Ultimate Ears Pro Reference Remastered - initial ohmage

January 9, 2017 ohm

Disclaimer: certain headfiers approached me with an irresistible offer: nabbing an Ultimate Ears Pro Reference Remastered in exchange for a review at the usual suspects. Being my privatest of stomping grounds, ohm will get the first words. Many thanks to Ultimate Ears to facilitating it all.

Subject: UE Pro Reference Remastered - Ultimate Ears: 999$ USD.
Head-fi thread: Ultimate Ears UE Pro Reference Remastered! (UERR) - Head-Fi.org

And the first words go like this: Nice chocolate-box vibing box. In it are two - again chocolate-reminding - thick instruction cards. There’s a magnet holding it all together. Inside, satiny nylon cuddles an environmentally sealed aluminium casket. In that sit the cooperative work between UE and Capital Studios.

Hollow shells keep the UEPRR light in the hand, and in the ear. Signal pathways are split all the way to its snout. It’s pleasantly underdressed. You know who made it. And if your skin is less pink than mine is, it'll wink out like a lightbulb.

While I’ve got just a few hours’s listening under my belt, I’m confident in saying that this earphone presents things like a concert. Viz., with the exception of a textured vocal band, the stage pushes powerfully out like a wall of sound. Vocals are grounded and prominent, bubbling forward at the slightest provocation. The UEPRR errs - however slightly - bright. Crowds in live recordings sound just like you were there. And you? You’re somewhere about a third of the way back from the stage, gathering in one of the widest stages you'll hear in a pair of in-ears.

Lows are quick and light, and their z-axis transition to mids is deep and 3D. Unlike Noble Audio’s K10, the UEPRR neither amplifies nor warms up the space between instruments. It’s also not as micro-contrasty as the Vision Ears V6. Next to the FitEar MH335’s brunt, its mids are calisthenically toned. And, with the exception of a really 3D bass and lower mid section, it is matter-of-fact, and middling bright. It is responsive, athletic, and surprisingly immersive despite its massive stage. For now I can’t describe it any better than that.

But I’ll be back. For now, I wish you some Bonafied Loving.

On the Vorzüge DUO II's EQ

January 6, 2017 ohm

Along with inheriting the PURE II's micro USB charging, variable gain, and super-stable output, Vorzüge's latest, the VorzAMP DUO II, sports a spanking-new EQ system.

Headfonia: Astell&Kern AKT8iE mkii review

October 13, 2016 ohm

Up today from me is the brilliant Astell&Kern AKT8iE mkii earphone. In the three short weeks I've had it in office, it has become my favourite single-driver earphone of all time.

Check it out: Review: Astell&Kern AKT8iE mkii – Age of Consent

THD and jitter: Apple's Lightning to 3,5 mm Headphone Adapter VS iPhone 6

October 11, 2016 ohm

Several articles about Apple’s Lightning to 3,5mm Headphone Jack Adapter are tickling the audiophile internet. These include: Heis’s appraisal of it attached to volume-capped European phones, Larry Ho’s Facebook thread (thank you Marcus) , which lambasts its jitter rate, Inner Fidelity questioning whether or not it utilises an onboard ADC to convert the signal to analogue before amplifying it in-house for the headphones, among others.

Heise.de measures Apple's Lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter

October 8, 2016 ohm

Whilst reading Friday's Daring Fireball blurb on the subject, I surfed to the above table at Heis.de.

A closeup on the Jays u-Jays

September 7, 2016 ohm

headphone is no mean feat. The reason is simple: the u-Jays is, in my opinion, Jays’s best and most cohesive-sounding product. It shares the brilliant warmth of Nuforce’s HEM2, which sweetens every spin of New Order, of Iggy Pop, of Joy Division. But it follows it with fractionally more high-frequency extension and stereo detail. The smooth is balanced with the scrupulousness. In now way am I suggesting that audiophiles looking for reference quality pick it up. It’s not that phone. But where it comes to HiFi sounds, u-Jays knock it out of the park.

A closeup on the Nuforce BE6i bluetooth earphone

August 24, 2016 ohm

Subject: Nuforce BE6i

In a week or two I’ll go into the goods and bads of this earphone. For now, let’s give a macro look at the Nuforce BE6i.

The age of freedom - bluetooth

August 23, 2016 ohm

Informed opinions suggest that the next iPhone divest itself of the headphone jack - which is a bugger those with loads invested in earphones (though Lear and Westone and Noble Audio, among others, have solutions), and it's a bugger because Bluetooth is a gobbles battery; many wireless earphones manage mere hours of playback. And, poor Bluetooth implementation hisses like the Dickens.

Thursday Scheimpflug - Grado RS1

August 18, 2016 ohm

This image was shot with a 5º forward tilt of the front standard

… and hail Scheimpflug Thursday. Or Thursday Scheimpflug. As I’m publishing this first instalment under my audiophile blog, I’ll not rag on about the maths involved in utilising Scheimpflug. (As a former English Literature major, I’ve got to be honest: I’ve really nothing but applied physics - a term Martin Irwin taught me - under my belt anyway.)

I’m the sort of headphone geek that loves strong branding, comfort, and good sound - in that order. Over the last few years, I’ve become a Grado head. I now own the original PS1000, the RS1, the GR10, the GR8, and the GR8e.

Review: Radius Wn4 HP-TWF41

August 5, 2016 ohm

Discriminating between sound signatures mature and timid is a chore. What initially sounds soft, or boring, may be a mask for deep stage layering, string-centric tuning, or wide, warm mids. The TWF41 certainly is string-centric, and mature-sounding- more so even than the TWF31.