I promised to rate these on a scale of tardis's to mix in some humour into an otherwise overly serious thread. First things first: these cost me just under $60 getting to the EU, not $35, and not $40, not $50. At $60 there are good choices to be had in both IEM and overears. It's cheap enough that I can write off, but it's not cheap enough that I would be quiet about it if I had to. The Blon BL03 was. I had it. I didn't like it. I gave them away. And that was that. But these are not competing with Blons, they're a budget priced competitor to more expensive hybrids like the Spring 2, Shouer Tape, or Tri's new i3 Pro. CCA's new NRA will be an interesting comparison with a lot fewer drivers and half the price yet of the GK10.
When you slip the geek into your ears and search for a tune, you have no idea where Tardis is taking you. Is it a foggy planet with poor visibility and a confusing plot? Or is it shining with wit and intelligence aboard some far outpost in outer space? You don't always know. I'm not unhappy to have taken a chance on the GK10, and I'll be keeping them.
Thus far, I really like GK10 under EQ for certain types of music, and I hear very interesting things happening out of the midrange that none of my other sets can deliver. But even with a tip roll, the stock tuning is completely sabotaged not only by the midbass bloat, but by the bottom end in general, and a complete lack of detail in the top end. There's another pair of well regarded phones I've read with the same critique: Focal Clear.
I don't believe in TOTL tuning that so many audiophiles are obsessed with, nor do I have an assortment of $500+ amplifiers to pair until a pair sounds generally acceptable. I expect accuracy, something unique for a specific genre (or even artist), and a fair price. I expect some phones to be a good specialist and some to be a good generalist. The Geek Wold GK10 is a laser specific specialist.
My sound profile preferences are under EQ with mild to extreme vee-shapes on OOTB neutral sets. I've always preferred studio monitors over weasel word claims about holography, buttered crumpets, and honey tinged superlatives required to sell $500+ luxury consumer electronic devices. I get it, though - buy all that you can afford, and twice on Sunday. I have a few weasel words to offer for the GK10 below. Anyway, that's where I'm coming from.
First let's recognize that the GK10 has a lot going on inside of it: 2 dynamic drivers, 1 balanced armature somewhere in the mids, and 2 piezo something or others serving treble duties. I asked the Dr. to listen to two kinds of music: music recorded from acoustic instruments and voices, and produced music pushed through all manner of mixers, amplifiers, and studio effects. "So real music vs sold-as-music", said the Dr. "Precisely".
Build and accessories: I've already commented on the build and the cable. It's fine, and I got lucky.
Comfort: great. These are trying to displace my C12 on the night stand since the shell shape is compatible with laying on a pillow. My ears swallow these right up. Getting a seal is a bit of a challenge with my big ol' ears, but large starlines seem to be working fine.
Isolation: maybe 10-15db with silicone tips. Imagine sitting in a non-tardis phone booth while a train of response vehicles pass by on their way to a 3 alarm fire. That's what it feels like trying to listen to them while my wife is in the same room watching TV. Foams seal better but cut too much detail out of the top end to be acceptable. As others have said, the wider and shallower you can get, the better.
Let's get into the sound.
Bass: warm and sloppy, like your mum's three cheese baked macaroni. It's not at all gourmet but it's satisfying when consumed in private company. Luckily for quite a bit of classical music and piano works the bass doesn't get in the way too much, or can at least be EQd out. Choral works also slide by with aplomb, reinforcing a bizarrely well tuned midrange. Switching over to sold-as-music, I hit play on Chemical Brothers Block Rockin' Beats, and it's a complete disaster that no amount of EQ will ever fix. Most metal sounded like somebody beating on trash cans way down the hall, the guitarist is setup 2 feet away with a practice amp, and the vocalist is standing at the door, but singing backwards back into the hallway. Rock, metal, EDM are all a complete disaster, even under EQ.
Okay. But what about real music? Sit back with Flamenco Sketches now from Miles Davis and crew and the double bass fades into the bottom end. There aren't any microdetails here on offer, but it's like that baked macaroni we all know and love. Then something happens at 2:20 when Coltrane pops on: you're going to hear one of the best rendered saxaphone sounds you've ever heard in your life. which brings us to the mids.
Mids: erasing some of that bass bloat lets this miraculous interplay between the mid-range focused dynamic driver and the single balanced armature shine through. The DD is belting out velvet cheesecakes worth of timbre and tone, and the BA is providing texture to the note edges. The treble? Those piezos are doing weird things, man. I'll leave it at that. The effect is between magical and vomiting on the sidewalk after too much of that cheesecake. Isolating the mids was difficult, requiring 2-3 dB reduction from 68 Hz - 540 Hz, and a 2-3 dB increase between 1.5 kHz and ~ 4 kHz. Once I tweaked around enough I found something special here in any song that's slow with a sparse or delicate arrangement. Julie London's Yours from Latin in a Satin Mood is where this IEM wants to live. Patsy Cline, ditto.
Other earphones that could compete with the GK10 here are small in number. Timbre, soundstage, tonality - it's near perfect. If I kept these just to listen to Julie London, I'd pay double the price for this kind of sound quality in this genre.
Jack Jones - Wives and Lovers. This isn't the same earphone as I heard with AC/DC, is it? Can it be that different here versus rock? It is to my ears - this is near perfect.
Treble: I am a big fan of both treble and EQ. Most headfiers are not and that's fine. You have your opinion, I have mine. The piezo treble here seems to turn sibilant under EQ without the side benefit of providing additional detail. Like a Harley Davidson when you give it throttle - a lot more noise for not much speed. When minimally corrected, it doesn't interfere too much and offers an interesting edge to the mids. That's the best I can say for it. Other folk are hearing different things than the Dr., but he rates the technicalities on treble as poor, just like the bass.
Sound stage and imaging: stereo separation in recordings isn't sound stage. You need a recording of live music with 5+ musicians playing acoustic instruments and / or singing to really gauge sound stage. Even then there's a lot of tricks that the recording engineer will use to leverage the natural reverb in the performance hall to make the recording sound good. Go see more live music as you can. To my ears the staging is very average, and due to the poor bass and treble quality, imaging really suffers. Orchestral works and opera fall down very quickly. Instrument separation and layering is also average to my ears. The quality of the mids is fantastic - but the rest of the spectrum is so sabotaged that listening to composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns is frustrating. But when that oboe solo does ring out with some space around it, the sound is so sweet, so pure, it gives you a glimpse of what could be ... and then the cello and contrabass fills in and it's ruined again.
And then there are little gems like this: Tundra, from Ola Gjeilo features a mix of strings, piano, and chorus in the same frequencies. It's not as clean and doesn't have the layering that my brighter KZ sets with buckets full of balanced armature units, but it still sounds great (albeit while EQ'd).
Rating: on a scale of 0-5 TARDIS, I give these a solid 2.5, which is precisely the number of drivers that are working well here. When they're good, they're very good. For everything else, it's just like Dr. Who the TV show itself: mostly forgettable, badly acted, and ... well, loved primarily by a hand full of geeks.
To sump up, I'd like to offer a direct comment to the Geek himself - please keep going and give us a better made pair in the GK100. I'll order another GK10 to help out, because I really think you're on to something. I'm rooting for you, as are others.
