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- Jun 22, 2001
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I've had the nasty job of having to spend the last few days mashing earwax while evaluating Shure's new ES line. Thankfully that was the only distastfull experience in the in the work.
First I tried the ~$150 ES-210. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. Sweet! I'll take a pair.
Smearwax.
ES-310; about a centebuck more. Smaller...real small, in fact. Snuggles nicely in the ear. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. These sound the same...but better. Smoother. Lusher. Niiiiice! I wonder what another hundred buys me.
Smearwax.
ES-420. The number will be popular with the tie dye team. Oh well, here we go. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. Holy smoke! These things are designed to within a nose hair of each other. But wait; bigger sound; silky cymbles; textured bass. Man! They all sound identical, right down the middle, but each one sounds better than the next. I better stick in the ES530 (same as the 500 without the PTH) and see how close we've come to this top line performer.
Smearwax.
Yeah, baby. Same deal: Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals.Big articulate bottom. Silky cymbals. Air. PRAT. Yup, last stop on the Shure train and we're hanging in UE10 country.
I couldn't believe my ears. I was hearing the finest line of headphone products I've ever heard. I know how hard it is to build a line of product and make them fit together and have sensable price points and performance at price. From $150 to $500 in four beautifully measured step. Each one a powerful punch in its price range. Man, I wish I had their resources!
So, I called Sugarfried and congratulated him on the fine work he and his colleages had done. I remarked how I had never heard a line-up of headphone sounded the same but better at each step. And I told him I couldn't wait to measure them because it sounded to me like he had a series of cans that were so well engineered that I though the graph data was just going to lay on top of each other. He may have been blushing at this point as the praise was rather embarrassing.
We did the measurements today, guess what. They did lay on top of each other ... well sort of. The frequence response was quite similar one to the next. The distortion data showed that the 210 had the most; the 310 showed slightly less, but the even harmonics had grown slightly stronger than the odd---a very good thing. Then the 420 had quite a bit lower distortion, but the evens were yet again up over the odds and the second harmonic was virtually the same hight as the third. A-friggen-mazing! (I didn't pull up the E500 graph as the machine we were looking at didn't have the data in it.
Men, if you haven't broken down to pair up with some IEMs, your time may have arrived.
First I tried the ~$150 ES-210. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. Sweet! I'll take a pair.
Smearwax.
ES-310; about a centebuck more. Smaller...real small, in fact. Snuggles nicely in the ear. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. These sound the same...but better. Smoother. Lusher. Niiiiice! I wonder what another hundred buys me.
Smearwax.
ES-420. The number will be popular with the tie dye team. Oh well, here we go. Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals. No snarling cymbals. Holy smoke! These things are designed to within a nose hair of each other. But wait; bigger sound; silky cymbles; textured bass. Man! They all sound identical, right down the middle, but each one sounds better than the next. I better stick in the ES530 (same as the 500 without the PTH) and see how close we've come to this top line performer.
Smearwax.
Yeah, baby. Same deal: Solid. Nice and neutral. Good punch and snap. Warm vocals.Big articulate bottom. Silky cymbals. Air. PRAT. Yup, last stop on the Shure train and we're hanging in UE10 country.
I couldn't believe my ears. I was hearing the finest line of headphone products I've ever heard. I know how hard it is to build a line of product and make them fit together and have sensable price points and performance at price. From $150 to $500 in four beautifully measured step. Each one a powerful punch in its price range. Man, I wish I had their resources!
So, I called Sugarfried and congratulated him on the fine work he and his colleages had done. I remarked how I had never heard a line-up of headphone sounded the same but better at each step. And I told him I couldn't wait to measure them because it sounded to me like he had a series of cans that were so well engineered that I though the graph data was just going to lay on top of each other. He may have been blushing at this point as the praise was rather embarrassing.
We did the measurements today, guess what. They did lay on top of each other ... well sort of. The frequence response was quite similar one to the next. The distortion data showed that the 210 had the most; the 310 showed slightly less, but the even harmonics had grown slightly stronger than the odd---a very good thing. Then the 420 had quite a bit lower distortion, but the evens were yet again up over the odds and the second harmonic was virtually the same hight as the third. A-friggen-mazing! (I didn't pull up the E500 graph as the machine we were looking at didn't have the data in it.
Men, if you haven't broken down to pair up with some IEMs, your time may have arrived.
