RHA CL750 Review
January 2017
Long intro… perceptions, patience and redemption!
I will approach this in a different way to how I usually do as it is a relevant journey and road I went down although a long one before finally getting to review these so the Intro is quite epic proportions in length but felt it had to be told in relation to what I have heard and experienced from start to finish. So here is my story for Christmas…
I currently own the RHA T20 IEM which I had been looking at getting for a while and finally got them at a show recently after hearing them again and this is where I had my first opportunity to try out the new CL range they had on the table but it was towards the end of the day and had only limited time to try them out in the various different combinations available especially when taking into consideration wanting to try my current own gear with their respective offerings so was like a mad jumble of cables and equipment between my gear and their three new arrivals.
So after my session with them at the show had left me to want to try these for longer and took the opportunity to apply for the RHA tour in which at this stage I have to thank and acknowledge Glassmonkey and RHA for letting me have the chance to review these in the comfort of my own home for 10 days.
So to start with usually it will be one item to review over several days but this was three bits of kit over 10 days which was a challenge in itself but life is full of challenges and this would be a fun and interesting one.
Going back to the show when I first heard them I have to say and going to be honest here as I could quite easily erase this part from my memory but it wasn’t the most positive experience I had at their table trying these for the first time and started off with the CL750’s which thought be best natural order of things before making way to the new flagship CL1 and their new Dacamp so first of all tried it with my Chord Hugo just to see how it would fair and know the Hugo can be fussy with anything that is bright.
I was surprised when I plugged it in it was sounding strained with quite a harsh treble (more so than normal RHA treble experience of say T20 and I am one of those sensitive to anything too bright or hot with the top end) but this had the life sucked from the mids with hardly no bass and my Hugo was struggling to drive them and had been at a volume I had not seen before so after talking to the RHA guys I tried another set of 750’s they had and same thing.
So I thought nothing of it and moved onto the CL1s through my Hugo only to find a similar thing so thought this was a bit strange so tried my Vorzuge Pure with the Hugo which is the tool I use when I have any IEM or Headphone that is to bright or cannot be driven properly by the Hugo usually does the trick but again even with Hugo at a high volume or used even line out my to my Vorzuge Pureii+ was even challenged by them even in high gain and they never struggle with anything so checked all my connections as I knew this did not sound quite right.
All connections seemed secure so turned off everything and turned it back on and tried again, this time the 750’s sounded a bit better than before and turns out it was the Chord Hugo must of freaked out and had a funny turn and have not had it before then or since so went about listening to the 750’s and have to say although it was an improvement still took a bit for my Hugo to power them and it was still too much treble ended sharp sound with not right balance across the frequency’s to me and it still was not right so added the Pure again and although better than just with Hugo thought it did not sound right.
At his point I’m thinking after trying the CL1’s again with same results even though friendlier on the ear than the 750’s at this point thought well might as well give the Dacamp a go at this stage as I thought it has to be the magic ingredient as they have made it to go with each other like the Two Ronnie’s belonged together to do comedy for four decades.
So plug the CL750’s into the Dacamp and it again seemed a slight improvement but was still far away from what I had expected and still was coming across all treble with no bass at all, same mirror image occurred with the CL1’s after on the Dacamp and the experience left me perplexed as my audition with the Dacamp was good and enjoyed it so knew it was the both IEM’s not right to my ear. I did relay this back to the RHA team at the time and they did say the final production models where going to have a bit more bass but just thought to myself even so the treble needs to be tamed a bit more than I heard there.
I mean I’m border line with the T20 treble sometimes like I am with my Sony 7520’s can sometimes throw up going beyond the comfort of what treble extension can do to been uncontrolled and sounding what to most 17 year olds must sound like an ASBO alarm outside a off licence. But the overall balance was not there and was puzzled why even my Hugo and Pure struggled with them. My Sony ZX1 Walkman was a no go but felt I had to try that from the start just to know for confirmation to myself my ZX1 has all the grunt of a two stroke scooter trying to chase a 750cc Suzuki down the road.
SO I walked away thinking the Dacamp would sound good with my JH16’s but already had the very under-rated Vorzuge Pure amp and a Hugo.
