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Showing 1 of 214 reviews about:
kittenman
5
Aug 11, 2018
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antdroidI am one of the unhappy customer of this MassDrop and HIFIMAN collaboration ( You can check my review if interested) Anyhow, I am no audiophile, my judgement of this is solely based on my paltry experience with audio products ( Philips SHP9500S, Pixel Buds, and iPhone earphones). And somehow this thing is worse than the iPhone earphones. So I wanna ask an expert, do you think Massdrop's claim on Bolt "they look, sound, and fit like earphones several times their price" , accurate?
antdroid
371
Aug 11, 2018
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kittenmanI would take the Tin Audio T2 over this any day of the week and its 4-5X the price at $40-50. I dont really listen to many earbuds at this price point but I also liked Monoprice Dual Driver IEM and I paid $6 for it. I gave it away to a coworker who needed a pair at work but it was a decent IEM. There are a bunch of ear buds in this price range I really do like. I am not a basshead though. I don't like V-shaped headphones -- this is one of them. So my tastes are going to be a bit different than the target audience for these. I was expecting more of what I normally hear from Hifiman in their current lineup of headphones, granted I have not heard their IEMs before.
kittenman
5
Aug 11, 2018
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antdroidThanks for the insight. This is actually my first time buying a Massdrop collaboration product, I guess also will be the last.
ssnjrthegr8
17
Aug 11, 2018
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antdroidThat graph looks horrible af, tbh for $15 (including shipping) hifiman could have done better. Saying it's $10 ain't really an excuse.
antdroid
371
Aug 11, 2018
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kittenmanNooo! A lot of the MD collaborations are wonderful products! This is just cheap. It's not horrible for $10. It's just cheap not as great of a deal as say the $199 and above collaborations they have going which are wonderful products.
antdroid
371
Aug 14, 2018
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kittenmanFor less than $10, and if you like ear buds (not IEMs), I highly recommend the Yincrow X6. You can find it on AliExpress. It's a great sounding ear bud for about $7 USD.
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Massdrop has had some very strong collaboration products with major industry players over the past few years in the audio arena, so when Massdrop announced their latest collaboration with Hifiman, I was ready to jump on board -- especially at the offering price of $10!
This drop actually ended up arriving before the estimated ship date by several weeks, so that was pleasing.I was definitely skeptical about a $10 set of headphones from a company known to sell headphones from $500 to over $10,000. But at the same time, I never heard any of their IEMs before, so I was up for anything, and at the asking price, it was hard to turn it down.
As a background, I own the Hifiman HE560 currently (and love it), and have also listened to and enjoyed the Sundara, 400i, Edition X V2, and other Hifiman products. I listen to mostly indie rock, post-rock, dreampop, shoegazer, jazz, country, folk, and singer-songwriter stuff, but I also listen to hip hop/rap and electronic dance music too.
Build/Packaging:
So the item came in a very basic box along with 3 sets of cheap silicone tips (Small/Medium/Large).
The cable is non-detachable and is a flat-wire type, which I really dislike in general. For example, the ones that Audeze uses on their portable Sine and iSine headphones -- I really do not like. Hifiman takes my dissatisfaction of flat cables to a whole new level though. This cable is just "flat" out awful.It does have a mic built into it but I have yet to try it.
The IEM housing itself is an attractive aluminum shell that is simple and elegant. It's also small and lightweight, and fits rather easily in my ears. These have to be worn cable down, as the driver is angled to fit that way, and cable, again, is not detachable.
One thing to note: Driver Flex can occur with silicone tips. If not driver flex, something loud and crinkly sounding. Doesn't occur as much with foams.
My first impressions putting these on were something like... OH MY GOSH! THAT BASS! The bass slams and is monstrous if you get a good seal. But everything else is utter garbage. The mids are very recessed and treble is extremely loose. Many people have complained of a "tinny" sound, which I can also hear too, though not as badly as people may make it out to be.
The IEM is L-shaped with major focus on the bass and low mids end. The above MiniDSP EARS measurement I made definitely shows that. The bass is exaggerated while the mids begin to slope very far down and become recessed in the main vocal range. The upper mids look like they start to behave like one would expect but then treble is completely rolled off with a slight bump around 16K.
Soundstage is medium width and instrument separation is average.
Detail and clarity is severely lacking on this IEM, and they tend to sound muddy in many tracks.
Overall:
While I wasn't expecting an exceptional audiophile IEM with this price, I was expecting something similar to other Hifiman headphones I heard - in terms of sound signature and tonality. Instead, this thing reminds me more of a generic consumer-sound that is worth about $5-10. Many of the packaged ear buds and IEMs that come with phones and DAPs sound better than these. This is quite a disappointing addition to the Hifiman family unfortunately. For about $10, I think many people would be much better off getting something like the Yincrow X6 or the Blue Ever Blue 328R which are both Ear Buds (not IEMs) -- but they sound a lot better overall with added clarity.
Finally, a comparison to my current budget king, the Tin Audio T2: