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I wanted to make note of my impressions of the CEntrance Cerene dB headphones that I bought with my own money this past September ,with the discounted pre-orders - through a miscommunication I got tracking in September and they didn't ship until the end of October. I have been enjoying them a lot in the past few weeks, and wanted to share my thoughts.
These are a lightweight closed portable headphone, which can fold flat, or can fold in such as way as to curl up the headphone cups inside the headband. Depending on where you want to pack them in your bag ,you can choose which configuration fits best. They come with soft pleather drawstring bag to carry them around, with I think about a 1.2 meter or so non-removable cable with 3.5mm plug and no 1/4" adapter. Materials quality seems good for the price. I think the MSRP is about $200, and I got them on pre-order for about 25% off if I recall correctly. Right now there is a sale for these for $199 INCLUDING a Dacport HD, which is a steal, considering how good this tiny USB DAC/amp sounds even years after it was introduced.
I found that upon arrival that they had a somewhat loose and boosted bass that was overshadowing the treble, but when I came back to them after just 4-6 hours of burn-in they clearly sounded much better. So I set them down and ran a total of 24 hours of music through them before I ever picked them up again. At that point they sounded even better and just about right, where at 36 hours the sound hadn't changed a lot more and I stopped the burn-in so that I could evaluate them.
The Cerene dB are one of those few headphones that have the biggest changes with burn-in vs some others, most noticeable by trying them and then setting them down for a day to run music through them and picking them up again - so please DO NOT go by 1st impressions and first put 1 or 2 days of music through them before you judge them.
I listened to them right out of my late 2014 old MacBook retina 15" headphone jack, as well as thru my iPhone Xs Max with lightning adapter, CEntrance BlueDAC and HiFi-M8 V1, plus through my HiFiMan R2R2000 DAP. They sound great un-amplified, but they also scale up with a better source and amplifier. I have not tried them yet with my desktop PS Audio DAC and ZDT amplifier yet.
After burn-in the sound was very good with clean but strong and punchy bass, plus a rich midrange and crisp treble detail with no fatigue. There is an ever-so-mild midrange bloom on some male vocals from being a warm sounding headphone, but it's not excessive or too intrusive (Chris Jones "Roadhouses and Automobiles"). And with female vocals like Diana Krall "Live in Paris" they're a real treat - her piano is replayed with fast response and realism, and the string bass is full sounding down low while also being able to hear they player's fingers brushing the strings as they are plucked, while I get a front row seat to hearing her vocals.
While these are intended to be a studio reference headphone, they are no way a bland sounding or cold headphone like many of the Beyer Dynamic headphones I have heard - They are a warm and rich headphone with good detail and efficiency, and remind me more of a current Sennheiser HD-660s (don't have one yet to directly compare to, but I've enjoyed trying the 660 at RMAF). The transparency and lack of coloration remind me of an open headphone, while the bass is deep and full like with a closed headphone.
They can be realistic and exciting/fun at the same time, but with not so much bass that recordings would come out of the editing process without enough bass in the recording. They sound great at low volumes at night, with good bass presence even without cranking up the volume, so no "loudness" EQ is needed with these. Overall frequency balance is good, and I think these play well above their pay grade. Listening to them via the R2R2000 portable DAP, you might sometimes think that you were listening to a $300-500 headphone (depending on your experience, and after they've been burned-in for 24-36 hours).
At this point I am very impressed for the street price being about half the cost of it's competitors, where $199 on sale gets you the Cerene dB + a DacPort HD USB DAC/amp! They simply kill my other small closed headphones such as my Sony MDR-6, Shure 840, modded ATH-900, Sennheiser HD-25, V-MODA M-80, and V-MODA XS. And they're also better than my old $300 V-MODA M-100 V1 wired, where the Cerene dB has better treble presence and detail, and it's mids are more intimate and rich sounding.
Isolation is decent too, about the same as the V-MODA and there is minimal sound leakage when playing at normal volume levels (can be distantly heard across the room when playing loud volumes). The upgraded V-MODA Crossfade Wireless II Rose Gold are fairly close in sound to these headphones, whether wired or wireless, and had cost about $350 (AptX version). I'll need to listen a lot more before I could declare which is better, although the Crossfade Wireless II are clearly better than the older M100 and first Crossfade Wireless, and similar to the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless when using bluetooth (compared at RMAF 2019 in September).
Next, Michael might want to try to make a Cerene BT with wireless capability in addition to a removable cable for wired listening, where it would justify doubling the price and at the same time become a Crossfade II Wireless or Momentum Wireless competitor, which are also very good portable phones. I'd planned to get the Sennheiser in the near future for the excellent active noise cancelation feature.
