LTDJ
Head-Fier
Since there's not much info on these here I've decided to start a new thread with my impressions of these after 3 weeks of use and roughly 150 hours of play time. I'm coming to these from Shure SE846's combined with EarStudio ES100 bluetooth receiver/DAC which I still use and love.
After 150 hours I can say that they sound very engaging and full. Especially the bass, Sony does this very well.
My initial impressions were that they were very muddy and the highs seemed very artificial and grainy. I hate this sort of grainy business. I'm not sure what exactly happened, maybe it was the Final Type E clear ear tips that helped brighten things up, but now I enjoy listening to them... dare I say as much as I enjoy listening to SE846s... At least sound quality wise. SE846's have an overall edge in mids and highs - these feel more natural still, but the bass on Sony's is just in another league.
What I don't like about Sony's is the form factor. And this creates challenges which make me appreciate SE846's more.
The exact issues I have with them is the design of earpieces, they don't go inside the ear as true IEM's would, they are more like halfway there. This means that they don't lock in place as well. This also means that due to the earpieces being huge and the weight of them being outside of the ear they are prone to moving around and that impacts seal and the quality of sound/noise cancellation. Even with Final Type E tips (I got the set with 5 different sizes to see which one fits best) the seal is great once locked in but it doesn't take much for them to dislodge themselves slightly whilst on the move which is very annoying. It's not much of an issue in an office situation.
What is an issue in office situation is the Bluetooth connectivity. These things support single connection ONLY (music and calls separately though)! What a freaking joke, what were you thinking Sony? So now if I want to use it with my laptop I need to disconnect from my phone and connect to my laptop manually. Whereas with ES100's I can stay locked in to both at the same time. And I can have ES100 in USB DAC mode!
Another not so great situation is the battery life. I do get the advertised 10 hours, but it is very poor compared with ES100 where I can go for 2 days without recharging. Obviously ES100 don't do NC but still 12 hours on Sony's would have been perfect.
Last but not least is the quality of noise cancellation. It works. It doesn't do magical things, so the sound still leaks through (as it does with all NC earphones/headphones) but it is very limited. That said SE846's with foam tips are as good as Sony's with NC on. That says a lot I think.
Ah and the build quality is very premium, none of that cheap plastic business. I like them a lot.
After 150 hours I can say that they sound very engaging and full. Especially the bass, Sony does this very well.
My initial impressions were that they were very muddy and the highs seemed very artificial and grainy. I hate this sort of grainy business. I'm not sure what exactly happened, maybe it was the Final Type E clear ear tips that helped brighten things up, but now I enjoy listening to them... dare I say as much as I enjoy listening to SE846s... At least sound quality wise. SE846's have an overall edge in mids and highs - these feel more natural still, but the bass on Sony's is just in another league.
What I don't like about Sony's is the form factor. And this creates challenges which make me appreciate SE846's more.
The exact issues I have with them is the design of earpieces, they don't go inside the ear as true IEM's would, they are more like halfway there. This means that they don't lock in place as well. This also means that due to the earpieces being huge and the weight of them being outside of the ear they are prone to moving around and that impacts seal and the quality of sound/noise cancellation. Even with Final Type E tips (I got the set with 5 different sizes to see which one fits best) the seal is great once locked in but it doesn't take much for them to dislodge themselves slightly whilst on the move which is very annoying. It's not much of an issue in an office situation.
What is an issue in office situation is the Bluetooth connectivity. These things support single connection ONLY (music and calls separately though)! What a freaking joke, what were you thinking Sony? So now if I want to use it with my laptop I need to disconnect from my phone and connect to my laptop manually. Whereas with ES100's I can stay locked in to both at the same time. And I can have ES100 in USB DAC mode!
Another not so great situation is the battery life. I do get the advertised 10 hours, but it is very poor compared with ES100 where I can go for 2 days without recharging. Obviously ES100 don't do NC but still 12 hours on Sony's would have been perfect.
Last but not least is the quality of noise cancellation. It works. It doesn't do magical things, so the sound still leaks through (as it does with all NC earphones/headphones) but it is very limited. That said SE846's with foam tips are as good as Sony's with NC on. That says a lot I think.
Ah and the build quality is very premium, none of that cheap plastic business. I like them a lot.
