# Intro/disclaimer :
- This product has been bought on my own, without any incentive from any party to write this review.
- I write this after writing the main body of the article, brace yourselves folks. It's rare I get this rowdy when writing, and my language will stray from the usual form I try to stick to, but we have some serious work to do.
-Here are the photos, still not possible to embed them for some reason :
https://imgur.com/a/QugYXpw
# First Impressions :
- The KZ unboxing is a meme at this point. Asking twice the price of a regular entry level product like a Tangzu Wan'er or Truthear Hola, you get so little in the box : the worse cable KZ ever made, from horrible outer plastic and connectors (I rate it worse than the old twisted brown cable, that says a lot) to a **single** pair of foam tips too small to be useful. No silicones, no small bore/wide bore choice, nothing.
Finally you get the IEMs themselves, which as you can see through the shell is unnecessarily large. The shell itself is one of the worst constructions KZ made in a long time, the plastic nozzle being the final spit on your face. It only reminds me of the OG ZS10, before the ZS10 Pro came out. So, just to say I'm not impressed. Oh, and there's quite the channel imbalance on my unit.
- You kinda have to change everything to use these. Dunu S&S tips seem to help the most. I went and ripped the cable from the now ancient CRN (one year in the real world is a decade in IEM world). So, even though the PR2 is quite cheap for a planar, plan the extra expenses left and right if you wanna use them. Oh, did I mention you're gonna need an amp ?
# Sound :
- Stock tuning confuses me to no end. Here I am presented with an HBB logo, so I have expectations. I already reviewed the Kai eons ago, so I know Chris' tastes. But the PR2 is way off from the HBB signature. The sub bass is pushed way too much, and that's coming from someone who daily drives an IE900. The midrange is recessed to an excessive degree, and the treble is is a chaotic mess with excess energy starting from the upper mids, finishing by a huge spike in the ultra highs. Not a pleasant listen, no matter the genre.
- I'll get to the technicalities later, but for the price of the PR2 there are much, much better options out there. Especially if you don't have adequate amplification already, the PR2 is looking even worse for consideration.
# Tonality :
- There is so much sub
bass. Too much sub bass. Way too much. To the point where you loose the midbass, and instead of hearing the note played on the bass you hear the flub of the speaker cone. It's that bad, and overshadows the low mids because of the, yes, 12dB boost @36dB.
-
Mids have seemingly been forgotten when designing, producing or anything else you can do when you make an IEM. Even with EQ (more on that later) there's no subtlety to the mids, no warmth or life or nuance, so imagine now if I tell you to listen to these without.
On the stock configuration, god forbid you use the stock tips, you simply lack any midrange characteristics.
-
Treble : the root of all evil. Not only for budget sets, not only for IEMs, but boy do we have a combo here. Remember I mentioned a 5-6 years old budget IEM earlier, the ZS10 ? Yeah, well get that instead. It's not nearly as bad as the PR2. More sibilant than the equally old AS16 way back then, but with the new twist of the IEM planar sauce, so now you get a notch at 12kHz so deep you loose most of the nuances and details you expect to hear in music, only to be kicked in the teeth by a massive and unnerving spike at 15-16kHz. This rollercoaster effect does not cause nausea, but "chalk on blackboard" types of discontent, only replace the chalk with steel nails and the board with a sheet of metal. Yeah, seems like paradise doesn't it.
# Technicalities :
- Soundstage :
Weirdly enough the stage is diffuse and confused to a degree I didn't think possible. Admittedly this is my first plaanr IEM experience so I didn't know what to expect, but when you have the Timeless being held in such high regards, and Chris stating "here is the best version of a planar IEM the market is able to produce" in his introductory video for the PR2, you'd expect some of the planar qualities to come through. The short of it is you don't. Depth is okay but width is mediocre, and the combination of both is wonky if I'm being polite.
- Detail retrieval :
Again, very letdown when I compare this to even 15 dollars IEMs. This was supposed to be the S12 for 50 dollars, the Timeless on a budget, the Dioko killer or the P1 Max but good ! Save yourself the trouble and go grab a Kiwi Ears Cadenza, there you'll find good details. Hell I just reviewed the Tangzu Chang Le, it had better details than this.
- Transients :
I liked it a lot. For all the mud of the bass region, the hollowness of the mids, the unbearable treble, this is one fast driver. The illusion of speed in audio is just that, an illusion, but I cannot fault the PR2 in this regard. Synth bass, snare hits, washboards, all instruments where you expect challenges have adequate transients here.
# Conclusion :
- Rarely have I been this casual and punishing in a review, but I feel like I have to if I'm to convey my opinions about this set. I know what KZ is capable of making, and I know of Chris' ideals and standards. This product falls short of everyone's standards. I can't expect anyone having this same set in their hands to publish a good review.
# EQ :
Preamp: -0.13 dB
PK 800 Hz Gain 1.1 dB Q 0.4
PK 1200 Hz Gain -2 dB Q 1.6
PK 2300 Hz Gain -3 dB Q 2
HSQ 3500 Hz Gain 4 dB Q 0.5
PK 4200 Hz Gain -7 dB Q 0.7
PK 8400 Hz Gain -4 dB Q 3
PK 11500 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 3
PK 15500 Hz Gain -8 dB Q 1
Okay, so after much trial and error I've come up with an EQ profile where I can listen to this thing for extended periods of time. This profile is absolutely subject to changes in the future, so whatever you're seeing may be a revision of the EQ.
Once you fix the tonality yourself, it's true that the PR2 can be really enjoyable for its price point. The soundstage and details are still nothing to marvel at, but the fast transients you get on high amplification are unique at this price point, so if you enjoy the "speed" in IEMs, if you listen to a lot of electronic music and have access to EQ, it's a fun buy. The comparisons to the OG ZS10 keep coming back it seems. I'll even raise the rating to 1.5 stars because of this.