Performance

Judging the performance of headphones is always a hard thing to do because there are no real benchmarks you can put them through, at least none that will give a definitive answer. The VSONIC earphones rely on a dynamic driver and their insertion is much shallower than most in-ears which can both be a pro and a con. During my tests I used both the medium sized single flange and the double flange tip. In my case I got good isolation with both types of tips.

As far as comparison goes, these in-ears will be up against my main earphones which are: Westone UM2, Sleek-Audio SA6 and Head-Direct RE2. I also have a lot of big headphones, but those are only used as reference in regards to sound characteristics and are not used as direct comparisons since they are a completely different type of headphone aimed at home listening.

To start off with I let them burn-in for about 50 hours with a mix of both white and pink noise. The VSONIC R02-PROs use a dynamic driver, which means that you should not expect them to sound their best straight out of the box. Like with most dynamic cans their membranes need time to settle in to their ideal state.

Right from the start I was kind of underwhelmed by the performance of these in-ears. Coming from the only marginally more expensive RE2s I was expecting the R02-PROs to be closer to them in terms of sound quality, but they were not. Taking into consideration the RE2s normal retail price and not the group buy price, the R02-PROs are not as bad price / performance wise as I first thought.

The VSONIC in-ears sound a bit like the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studios, but without as smooth highs. The bass reproduction is a bit above average for an earphone this price category. The highs are a bit harsher than those on the Ultimate Ears. The mids are overemphasized in my opinion and that hurts their musicality a bit. The mids have a tendency to overpower anything else going on in the music and makes them sound a bit odd. The mids are quite smooth and you really get to hear the vocals quite clearly. The treble extension on these earphones is quite good, however, they are not as well balanced as that of all of the more expensive competitors. These earphones definitely provide better than average performance, but nothing spectacular like the Head-Direct RE2s for the group buy price.

Like on the RE2s these VSONIC earphones have a bigger than average sound stage which I guess is because it uses a dynamic driver and are not as deeply inserted as most in-ears. Instrument separation is good, but nowhere near that of Head-Direct's own RE2s.

Overall the VSONIC R02-PROs are quite pleasing to listen to, they just lack a little bass and perhaps high range definition in order to be something really good. The fit was good at all times and the seal did not break once while I was testing them.

The R02-PROs are not as good as dealing with microphonics as the other IEMs I have recently reviewed. The hard plastic cable used transmits every little rub of the cable right to the ear piece to such an extent that walking with these earphones becomes annoying and unpleasant. The shirt clip helps it a bit, but it is still quite problematic. What surprised me is that even with the shirt clip on, it was still worse than my other in-ears.

Noise attenuation wise these in-ears are on par with most mainstream in-ears. With a good seal these are roughly as good as most Ultimate Ears earphones. If you are looking for a pair of entry level earphones to use on the daily commute these will undoubtedly do the job just fine because they block out enough noise to let you enjoy the music.