Recently purchased the new VSonic GR07 Bass Edition, and was suggested by a fellow member to open a separate thread for these IEMs, so here's some of my impressions and thoughts of them.
Full disclosure:
I purchased the GR07 bass edition during an preorder promotion, with the total cost including shipping and handling being around 135 USD, with a free "GR04 Pro Flagship Edition" thrown in as well, so my impressions might be inflated due to that.
Foreword:
I'm no basshead, in fact, I might as well as be a treblehead as well, considering how I never liked bassy earphones. This was mostly more of an impulse purchase more, had the deal not come, I would've bought the vanilla GR07/GR07 Mk.II/Etymotic HF5/Phonak PFE instead. But the deal for the bass edition was too tempting, so I went with that finally. However, I had buyer's remorse almost immediately after clicking the "purchase" button, for fear that the bass edition was bassy (bassy like FXT90/IE8 or even Atrio M8 levels, in which I all hated on first listening), the delays (due to component shortage, as claimed by VSonic) didn't help either, and all it did was to further enhance buyer's remorse.
After nearly a month of wait, the shipment finally arrived. Here's what the box looks like:
And inside the box:
Details of the IEM itself:
Included in the box are a bunch of accessories, as shown in the above photos. Taken verbatim (translated) from the earphone accessories list in the box, there's
"1. Black, standard S. M. L sized sillicone eartips.
2. Black, standard biflange sillicone eartips.
3. Dual-colour, mixed sillicone eartips with seven sizes (red: SS, blue: ML, cyan: L, purple: LL), each eartip interior has the size labeled.
4. Dual color, noise isolating eartips (blue: ML, cyan: L purple: LL).
5. Memory foam.
6. High quality leather storage bag.
7. Earguides.
8. Earphone clip."
Included in the box is also an apology letter from VSonic, apologizing for the delay due to component shortage, which is pretty nice of them.
The IEM housing, accessories, box, Y-split and plug are the same as the previous GR07 models, according to forum member putente. However, the cable is different from the previous models, and has a candy cane-esque red-white color scheme, "1.30m +/- 3% TPU cable, maximum 82 cores silver and cooper combo wire" [sic].
As for the sound, upon first listening, I was surprised that it wasn't bass bloating, and the bass quantity reminds me of the Shure SE215 and Yamaha EPH100, with the GR07 Bass Edition having slightly less or similar bass quantity to them. The bass quantity was increased slightly after a day of burn-in however, though I'm not sure if it's simply placebo effect, but the increase in bass isn't significant enough to cause Jason Newsted's bass to be heard in "...And Justice For All". The bass has a speaker/sub like quality to me somehow, and acoustic bass drums sound punchy, instead of simply "clicking".
Though, the treble quantity does leave some place in improvement, as I think it's slightly lacking in treble, though I think that may be done in response to the comments of the GR07 being sibilant (either that, or I just like treble).
The soundstage is pretty remarkable as well, although I think it's slightly smaller than the vanilla GR07, although I'm not exactly sure with that, as I've only listened to the GR07 around half a year ago at the local Jaben. The soundstage was realistic to a level that it woke me from a drowsy state, while listening to a Dolby Headphone applied version of the 5.1 version of Opeth's Heritage (Nepenthe, to be exact, the entry of the drums woke me up).
The build quality is decent, although I'm afraid that the rotatable nozzle of the GR07 bass edition will fail mechanically eventually. Though, VSonic should improve their quality control, as I received a foam tips without the stem thingy, which makes it unusable:
Not enough to make or break a product, but still not good.
I don't own enough earphones for a fully featured comparison, and I'm not going to include earphones that I've heard but don't own (so no comparisons to the vanilla GR07 unfortunately, though, VSonic, if you're reading this, I wouldn't mind a sample or two), so there won't be many comparisons to other earphones, and all I have here are JVC FX40s and the included VSonic R04 Pro "Flagship Edition". Not exactly the best for comparison, considering both are budget IEMs, but it's better than none.
Comparing the GR07 bass edition to the JVC FX40, the first most-obvious difference was the mids. Listening to the FX40 after listening to the GR07 bass edition makes the FX40 seems like it is mid-deficient. The FX40 sounded like it has no bass at all, and has an "artificial" feeling when comparing to the GR07 bass edition. The FX40 also sounded shrill and a more narrow soundstage compared to the GR07 bass edition, and has significantly less isolation than it. The cable also look puny in comparison to the VSonics, but it's an budget earphone after all.
While for the comparison for the included R04 Pro "Flagship Edition". Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think that VSonic included these in for purpose to make the GR07 bass edition reviews look better.
The R04 Pro's soundstage is "blurry" in comparison to the GR07 bass edition, and doesn't sound as full-bodied as the GR07 bass edition. However, maybe due to placebo or confirmation bias, I think the R04 Pro's isolation is actually slightly better than the GR07 bass edition. The R04 Pro's cable also looks better to me, compared to the red-white cable of the GR07 bass edition.
The bottom line: The GR07 Bass Edition isn't without flaws, like the weird looking cable, bad tip, not enough treble, but in my opinion, the flaws aren't that significant to break a product, and the good points overweight the flaws; the GR07 bass edition is definitely a keeper.
