Audiophilepure

The package is separated into two sections. The top gives you all informational material, a thank you card, an instruction manual, extra meshes should the installed ones get dirty, a little booklet about the Phönix and a cleaning cloth. Then below the warranty card, which comes in a black leather credit-card holder, you’ll find the leather carrying case.

The bottom part is where the good stuff is hiding though. Here you have two separate boxes again. The top one holds your new jewel-like IEMs and the supplied cable. A quick word about the cable. It’s manufactured by HanSound Audio – a premium aftermarket cable manufacturer. VE’s website tells us, that the cable is a 23AWG silver/gold alloy copper litz cable, very much like HanSound’s Torfa. The cable itself comes with a pre-configured 2.5mm balanced termination. And if you look closely on the barrel, you’ll see it has VE etched all over it. That’s the kind of attention to detail that VE is famous for.

The Variations IEMs have an elevated, impactful, and full-bodied bass reproduction. The sub-bass is slightly more prominent than the rest of the bass range, however, the bass feels abundant all together. The textured, powerful bass contributes to the fun factor of the IEM. The Moondrop tuned it carefully to prevent the bass from bleeding into the lower mid section. The detail level is also good. The Variations perform well in this regard, the bass is controlled, very powerful, and quite exciting to listen to. 

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/jabra-elite-3-wireless-earbuds

The lowest frequencies are nicely managed, and controlled enough to demonstrate a nice straight edge where the attack and decay of individual bass sounds is concerned. They can sound rather remote from the rest of the frequency information, it’s true, but they at least fight against the overconfidence that can unbalance quite a few of their price-comparable rivals.

Up in the midrange, that peerless vocal is loaded with detail and, as a result, this is quite a thrilling listen. The top of the frequency range is just slightly edgy, but there’s plenty of substance and drive to treble sounds, rather than the ill-defined presentation some alternatives indulge in.

First of all it’s important to mention that the U6t plays perfectly with all kinds of sources, and it’s dead silent at all times with a pitch black background. My favorite modules for the U6t are the m15 ones (gun metal grey like the IEM color) and the below impressions are based on that.

Sound stage wise the U6t scores well, but there is margin for improvement, so let’s call it moderate. This is especially the case when it comes to the sound stage width. The U6t extends better at the bottom than it does at the top, but you overall get a more intimate presentation. There’s nothing wrong with that actually, and many people prefer this kind of tuning. What I do like is the depth in the U6t, and that both for the bass and mids. Together with the lovely depth, you get good layering and that’s something I always love hearing.

The bass has good texture and impact and the tuning of the 7 mm driver is very nice and controlled. Lows have good resolution and rumble, with nice mid-bass and sub-bass balance. The fatter bass of the Nanna was a deal-breaker for genres like Jazz for instance, but the Baldr 2 has an excellently refined and controlled bass response.

So instead of the lift in the sub-bass area (Nanna), you get a more balanced and linear bass response with the Baldr 2. I’m hearing more and more dynamic drivers that are nicely refined and controlled lately (Softears Cerberus), so it’s a very good sign. The driver almost feels like BA one, with great dynamics and speed. So this is not a typical dynamic driver, it’s tuned smoothly and nicely here.

The MEST MKII is a 4-way quadbrid inear monitor and it features a combo of Dynamic drivers, Balanced Armatures, Electrostat (EST) and dBC-S (Dual Side Bone Conduction) drivers. In total we have 7+1 drivers in the following combination: 1 Dynamic Bass Driver + 2 BA Mid Drivers+ 2 BA treble Drivers + 2 EST Ultra-High Drivers + 1 Full Range B2 Bone Conduction Driver. These hybrids are getting sophisticated!

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/sony-wf-c500

Building affordable true wireless in-ear headphones is a different discipline to building expensive ones, but it’s no less tricky. In the WF-C500 Sony has managed to bring a lot of what makes its expensive true wireless in-ears such a success without cutting too many corners too obviously – and in the process it’s made your job of choosing a great sub-£100 pair that little bit harder. 

Yes, the WF-C500 can be bettered (and by quite a margin) for battery life, but you’ll be hard-pushed to find a more comfortable pair. Yes, you can buy greater outright scale of sound but you won’t encounter a more complete control app. Some alternatives are a punchier and more ‘exciting’ listen, but very few strike a more convincing sonic balance.

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/sony-wf-1000xm4-noise-canceling-true-wireless-earbuds-review

Sony continues to raise the bar for filtering out ambient sound, with the 1000XM4 eliminating more external noise than nearly every other noise-canceling bud I’ve auditioned. But the 1000XM4 has the same flaw I’ve encountered in all noise-canceling buds save the Bose QC: wind noise. You’ll hear some whooshing through the external mics if you’re walking through 10MPH or higher gusts, or especially when bike riding or running outside. Sony’s Ambient Sound Control lets you turn noise canceling on and off and switch between plain noise canceling and automatic wind noise reaction, but I couldn’t detect a difference between the two.

For the MEST MKII, UM decided to implement upgraded metal vents for the dynamic driver and the MKII now has an improved sensitivity and response range. “How did UM do that?” you ask?

The UM MEST MKII uses a double sided piezoelectric bone conduction driver. This driver is placed in between 2 supporting plates. At the center of the driver you have the vibration board which is covered by a ceramic coating on both the front and the back. The bone conduction driver now has a larger contacting area with the shells (double sided contact) and as such you feel more of the bine conduction effect.

UM hasn’t touched the rest of the driver configuration compared to the original MEST. There’s a slight change in efficiency and sensitivity, but nothing spectacular.