And I must admit I was having second thoughts like a runaway bride about even doing this tour review knowing this and then a couple of people reporting hearing a too much treble and nothing else and feeling disappointed but sometimes we all need to have the full fact’s in front of us to know the full picture and I decided to tell myself stick with it and if they are that bad still you will have to possibly be first review where I have to give a low rating as to be honest what reviews I’ve done so far I have been lucky with them all been pretty good sounding products on the whole plus ones where I have applied for a tour have gone for ones that have interested me personally and know probably sounded half decent to start with or heard them before anyway but this was a bit daunting it could be my first negative reviews and after buying a T20 recently which I enjoyed with caveats and all thought would be a shame to start with it been RHA gear.
So upon receiving these from Takeanidea I was in intrepidation and suspense how this would all pan out. So I will now start my review the normal order of merit so if you want to find out how they sounded please fast forward down to the Sound Impressions header to find out.
For now I will talk about packaging, build and design functionality….
Unboxing
The packaging from the outset even for the CL750’s seem to have had a direction of lets make this look like a flagship type of feel to fit in with the new Cl range as a whole although this out of the three new RHA products is the lease luxury packaging it is above average taking into account this is only a £99 product.
So once the bottom card flap is opened the inner box slides out to present the 750’s sitting in a nice laser cut foam protection tray housing and once lifted out the rest like carry case, manual and accessories are all located in two split dividers in the bottom of the box.
The Cl750 comes with the following accessories.
- Protector case
- Dual density Silicone ear tips (6 pairs)
- Double flange ear tips (2 pairs)
- Comply TSX-200 foam ear tips (3 pairs)
- Clothing clip
Build, Design & Fitment…
The build of the Cl750 is the normal high standard with its stainless steel aerophinic design that will be so familiar to how the MA750 looks. This are not going to break when you drop them like acrylic shell housings and they do not feel too heavy either, there is enough weight though to know they are made from steel and have a feel of quality about them which is extended in the form of the cable which is a braided oxygen free cable which has high quality 3.5 plug termination which I did not notice any microphonics during my time with them.
They look like time has been taking on them and look quite cool with the durable PTE which shows the copper cable and the actual cable entry to the shells look to have a durable flexible soft plastic moulding to protect the cable but cannot feel they missed a trick as I know this is a very competitively priced IEM for what is trying to achieve but cannot see why they didn’t make them detachable still like the CL1 so these could also go balanced to go into the Dacamp L1 as would of made it more tempting for the CL750 customer to maybe jump to the CL1 also knowing it already had the balanced cable included and not to mention it would have been interesting to of heard this balanced after hearing the CL1 in balanced mode (but I’m not going to spoil that here, you will have to check out the CL1 review for that!)
Apart from maybe not having detachable cable the design and build is the usual RHA standards.
Fitment for me personally was good but did have to fiddle to initially get it past the Tragus part of the ear but once it got around that all though feeling a little uncomfortable doing so it locked in place and I actually used large Comply’s which I do not usually do as I’m usually a medium size but as the design of the metal shell once locked in place did not budge it was ideal for the Comply’s to expand without moving the ear piece anywhere it shouldn’t off so for me it was quite a good fit but can see maybe this design not been so good for others but will also be a trial and error with tips also in conjunction with balance of fit and sound.
For me I could listen for long periods with these in and have had my fair share of issues with Comply’s with certain IEMS recently which I think also is very reliant upon the design of the shell in conjunction with the tips.
Warning: these will feel cold on a proper winter’s day when inserting if outside out and about!
Solution is for RHA to make a portable rechargeable hairdryer for them or IEM dryer in this case!
Imagine that in the accessories section!?
Sound Impressions…
The following impressions was done with:
Chord Hugo
Vorzuge Pureii+ amp
Sony ZX1 Walkman direct H/P out, and as source to Hugo/ Pure combo
HiFIMAN Supermini direct H/P out
HP X360 Spectre WIN10 laptop via Hugo/ Pure via Vertere DFI USB cable
Music files used: WAV, FLAC, DSD 256
I will start with tips in general as this is quite an important disclaimer before I go on about the ramblings of what I heard in my ten days with them is I tried some different tips but as I have found out in general of late is I preferred the Comply tips overall for the sound approach to silicones for the ability for slightly better isolation and better bass response as well as slightly taming the highs a little even though I found silicones okay in the end with these I personally preferred the Comply’s despite them giving me other headaches in general and been far from perfect with different IEM’s I have tried in the last couple of months.
