Here's a little sleeper item - a $99 USD earphone (IEM) that few audiophiles would suspect of being a good listen. And it might be, with the right eartips. It definitely is with a good equalizer...
This is not my usual hi-fi headphone/earphone review, but given that this was a free subscription perk from a famous source, I thought it would interesting to see how much sound quality I'd get with it.
(Spoiler: not much)...
Here's a unique earphone with pewter earpieces. This design had me thinking (no pun intended) of Grado's porous-metal earcup housings that they use in some of their full-size headphones. The idea here is similar - to reduce resonances in the driver housings. U.S. made, the MSRP here is $179...
This could have been just another IEM review, but it's a woody, it's a Thinksound, and to me the sound is as good as or better than the RHA T20i that I had. The sound is definitely V-shaped, and it has a one-button control box with microphone. MSRP is $119 USD...
I got this Bluetooth IEM thrown in with a wired headphone I purchased. This has to be the first time for me that the freebie was better (by far!) than the purchase. Oh, well...
http://www.hifiheadphones.co.uk/community/threads/soundmagic-e10bt-bluetooth-earphone-iem-review.4464/
And now the Forza Metallo's lower-cost brother, the Forza Sport Hybrid. Costing $30 USD less than the Metallo and featuring moisture resistance, you might not expect it to be made as well or sound as good. I found the great bass to be about the same with each, although down around 16 hz this...
I've reviewed IEM's before, ranking from "well worth consideration" to "among the very best". This v-moda Forza Metallo is in the latter category, and it's inexpensive (my favorite word)...
I can't rave about these IEM's to the extent that I did with the on-ear On2, because I'm not a typical IEM user. In fact, I wasn't looking forward to doing a review on these because I don't like to do a half-hearted review. So I stared at them for a few days wondering whether to just give them...
Here's the perfect thing for an after-Thanksgiving purchase. A really, really good earphone, which BTW sounds a lot like the V-MODA M100 and Wireless.
http://www.hifiheadphones.co.uk/community/threads/v-moda-zn-in-ear-ear-canal-earphone-iem-review.4313/
Here's a really nice earphone - for once, a well-balanced sound from top to bottom. This is not a generic 'woodie', a few of which I've purchased myself that have a very choppy or uneven response. This is probably the best IEM I've heard below the Sennheiser IE800's price level. The link...