I love the openness and light weight of earbuds, unfortunately those earbuds I tried such as OMX95, MX375, were lack of bass and musicality. Then I found Fiio EM3 is under $10 and got good review, so I got it a shot.
Look
EM3 is cheap, but they don't look cheap, better than MX375. Easy going design, no logo from beginning to end. Cable quality is as good as Sennheiser CX300. No problem to plug them in those devices with thick cases. I can tell the L and R easily even in the dark, thanks to its in-line remote on the left.
It has a vent in the back, on each side of buds. Once I cover the vents, the sound change into less bass, and the sound image goes strange. Same situation as I cover the open back of my HD700.
Sound quality
Momentum 2 is my usual headphone. When I switched to EM3, I didn't feel a big drop. EM3 deliver quite open sound with musicality. Wide sound stage and very good bass response. Very satisfied.Curiosity drove me to buy VE Monk+ as well. Monk+ sounded full in mids, gave me a bassy feeling in the beginning, and yet I found the taste of bass were different. Monk+ tended to show the upper bass, and EM3 would show more lower bass. It got benefit from that when I played the soundtrack of movie <Lucy> and <Sherlock Holmes>. Monk+ also sound narrower, most of energy concentrate around mid range, some times when the vocal came in, I was hard to move my attention to instruments.
(Comparison above used each own provided foam cover.)
Look
EM3 is cheap, but they don't look cheap, better than MX375. Easy going design, no logo from beginning to end. Cable quality is as good as Sennheiser CX300. No problem to plug them in those devices with thick cases. I can tell the L and R easily even in the dark, thanks to its in-line remote on the left.
It has a vent in the back, on each side of buds. Once I cover the vents, the sound change into less bass, and the sound image goes strange. Same situation as I cover the open back of my HD700.
Sound quality
Momentum 2 is my usual headphone. When I switched to EM3, I didn't feel a big drop. EM3 deliver quite open sound with musicality. Wide sound stage and very good bass response. Very satisfied.Curiosity drove me to buy VE Monk+ as well. Monk+ sounded full in mids, gave me a bassy feeling in the beginning, and yet I found the taste of bass were different. Monk+ tended to show the upper bass, and EM3 would show more lower bass. It got benefit from that when I played the soundtrack of movie <Lucy> and <Sherlock Holmes>. Monk+ also sound narrower, most of energy concentrate around mid range, some times when the vocal came in, I was hard to move my attention to instruments.
(Comparison above used each own provided foam cover.)
