Performance

Before I began testing these in-ears I had them burning in for well over 150 hours in order to make sure they were sounding their best. To test the full capabilities of the earphones I tested them both with my PMP which is a Cowon D2 and with my HifiMAN EF2 being fed lossless files from my PC via ASIO4ALL and Foobar2000. The first thing you notice with these in-ears is their warm and full sound, especially so with the filters on. Without the filters, the upper midrange and treble is a bit more forward, which in this case is not all that good because it has a coarse sound to it, but that is manageable by using the filters. It is not a cure, it just dampens it sufficiently in order to make the earphones more entertaining to listen to.

The force of these particular in-ears is the midrange, which is well rounded and warm, but detail wise it lacks quite a bit to beat a set of Head-Direct RE2s or iMetal iM-590s for example. By comparison the Beta sound more veiled and slow.

The bass has weight to it once you get a good fit, more so than the SoundMagic in-ears we recently covered. Bass extension on the other hand is not that good, but still better than most sub $50 in-ears. These in-ears work very well for most types of music because of their natural warmness which makes them very forgiving. Even though the bass is not overwhelming in any sense, not even when coupled with the Beta's decent midbass hump. What it is lacking is punch for drums etc.

The high end is quite rolled off and a bit shill, it sounds a bit on the artificial side, the hi-hats just sound slightly off for some reason. For classical music these will not cut it. The complexity of the music will make all its faults easily recognizable.

Soundstage wise the Beta have very little to show and basically give the same left / right presentation like all of the other entry level in-ears I have heard. Their warmness also puts a mighty damper on the spaciousness of the sound.

There is no air and instruments are very vaguely defined. For me their presentation is about what I would expect, I am a bit detail-centric and hence I would be easier to sway if the midrange was more precise in its reproduction, but you cannot have it all. All things considered I really digg the earphones for what they are, cheap, fun sounding in-ears.

When it comes to sensitivity these are about average, I am sure that the average PMP can power these to their full capabilities, which makes them a good purchase for a reasonably priced portable rig.

Durability

These in-ears are well built and come with a padded bag. Although not a hard-shell it will provide ample protection for normal every day use. The construction of the earpieces is very simple and with few joints so I would expect them to last a long time. The cable is likewise simple in its construction and the entry points on the earpieces are reinforced adequately.