[keanex]

 
Pros: Incredible fit, build quality, cable quality, removable wax filters
Cons: Small selection of tips, sound quality to price performance, cable is difficult to remove
Style: Over-ear shallow to medium insertion IEMs
Tonal Balance: Bright leaning neutral
Listening Set-Up: Sansa Clip+ (Rockboxed), Sansa Clip Zip (Rockboxed), MusicBee (WASAPI) -> Oppo HA-1
Cost At Time of Review: $320 at Otojoy.
 

Reviewing Process

The SD-1s have had music played through them for 100 hours before forming an opinion on them. My process for burn-in is as simple as playing music for them 10 hours a day for 10 days. During this time I’ve listened to them for a few hours, but my opinions were reserved until the burn-in was done then an additional 10 hours or more was played through them while I listened, The SD-1s has been used in minor activities like quiet walks as well as through my desktop set-up. During my time I listened to them with various genres of music and I feel that I’ve grasped the sound they produce. The views expressed here are by no means scientific or based on  graphs, just my ears. They are simply an opinion and should be used in conjunction with other reviews before making an informed decision.
 
The review is written as listened to on the Oppo HA-1.
 

Headphone Background

The SD-1s are the first IEM from the critically acclaimed StageDiver series from the German company InEar Monitoring. They have been shaped through an amalgamation of at least 500 custom in-ear scans in order to provide top notch comfort. The SD-1s is the first of the series with 1 driver in each ear and tuned to be neutral. The 1s are the new smaller sized housings of the famed StageDiver series.
 

Accesories

 
Included with the SD-1S is a semi-hard vinyl rectangle carrying case, ¼’’ stereo jack, cleaning wipes, and s/m/l single flanged tips.
 

Build and Fit

 
TLR
The SD-1S are an easy IEM to insert correctly into the ear, sitting at a medium depth, while providing great isolation and comfort. The build quality is top notch, not one alarm goes off under my scrutiny, these appear like they will last with proper care. My one complaint is that the cables are difficult to remove, I’m afraid to remove them because it requires more force than I feel comfortable exerting on them.
 
Build
Starting at the top the SD-1S are made of a seamless acrylic housing that is lightweight and molded to look as a custom IEM would. The housings offer no reason worry and are cleanly finished and glossed. The nozzle looks a little rough and could use a proper finish, but I have no reason to believe that it is a weak point.
 
The cable is entered into an indent of the housing which hides the prongs of the removable cable. The cable itself is very hard to remove though and I don’t feel comfortable attempting more than I have for fear of breaking the prongs. The positive in this is that once inserted the cable is secure.
 
The cable itself is a thing of beauty, braided with a clear protective coat over the silver internals. The cable feels wonderful, slightly flexible and super high quality with a tendency to avoid tangling. It reminds me of a rope chain actually. The cable has a y-split with a simple clear plastic cinch. The cable terminates in a 90 degree angle and feels sufficiently protected from stress.
 
Fit
The SD-1S are rather easy to insert, sitting at a medium depth in the ears. They block out a great amount of noise to my ears, conversations are incredibly difficult for me to have with no music playing, for instance. I find the SD-1S to be rather easy to position and to put into place, it only takes a second or so for me to insert each into my ear optimally. Comfort is great, I’ve had no issues wearing these for 2+ hours. Once inserted though, the SD-1S sit firmly in my ears with absolutely no signs of microphonics.
 

Sound Quality

 
TLR
The SD-1S strive to be a balanced IEM, but I feel that they miss the mark by leaning a bit too far bright. I find that the upper-mids and the highs tend to come off pushy and generally overshadow the lows to the point of ruining cohesion and balanced of a song. Some electronic genres do sound good with these, R&B and neo-Soul, for instance, but overall I find myself disappointed more than excited.
 
Bass
The sub-bass starts my journey of disappointment with the overall sound of the SD-1S. I feel that the primary issues are that the sub-bass lacks definition and that it has slower than expected decay time. The SD-1S shows that it can produce a meaningful amount of sub-bass, enough to satisfy non-bassheads, in many cases, but those who find themselves listening to electronic music regularly might be disappointed. When listening to James Blake’s Limit to Your Love I find that the sub-bass has a decent enough presence, but SD-1S sounds a bit sluggish when dealing with the speed in which the sub-bass moves at. When listening to Jay-Z’s Holy Grail I find that the sub-bass reaches low enough, but lacks any meaningful impact to convince me that I’m not listening to IEMs.
 
The mid-bass is stop two of my disappointment with the SD-1S. My gripes with the mid-bass are mostly the same as the sub-bass, lacking definition and lingering a bit too long. In addition to those issues, I find that the mid-bass starts to sound a bit compressed and unnatural at times. This rings true with any sort of recording, from a perfectly mastered album to a modern rock track, which has prominent tom hits from the drum. Toms, and sometimes kick drums, have a tendency to sound as if they are poorly tuned, or stuffed with pillows. When listening to Steely Dan’s Aja there are a few outstanding drum solos that sound rather bland through the SD-1S instead of punchy, clean and lively. The toms really suffer, sounding dull rather than energetic. This is in addition to the slowish decay times and the general lack of definition throughout this frequency range overall leaving me not fully satisfied.
 
Overall the lows leave me wanting something quicker, something more defined and something with a more natural sound. I’m left disappointed when listening to far too many genres for a variety of reasons to be satisfied here.
 
Mids & Highs
The mids suffer from some of the compression from the mid-bass. I find that male vocals and other instruments in this range tend to have a plastic/unnatural sound to them. The as the mid-range picks up in frequency this drops rather quickly. As the frequencies rise, as does the presence of the instrument. The frequency range becomes a bit more detailed, bright and dry as the sound continues up the ladder. The problem is that by the time the upper-mids are reached they come off as overly pushy, often overshadowing the lows, making bass guitars and kick drums take a background role. This creates a sound skewed towards the upper frequencies, despite the somewhat thick mid-bass range. Often songs seem far too focused on the upper-mids and highs that it ruins the cohesion of the song.
 
The highs are clear and detailed, lacking sparkle, but also not carrying any real fatigue with them. The highs do come off dry though, creating a very rigid listening experience with horns and other instruments in this range.
 
Overall I feel the highs need to be toned down a little and the compression that leaks into the lower mids needs to be fixed. This would greatly increase the balance of the SD-1S..
 
Presentation
I feel that the soundstage on the SD-1S is sufficiently wide with some depth, though it’s clear that the sound is coming from an IEM. There’s no real openness here, nor is there any real sense of proper imaging. The instruments are clearly positioned where they should be, but I get no sense of stage imaging other than left, center, or right. Instrument separation is average at best, it’s acceptable, but it adds to the flaws of the sound.
 

Overall

Initially I found myself quite enjoying the SD-1S, but as I delved further and further into their sound I became less and less satisfied. I feel that the upper mids and highs have a tendency to come off far too pushy, making many tracks feel one dimensional. I did enjoy many warm sounding songs, modern soul for instance sounded rather great, but I don’t feel that the SD-1S provide an overall experience worth recommending. For those who do want the fit and build quality of these with a fantastic price to performance ratio then I highly recommend looking towards the SD-1S’s big brother the SD-2.
 
See more photos here.