Quick OOTB for KZ x HBB PR2
▶︎Personal Purchase from KZ Global Shop at $29USD
▶︎The measurement appears almost a re-shoot of discontinued Tangzu’s legendary Planar, Wu Zetian.
Wu Zetian = 14.5mm full-size planar
PR2 = 13.2mm full-size planar (bellsing?)
I run PR2 through 3 sets of 60min online burn-in session from this site:
https://www.chord-m.com/en/?runin=open
A pretty nice comprehensive initial burn-in tool that works great to most of transducers.
The right-out-of-the-box performance was a nightmare…I removed 70% of my out of box comments with “maybe I‘ve expected too much from KZ”.
I’m really curious what Crin (the burn-in disbeliever) would comment his out of box comment on PR2 VS A proper burn-in completed set of PR2. He has enough sensitive set of ears to tell a huge difference of this change
️PR2 requires significantly higher level of gain to have a proper sonic performance.
️With Stock foam ear tips that is attached to PR2 out of box, and standard KZ stock cable, PR2 isn’t performing the true potentials
—Tonal Balance
As well-expected from HBB collaboration, warm and relaxed treble neutral that matches perfectly to tracks with “energy / momentum “ prerequisites. It also has good amount of detail articulation and with slightly accentuated air region, if you feel PR2 lacks air, you probably belong to “artificially generated air” lover.
—Timbre Tasting
Top Note: Tactile yet Nimble sub-bass
Heart Note: Smooth and tonally accurate mid
Bottom Note: Far reaching and pretty natural treble
—PR2 vs Wu Zetian OG
On the paper, PR2 appears to be more detailed around treble and air region?
I performed direct A-B test both using same ear tips (SpinFit CP360) and Wu’s 4.4mm balanced stock cable.
▶︎Wu has a noticeable advantage over PR2 for the planar driver performance in terms of transient response.
Wu sounds light and fast, PR2 sounds slightly slow when directly compared to Wu Zetian, I’d day 90% in speed.
For tuning wise both Wu and PR2 are almost same projectile, you can refer my Wu’s OOTB for the tonality.
Here is my Wu’s out of box impression as
▶︎For Bass-Mid, the performance gap is 100 : 90 For Treble 100 : 95 for Wu : PR2
They are almost par
▶︎Planar performance at almost bare minimum budget
, for the price of $29, I bet this is hard to beat Planar experience anyone would chip in.
Overall experience, my expectations was very high, and PR2 actually met with that high expectations which is very rare occasion to my experience in any IEM open box experienc.
Also, although with HBB’s tuning advise, I’m quite surprised KZ is now able to tune IEM to fit to the target without sacrificing timbral accuracy which unfortunately did not happen back then to Zex Pro /CRN.
PR2 is 90-95% Wu Zetian and is best IEM of KZ has offered to date. Wow, great job in offering A-class IEM with that low budget!!