Got in my pair of Fender Puresonic Premium wired yesterday. Bought the BT which led me to buy these. BT model sounds very good but has dropouts unless you don't have your player on your person in a certain area. Away from the body is fine. Back pocket or hands block the signal pretty easy. I am getting an AP80 and will wear it necklace style so I don't mind the issue. At times was resorting to wearing the Fender cable in front with my A45 which helped cure the dropouts. The BT was not done that well but the sound and other things were so I still bought the wired version...
Currently my favorite $99 model I have tried. A real jack of all trades. Handsome - check. A strong cable that looks goods, stems microphonics well, doesn't tangle much, and has a good slider shorter memory wires, and a great length to the Y for me(9.25" from the memory wire to the Y). IPX4 so some sweat and rain is fine. Smaller size than other fenders(30% is their claim) so it a bit bigger than the Semkarch CNT1.
Fit is really nice. The stock sticky Sureseal tips are good tips if a bit love or hate. They work fine for the sound and are good to have in your kit for sure. I still like longer tips a bit more and use Klipch Custom black tips. I find they tune a bit but are more agreeable with tips than many earphones. Downside is the 3mm bore with 4mm lip on the end will be loose fitting for the widest bore tips so spacers would need to be used to build it up some for a tight fit. Other than that when you shape the memory wire right the fit is sweet and easy to achieve. Longer tips do add more of an aiming factor while shorter are easy to get the sound right. Depends on ear canals but longer do allow for deformation in front due to the extra length allowing bending. Sureseal are thicker and short so won't exhibit this but I like the Klipsch for the bit more balance they give. the stickier Sureseal are going to push anything they are on a bit more towards high seal and the warmest they can be. The included foams tips will be more of a balanced sound but a nice amount of bass.
The sound is nice. These $99 fender go away from the CX/DX titanium driver thing and use the higher end 9.25 from the better models. This time with more balance and not an Aurisonic style big bass. I haer them as also very agreeable with source and file. My old stuff sounds right and great even old school Napster/Audio galaxy mp3's to new FLACS and WAVs. Radio sounds right. EQ presets all sound good whether it be Sony, iRiver, or Cowon. They only earphones I have liked on my A45 on flat as others too a bit too polite or dull even.
These Fender have some sweet bass done right. Best I have heard in a while. Mids are crisp, still close to up front, and well defined. Treble is real and has a bit of sparkle nice detail and transparency. Being a single driver makes them obviously quite cohesive but really one of the best. Detail is surprisingly good and comes from each area more evenly than other earphones. if I were to pick out maybe a slight bit of low bass to the mids is where detail is a little more focused or evident. The nice clarity and transparency coupled with sweet separation prowess had me saying that I have been hearing things I haven't heard in a while. Texture and details in the guitar and bass and even vocals that the Semkarch nor B400 or even My Elecom showed. Upgrade cable or not. The Puresonic Wired is fixed cable so no swapping out but I have no problem with that due to the performance of it in most all aspects. Cable is just fine. While the separation is sweet and they have a pretty nice black background the stage is above average. Pretty big but can jump with recording or source. Not the biggest but won't disappoint esp. in the balance of width height and depth. But I still have even used the widest bore tips trying to enhance it yet which shows it satisfying for a person who values soundstage size.
So far they have just done a great jobs of checking off a real high percentage of things I want done well. Nice to be very satisfied and not annoyed with fit or cable or glaring sound issues. Nothing lacking or sounding off. Maybe not a truly great earphone but something great when A to Z just works and works quite well.
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