[SmOgER]

Long story short...
I was looking to buy some somewhat portable and nice headphones to use with my Nexus 5. Then I stumbled across a sweet deal for CAL! 2 costing $79.99. I've done some research and figure out I need to buy a cable for them as the stock one is no good for SQ. So I ordered a cable and was about to pull the trigger on the CALs as well. However that's when I noticed those awesome looking Pioneers. Them being wireless and supporting NFC is one more thing I like about them as well. I couldn't find many reviews, but the ones I've found seemed to be really positive. In the end I just couldn't resist and just went ahead and ordered them.

Looking forward for receiving them and will update this once I get my hands on them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Build quality: Metal + pleather, no creaks, no give, everything is sturdy and very well put together. Quite impressive, S500s feel like a toy in comparison.


As for the proportions, these are quite substantially smaller, but in a way that it doesn't (negatively) affect comfort at all.

Some pics: http://imgur.com/a/AiFO9

The sliding mechanism doesn't have any teeth to fixate/'click' on, but it has enough resistance not to change it's position when you don't want it to. When fully depressed, they get just about as "tall" as S500s, meaning they should fit well for vast majority of people.

 

[SmOgER]

I've just found out that OPPO iLike LE103 look identical to these. I wonder if that's just a rebrand or Pioneer's way of letting China use their design to lower the production cost?

Or shouldn't I even be bothered posting this here.
Seems like folks on head-fi are lately not interested in anything at all which has a price tag of less than $150 lol.

 

[BloodyPenguin]

They are also the same as the Puro Labs Headphones:
 
http://purosound.com/
 

 

[BloodyPenguin]

Also the same as Diskin: (Though these are the noise cancelling version).
 

 

[pfloyd]

Bohm too.

 

[427951]

Rock too. XD
 

 

[SmOgER]

Wow. So does anyone have any clues what's up with that?
Are they just blatantly copying the design of Pioneers (much like the Takstar does in relation to Beyerdynamic HPs) or are all those cans have actually more in common that just the looks?

 

[BloodyPenguin]

Wow. So does anyone have any clues what's up with that?
Are they just blatantly copying the design (much like the Takstar does in relation to Beyerdynamic HPs) or are all those cans have actually more in common that just the looks?

My guess is that it is a Chinese OEM that all these companies bought from. 
 
--

 

[Snuffelkees]

 
My guess is that it is a Chinese OEM that all these companies bought from. 
 
--

 
That or they gave the right to produce under their name to some Chinese OEM. Just like what happened with Philips. TCL (or was it TLC) makes these Philips mobile phones. Has nothing to do with the actual original Philips company anymore. 

 

[SmOgER]

In either case, I've just received them and I'am pretty impressed so far

First impressions,
Out of the box without any burn-in they are light on mid-bass and sound kinda thin compared to S500s.
Yet when I EQ them I can pretty much match the S500's sound signature while getting much less resonance and better soundstage. Oh and I can't hear any quality loss because of bluetooth as opposed to the cable, really impressed in this regard. Let's burn those babies in.

 

[SmOgER]

Build quality: Metal + pleather, no creaks, no give, everything is sturdy and very well put together. Quite impressive, S500s feel like a toy in comparison.


As for the proportions, these are quite substantially smaller, but in a way that it doesn't (negatively) affect comfort at all.

Some pics: http://imgur.com/a/AiFO9

The sliding mechanism doesn't have any teeth to fixate/'click' on, but it has enough resistance not to change it's position when you don't want it to. When fully depressed, they get just about as "tall" as S500s, meaning they should fit well for vast majority of people.

 

[SmOgER]

Continuing review...


Sound:

By default, the sound signature is rather unusually focused on upper-mids mids. Close to natural sounding.

Knowing me, I'am after fun sounding headphones. Now at first I chose those Pioneers because of their design, reasonable price, build quality and wirelessness nature of them without having much clue on how they actually sound :].