This reminds me of once hearing a pair of Heir IEMS (cannot remember the model now for the life of me, maybe Tzar350?) which I tried a few years ago which had a same type of sound which was a clean linear sound which was quite revealing that really needed an amp to go with them but were very much treble happy as a few of Heirs earlier models I heard were capable of but the difference here is the 750’s do not have so much of that piercing treble like the Heirs had and more importantly what I heard at the show a couple of months ago from the CL750’s that were on that table which was a shock but at the same time a pleasant and surprising shock. It was not just the treble but also the mids where there now with an actual bass presence that could be distinguished and have to say from what I heard at that show two months before hand was quite a relief but knew I still had a long road ahead with listening to them to see if they actually did have potential to sound good.
I started off playing safe by using them with the Dacamp L1 as my way of thinking was if it still sounds not right with the Dacamp L1 what chance did I have but luckily for me the more songs that went by I thought well… I’m still here listening so can’t be too bad.
What I was finding was a good clean and crisp linear sounding IEM which had reasonable tight lower bass response that was packing a bit of punch on impact in general at the same time from the RHA’s own Dacamp but not a nasty hump in any particular frequency and had good control with no distortion.
The neutral and clean no nonsense sound coming from these was actually very reminiscent to a not so well known or heard Ortofon EQ8 (have to credit RocketRon for introducing me to those IEMS) which have a good level of detail without been over articulate with enough musicality but without the aid of an amp the Eq8 was dead in the water as it would sound half its potential self with hardly no lower bass response when in fact with the right amp that could deliver the EQ8’s came to life with a really low controlled hard hitting bass that just left you hooked to the sound.
The CL750’s are very much like that just with not quite as much low end bass as the EQ8’s but the CL750’s are far from shy with the amp powering them.
So this is not the first IEM designed to really be paired with an amp but to get the best from them it will need a good amp section like the Dacamp to get the 750’s to sing but for the difference here with the CL750’s compared to the old Heirs I heard a few years ago and the later EQ8’s from last year or so is the CL750 comes in at least £200 less than them and is very intriguing to think these are only £99 which is about only £20 more than the acclaimed MHA750’s which I unfortunately have not really heard so will not be able to do that comparison for those MHA750 fans out there.
But the more I spent time with the CL750’s I was finding I was enjoying these with all sorts of musical genres and it did not really phase the 750’s from what I heard.
The treble (no not trouble!) with RHA is some might find it too much and after my long intro about that and owning a pair of T20’s even with flat filter on they have a slight tendency to lean towards presenting the treble with more accentuation and at times with some tracks can find it approaching border line as I do have a treble sensitivity to a degree despite my older age of losing a few DB’s which is natural at my age (which is early 40’s by the way without giving that away)
I had this issue with a pair of Sony headphones a few years back which I really loved in the Z1000’s but the treble was to sharp and piercing despite loving the rest of the sound signature and frequency range till good old Jude at the London Head-fi show a few years ago enlightened me to the non EU version in the Japan made version of them which was essentially same headphone.
The Sony’s labelled them as the 7520’s which had better bass presence (as the Z1K also lacked there a bit) and the hot treble had been tamed so got them on his advice and true to life he was right (not that I doubted golden ears for a second of course) although the 7520’s still once in a while could exhibit the border line a treble getting a bit much with some tracks like I find with the RHA T20’s so after hearing the CL750’s at that show like I did thought here we go but something has definitely happened in those two months.
I do not know what exactly but these are noting like I heard at the show by the distance from the earth to the moon and (same went for CL1’s in my other review on them) and the treble was now not over piercing yet had an amazing amount of extension still which the 750’s are capable of but without feeling like Sharon Stone is ramming an ice pick into your head! It had plenty of headroom but with an accurate and controlled delivery which aided the tonally accurate side of the treble range.
It is a very clean and un-coloured with the treble to the ears and tonally sounds real enough and this area is probably the only area that sounds a bit raised in terms of frequency tuning to probably get those extension ranges in the shiny metal bits on the drums like symbols & hi-hats to have a real tone to the impact and trailing edge of the notes with a nice shimmer with good decay.
I have to say I was still a bit flummoxed and perplexed at this stage I was not hearing an ear bleeding top end like I did at the show two months before.
