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Audeze Euclid Closed-Back Planar Magnetic In-Ear Monitors

VSG

VSG

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The Audeze Euclid is a true force of engineering and design, taking the company's latest Fazor-enriched planar magnetic technology and shrinking it down to fit inside proper IEMs for the first time. These are also closed-back in design, but have a soundstage that rivals some open-back, over-ear headphones!

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As always, it requires equalization to sound right. There is not one planar magnetic iem on the market that sounds right out of the box. Audeze even provides their famous cipher cable for that reason.
 
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ppnofrio said:
As always, it requires equalization to sound right. There is not one planar magnetic iem on the market that sounds right out of the box. Audeze even provides their famous cipher cable for that reason.
Click to expand...
There isn't one available for the Euclid at this time, but yes it can definitely be more customized with EQ. I might do an EQ test with the next planar set as well to show it off.
 
Thanks for the good review, but I'm going to rant, and it's not aimed at this reviewer, but the industry in general.

If an earphone or headphone needs complex EQ'ing at multiple frequencies at this price, it's a fail. It simply has not been designed or manufactured correctly.

The headphone market is a bad joke these days, and money does not translate into tangible audio quality. People now just go by price as an indication of the sound quality of what they are supposed to be hearing. It's always been like this, but I feel it has gotten far worse over the last 10 years, with the rise of expensive portable music players with terrible "safe" audio performance, with a flat sound signature which just is another way of being able to produce devices and headphones smaller and more cheaply to ensure a higher profit margin. Seriously, these earphones can't possibly cost more than $50 each to produce, yet they are priced into the stratosphere, and have the frequency response of a $50 earphone from the 90's.

I wish reviewers would call this kind of behaviour out, instead of falling in love with these items for the bragging rights based on brand or how much they cost, and of course, the continuing flow of expensive products to test. I mostly blame Apple, and the Apple press for this situation, after launching god-awful earphones and headphones at high prices which sound like something that should not cost more than $30, and Tim Cook standing on stage telling people how amazing Apples audio and manufacturing engineers are, and telling you that these things are the pinnacle of audio tech, and sound "the way the artist and sound engineer intended". This has resulted in Apple and their over-excitable press reviewers telling everyone how amazing these awful things sound, and how the price is actually a bargain. Now we have headphones and earphones at many times the price that sound hardly any better. I have simply lost count of the Apple/YouTube reviewers which are now reviewing lots of high end audio devices and headphones, and the shortest part of the review is the part where they talk about how these things actually sound, with sound quality coming last, compared to design, fashion, bragging rights and cost... Tells you everything really.
 
stimpy88 said:
Thanks for the good review, but I'm going to rant, and it's not aimed at this reviewer, but the industry in general.

If an earphone or headphone needs complex EQ'ing at multiple frequencies at this price, it's a fail. It simply has not been designed or manufactured correctly.

The headphone market is a bad joke these days, and money does not translate into tangible audio quality. People now just go by price as an indication of the sound quality of what they are supposed to be hearing. It's always been like this, but I feel it has gotten far worse over the last 10 years, with the rise of expensive portable music players with terrible "safe" audio performance, with a flat sound signature which just is another way of being able to produce devices and headphones smaller and more cheaply to ensure a higher profit margin. Seriously, these earphones can't possibly cost more than $50 each to produce, yet they are priced into the stratosphere, and have the frequency response of a $50 earphone from the 90's.

