Hyper-X
07-07-2008, 04:09 AM
I was in the market for a new pair of earphones since my daily-used Sony EX71's were showing signs of aging (the soft insert started to fall off easily) and the cord was looking like it came back from Iraq. At first I was looking at the EX71SL's as a replacement but after listening to them, for whatever reason, it sounded nothing like my aging EX71's.
What I was looking for was a product with tons of bass for everyday use. I was willing to spend a little more since I wanted to use this thing a lot and I didn't want to worry about it falling apart from being made too cheaply. I listen to all sorts of music, not all of them with tons of bass but there are times when I workout is when I want that extra kick. It could be that my hearing is messed up from my high school days of listening to loud music all the time or not but I actually wanted MORE BASS than what my EX71's were producing. I was looking for something on-par with using a headphone amp with the bass boost feature turned on without the hassle of carrying along an amp. I did some internet searching and found the UE Super.fi 5EB to be of interest.
After reading a few reviews online and reviewing the comments left by customers, I thought I'd give them a try. Spending 150 bucks wasn't exactly taking a huge risk for me so I went for it. When the product finally arrived, it came in a very uninteresting package, but hey I'm interested in the stuff in the package so I tore into it like it was Christmas.
I'm going to skip the included accessories and will go into the earphones themselves. Wow, the clear/translucent cord was twice as thick as my EX71's main cord and it appeared to be built rather tough. This is both a good and bad thing. The good I already mentioned, the bad is that it's not as loose and flexible and conforming like the thin Sony cable so it tends to retain the shape of how it was stored. The earphones themselves were quite big, there's no way I'll be using this unnoticed. Due to my non-symmetrical ear shape, earphones like the Sony EX85 would actually hurt my left ear because the larger portion would rub and cut into the flesh of my ear when properly inserted. The Super.Fi 5EB's shape did not have this issue, it'll fit anyone and everyone quite nicely. It took some getting used to wearing them with the cord going over my ear since I wear shades while driving but otherwise I found them to be very comfortable to be worn for hours upon hours.
Okay the sound. Amazing, with no amp and my Ipod set to Latin EQ setting, all my contemporary jazz music had chest-caving bass that I never could get from my EX71 without my Superdual Amp, it was similar to the experience of having a subwoofer in your car versus not. A lot of headphones lose sound volume when you're listening to very deep tones, they become faint or non-existent but the Super.Fi 5EB changed the air pressure in my ears to remind me that deep bass does in fact exist. I couldn't wait to try them amped when I got home to see just how more bass I could extract from these things. After connecting my Xintech Superdual headphone amp, I started to look for audio clips that had good thumps but instead I ran into a short Star Trek video Podcast of Doomsday Machine (TOS) - Digitally Remastered. The first few seconds of that clip had some really deep bass, followed by when the Enterprise was hit by the Doomsday machine (the scene where the crew on the bridge were tossed) was absolutely astonishing, I couldn't believe that much bass could be produced by the 5EB's that I thought someone was in my living room playing with my Velodyne sub. I thought to myself then that these might be perhaps the best headphones for theatrical material (movies) since all of the special effects of stuff blowing up would be incredible and it was.
I'd definitely recommend these to those who want a pair of earphones that have insanely strong and deep bass for music or simply for those who're after a pair that will reproduce some of the insane impacts of special effects found in many movies.
These are better than what I was looking for in a non-amped everyday listening pair and it'll change the way you look at in-ear phones when you amp them while you watch movies on your Ipod Classic or like my Itouch 32GB.
What I was looking for was a product with tons of bass for everyday use. I was willing to spend a little more since I wanted to use this thing a lot and I didn't want to worry about it falling apart from being made too cheaply. I listen to all sorts of music, not all of them with tons of bass but there are times when I workout is when I want that extra kick. It could be that my hearing is messed up from my high school days of listening to loud music all the time or not but I actually wanted MORE BASS than what my EX71's were producing. I was looking for something on-par with using a headphone amp with the bass boost feature turned on without the hassle of carrying along an amp. I did some internet searching and found the UE Super.fi 5EB to be of interest.
After reading a few reviews online and reviewing the comments left by customers, I thought I'd give them a try. Spending 150 bucks wasn't exactly taking a huge risk for me so I went for it. When the product finally arrived, it came in a very uninteresting package, but hey I'm interested in the stuff in the package so I tore into it like it was Christmas.
I'm going to skip the included accessories and will go into the earphones themselves. Wow, the clear/translucent cord was twice as thick as my EX71's main cord and it appeared to be built rather tough. This is both a good and bad thing. The good I already mentioned, the bad is that it's not as loose and flexible and conforming like the thin Sony cable so it tends to retain the shape of how it was stored. The earphones themselves were quite big, there's no way I'll be using this unnoticed. Due to my non-symmetrical ear shape, earphones like the Sony EX85 would actually hurt my left ear because the larger portion would rub and cut into the flesh of my ear when properly inserted. The Super.Fi 5EB's shape did not have this issue, it'll fit anyone and everyone quite nicely. It took some getting used to wearing them with the cord going over my ear since I wear shades while driving but otherwise I found them to be very comfortable to be worn for hours upon hours.
Okay the sound. Amazing, with no amp and my Ipod set to Latin EQ setting, all my contemporary jazz music had chest-caving bass that I never could get from my EX71 without my Superdual Amp, it was similar to the experience of having a subwoofer in your car versus not. A lot of headphones lose sound volume when you're listening to very deep tones, they become faint or non-existent but the Super.Fi 5EB changed the air pressure in my ears to remind me that deep bass does in fact exist. I couldn't wait to try them amped when I got home to see just how more bass I could extract from these things. After connecting my Xintech Superdual headphone amp, I started to look for audio clips that had good thumps but instead I ran into a short Star Trek video Podcast of Doomsday Machine (TOS) - Digitally Remastered. The first few seconds of that clip had some really deep bass, followed by when the Enterprise was hit by the Doomsday machine (the scene where the crew on the bridge were tossed) was absolutely astonishing, I couldn't believe that much bass could be produced by the 5EB's that I thought someone was in my living room playing with my Velodyne sub. I thought to myself then that these might be perhaps the best headphones for theatrical material (movies) since all of the special effects of stuff blowing up would be incredible and it was.
I'd definitely recommend these to those who want a pair of earphones that have insanely strong and deep bass for music or simply for those who're after a pair that will reproduce some of the insane impacts of special effects found in many movies.
These are better than what I was looking for in a non-amped everyday listening pair and it'll change the way you look at in-ear phones when you amp them while you watch movies on your Ipod Classic or like my Itouch 32GB.