[NuTT98]

I bought these as a fairly standard but what I hoped to be fairly good upgrade to replace a pair of earbuds of unknown identity. I don't know what these previous buds were, something that appears rather basic which my dad has been using for a while, and to him laptop speakers are perfectly fine so he's not exactly the discerning type. A pair he picked up in retail for a few bucks.

The real problem I had with these is that there's a nasty bass bump which not only numbs the music, but is high enough to strongly resonate the enclosure and be very distorted in general. Even though the PK3s bass response is also stronger than I had hoped, it's certainly better and suffers no such nasty distortion, but that's about all I can say in their favor. The high frequency response is way too high, and this is one area in which the former cheapo buds outclass them greatly, high frequency response is flatter and much more tolerable. Another thing which really surprised the hell out of me is I never imaged a headphone could exist which has absolutely no soundstage. The PK3s are a panoramic quantum dot. The former buds gave the sound a certain presence, one instrument was separated from another and there was a general dimension to the sound. With the PK3s, everything is as if squeezed into a little point in the middle of my head.

Going back for a more discerning listen, to be fair the PK3s have higher resolution and better transient response, harmonic distortion also sounds to be clearly in a higher class, even though this is difficult to pick up because it's overshadowed by pure dark evil of mysterious origin. In other words, they sound like high quality buds that are tied up with thick rope and buried alive. Lots of potential, but something is horribly wrong.

What's causing the imaging problem I really do not know, as I've mentioned, the general mechanical function of the headphones appears fine as far as raw sound output (one headphone in one ear). Perhaps inter-channel phase/delay problems are to blame, or maybe the headphones sit in the ear in such a way as to create a sound signature that the brain interprets as space-less. Or maybe these headphones simply sound like earbuds are supposed to sound, but I've come upon some cheapo gems that unexpectedly break the boundaries of the norm and thus leave me unsatisfied with actual earbud sounding earbuds. The issue here is that I don't have experience with buds apart from these two, but nevertheless I can judge which sound better.

Weighting the good versus the bad, I've gone back to the former buds for now. Despite their one disgusting fault, the problem can be easily equalized. I've yet found no way to equalize the despairing suck of the PK3s.

For the sake of the owners of more expensive Yuin models, I sure hope my experience is in no way representative of any other product the company has to offer. Maybe these particular ones got trampled by an elephant on the production line, however sound quality is hard to claim as defective when there is nothing functionally wrong.

One more thing I should consider is the mythical "breaking in". I will run the headphones tomorrow for a good long while and until then maintain a dash of hope that they will suddenly stop sucking. I've not heard anything about these headphones benefiting greatly from a break in so my expectations aren't high, but if the situation changes I'll be sure to report.

By the way, I'm a former owner of a deceased Stax 303 system and an active studio monitor user. Both headphones aren't even on the horizon in comparison, they Staxes were truly incredible, absolute sound euphoria. I can't even begin to express in words their level of awesomeness. I thought this was important to mention to negate the possibility that I'm some random iPod ********* imperceptive of good sound. I know exactly what good headphones are supposed to sound like, the peculiar case here is that as of this writing, my PK3s are generally outclassed by turd-level earbuds. Recommending random radio shack crap over 50 dollar headphones isn't something I'd have expected to be doing before these arrived.

But again, "breaking in". Everything I've said so far could potentially be pig sludge by tomorrow. For the sake of keeping the universe balanced I sure hope things will make sense once again.

 

[Aimless1]

As you seem to already know, the PK3 will not benefit from break in. It's possible they may not be suited to your source and/or to the music you listen to.

 

[tstarn06]

Haven't owned the PK3s in awhile, but I do believe they benefit from burn-in. If not, send them back. They just weren't for you.

 

[ClieOS]

I always enjoy my time with PK3. It is a fun earbud to have and better than any earbud of its class (that I own). Like other said, maybe it just doesn't suit your taste.

 

[NuTT98]

Oh wow! Sure enough there was something horribly wrong and now I figured out what it was.

I've mentioned my real problem was a complete lack of imaging/soundstage. It was so severe I wasn't sure what to attribute it to, despite both earpieces working fine otherwise. Turns out I was more right than I'd have imaged, there was absolutely no stereo separation because the channels were getting mixed and smudged into each-other. The plug was in a very awkward position within the jack where both left and right channels pushed themselves into both. Had one channel simply been disconnected the problem would have been obvious. To seal the problem, the plug put itself into the same nasty position on my secondary audio device too... some minor physical defect because it looks fine otherwise. It's not that the plug wasn't fully inside, but rather that it had to be twisted to get the channels to pop into their respective position, a bit of twisting action on both sources aligned the connection in place.

I noticed the real problem when I simply gave it a second thought. How could the stereo separation be so damn bad? The idea that there was either a criss-cross or I was getting one channel into both triggered and I thus ran my trust IASCA sound stage test. Sure enough the test confirmed that there's probably a stupid silly solution to my problem.

So how do the PK3s ACTUALLY sound? Well, they sound pretty damn good, the ****ty radioshack-class earbuds or on their way to the can as soon as I'm finished writing.

The other treble/bass problem still remains, the headphones sound a bit too excited, however this is one issue I can comfortably attend to, otherwise what I said remains true, the headphone's resolution, transient response, distortions and overall balance are clearly in an upper-class category, and now I can finally hear how true that is. Actually, it would be simpler to say they have a weak midrange.

So all is well that ends well, I have modified the title to ensure I don't scare away potential PK3 buyers, money well spent indeed. If the headphones sound wrong, be sure to twist the plug!

 

[Aimless1]

Congrats! Glad you found the problem, and better yet, that you're enjoying them.

 

[ClieOS]

All is good