when this happened earphones with wires went out of style practically overnight
but Bluetooth headphones aren't perfect there's the connection issues the poor
repairability The Limited battery life the list goes
on which is why the wire has been making a big comeback lately but what to buy
the best selling wired earphones on Amazon are these they're certainly
affordable but they sound like crap these meanwhile use premium planar
magnetic drivers for audiophile grade sound but they cost a month's rent
where's the middle ground right right here now I was skeptical that a 100 pair
of headphones could possibly offer similar performance to a pair that costs
over a thousand but then I heard they were tuned by the
one and only critical and that you can
turn these Wireless for a total cost that is less than a pair of airpods
which made me think what's the catch and
where's the message from our sponsor thorum thorum makes elegant rings out of
unique materials from meteorite to dinosaur fossils use code LCT to get 20
off today and stay tuned to learn more this isn't the first time we've covered
planar magnetic driver technology on this channel but it's likely the
smallest now hold on Linus you keep saying those words planar magnetic but
what do they mean let me explain most headphones well
really most audio products at all use Dynamic drivers a dynamic driver
consists of a coil of wire that is attached to a flexible diaphragm
typically a cone like in this woofer or a dome like this Tweeter the coil is
surrounded by magnets and is suspended in the magnetic field when an electrical
signal is applied to the coil it moves back and forth translating its
vibrations to the diaphragm which then moves the air around it creating sound
planar magnetic drivers on the other hand use a flat diaphragm made of
lightweight plastic typically with thin conductive wire etched along the surface
the diaphragm is positioned between two magnets on either side of the driver and
these magnets move the entire diaphragm at once why is this beneficial well in a
nutshell it offers more precise control over the diaphragm's movement reducing
Distortion and contributing to the planar magnetic driver's unique sound
signature which is often described as clean and Punchy planar magnetic drivers
also tend to be larger contributing to Superior bass response does this make
planar magnetic headphones automatically better
not really Dynamic drivers benefit from a 50-year head start over planar
magnetics so a lot of engineering and Manufacturing expertise has gone into
overcoming their weaknesses plus compared to planar magnetics they are
more Compact and they require less power to operate there's always trade-offs
right but anyway we're not talking about headphones today we're talking about
earphones thanks to some recent manufacturing advances great sounding
planar magnetics can be so small now that they will fit inside your ear
canals and over the past couple of years an explosion of planar magnetic in-ear
monitors or iems has flooded the market how does an explosion flood anything how
great do they sound well twelve hundred dollars great according to Odyssey one
of the best known innovators in the planer magnetic space but how could
something so small be so gosh darn expensive when the competing product is
less than a tenth the price let's take a look the outer box of the Odyssey
euclids leaves a fair bit to be desired but the inside is simple filament is
that a gosh darn Pelican case like Pelican brand IP67 water and dust
resistant case yes and inside that is
plenty of goodies like eight different pairs of ear tips a cleaning brush a
little pouch to hold all your accessories oh and a pair of swappable
mmcx cables that terminate in either a three and a half millimeter headphone
plug or a 4.4 millimeter balanced connector what's the difference you
might ask well for you the end user pretty much nothing in terms of audio
quality other than that one is bigger yeah they also include some pretentious
nonsense why would you have the user guide on a piece of paper when you could have it on a card that you can use to
spread thermal compound very handy thank you but
this is not nonsense look at these these gorgeous specimens consist of a milled
aluminum housing with the Caps adorned with carbon fiber these are bound to be
a conversation starter when they're in your ear but they are kind of monstrous
maybe they won't stand out that much compared to some wireless earphones but
the thing to remember is Guys these don't have any antennas in them no
batteries what they do have though is an 18
millimeter driver that is nearly three quarters of an inch for context the
Sennheiser ie600s that I liked so much when I covered them on ShortCircuit
used Dynamic drivers that are less than half the diameter which sounds smaller
but in terms of actual area is less than
1 6 the size but wait what's that
is it the sound of an incredible deal from a Chinese audio manufacturer it is
let's talk about the 7 Hertz X critical Sal notes
dyoko an IEM with a long name and a
short price the much much lower price
doesn't stop them from including six sets of ear tips and a surprisingly nice
carrying case I mean it's no Pelican or
anything but it still feels like the sort of thing that could easily be sold
for 10 maybe 15 bucks Standalone which
is an impressive value but are the headphones themselves impressive too
well from a design perspective they sure are definitely something the outer shell
is sapphire coated tempered glass making
them kind of reminiscent of jewelry it looks kind of like you're uh plugging
your ears with precious amethyst bobbles the body is made of CNC aluminum and
houses a pair of 14.6 millimeter planar
magnetic drivers that is significantly smaller than the Odyssey euclids but
still much larger than the ie600s like the you clips that come with a nice
braided cable though perhaps not quite as nice due to the lack of rotation at
the earbud and the less common two pin connector
what makes these notable though is not just the fact that they offer planar
magnetic Tech at a price that people can actually afford but the fact that they
were tuned by audiophile extraordinaire critical he worked with 7 Hertz the
manufacturer to create a product that both met his quality standards and
aligned with his sound preferences
and tuning a headphone is no small task
it involves many many different variables the dimensions of the driver
the electrical signal processing the amount of air on either side of the
driver and so much more and with his reputation as a taste maker I've got to
say having critical's name attached to a product does give me a lot more confidence that
these things won't be crap like this isn't some you know athlete celebrity
endorsement or something but still confidence isn't enough let's
send them away to be measured
oh my God he had one job starting at the
low end we can see that the docos have a prominent bump in the sub bass that will
provide plenty of Rumble and power
Odyssey opted to forgo this which is not inherently bad but it does show us right
out of the gate that these two companies have taken a very different approach to
their tuning in the base regions both headphones look largely the same meaning
that you can expect a similar intensity in the bass notes that you hear rather