But what is a good treble which RHA like to or seem to spend a lot of time on to other companies in trying to perfect without getting the mid’s and bass right.
Well, the mids are not recessed much thus it does give a more hall effect sound with the sound staging but the clean spacey sound of the 750’s make it easy to hear mid information retrieval individually and there is a nice cohesion between the highs and lows to the mid-range which is why there is never any real nasty surprises listening with them as you always know what you are going to get with them once you put them on.
Of course I mean that in a positive way, not a negative as it just handles any music thrown at it with a consistency of clean controlled accurate hard hitting dose of equal measures in everything it does.
Vocals I really liked as they were just clear and projected considering they sounded a tad distant but had good grain to details with an artist singing so you locked onto them first then the music flowed up to the front door of your ears like a natural wave of sounds and always was just easy breeze to hear the lead vocalist with enough detail in their notes with a sense of openness around the artist singing although maybe male vocals in general just edged female singers I am a sucker for female vocalist and very fussy with the reproduction of a lady’s lungs but the RHA was very adaptable and passed the test for me and to be fair was not far behind how it portrayed male vocals anyway.
The 750’s extension is good and having the mids tidy and informative enough with details which I think are above it’s £99 price label to what I’ve heard from others in this price point recently as most IEMS at this price will try to put a nice enough balanced fun musical signature together but fine details or space for it to breath won’t be there, this is totally different with this CL750 and is trying to bring that reference type neutral sound in at an affordable price I felt that has detail yet musical enough still without been too fun nor at same time not ultra-analytical. Cannot feel again I am in some parts here describing the EQ8’s in many ways which I think is a testimony really to the 750 perhaps.
I was liking the string details and rawness the 750’s clean mids gave to guitar works and had a natural low mid bass feel with bass strings. Pianos sounded good with enough tonal quality and depth but just was felt a bit short in detail and clarity which from experience of using with other gear think this was more the dac on the L1 as opposed to the Cl750 as I then heard pianos sound much more focused, finer string notes in detail with each key and less fuzzy with the Hugo-Pure combo.
Dance music good dynamics with the 750’s which had enough thump to groove to with the mid bass been well controlled and sub bass having enough rumble impact without been over flooded into the mid information in the following milliseconds of following notes so made it easy to follow the beats and rhythm at the same time with the 750’s.
But if the Bass cannot match the above average treble extension and neutral clean mids then it all falls down a bit and I heard not a lot of sub bass is the kind way of putting this at the show from them, made the T20’s sound like DR. Beats bass levels mercifully and thankfully from out of nowhere the bass frequency is there in the production model I have for review going deep enough in a natural response so is not over cooked so some die hard bass fans might not find it enough but it gives a more linear low bass end but is done with a tight and quick response making things never sound muddy which complimented the upper bass frequency’s and aligned nicely to always hear that critical area of details from the mids which still had a good amount of impact in the lower mids to help with the rhythmic sections of songs.
So the bass will never be a flood of sub bass end rumbles that cover the entire soundstage of these IEMS rather they deliver in accordance with the rest of the signature which is a clean and concise not messing around I will tell you like it is with the efficiency of a German built car.
If Scotland built any cars let alone well-built ones I would of course be referring to one of the RHA nationalities built cars, but only if they did build cars like RHA build IEM’s? (…Hmmm, Maybe Ferrari a fast sounding car with that high revving top end engine tuning sound they have!?)
The soundstage I have to admit did not jump out at me or had an extra sense of width but is far from closed in and has enough there to have that sense of space in width and depth of field for it all to work with the way this sound signature as there is a sense of space around notes enough to point them out with great precision which some IEM in this price point suffer from sometimes.
Even during busier periods it does not lose control with it’s very good amount of headroom with a good enough amp but the only flip side to this is some might find the sound a bit cold or hard in the nature of the way the 750’s roll giving a stripped feel sound with been flatter with non-colourization of notes but it delivers music without putting icing and strawberries on top and gets to the core of the music without dressing it up unnecessarily.
Some I might feel especially if used with silicone tips also may find it a bit too much on the treble still if you are sensitive to it but like I have said already from someone that has experienced this myself in the past found it acceptable although a poor recording especially if to bright in that area will then make the CL750’s a bit hard to listen to even with comply tips on but for most part with normal to good recordings I am mainly able to forgot about this been ever a potential issue at all as I was enjoying the music too much without it distracting me.
