[Kaviar]

Hi everybody!

Time has come to get a portable rig. You guys helped me a lot last time, I am forever grateful for that. I am waiting for the Sansa Clip 8GB to be released, and i`m having some trouble deciding what IEMs to couple them with.

I am looking for something fun, which has a lot of action going on in the bass area, but preferebly without mudding up the midrange. CX300 is thereby out of the question. What I mean by this is that every iem which has ever been accused of beeing thinny in the bass area is out of the question by default, just to make things easy. On the other hand, sloppy, grainy bass is not very attractive. Isolation is not that important. Neiter is durability or design. SQ and price is what matters for now. Microphonics will also be of some importance.

I guess Klipsch Image or Futuresonics Atrio M5 would be perfect for my needs, but they are too expensive at the moment. Any lower priced alternatives to these is what I am aiming for. Even shamelessly cheap alternatives, if such a thing exists.

Here are my candidates thus far:
- Denon AH-C551K
- V-moda Vibe
- Audio Technica CK7 (having trouble finding reviews on these)
- Super.fi 5 EB (suspecting these might be a bit overkill in the bass area)

The hunt has not been going on for very long yet, so I`ll probably be adding some more candidates in the following days.

All input much appreciated!

 

[toughnut]

shamelessly cheap? how bout usd20 soundmagic PL30?

read through it's thread and found out how it perform.

 

[Stikk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaviar /img/forum/go_quote.gif I guess Klipsch Image or Futuresonics Atrio M5 would be perfect for my needs, but they are too expensive at the moment. Any lower priced alternatives to these is what I am aiming for. Even shamelessly cheap alternatives, if such a thing exists.

Oh they exist

Meet the PL-30s

These are great little earphones and at $20, they are shamelessly cheap. As for bass, they have an adjustable bass knob on them for "clear" and "extended". Now I like my bass-heavy music and I hate listening to systems/headphones/earphones with lacking bass and I have only briefly ventured away from "clear" to "extended" cuz the bass is nice and balanced and very much present. These things really do thump out the bass, I love them, but the best bit is they don't do it at the expense of the mids and highs.

Interestingly, I was listening to some Stevie Wonder on these little bad boys today (for the first time with them) and either Stevie Wonder has like 4 different trumpet players or just one that can run really fast, I was amazed, I reckon I could have pointed to where each instrument was.. They are great earphones, I love them and they're so cheap...

Just my thoughts, I would recommend them as a spare pair at least but I use them every day and will do till my customs arrive in a few weeks (I hope). Super comfortable, too.

 

[Kaviar]

Amazing!!

That is such lovely reading. I ordered them straight away. Will shamelessly bump tread when first impression has been made.

Cheers!!

 

[Kaviar]

Recieved them today! Oh joy! Ordered them on Sept. 13th.

Will post my impressions after proper burn in in the pl-30`s tread.

 

[dopeboyfresh]

I plan on getting a pair of these later as well.

 

[RayleighSilvers]

Just thought I'd use one of these threads instead of starting a new one. A lot of people say the sansa clip coupled with basshead earphones have enough bass. For the purist they probably do but I have a pair of soundmagic e10's and I was very dissappointed. It's a step up from the phones I had before, but being bass oriented phones, the impact just wasn't there. I have rockboxed my Clip (v1), and have messed around with the bass and low end frequencies but increasing the dB doesn't really increase the level of "thumping" you get from your earphones, it only makes the songs more muddy and drown out the higher freq.
 
Yesterday my cousin showed me the HTC XE phone with beats audio (*cringe I know but bear with me). Now I'm in no way a fan of ****, but I tried it out anyway. The music player had an option to activate the ****'s. Turning it on basically brought the e10's to life, it felt like a subwoofer in my ear. It reminded me of the walkman phones that had MEGAbass. I was wondering why it had received so many good reviews but now I'm wondering is it the clip? Is there an option or way to get the subwoofer like effect by messing with the equaliser?

 

[mbamg]

Quote:

Just thought I'd use one of these threads instead of starting a new one. A lot of people say the sansa clip coupled with basshead earphones have enough bass. For the purist they probably do but I have a pair of soundmagic e10's and I was very dissappointed. It's a step up from the phones I had before, but being bass oriented phones, the impact just wasn't there. I have rockboxed my Clip (v1), and have messed around with the bass and low end frequencies but increasing the dB doesn't really increase the level of "thumping" you get from your earphones, it only makes the songs more muddy and drown out the higher freq.
 
Yesterday my cousin showed me the HTC XE phone with beats audio (*cringe I know but bear with me). Now I'm in no way a fan of ****, but I tried it out anyway. The music player had an option to activate the ****'s. Turning it on basically brought the e10's to life, it felt like a subwoofer in my ear. It reminded me of the walkman phones that had MEGAbass. I was wondering why it had received so many good reviews but now I'm wondering is it the clip? Is there an option or way to get the subwoofer like effect by messing with the equaliser?

It's likely that the XE has a better DAC than the Clip, and the Beats setting is tuned for bass as well. You'll probably need to get an amp for the Clip if you want that sort of thumping from the E10s.
 
Keep in mind that the E10s are not bass-oriented.

 

[RayleighSilvers]

Maybe bass orientated is the wrong description, but they are supposed to output ample bass power, and they certainly did with the XE. It was very powerful but controlled and didn't distort. I was very surprised. I'm not entirely sure how a DAC works.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/498241/stupid-question-but-what-does-a-dac-do
 
So if the XE has a better DAC that means it converts into analogue more correctly? The subwoofer effect seems more like a software thing to me though. The walkman phones has a similar thing

 

[mbamg]

Oh then according to the thread it should have nothing to do with the DAC. I stand corrected. The DAC would be more responsible for sound reproduction itself. The XE probably has a more powerful internal amp to drive headphones than the Clip does.
 

 

[RayleighSilvers]

An amp just increases the power output doesn't it? Doesn't actually affect the sound that much. I've read so many conflicting opinions. 

 

[mbamg]

Quote:

An amp just increases the power output doesn't it? Doesn't actually affect the sound that much. I've read so many conflicting opinions. 

Theoretically, yes. However some amps can be less transparent than others, "colouring" the sound.