dBel84
Cavalli Tinkerer at large
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- Aug 5, 2006
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iM-390 iMetal Earphones
Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Maximo products or their range of earphones. Then we started putting the Oregon HeadFi meet together and AndrewH offered to sponsor our get together. I have used IEM's/buds intermittently but mostly preferred using the KSC75s amped. To cut a potentially long personal saga short, AndrewH brought a series of IEMs to the meet and set up a fun AB comparison with several maximo products and a few commercial brands which list @ 2.5 x the cost of the iM-390s. The stock iM-390s performed best of the lot IMO and based on the overall scoring, most people thought so too. I was so impressed that I enquired about how to go about ordering a pair and AndrewH kindly offered to send me a review sample. I have had them for a week or so and have listened to them for at least 3 hours a day and I can happily say that I am converted.
LOOK: Before you even get to the earphones, the case they come with is gorgeous. It is a round black clam shell which zips open to reveal an internal cup. The cable wraps around the outside and the phones are protected within the cup - very cool. The phones themselves have a good solid feel. They have a high polished metal body with a satin finish on the front to add contrast. The chamber is ported. The earpiece itself is soft rubber/black silicon? similar to ultimate ears etc. The cable is relatively short but comes with an extension should you need a longer cable. It also comes with an airplane adapter and 2.5mm adapter.
FEEL: I had expected the substantial feel of them in my hand to translate into a heavy earphone but they were hardly noticeable when positioned in my ears. The tips are soft and easy to insert. I used the medium tips but they come with 3 sizes should those not be comfortable. I do hear a "crinkling" when I insert them and I think it is the driver diaphragm moving against the air pressure of insertion. Only once did I feel pressure on my own eardrum while putting them and that was the result of me being a little congested an not being able to equilibrate easily. My overall feeling is that they are comfortable - far more than any foamies or shure type "ring" insert. I use them to commute to and from work which is on average 70+ minutes each way. I don't notice their physical presence at all which to me means they are comfortable.
Isolation: They are reasonably good. They cut out the drone of people talking easily but you can still hear loud traffic noise or someone screeching like a banshee into their mobile phones.
How do they sound - simply put, very good or else I would not be taking the effort of writing to let you all know.
I did this in a few sessions to get an overall feel for how they sound.
First just as a commuter earphone driven directly from an iRiver DAP. Here it performs admirably, music presentation is involving, so much so that I often found myself tearing away from what ever article I was reading to actually stop and listen to the music. I never had the urge to change tracks because the music didn't sound right, I may have thought the track sucked and moved on but not because it was presented badly.
Second was a direct comparison of a few phones driven directly from the DAP / CDP. I naturally compared it to the KSC75, but also threw my AKG501's into the mix as well as an old pair of Koss plugs that were abandoned a long time ago. The Koss just sounded bad in comparison, very boomy bass and peaky in the top and was dropped soon into the review session. The AKGs happen to be one of my favorite headphones but they lose a lot of their soundstage and depth when not amped. They still sounded better than the others and I would have been highly disappointed had this not been the case but it had to be done.
The characteristics of the KSC75s that I have always found appealing was their detail across the spectrum. They have the ability to articulate bass very well and have a slightly forward vocal/midrange presentation and still get the highs without any harshness. The trouble with them is that they need an amp to open up and sound great. Yeah, I am finally getting to how the iM-390s sound. Bass: wow!
not DT770 bass head but deep, clear and fast. I was listening to a drum solo off one of my Chesky discs. It wasn't muddied at all and I was truly impressed by how deep it sounded. ( I may as well get distracted here - I ran a series of test tones and could easily define the tone down to 25Hz, I lost the KSC75s at 35Hz ). Orchestral pieces have a good presence to them and a solo cello piece I love had the natural timbre I expected. Midrange: at first I thought they were a little recessed compared to the KSC75s but after much listening to various types of music (vocal and instrumental) I came to the conclusion that they sounded flatter across these frqeuencies because they were and that the KSCs had a midrage bump similar to the Grados. It is only obvious when going from one to the other and not something I feel while I listen to them on the move. The AKGs are also flat across the mids but they have such an enourmous soundstage that that the mids just seem to float in the air. The iM-390s do jazz vocal superbly and acoustic guitar sounds very realistic, the soundstage is more focused than the AKGs but I wouldn't call it limited. The high frequency response is fairly even all the way up to 20kHz, cymbals add the right amount of atmosphere to jazz, Itzak Perlman's solo violin from his Bach concerto's sounded glorious, never becoming screechy or rolled off. (this review process seems to be never ending)
Finally I amped the beasties -
don't do it, it's not necessary and you may end up blowing your ears away as I did!
