crewchief
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2005
- Posts
- 323
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- 0
Hey all it's been a long time since I have been here and it is good to see that the boards are alive and well. So anyways my catchy title at this point probably has you scratching your head as to why I'm here. So today I was in Wal-Mart doing some grocery shopping and I had a thought that I wanted some earphones with a mic cause a while ago I bought a pair of Klipsch S4's without the mic and being that I just got a new shiny Droid Razr I can't live without a mic. Also funny enough because of this phone kicking every things ass, my poor iPod Touch has been sitting with a inch of dust on it for the last month....LOL. So I hit up the electronics section just browsing for something cheap to get me by until I can find a better option but alas the true head-fi'er in me would not allow this when I spotted a pair of iBeats dangling on the top rack just taunting me. Now again for anybody who has spent any time here knows that if a headphone comes with a sub $100 price tag we usually don't blink when it comes to buying them just for the hell of it. So I did, and I can't believe it cause I am a big proponent of being anti mainstream when it comes to audio equipment and paying for names (cough: Bose: cough) but I just could not resist the temptation. In the cart they went and when I got home I was quite surprised when I opened the box. Look at all those tips and accessories, which also made me feel bad for some teenage girl who bought these and has no idea on how to find a proper seal. Anyways I started at low volume and tried on the different tips which didnt take long considering that I already know that my canals tend to run a little large but I was quite happy that the single flange tips came in four degrees of size instead of the usual three cause I am right in the middle of medium and large Shure tips for instance and the iBeats had this covered. So now lets open up the throttle and see what we get. Wow I was kind of startled by the bottom end in these things, much punchier then my S4's and kind of reminded me of my SE530's (sigh I miss those). The mids and highs were acceptable and not tinny or overly harsh but not quite as clear as the S4's. The sound stage though is where I was really shocked as I haven't heard that kind of separation in a earphone in a long time. So I am burning in right now and I want to see how these settle before I decide they are keepers or not but as of right now they are in fact getting the thumbs up. Now I know that I might have to put on my flame retardant clothing because of this post and believe me I was in most head-fi'ers camp before today thinking that the Beats line is nothing but overpriced crap but I might have to change that opinion. Now I have listened to the big studio headphones once from my friend but I don't think I would ever shell out the coin for those when my favorites are some Grado 225's and HD650's but I do have to start over again when it comes to the big boys as I lost all my gear trying to survive in this economy. Thanks all for surviving to worlds longest most ill punctuated paragraph in history and I want to say it feels good to be back. Now I am off to the headphone forum. Later
