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dalethorn

New Apple Earpods as high fidelity items - full review and video

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haha well. they said it sounds better than earphones that cost hundreds but i think they comparing it to beats

 

Actually the latest reviews have really shown the differences to me. The quality of the bass in the Earpods is amazingly good, if you like it the way it is, or reduce it, whatever. But the problem comes in with the highs. Most of my recent headphones have a soft highs, like the v-moda M80, the Amperior, ATH M50 etc.

 

The Soundmagic HP100 has stronger highs, which I think are really good and not irritating. But the Earpods' highs are also strong, plus they have an extra emphasis around 4 khz that can make vocals irritating or strident, making me keep the volume down a little. It's not really bad, but it makes the Earpods not as good as (for one example) the Beyer DTX501p, and certainly not as good as the v-moda M80.

 

But the v-moda M80 has bass as good as the Earpods, while the Beyer isn't quite that good. Close enough I think, but the Earpods do make good competition under $100, and if you don't reduce the bass, the 4 khz emphasis isn't as noticeable either. So it's OK for $29 I think.

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I revised my review to include a note about using the Earpods in bed, where I expect they would be used frequently. In that case bass is reduced due to the 90 degree change of listening angle, and the looseness of fit that's inherent in the Earpods' design. So when using the Earpods in bed I turn bass reduction off to get a more natural sound. I also added a music track example by Jennifer Warnes that perfectly illustrates the Earpods' bass emphasis, and how good the bass reproduction is when bass reduction is turned on.

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I got my first 'included' Earpods with the new iPod Nano yesterday. No Apple controls, lighter bass, more treble. Not a huge difference, perhaps 2 db difference on each end. I don't know if this is going to hold up consistently in production, but since the first Earpods were already treble-happy, more treble is not good.

 

Side note: One review site was reporting that the new iPhone 5 had significantly less volume output than the iPhone 4, and while I can't verify that, the new iPod Nano has every bit as much volume, dynamic range, and sound quality as the year-old or so iPod Touch.

 

New iPod Nano first bug: I loaded 2 groups of video clips, about 100 clips, less than one(1) gb total. When the headphone is not connected each video in the first group plays at normal speed and each video in the second group plays at double speed. All were recorded off of DVD's on the same computer to iPod format using the same demo software. When I plug in the headphone the latter videos play at normal speed.

Edited by dalethorn

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Got the new Lightning to 30 pin cable tonight, to connect the new Nano to analog headphone amps. The sound from Nano to cable to FiiO LOD to amp is exactly the same (using Shure 1840 to test) as iPod Touch to LOD to amp, except the Nano output is perhaps 2 db stronger.

 

Both of the connections I described completely bypass the i-device volume control. Interestingly, with the Nano to Lightning to LOD to amp, you can still see the volume slider on the Nano screen and the Nano's buttons change the slider position, but no changes get through to the amp. This is a good result.

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