It's not free to you, but it was to me. I was not even interested in this IEM until it was offered to me for free by Rose on the condition I reviewed it. I'm happy to say this is an honest 5 star review, which I know will be doubted by many because of the lack of price I paid for it. All I can say to those who doubt my 5 star ranking's integrity... read on. =)   My first and only Rose product before this was the Mojito, one of the first new flagship earbuds from the Chinese earbud revival of 2015. I was only intending to buy the Rose Cappuccino MK2...

The original iDSD Micro stood out from the competition as an all-in-one replacement for the most discerning listeners' setups. The original iDSD Micro delivered - I had one, but as I started to not need a portable device anymore, I started comparing it to all the dedicated desktop gear I had. I had a glorious DAC and some very serious stereo power amps at the time - two Hafler DH500's running in mono. By the time I had re-configured my listening station to be all desktop again, my iDSD Micro didn't have much of a place since my desktop DAC - an E-MU...

Puresounds PSA Do not purchase Puresounds products from Aliexpress Seller Hot-Fi   I was offered this item free of charge by PureSounds in exchange for a review. I have no connection to PureSounds aside from receiving this item. I paid for shipping costs to me and nothing else. Check the price paid.... zero. Free as free can be.     I have to be honest, I was not interested in PureSounds, a very new brand, and I was feeling pretty set with my earbud collection. One day, with no warning, PureSounds contacted me letting me know they wanted to...

This is the story of The Little DAP That Could.   Its introduction brought with it a storm of attention. Seemingly too-good-to-be-true, impressive specs regardless of price, ugly and attractive at the same time, completely and truly minimalistic - but hitting far, far above its price point. Even sporting some features high end DAPs can not even claim. I loved the design from the first time I saw it and was impressed from my first moment using it. It is no secret that I love the Walnut and am biased towards preferring it. After all, for those who...

The Parasound Zamp V3 is not the kind of product you might expect to see on a Head-Fi review. I already know some people are going to see this in the Reviews sidebar and start muttering under their breath for me to take it to a forum for stereo discussion. However, despite the lack of volume knob, this power amp does have a headphone jack. So, of course I had to give it a try as a headphone amp. I am here to report it doesn't disappoint one bit.   I was sick of chip amps with puny caps, no transformer anywhere except the AC adapter, and single...

Is the Qian39 the new budget king? So far, it is still a total sleeper. It is not often a sub-$10 earbud comes around that makes me question my love of the Monk so much. I'm a huge earbud junkie with a completely unreasonable collection of earbuds, and have more sets of Monk than anything, but this $7 bud which I threw in an Aliexpress order - more to pad the cart than anything else! - at the last second turned out to be one of my favorite budget buds. I was hooked on my first listen and knew these were something special. As time has gone on I have...

TY Hi-Z 650: The best Hi-Z to date.     The TY Hi-Z line of earbuds certainly is a strange one. With a murky but undeniable connection to the SeaHf line, and such a mysterious and sudden rise to popularity as they flooded the market with a huge variety of new models - especially high impedance ones (in fact, their 32 ohm Hi-Z did not come out until after at least 4 iterations of all the high impedance Hi-Z's).   ~ Introduction ~       While information of SeaHf and TY has not been centralized yet, it is all readily available online and the...

1/25/17 Update I have had this receiver for a little over a quarter of a year now. While it got regular use on my stereo in the past, it became a staple item after I set up an Android TV box. After getting used to using my PS4 controller built in 3.5mm jack with my earbuds, I wanted something similar for my TV box.... and then realized I had the inateck! It's had no problem powering any of my headphones directly out of it, with the exception of high impedance ones, which is to be expected. It does not get ear bleedingly loud, but louder than you'd...

I decided to give these a shot after having read about the older Qingyin hybrid model, the QY-20. It was described as a cold but detailed sound with decent bass extension and the tendency to change sound signatures fairly heavily depending on the source, and it's not too common to see a DIY offering these days that's only a single DD and a single BA - very basic design for a hybrid.   Well actually, I was buying myself the Musicmaker TK13/TO12 (same thing, both names) again when the store owner talked me into trying the QY-30 as well, so I did...

There are only two reviews of the godly SZ2000. Probably one of, if not the, most misunderstood headphones of the last decade. They sound strange and veiled out of the box, have some of the worst pads I've ever felt, need a ridiculous amount of power and EQ to sound their best. But I still gave it 5 stars and stand by that 100%.   You can drive them from any phone or DAP. They're pretty sensitive given their size and quad-driver setup. However they can deal with being fed way more power than most headphones can handle, and that's why they can and...

9/27/2016 edit: This review was of the Seahf 400ohm LD 3.0 which was at the time the newest model. I understand nearly identical earbuds as well as several new versions by Seahf since this came out. I have had a chance to hear the newer 4.0's of these and the sound signature is nothing like the 3.0. Please be advised anything even of the same name, by the same company, will have a differing sound signature from what I review here, unless you know it is the LD 3.0 version. The other version 400ohms as i have come to find out have very little to almost...

The E5 is so close to being a giant killer but it has a few major flaws in my opinion. This is a technically oriented review.   I like neutral sound signatures and bit perfect playback. I don't like to EQ. Is this for me?   Heck no get away fast. This is a device for people who always like to EQ and are more concerned with good/fun sound than bit perfect or accurate playback. In fact, even if you're an EQ head who loves to boost your bass, you're going to want to turn off your EQ and let the E5 handle it, because it doesn't expect an EQ'd input...

Shozy reached out to me and offered me a free set (just paid shipping+handling) in exchange for my review, and I gladly accepted. Many thanks to Shozy for this opportunity.   Even though Shozy recommends at least 40 hours burn in before usage, I started listening right away just for a few minutes, to get a sense of the "fresh" sound signature.  After about 15 minutes of listening, I put it away to burn in and did not touch it until about 60 hours had passed. I can confidently say it has improved after the burn in period. I am usually a burn in...