than the ones that you feel then making our way into the upper mids our
specimens start to diverge again the diocos have more presence in the midst
with some peaks near two and three thousand Hertz which could make them
sound shouty but could also accentuate upper female vocals then there's these
Peaks at 8 000 Hertz and 10 000 Hertz that could be cause for concern
especially if you're sensitive to sibilance it means sounds like s and t
in speech could be loud and instruments like symbols and crunchy distortion on
guitars could come across as sharp or fatiguing the euclids meanwhile offer a
much milder treble experience that to my
ears sounds great I mean there is no
question that these are audiophile great I mean they bloody well better be for twelve hundred dollars but really they
will impress your snobby friend that only listens to Hotel California and
Steely Dan and will definitely show you the benefit of the higher audio quality
on our videos over at Floatplane.com the euclids manage excellent detail and
smooth response in the upper treble that some might call laid back but for my
ears felt just right I'd call them pleasantly warm I did find the base a
little lacking making my preferred pop tunes sound a bit dead though ballads
really shine and the reality of it is that's nothing that can't be fixed with
a little bit of EQ tuning as for critical's offering well the diocos have
the sub bass that I was missing with the euclids for sure but I found that the
upper base was lacking like they Rumble but they could use a bit more punch and
those high peaks in the treble range made things detailed but I found them to
be a bit much in some tracks as for the
dipped low mids they made even fine male vocalists sound a little boring the rest
of the treble region though was detailed and quite delightful as for the Sound
Stage it was fine and comparable to my ears to the euclids overall I actually
ended up liking these a bit more but most of the reason for that came down to
comfort not audio quality both of them are massive and heavy but the diocos
ended up fitting my ear shape significantly better although your
mileage will almost certainly vary because they don't even offer any
rotation as I mentioned before so they might not work great for you a nice
thing about both of them though is that they're going to sound fine whether you're listening from your phone or a
more powerful amp and DAC so if either of them tickles your fancy we're gonna
have links to them down below but don't go there before you hear our
complaints compared to Bluetooth headphones of almost any kind both of
these are feature bear neither has any kind of active noise cancellation a
button to summon your digital assistant of choice or even an inline microphone
and this one's a personal gripe but neither of them has the little chin
cinch cable thingy that makes you look like a big idiot but is great for cable
managing your body also the Odyssey
connectors came loose really easily making the product feel unnecessarily
cheap I also prefer by the way the carrying case of the diocos I mean it's
no Pelican brand and it isn't IP rated but I mean I'm the sort of person who
would just wrap up my headphones and throw them in my bag anyway so maybe you
should just ignore what I have to say about that now at this point you might
be wondering how Odyssey has the audacity to charge 10 times the amount
for a product that is better but only
marginally so well they've certainly earned the brand
reputation for it but there's also the small matter of manufacturing
Odyssey builds all of their products in Costa Mesa California which means that
they're not only paying U.S wages they're paying California wages meaning
that if a pair of headphones were to take just a couple of hours to build and
quality control their labor cost on them would already be beyond the entire
sticker price all in of the diocos I'm
not saying that all of odyssey's components are made in America they
almost certainly aren't or that that would even account for such a large
discrepancy in price if they were but it's at least something for your
consideration especially compared to the relative opacity of seven hertz's
company who are these guys what is Lin's
soul is it a store a manufacturer who
knows something I know for sure that I haven't addressed is the earlier claim
that I can turn either of these Solutions Wireless and I haven't
addressed why I would do that either star Story Time my Workhorse wireless
earbuds are starting to lose battery life and the idea that I will have to
just toss them in a year or two is pretty disappointing to me now this
could be easily remedied by making the batteries replaceable but Apple Who
currently makes up about 40 percent of the market for wireless earphones likes
it when you buy a whole new set instead of fixing your old ones and they're just
not going to do anything to fix the situation unless they are forced by the
government and as for their competitors well they have little incentive to do
anything differently from Apple what that means is that we're about to see a
lot of people throwing away their old airpods only to replace them with
something that will last them again anywhere from two to five years Max
before they will be thrown away again that sucks even ignoring the ecological
impact let's say you don't care about that spending hundreds of dollars over
and over and over and over again will add up in the long run I mean I've
already spent as much on airpods as I did on my now 10 year old Sennheiser HD
600 headphones like my airpods I use my
hd600s every day but unlike my airpods
they are still in excellent condition and will likely last for 20 or even 30
more years I mean it sounds crazy to say that but it's true in an industry that
is so focused on the next shiny Gadget audio remains one of the few domains
where you can buy once cry once a good
pair of headphones or earphones for that matter can and should last you a
lifetime unless they're tied to batteries though I do of course
understand the convenience of wireless earphones and I actually wish that both
of these came with microphones and volume controls on the cables and
Creature Comforts like that luckily you can just unplug them from
their cables and swap in any cable you like even one with a
Bluetooth adapter and a little battery on it like this one from Odyssey that
costs a hundred and thirty dollars okay that's pretty expensive but you could
also buy a cheaper one that wasn't made in America and that's how we reached
that uh hey you can get these and wireless for less than the price of
airpods claim that I made at the beginning of the video now is this an
exact analog to Modern true wireless earbuds no there's no active noise
cancellation there's no handy charging case and there's still a wire hanging
off you to get caught on things but the diocos plus an inexpensive Bluetooth
cable are less than a pair of airpods and sound markedly better I'd like to
see more options for Wireless accessories by the way that have replaceable batteries in them but hey at
least this way we never have to ditch the earphones themselves like I would
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enjoyed this video why don't you check out our video about an audiophile network switch that ended up being
complete and total snake oil I guess I
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