I seem to have been at this forever now and hope you have a gist of what i was tying to relay. Overall the iM-390s present music very well, they are comfortable, cost a fraction of what their rivals do and look great too. I would strongly recommend these to anyone considering IEMs. The carrying case could sell these alone.
Thanks to AndrewH for the opportunity to share this with you all..dB
Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Maximo products or their range of earphones. Then we started putting the Oregon HeadFi meet together and AndrewH offered to sponsor our get together. I have used IEM's/buds intermittently but mostly preferred using the KSC75s amped. To cut a potentially long personal saga short, AndrewH brought a series of IEMs to the meet and set up a fun AB comparison with several maximo products and a few commercial brands which list @ 2.5 x the cost of the iM-390s. The stock iM-390s performed best of the lot IMO and based on the overall scoring, most people thought so too. I was so impressed that I enquired about how to go about ordering a pair and AndrewH kindly offered to send me a review sample. I have had them for a week or so and have listened to them for at least 3 hours a day and I can happily say that I am converted.
LOOK: Before you even get to the earphones, the case they come with is gorgeous. It is a round black clam shell which zips open to reveal an internal cup. The cable wraps around the outside and the phones are protected within the cup - very cool. The phones themselves have a good solid feel. They have a high polished metal body with a satin finish on the front to add contrast. The chamber is ported. The earpiece itself is soft rubber/black silicon? similar to ultimate ears etc. The cable is relatively short but comes with an extension should you need a longer cable. It also comes with an airplane adapter and 2.5mm adapter.
FEEL: I had expected the substantial feel of them in my hand to translate into a heavy earphone but they were hardly noticeable when positioned in my ears. The tips are soft and easy to insert. I used the medium tips but they come with 3 sizes should those not be comfortable. I do hear a "crinkling" when I insert them and I think it is the driver diaphragm moving against the air pressure of insertion. Only once did I feel pressure on my own eardrum while putting them and that was the result of me being a little congested an not being able to equilibrate easily. My overall feeling is that they are comfortable - far more than any foamies or shure type "ring" insert. I use them to commute to and from work which is on average 70+ minutes each way. I don't notice their physical presence at all which to me means they are comfortable.
Isolation: They are reasonably good. They cut out the drone of people talking easily but you can still hear loud traffic noise or someone screeching like a banshee into their mobile phones.
How do they sound - simply put, very good or else I would not be taking the effort of writing to let you all know.
I did this in a few sessions to get an overall feel for how they sound.
First just as a commuter earphone driven directly from an iRiver DAP. Here it performs admirably, music presentation is involving, so much so that I often found myself tearing away from what ever article I was reading to actually stop and listen to the music. I never had the urge to change tracks because the music didn't sound right, I may have thought the track sucked and moved on but not because it was presented badly.
Second was a direct comparison of a few phones driven directly from the DAP / CDP. I naturally compared it to the KSC75, but also threw my AKG501's into the mix as well as an old pair of Koss plugs that were abandoned a long time ago. The Koss just sounded bad in comparison, very boomy bass and peaky in the top and was dropped soon into the review session. The AKGs happen to be one of my favorite headphones but they lose a lot of their soundstage and depth when not amped. They still sounded better than the others and I would have been highly disappointed had this not been the case but it had to be done.
Finally I amped the beasties -
I seem to have been at this forever now and hope you have a gist of what i was tying to relay. Overall the iM-390s present music very well, they are comfortable, cost a fraction of what their rivals do and look great too. I would strongly recommend these to anyone considering IEMs. The carrying case could sell these alone.
Thanks to AndrewH for the opportunity to share this with you all..dB