PS: While I wrote this review I was listening to "Live in Paris" on the Cerene dB through my R2R2000 DAP - I made it to song number 8 of 10, "Maybe You'll Be There" while typing the last paragraph, and I had to just stop and lay back and finish the song before finishing the review.
These are a lightweight closed portable headphone, which can fold flat, or can fold in such as way as to curl up the headphone cups inside the headband. Depending on where you want to pack them in your bag ,you can choose which configuration fits best. They come with soft pleather drawstring bag to carry them around, with I think about a 1.2 meter or so non-removable cable with 3.5mm plug and no 1/4" adapter. Materials quality seems good for the price. I think the MSRP is about $200, and I got them on pre-order for about 25% off if I recall correctly. Right now there is a sale for these for $199 INCLUDING a Dacport HD, which is a steal, considering how good this tiny USB DAC/amp sounds even years after it was introduced.
I found that upon arrival that they had a somewhat loose and boosted bass that was overshadowing the treble, but when I came back to them after just 4-6 hours of burn-in they clearly sounded much better. So I set them down and ran a total of 24 hours of music through them before I ever picked them up again. At that point they sounded even better and just about right, where at 36 hours the sound hadn't changed a lot more and I stopped the burn-in so that I could evaluate them.
The Cerene dB are one of those few headphones that have the biggest changes with burn-in vs some others, most noticeable by trying them and then setting them down for a day to run music through them and picking them up again - so please DO NOT go by 1st impressions and first put 1 or 2 days of music through them before you judge them.
I listened to them right out of my late 2014 old MacBook retina 15" headphone jack, as well as thru my iPhone Xs Max with lightning adapter, CEntrance BlueDAC and HiFi-M8 V1, plus through my HiFiMan R2R2000 DAP. They sound great un-amplified, but they also scale up with a better source and amplifier. I have not tried them yet with my desktop PS Audio DAC and ZDT amplifier yet.
After burn-in the sound was very good with clean but strong and punchy bass, plus a rich midrange and crisp treble detail with no fatigue. There is an ever-so-mild midrange bloom on some male vocals from being a warm sounding headphone, but it's not excessive or too intrusive (Chris Jones "Roadhouses and Automobiles"). And with female vocals like Diana Krall "Live in Paris" they're a real treat - her piano is replayed with fast response and realism, and the string bass is full sounding down low while also being able to hear they player's fingers brushing the strings as they are plucked, while I get a front row seat to hearing her vocals.
While these are intended to be a studio reference headphone, they are no way a bland sounding or cold headphone like many of the Beyer Dynamic headphones I have heard - They are a warm and rich headphone with good detail and efficiency, and remind me more of a current Sennheiser HD-660s (don't have one yet to directly compare to, but I've enjoyed trying the 660 at RMAF). The transparency and lack of coloration remind me of an open headphone, while the bass is deep and full like with a closed headphone.
They can be realistic and exciting/fun at the same time, but with not so much bass that recordings would come out of the editing process without enough bass in the recording. They sound great at low volumes at night, with good bass presence even without cranking up the volume, so no "loudness" EQ is needed with these. Overall frequency balance is good, and I think these play well above their pay grade. Listening to them via the R2R2000 portable DAP, you might sometimes think that you were listening to a $300-500 headphone (depending on your experience, and after they've been burned-in for 24-36 hours).
At this point I am very impressed for the street price being about half the cost of it's competitors, where $199 on sale gets you the Cerene dB + a DacPort HD USB DAC/amp! They simply kill my other small closed headphones such as my Sony MDR-6, Shure 840, modded ATH-900, Sennheiser HD-25, V-MODA M-80, and V-MODA XS. And they're also better than my old $300 V-MODA M-100 V1 wired, where the Cerene dB has better treble presence and detail, and it's mids are more intimate and rich sounding.
Isolation is decent too, about the same as the V-MODA and there is minimal sound leakage when playing at normal volume levels (can be distantly heard across the room when playing loud volumes). The upgraded V-MODA Crossfade Wireless II Rose Gold are fairly close in sound to these headphones, whether wired or wireless, and had cost about $350 (AptX version). I'll need to listen a lot more before I could declare which is better, although the Crossfade Wireless II are clearly better than the older M100 and first Crossfade Wireless, and similar to the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless when using bluetooth (compared at RMAF 2019 in September).
Next, Michael might want to try to make a Cerene BT with wireless capability in addition to a removable cable for wired listening, where it would justify doubling the price and at the same time become a Crossfade II Wireless or Momentum Wireless competitor, which are also very good portable phones. I'd planned to get the Sennheiser in the near future for the excellent active noise cancelation feature.
PS: While I wrote this review I was listening to "Live in Paris" on the Cerene dB through my R2R2000 DAP - I made it to song number 8 of 10, "Maybe You'll Be There" while typing the last paragraph, and I had to just stop and lay back and finish the song before finishing the review.