Lucky me, after EQing them with poweramp the final results are really quite positive. For convenience, I will be comparing them to S500s, which are definitely no slouch and can easily beat many cans that cost around $100. Mind you I'am comparing them EQed to stock S500s, that's because I'am after impactful bass response while maintaining as much details as possible, yet avoiding "synthetic details" manifesting themselves as sparkly ear piercing highs. I think that's the sound signature that many people are after and what I would say the definition of "fun sound" is to begin with.
As for the S500s, those don't benefit much from EQ in this respect as their sound signature is already focused almost exactly towards what I've just described and that's exactly why I'll do this comparison EQed Pioneer vs unEQed JVC. I've spent enough time with JVCs to say that flat EQ is where they are at their 'most fun'. So let's proceed.



Lows: S500s have slightly more substantial mid-bass, this is where they shine. That being said, Pioneers come close and are capable of reproducing more than decent amount of it.
sub-bass- this may be a bit subjective, but I will say this:
if we try to EQ them both to the point where /sub/bass is just about to ruin the details for us and overshadow mids - Pioneers will be a bit more capable of maintaining the details while dealing with the bass.

Mids: Simply put, Pioneers are more linear sounding.
JVCs are fine and most of the time have lovely mids, but they do lack some details compared to Pioneers when you a/b them.

I won't comment on highs as to be honest other than "they sound fine on both" I wouldn't tell you much more in this regard. Quality is quite similar while quantity can be easily adjusted to your taste with EQ on both.


While we at it, I might as well mention the sound isolation:
Pioneers are quite good in this area. Sound isolation is on another level compared to JVCs.

So...


Which of these I like more to listen to?
With random equipment and not EQed - definitely S500s.
With my EQ profiles, or in other words, when both of them are adjusted to my sound preference - most probably Pioneers. They are just able to maintain a little more details and somewhat wider soundstage when I'am pushing them.

I will post my EQ settings shortly.

EDIT:
Poweramp EQ (as in EQ+tone)
http://i.imgur.com/uuIlUX4.png
http://i.imgur.com/aALxeXw.png

Considering it's set in 2 ways simultaneously, this might not be the best reference to use in other apps, but I find poweramp to be more powerful than other alternatives, so I'am afraid you'll have to deal it.


Oh, and regarding different branding, don't take my word for it, but judging by the Amazon reviews of different brands of similar design I'am pretty confident that pads, dampening, in some cases vents (certainly) and quite possibly the drivers themselves are different among different brands.

 

[SmOgER]

Just in case somone might be interested or I will need to recover my preset

Current settings after more burn-in and more listening.

in poweamp advanced settings direct vol control disabled; bt direct control enabled.


This thing is a beast!
The details it's capable of reproducing along the impactful bass is really quite amazing.




PS. Factory FR peak/hump is somewhere around 1khz.
For the reference in the above image 2k is at +2dB, preamp -6dB.

Update:

around -5dB at 250Hz.
Increases the punch, improves clarity and lifts the veil from some recordings.


--------------------


It came to my attention that SBC vs AAC could affect the FR.
My impressions were written based on listening to them in SBC 53 bitpool mode.
AAC over A2DP isn't supported on Android and I couldn't quite make it work with OS X either. But I imagine pairing with iPhone A2DP should default to AAC.
Even though there is no perceivable SQ difference to speak of between those 2 codecs (if SBC is running in HQ 53@328kbps joint stereo mode), AAC is more efficient and as I mentioned it's possible that different encoding could affect FR of the built in BT DAC and therefore needed EQ adjustments could be different.

 

[SmOgER]

iPhone* [AAC A2DP] Neutron settings:






*Phone in question is iPhone 5S. Should sound nearly identical with other iPhones though.

Could squeeze in more volume but it's fine for now.

PS. Posting this not to lose my settings and have them somewhere safe lol.

 

[Angular Mo]

Do any of these have side tone that works well with an iPhone?