[radi9red]

Hey folks , my 25th pair of earphone (i'm sure there are folks here who had 100s ..lol ) just arrived this morning delivered to my doorstep.  Anxiously ripping up the parcel,  I was almost late for work.
 
Here it is !   Woodbolt Earphone (handcrafted rosewood ) from Apollo Audio Lab.
 
What a classic beauty.  Look at the wood grains !  I examine it closely, the wood has breathing pores as well.
I like the metallic ring (it's orange copper / dark orange coloured) - i am sure it protects the wood casing as well.  I wouldn't want to accidentally squash it. 
 
Their website has better close ups photos than mine
http://apolloaudiolab.com/product-information/woodbolt-Earphones/
 
Previously I bought griffin's woodtone previously when I saw it in store overseas. Pardon me, but they sounded horrible and it literally broke into pieces within months.  The beech wood that comes with the griffin's woodtone looks like some veneer wood, resemblance those wood shavings moulded.
 
I'm glad that this woodbolt looks way more robust and certainly looks like milled from a solid piece of wood as stated in the website   Hope it can endured my rough treatment of using these constantly on the move.
 
I opted for the promotional offer over their online store , upgraded to the 8 wire braided silver plated cable  , hopefully it sounds better than the stock cable.  Anyway there's no switching back to the stock cable since it wasn't detachable.
 
Here's some photos taken earlier, apologies not well taken as it was taken using mobile phone. 
 
I had burn-in for 9 hours now,  will give it some serious listening tomorrow and give some feedbacks for those who are keen.
 
 

 
 

 

 

[radi9red]

Woke up at 7am today, made myself a cup of coffee and sunk into the sofa couch , with the Apollo audio lab ,  Woodbolt earphones attached onto the iPhone 6.     The sky was barely bright and proceed to take my dosage of music therapy.
 
Tested over 20+ tracks full HD music videos.   notably the following :
1. Jennifer lopex - waiting for tonight
2. Missy Higgins - Where I stood
3. Katy Perry - thinking of you
4. Gwen Stefani - Early winter
5 Ellie Goulding - lights
6. Maroon 5 - Animals
7. Passenger - let her go
8. The lumineers - Ho hey
and more..
 
Afterwhich, I proceeded to test that on the AK100 , ibasso and playing digital flacs from my PC connecting to the Parasound DAC rack..   On the AK100 they sounded best , probably that was the player I had used for a long long time - output similar to direct iPhone 6.   The earphones were rather optimal for mobile phones,you only need to bump up the volume a little.   Ibasso and the Parasound ZDAC output were similar - the clarity was pretty improved.  
 
Overall impressions :  The woodbolt earphones sounded really like wooden bookself speakers attached onto your ears !
Warm , lush tunes , beautiful vocals (male and female) , accompanied with wide soundstage of musical instruments placement
 

 

Initial impressions :
 
Strengths :  This earphone really shines , excels and blows the other earphones that I had in the beautiful mids.   There were so textured and full of character.   The vocals were so amazing  !  Perfectly centered, I now truly enjoyed these music videos even more. I had heard these videos for probably over a year, on different occasions using different gears.    
 
Woodbolt really brings out the tones, pitch and voice of the vocals really well.   All these shows the low end of the MIds , Middle frequency and the upper mids were really beautiful.
 
In most pop / vocal centric songs, the musical instruments (piano/ violin / drums etc) were mostly complimentary to the singers.   In the woodbolt earphones, that was certainly very adequately matched as well.   These background instruments were placed on the left and right within the sound perception .  I can hear the pianos, cymbals, triangles, hi-hats on the background (left and right), and that seems quite detailed and yet, it didn't distract the vocals that was placed in the centered.     Overall , the earphones had very good 3D music visualization and audio reproduction.    I'm sure most of the folks had heard entry level earphones that are a couple of dollars and they make sound  - flat boring and and certainly not music.   The 3d soundstage that I felt its presence  is probably credited to the air-vent flow technology or the silver plated cables - as we all know silver cables elevate the highs and mids. 
 
The bass were deep with resonance and with good dynamics,  you can probably differentiate the different bass notes in there.   Kick drums and cello low notes were again, beautiful and hitting with impact.  - it really reminds me of the wooden bookshelfs speakers that I missed dearly.
 
 
The motion air-vents were incredibly tiny - 6 of them., I think they are smaller than 1mm. wonder how did they get drilled ?

 
 
The box and the steel warranty card .   They are the same as Steelbolt.
 

 
 
 
 
Cons :  
It has a different style comparing to highly accurate BA drivers IEMs. After all, despite this being a dual diaphgram speaker (which is similar to a 2 speaker system - High+mid and lows) , the clarity of any dynamic drivers are different comparing to BAs.    If you are looking for an earphone that is critically sharp on every single note and precise,  then you will probably not favour the woodbolt.   
 
 
However,  if you are looking for an excellent piece of earphone that really sings and  hums beautifually..... I think this is a gem !
 
 
Summary :   All these while , I had searched high & low for a pair of wooden earphone,  not because I wanted it to have that wooden timber skin appearance, I wanted the earphone to have genuine warm feel, lovely tones emitting from it. I highly rate the woodbolt based on their performance as it really were almost identical to a pair of expensive wooden bookshelves speakers and vocals based songs sounded heavenly !  
 
I also suggest you upgrade the cables especially it's almost free now during promotion., the hand-braided cables look lovely together with the wooden earphones. 

 

[Stuff Jones]

They look really nice.
 
But isn't nice wooden timbre wasted on all those synthesized pop sounds from your play list? Wood works best with instruments made from wood. Piano, guitar, cello - all those sound exceptional on wood.

 

[radi9red]

  They look really nice.
 
But isn't nice wooden timbre wasted on all those synthesized pop sounds from your play list? Wood works best with instruments made from wood. Piano, guitar, cello - all those sound exceptional on wood.

Yeah I did tried some a couple of tracks from Vivaldi , Vanessa Mae - fast instruments , and some jazz - ella fitzgerald , billie holiday etc.  They sounded great as well.  
 
I'm not a big fan of pure classical instrumental genre, I probably doesn't know what's is going on or the complexities and techniques in playing those, haven't learnt to play instruments before.  But , I agreed with you , those types would sound exceptional on speakers with wooden enclosures generally.
 
I'm pretty satisfied that the Apollo audio lab woodbolt earphones does fit to most genres that I'm listening to and It will get some quality time spent on them listening to it.   There are many earphones (hybrid / BAs) etc that I bought previously, they performed brilliantly in some areas but at the end of the day, it's always in a box tucked inside the drawers. It all goes down to which type of sound signature you favoured more.