Thank you to Mr. Black and Mr. Noyd for the EVO in exchange for the review.
This review is also on
hypethesonics.com under their Headphone Repository (1MORE EVO - MiniHype).
The Nitty Gritty
The 1MORE EVO might be just another set of true-wireless bluetooth earbuds, were it not for one rather interesting feature, which could one day be a game changer. The EVO has 'SoundID', powered by Sonarworks. Through a series of A/B preference tests, the 1MORE Music app steers the frequency response toward the user's personal preference target. The idea is fantastic, and it does work - but only to a degree. The raw/uncorrected frequency response of the EVO is quite poor, with a single narrow-band peak around 8 kHz and no bass to speak of. So almost any EQ is going to sound better than the default setting, and this can create some initial wow factor. However, the subjective test only applies a small number of coarse-grained corrections based on rather short passages of a very limited-selection of music, none of which covers the full spectrum. The resulting EQ appears to use only a small number of fixed frequency bands and mainly affects only the low and mid frequencies; it seems no combination of selections was able to correct the deficiencies in the treble, and our resulting preference curve (e.g., HS001, made with the 'Kireyev and the Void' test track) was still not entirely where we'd like it to be. This is potentially game-changing technology, but version 2 ought to have a better DSP (the EVO has a poor impulse response, with massive excursions and very little damping), a wider variety of test tracks containing a full span of audible frequencies, a finer-grained selection process, autoEQ to a proper parametric EQ, and an underlying raw frequency response that doesn't contain any strong resonance peaks. One final thought on the design - the EVO buds protrude far enough from your ears to generate significant wind noise, even with the ANC active.
Other Thoughts
Based on my listening, the EVO without the preferred EQ sounds like a middle-of-the-road, balanced sound, not too enveloping and expansive. But using the preferred EV sounds as good as I want to hear it, which is very good! Slightly crisper highs, smoother mids, and a bit more oomph in the mid/subbass department, especially when paired with ANC in a quiet room. Out and about, the bass won't shine, even with ANC enabled.
My wife uses her EVO often, and enjoys listening via her personally preferred EQ.
Is it Worth the Hype?
Yes, if only to take that brief glimpse into the future.
