[Scheherazade]

People focus their auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, which is called ‘Cocktail Party Effect’. Similarly, Music doesn’t offer only some notes. There is a lot of information in music. You need to be trained to hear every sound in music.

 

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Cocktail Party Effect​

 

 

 

I happened to demo the best earphones and headphones in the world in November 2016. I concluded that high quality earphones and headphones sounds like a set of speakers. Then, what is it like listening music through speakers? First, The soundstage is wider. In fact, we call it ‘headroom’ in headphone terms. There is fundamental difference between the former and the latter. You feel the sound stage outside of the body between the speakers - the distance between each speaker to each other and to the listener should be same, essentially forming an equilateral triangle between the two speakers and the listener, and the listener should sit at the tip of the triangle - while the sound stage is in your head using earphones and headphones. It’s a virtual space because there is no great difference between the distance in reality. If sound stage and headroom are wide, you can feel where the instruments are exactly, which is called perfect localization of instruments. Likewise, ‘sounds like speakers’ means you can feel temperature and textures like warmth, coldness and softness in the sound. Also, whether you can feel the sensitivity of speakers through your body or ears is important.

 

 

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Sorishop Seoul : Second Demo Room for Audio​

 
 

 

 

Why are high quality earphones and headphones tuned like speakers? In fact, they never be able to reproduce the sound that speakers can. Even cheap speakers are better than earphones and headphones in reproducing sound stage and sound image. Sennheiser’s Orpheus HE1, known as the best headphone ever, also struggles to create space artificially using crossfeed, but I even feel pathetic that it can’t. However, you can hear every details of sound through earphones. Thus, there are different criteria for judging ‘sound quality’ between people who like speakers and headphones. This is the reason why I mentioned ‘Cocktail Party Effect’ above. and I  would like to introduce this ‘I can do both’ earphone, Arthur.

 

 

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Sennheiser - HE1​

 

 

 

 

Arthur is a king. He is a legendary king. There must be a valid reason for naming this earphone ‘Arthur’ because nothing birth to be a king today. Then, Arthur is qualified(It is in terms of price)?

 

 

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The shiny square packaging is like a sharp blade of Excalibur. and it comes with both comply foam tips and spinfit tips. There are also a hard case, a carrying pouch, a piece of cotton flannel fabric and a cleaning kit. Arthur is universal type earphones, so it is easy to care. What’s more,  Effect Audio’s logo is emblazoned on a left unit and Empire ears’ logo on a right unit. Distinctive faceplates are produced in limited quantities, and the pattern is changed every 10 pieces.

 

 

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Effect Audio - Arthur​

 

 

 

 

Based on its top-of-the-range product ‘Zeus’, Arthur has 14 BA; 6 for treble, 6 for midrange and 2 for bass, and has 8-way crossover. To split the signal into separate frequency, it is necessary to use this many crossover circuits. Just think about how many gears a car has. If there are fewer gears, you can’t shift the gear right time. Arthur ‘s resistance ohm is 20, quite low, which doesn’t need high power. However it is quite sensitive considering the low resistance ohm. Therefore if your sources are sensitive to white noise, you need to be careful. If you use a DAP which is not for professionals, you might feel distracting sound. That is not the shortcoming of Arthur but the limitation of sound that smartphone can reproduce.

 

 

 

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Athur - Excalibur​

 

 

 

The name of a cable for Arthur is Excalibur. Don’t even ask why the name is Excalibur. You already know that. you can’t even talk about Arthur story without Excalibur. Excalibur is a modified version of ‘Heracles’, Effect Audio’s best cable. Heracles and Excalibur have different style. Excalibur has seven Litz cable around UPOCC(Ultra Pure OCC) gold/silver cores, which prevent ‘Skin Effect’ and ‘Proximity Effect’(tendency for alternating current (AC) to flow mostly near the outer surface of an electrical conductor).

 

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I’m sure you have seen a sentence such as ‘doesn’t sound like earphones’ at least once If you have read some reviews about Arthur. Everyone who listen music through Arthur would agree with the sentence. Usually, It is said that earphones sounds thinner and softer than headphones. However Arthur makes deep and bold sound. At the same time, never lose delicacy that earphones have. Arthur is well-balanced, which means any kind of music is great with it. But it stands out playing classic music such as a huge orchestra. If you are not satisfied with your earphone playing huge orchestra, just try Arthur.

 

Arthur has extremely high-resolution sound I have never experienced before, and one of the best earphone in the world. You can’t feel the frequency peak, so you can’t be fatigued. Furthermore, it reproduces the best localization of instruments a earphone can do. I, in fact, don’t believe that BA drivers is good for bass, but with Arthur reproducing this deep and bold sound, I don’t have to stick to the dynamic drivers.

 

If earphones were graded from 1 to 100 according to resolution, Arthur would be the 100, the highest. As a matter of fact, when I first saw this Arthur, I felt it has the feeling of king. Then, is it worth over $3,700? There is no right answer for this question. But I am sure you have no alternative but choose Arthur to experience highest-resolution in the world. Now, the greatest earphone in the history is waiting for you.