the fractal design toine R4 case gets featured on the wow build logs of the
week section more than any other case click now to learn more about it to
start with I want to be very clear about how I'm approaching all of this I've got
lots of nice headphones and I had some clips 4S for a while so those weren't
bad um my daily driver IM IMS for the last few months have been steel series
flux iner Pros due to their excellent Comfort but I've never owned pricey
audio file grade earphones before so this is as much a first impressions of
expensive imem as it is a review of the ie80s from Sennheiser so we'll start
with initial Impressions the packaging feels very premium and comes with an
unbelievable number of year tips to choose from which is good because the
dynamic drivers with their fancy neodymium magnets are very large and I
actually needed the smallest possible silicone tips in order to get these
babies into my ears comfortably the carry in case it's included is super
nice and totally Irrelevant for the vast
majority of people who buy iems I think there's good news though the ie80s have
other than the scratches that you'll see in our macro footage of them survived
very well in my pocket with my phone and they're extremely easy to untangle the
removable Kevlar reinforced cables are quite stiff out of the box which was a
concern because the ie80s actually wrap
around the top of your ear before being inserted and while the cable was brand
new I found that the wire would often slip off of my ears like this Sennheiser
does include a little cable routing sheath in case you want to use it but I
actually found it more comfortable to wear them without it and in a week or
two I didn't have that problem anymore anyway as far as looks and comfort are
concerned the earphones look kind of heavy and bulky but they're actually so
comfortable and low profile that I'm able to sleep in them without them
falling out during the night this combined with their solid noise
isolation has made them a definite keeper for me they have a very subdued
style to them with an all black and silver color scheme that I quite like
but while it might feel silly and Superfluous an eye-catching design might
help them get attention from mainstream customers the way that Brands like beets
and Skull Candy do um sadly through an informal poll of a couple of my less
techy friends I found that they had never even heard of Sennheiser which
depressed me a great deal moving on to the reason it might depress me that
someone's never heard of Sennheiser is the listening tests in my listening
tests I used a variety of different sources including an O2 and odac from
Mayflower electronics and a Zonar Essence one from ASUS and other than
this being the first time that I've been able to hear the noise floor of my
Essence one as a hiss during the quiet part of certain tracks I really felt
like a strength of this product is the fact that they sound great with pretty
much anything from Cheapo MP3s on my iPhone 4 all the way up to Flax on my
object Ive 2 in odac before we go any further here though is my usual
disclaimer and apology about the kind of music I listen to I'm a top 40 listener
just like lots of people I love Bieber and Miley and pink and well not Bieber
so much but you know JT is definitely better but the point is if you want
reviews of these from folks who listen to classical music those are abundant
this is my review and that's the kind of music I listen to so there you go
truthfully having requested the i8s on the recommendation of edel editor I
didn't really know what I was getting myself into I saw the adjustable base
Port feature on them and I went oh how quaint if folks want more Basse they can
turn that adorable little dial with the included tool well there's nothing
adorable or quaint about it whatsoever with or without the knob the base
experience with these is truly skull rocking it really feels like the bones
at the back of my head are vibrating when I really let them loose and it's an
experience unlike any that I've had before for Highs are both loud and clear
and mids are also clear if a fair bit quieter and more subdued this made
mid-range vocalists feel a bit far away especially during busier parts of a
track with a lot of background music after some discussion with edel I found
that his love for the i8s which are very similar to the ie80s comes from finding
it easier to take a clear detailed IM with very strong Basse performance and
tame it somewhat with software Equalization than it is to take a
reference sounding IM and try to boost the Bas on naturally through EQ it's a
great point but I found myself quite
liking their base heavy sound signature after a while and 3 weeks later I am no
longer using EQ on them at all they sound great loud and this is unusual for
me but with these I often find myself not reaching for the volume dial um
nearly as much as I did even though they do sound great loud the isolation is
good without me feeling like I could probably get hit by a train without
hearing it coming and in spite of the strong Bas performance I can hear every
Last Detail in the music without cranking them so I have the option to
listen to them quietly or turn them right up and feel the skull vibration
one way the I8 surprised me a little was their openness once while I was sitting
in my house listening to them I actually had one of my baby songs come come on it
has a car horn in it and I actually looked outside thinking it was in my
driveway before I realized it was part of the track uh this is unusual and many
iems really make you feel like the sound is coming from between your ears but not
so with these my wife had a very similar experience with them she's no audio file
and I think the word she was looking for was Sound Stage but her way of
describing it was was this instead of hearing the sound from here and here
it's like it's here here here here here and here and I thought that was kind of
cool coming from someone who doesn't know all the terminology but is
definitely still having the same experience so we're down to the part of
the video where I say whether I'd recommend them or not well they're over
$300 on Amazon Amazon so if you're going to buy them you'd better be sure you
won't lose them and once you get past that hurdle I would say if you want
something that delivers a strong basey sound signature like many mainstream
products but actually does it well with tight thumping low frequency performance
and Clarity in the mids and highs then get on board these are for you the
Discerning Bas head I think the ie80s can be best described for you as fun to
listen to and you're going to absolutely love them if you're looking for reference IMS for
Studio monitoring and you want a flat frequency response curve then I think
You' better move along there are products out there that are designed for
you this is not one of them my personal
closing thought on the ie80s is this they're expensive but at the end of the
day I've got a literal pile if you guys are following me on Instagram you'll
know about this already I've got a literal pile of audio file grade
headphones next to my PC and most days
when I'm sitting down and it's time to listen to some music I still take these
out of my pocket and plug them in instead I haven't done these yet but I
probably should mention a couple of popular upgrades there's a version of the detachable cable with a mic that you
can buy so that's kind of cool and in spite of the wide variety of included
ear tips uh the ones that I actually liked
best are thirdparty comply soft foam ear tips they improve the isolation even
further if that's what you're after and they're also very very
comfortable and I think that's pretty much sh oh wait no I've got something
else that's fun for y'all we're going to be giving away an ASUS transformer book
t00 in a special live stream on the 12th of December 2013 with a special theme I
want you guys to click The annotation or on the link in the video description and
post your best holiday gift ideas for
geeks and techies for us to discuss on the stream it's sponsored by ASUS so
definite bonus points if you can come up with cool ASUS gift ideas and there now
we're done as always guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you
disliked it and in the comments I'd also like to do a bit of an informal poll
what was the most you ever spent on a pair of earphones or headphones and at
what point did you feel like it stopped being worth it to spend more where you
got to the point where okay I spent twice as much but this only really
sounds 10% better than than the other one to me I'm really curious and I'd
love to hear what you guys say as always don't forget to also subscribe to L Tech
tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos
okay there that was
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