BRAINWAVZ HM5 Studio Monitor Headphones
Best bang of the bucks in five years!!
Got mine today. Takes two days directly from Hongkong. Yes, the waiting is hard for me. A little back story. I was planning getting myself a pair HD 598 from Sennheiser as my Christmas gift. However, the cost of HD 598 just doesn’t cut it. After extensive online study, I found out this nonexpansive headphone (compare to HD 598) has the potential to outperform many $300 grade headphones(I told myself that). Since this headphone is a replication of the famous FA-003. Moreover, my friend Waiting told me that HM5 is having a pre-order sale right now. I am so glad I pull the trigger at that moment.
Enough of the chit-chat, let’s take a quick look on the package. All I can say is amazing, the protector/carry box is a mini hard shell box. The color and build quality of the box itself is top notch. Better than my 270 dollar Revo sunglass protect box. I meant come on it even comes with a shoulder strap. The box itself can well worth 40 dollar. I bet I can take this box to the mall and sell it for 50 without much effort. The accessories include the shoulder strap, 1/4" adapter, extra set earpads, airplane adapter, 1.3m detachable cable, 3.0m detachable cable, Instruction manual, and Warranty card. ALL copper plated connectors!! I have not seen they do that on Monster Turbine and klipsch X10. That basically says it all. You are getting something that’s way more than $100 can give you in today’s real world. However, at this point I was thinking if it sound like poopoo maybe I can still give it to my brother or something and it would still looks like an awesome piece of headwear for Christmas gift.
Needless to say, I run to my desktop and plug this bad boy to my Fiio E7 and start checking it out. And oh my holy cow, I finally understand why some people love these and some people hate it. As for me, I am on the love side. If you listen to metal rock or punk, you have a high chance you gonna love this pair of cans. I don’t have the professional testing knowledge or instruments to do a wave compare or display. I do have oscilloscope in school’s lab and other instruments for doing the test. However, since I am a slacker and I will just review it from the feeling of my human ear. For me the most significant stand out on HM5 are the “acoustical space” and “naturalness”. Pair HM5 with fiio E7 and start playing Hinder “Lips of An Angel” and though I was in front of the stage. I can listen to any instrument effortlessly. Personally, I play guitar so normally this would be the first instrument I listen to. Trust me with HM5 is so easy to listen to certain instrument without even focusing. The space between each instrument is just enormous in a good way for me. About the “naturalness” is actually pretty funny. So I was listen to some music with HM5 on the first day I received it. I was thrilled with the headset that day and played with it till 2 O’clock something in the morning. No big deal, I start to look for websites that offer headset test file. I found the website “http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php” and start listening to the provided tracks. Boy oh boy, I play through each track till “Binaural Test” and I almost crap my pants, since it was 2 something in the middle of the night and someone is knocking on my door pretty hard. I took off the headphone and went to see who is behind the door. As soon as I took off the headphone I just realize the ambient noise in my room and outside my apartment are quite loud(desktop computer fan noise and bugs singing outside the window). I was still thinking that if someone knocked the door it would be hard for me to heard it so clearly. Apparently there is only one possibility, I put on HM5 again and play the track again. Yes, I have to take the headset off and make sure there is no one knocking on my door again!! I was sweat at the moment. This is ridiculously incredible.
Because the positioning is so well defined, I also used it for my gaming sessions. Payday the heist, the accurateness is pin point, I can reload my gun with proper distance from my enemy and catch them at the corner every time. Overall, HM5 is way better than I expected. For 100 dollar I can get this awesome headphone which worth every penny. What I hate about it is that I should have bought it sooner!