On subject of recordings with the Dacamp L1 it really made a difference with DSD files and just had a bit more solidity on top with more body in detail with notes as well it becoming clear what the extension in the treble RHA like to achieve becomes a bit clearer with a good DSD recording and notes in general have a more precise tonal quality to them so the CL750’s scale well with file formats.
With other gear other than RHA’s own DACamp….
For those who want the IEM only for whatever reason may be how does this perform with other gear?
From experience with my gear starting with the Hugo, as I already have touched upon the Hugo can be fussy with pairing with anything that shows likeable treble ranges and I found this was one of those it was just a tad too much the both of them together which is equally down to the 750 as well as the Hugo as one thing I have found and have to declare from my findings with RHA gear just as the Hugo is the CL range certainly is fussy with what it is paired with so this may also be an on-going agenda for debates on RHA treble findings as I admit with Hugo it was not a good match in this area.
As well as Hugo seeming not to have the right voltage swing keep control so put the Pure with it and this 750 becomes tame enough again I can listen to it on the high end and sounded as good although different to the Dacamp and it really suited the Pureii+ as it also delivers a clean hard hitting sound with it helping the slightly recessed lower mids come out a little bit more than usual but is just tuned a little more enthusiastically than the CL750 in general but is a very good combination as the sense of overall balance Is in line with the 750’s signature.
Tried again just with my Sony ZX1 Walkman and is better at driving it than at the show which is weird but not much more and had to deselect the sound enhancement on the Sony which releases more power output which made it listenable.
If at home in quite surroundings despite this been good isolation it makes the difference as it is just enough to hear but is still not enough for the 750’s to be driven properly with the authority needed to get the best from them to deliver dynamics and height they can produce with good amping.
Next up was my HIFIMAN SuperMini which is apparently designed to power headphones up to 600ohm but myself did not find from this as they were just okay with 300 ohm set of Sennheiser open backs I tried.
But the Supermini is still great with IEM’s really and have to say they powered the CL750’s okay but only had three or four steps left on the digital volume so if out and about again could be a different issue with them.
They did sound fine out of the Supermini which had a slightly warmer signature although the treble did show a tendency to sound a bit too hot at times but the CL750 reproduced the detail of the SuperMini quite well in the mids with nearly all genres apart from classical or female vocals with this combination. So it was a mixed bag with the Supermini that maybe would stop me from using this pairing in the long run.
Conclusion
My overall thoughts apart from great relief how these did not sound anything like I had heard these at the show as to be honest I was a bit worried it would be my first review where I would effectively have to put a product down like a vet putting down a rabbit which would have been cruel to be kind scenario as before this CL range come to the fore I really do like the way they have an eye for detail in the build and design with even the smallest of details and the packaging is always above standard affair and love how they pretty much the only ones they pay a lot of attention on universals to things like the ear hook design that will also last long term and not just short term so their offerings up till now had been good value if you liked their signature up till now but the new range had to offer more than just good presentation looks and build.
It had to have substance in the sound department and my biggest fear after hearing them at the show was they were going more treble hot than ever with very recessed mids and no bass, strange balance but seen people shot themselves in the foot with a double barrel shotgun before!
But once I received these for review everything had changed quite drastically sound wise which I cannot fathom why or how it can change so much in two months even if a prototype at the show but it was a sound I was comfortable with as I found no issues with treble at all like I had at the show and it became a very balanced clean transparent cohesive neutral sounding IEM that had above average extension without losing its head and a nice tight sub bass to compliment the linear mids which gave a good amount of detail retrieval and reproduction with vocal timbre although a little distant still for lead vocals.
Only word of cation which should probably come with most RHA gear to present for those sensitive to treble they may still be too much for your ears to cope with and it can still be border line for me at times depending on equipment and recording pairing can bring it to the fore more but it is more settled with it mothership Dacamp L1 pairing a bit more to start with before been able to use the tone control features to EQ balance it to your taste.
For the money if you are after a straight forward no nonsense IEM that is not coloured, veiled or warm and can give a good amount of clean detail with good extension and precise clear presentation at this level but still sound musical and dynamic enough at the same time but do not mind amping to get a the best out of them then for only £99 this are almost astonishing and well worth checking these out.