I wish reviewers would call this kind of behaviour out, instead of falling in love with these items for the bragging rights based on brand or how much they cost, and of course, the continuing flow of expensive products to test. I mostly blame Apple, and the Apple press for this situation, after launching god-awful earphones and headphones at high prices which sound like something that should not cost more than $30, and Tim Cook standing on stage telling people how amazing Apples audio and manufacturing engineers are, and telling you that these things are the pinnacle of audio tech, and sound "the way the artist and sound engineer intended". This has resulted in Apple and their over-excitable press reviewers telling everyone how amazing these awful things sound, and how the price is actually a bargain. Now we have headphones and earphones at many times the price that sound hardly any better. I have simply lost count of the Apple/YouTube reviewers which are now reviewing lots of high end audio devices and headphones, and the shortest part of the review is the part where they talk about how these things actually sound, with sound quality coming last, compared to design, fashion, bragging rights and cost... Tells you everything really.
Click to expand...
Valid points in there, but keep in mind that if something is bad to where EQ is needed to get it to sound good then of course that's not good and I point it out (in fact, an upcoming review does as much). But what I am referring to here is more that planar magnetic drivers typically seem to handle EQ well without losing perceived sound quality, so people can customize it to their desires as opposed to what is Audeze's target response here. There are certainly some cases where Audeze alone has had products that people dislike before EQ, but I can't say I have had this yet with my limited experience with the brand. Likewise, it's only happened once thus far across all the samples tested (from $22 to $3000, and remember that most such things are loaner items so it's not like there's any vested interest to give good reviews here) that I truly felt things were bad from the get go and EQ couldn't do much either.

As for the cost of manufacturing these, the biggest cost here is the planar diaphragm and the R&D involved in getting it consistently so thin. Then there's all the patented IP to drive the diaphragm too, so for a low volume device it definitely adds up. No way this is a $50 production cost here.
 
VSG said:
Valid points in there, but keep in mind that if something is bad to where EQ is needed to get it to sound good then of course that's not good and I point it out (in fact, an upcoming review does as much). But what I am referring to here is more that planar magnetic drivers typically seem to handle EQ well without losing perceived sound quality, so people can customize it to their desires as opposed to what is Audeze's target response here. There are certainly some cases where Audeze alone has had products that people dislike before EQ, but I can't say I have had this yet with my limited experience with the brand. Likewise, it's only happened once thus far across all the samples tested (from $22 to $3000, and remember that most such things are loaner items so it's not like there's any vested interest to give good reviews here) that I truly felt things were bad from the get go and EQ couldn't do much either.
Click to expand...
I regard your reviews quite highly! Please keep them coming, and never be afraid of calling anyone out, especially the snake oil salesmen!
 
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logicisntforyou said:
I got a $50 pair of IEM's that blew away the sound of my $1400 campfire audio Andromeda SE's without the need to be EQ'd in any way. Never again.
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Which they are ...?

Are you going to keep us in suspense ?

stimpy88 said:
these earphones can't possibly cost more than $50 each to produce, yet they are priced into the stratosphere, and have the frequency response of a $50 earphone from the 90's.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this is why to me the audio industry is a big joke, most good headphone cost a lot more than any lick of sense, and they are not THAT much better than your conventional 60$ headphones unless you pair them with a 1000$ amps or something stupid like that

I'v got a Oneplus Bullets V2 in ears for 30$ and they sound great for the price.
 
Solid State Soul ( SSS ) said:
Yeah, this is why to me the audio industry is a big joke, most good headphone cost a lot more than any lick of sense, and they are not THAT much better than your conventional 60$ headphones unless you pair them with a 1000$ amps or something stupid like that

I'v got a Oneplus Bullets V2 in ears for 30$ and they sound great for the price.
Click to expand...
I mentioned it above now but needs to be added here too: "As for the cost of manufacturing these, the biggest cost here is the planar diaphragm and the R&D involved in getting it consistently so thin. Then there's all the patented IP to drive the diaphragm too, so for a low volume device it definitely adds up. No way this is a $50 production cost here."

As an FYI my background is as a materials scientist with over a decade of experience making novel materials for different applications. Going from a small batch process to a roll-to-roll operation for ultra-thin planar magnetic diaphragms alone takes $$$$ in actual cost and the research involved too.

This of course doesn't mean that it will be 100 times better than a $13 set of earphones, better is subjective so that's why I do objective frequency response measurements so things can't hide behind subjective thoughts alone.
 
Sorry to those wanting to know what they were, but they were some chifi's I picked up at a electronics expo that came in a blank box and no discernable writing on anything. I tried to find them but to wasn't able to do so.
 
logicisntforyou said:
Sorry to those wanting to know what they were, but they were some chifi's I picked up at a electronics expo that came in a blank box and no discernable writing on anything. I tried to find them but to wasn't able to do so.
Click to expand...
Chi-Fi was a safe assumption here lol
 
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