Spent 40 mins demo-ing the KSE1200 today, through my SP1000 SS, listening to Tidal Masters (24/96) and few Tidal HiFi (16/44) and A/B-ing with my current fave IEM pairing of Cosmic Ears CE6P + balanced 8W copper cable.
Quick impressions:
- The amp was smaller than I was expecting - pleasantly surprised.
- Very comfortable, just like the less expensive Shures (I started my head-fi journey with SE535s and I think to this day they were the most comfortable for prolonged listening and sleeping. Unlike, say, the Solaris and their milk, which I tend to find very uncomfortable fairly quickly, lacking big lugholes as I do). This also means that I have no issues with build quality. The Shures are probably the least attractive housings I’ve owned, but their small and slippery form factor means they travel well and there’s less to damage. They do look cheap though.
- Good isolation from background noise.
- I needed to crank up the volume on the AK DAP very high, even with the KSE amp well above half way. There’s volume to spare in both devices, but I had to be very careful to dial the volume way back down on the SPK before switching back to my other IEMs, otherwise that would’ve been they end of the demo session (and any music listening for rest of the day while my eardrums recovered).
- Sound quality: STUNNING for CERTAIN music. As others have said, there’s not a massive character to them (I.e. they don’t come strongly EQ’d in any given direction except flat); but this means they spit out what’s put in. I like guitar-based music generally (blues, rock, Americana, country, funk etc), and I found that the modern better produced albums, without too much heavy guitar, worked the best. Straight up classic / heavy rock music wasn’t better to my ears than the Cosmic Ears, in fact slightly less exciting. But acoustic / lighter, carefully produced (not overly compressed) stuff sounded better than I’ve ever heard.
Two examples that jump out were ‘Slow It Down’ by TFDI (acoustic with harmony vox) and John Mayer’s new single, ‘I Guess I Just Feel Like’. Both already sounded great with the existing IEMs but definitely eased up a gear with the KSEs.
The key ingredient for me, by a country mile, was note separation. A number of tracks that I know well - including the two mentioned above - had a whole new level of clarity and emotion in them.
- Soundstage was better than I had feared. I love a wide stage and always listen to the SPK balanced, and although the single-ended KSE1200s weren’t as wide as that, the soundstage was still wide enough that it didn’t reduce any enjoyment. Still a lot wider than my FiiO X7II balanced (which I recently upgraded from), for example.
- Downside is obviously going back to a stack. Having said that, I spent many happy months with the FiiO strapped to an ALO CDM, and the KSE amp is much smaller. If I need to go without, i’ll be happy with a good set of universals and a balanced cable coming out of the SPK, as I have now.
Outcome: they don’t look great; they’re only single-ended; they could seem a bit overkill - electrostatic or otherwise - for everyday portability; they aren’t for every listening session, or every style of music. But when the stars are aligned, these things sound bloody great. Ordered them for arrival in a week or so, all being well.
