyerdynamic’s have a better balance of sound, sound clearer and with better extension at both ends, so, naturally they have a more immersive soundstage. Highs of the Mini-pro’s are prone to be a touch harsh when faced with too many notes at once.
There are two ways of looking at these though, when I first had them the best of the others I had to hand were, Mee M9 and Visang r02. (I'd left the beyer's/ety's back in Blighty) I preferred the r02 in more or less every way to the M9 but it was still lagging behind the Mini-pro, they sounded much more natural than any of the others, also they are built better. They are also very forgiving of source, very useful when most of your earphones aren’t.
Summary:
I’ve been meaning to write a review of these for several months but haven’t for several reasons. There are a few usability issues but most of those only reveal themselves when you're nowhere near the water, how important that is depends entirely on their user. The main reason is, i’m still not quite sure what I make of them apart from “they are earphones that sound good and work under water”, also my other earphones, in themselves not used as they once were, all sound better, so I use them more. Having said that, they only set me back £55, i'm sure there are better sounding iem's for that money and it's a lot for earphones, some may think, but if you’re seriously worried about water getting to your earphones I don’t think there’s a better sounding option.
As a footnote, I did, a month or two ago, e-mail H2O asking about the effect salt water has on these and whether it's covered in the warranty but didn't get a reply, if anyone has an answer I would be most grateful.
Also, i'm sure there are a few mistakes, if you spot them let me know.
