Fit and Comfort

Seen above is the Sineaptic SE-1 placed on a mannequin head, to help show how these headphones would look on the human head. Note that the head is slightly under average sized, so account for the discrepancies accordingly. As with all headphones, getting a good fit and seal is crucial, so make sure to properly use the available height adjustability of the headband and the swivel/rotation of the ear cups themselves. This section is mostly a summary of the points expanded upon in more detail on the previous page and I suppose it doesn't take a lot to observe that the SE-1 looks quite.. special.. on the head compared to the norm. These are also relatively bulky to where the SE-1 will draw attention in public, where arguably you should not be using this anyway given the open-back nature of the SE-1, but the bigger issues I have relate to the headband and ear cup design making it hard to get a consistent fit and seal each time, as well as maintaining it comfortably once in use. I almost felt like I had to stay still and not move much which is contradictory to the wireless connectivity on offer that would otherwise allow for more movement around the house. I can see a use case being lounging on a couch or recliner but it doesn't play well to the promised concept. The headphones also weigh ~415 g which end up pressing down on those two points at the side of your head to keep reminding you these are always there as opposed to some sets which you almost forget about once they are on. One good thing Sineaptic did do is swap out the all pleather pads on the pre-retail unit to the hybrid pads that ship as stock pads on the final production headphones which remain plush and do not get as hot over the ears as the previous pads did—the replacement suede pads continue this further in being even more comfortable for the ears. But overall I am not a fan of the design here and Sineaptic should go back to the drawing board if there is a successor.

Audio Performance

Audio Hardware

I never thought my first review of a ribbon driver headphones would be from a brand new company which also managed to make it wireless in addition to selling it for a much lower cost than pretty much anything else on the market. No matter what my feelings may be about the Sineaptic SE-1's industrial design, I give them major props for being able to achieve this. Ribbon drivers use an extremely thin piece of metal that is shaped like a ribbon and placed between magnets on either side. The metal sheet is the diaphragm here thus and it rapidly flutters back and forth with its low mass and high responsiveness. The form factor is rectangular thus and true ribbons are hard to get right for headphones where you need a full-range sound reproduction from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. RAAL is the biggest brand which comes to mind here with the likes of Goldplanar trying but not leaving a mark. Most ribbon driver attempts tend to be DIY from modders which again aren't tuned well at all, let alone guaranteed to be reliable over time. Sineaptic is going for a dual array ribbon to work around potential distortion issues that a single array may have trying to reproduce volume loud enough for headphones in the entire frequency range. In addition, there is an integrated amplifier powered by batteries making this the only such wireless ribbon driver configuration I know of. This is also critical since ribbon drivers can be extremely current demanding and thus require more specialized amplifiers or adapters at the very least. The end result is a set of headphones that you don't have to worry about driving and source pairing thus, which is amazing in reducing the entry barrier to ribbon driver headphones even before we talk about cost. We also have a Bluetooth SoC—poor codec support though, just SBC and AAC, onboard controls which work as promised, and even a decent built-in microphone too! That said, I did notice the ribbons do not seem installed parallel to the ears and instead are at an angle. This may cause some weird phase/soundstage issues to users.

Frequency Response Measurement and Listening

I will mention that I have a general preference for a warm-neutral signature emphasizing a slightly elevated bass and smooth treble range with detailed mids and good tonal separation. I also generally prefer instrumental music over vocals, with favored genres including jazz and classical music.


Our current headphones test setup uses a set of two custom in-ear microphones for the two channels. These microphones closely adhere to the IEC711 class, but have been tweaked to be more reliable in the >10 kHz frequency range. Two soft silicone pinnae are installed on the sides, separated by a distance matching my head, and multiple "height" adapters have been 3D-printed for further customization, based on fit, head size and shape. Each set of microphones has an XLR output I separately adapted to 3.5 mm. This artificial head simulator feeds the microphone lines into a reference USB sound card, which in turn goes to a laptop that has ARTA and REW running. The headphones were connected to that same laptop via Bluetooth after verifying the tonality is within error margins when in aux mode, meaning there is no DSP in use here. I begin with an impulse measurement to test for signal fidelity, FFT to test for headphone seal, calibrate the sound card and channel output, account for floor noise, and finally test the frequency response of each channel separately. Octave smoothing is at the 1/12th setting, netting a good balance of detail and signal to noise ratio. Each sample of interest is measured at least thrice with separate mounts to account for any fit issues, and an average is taken of the individual measurements for statistical accuracy.


The Harman 2018 over-ear target in particular is a reference curve many headphone makers aim for now, but I find it too bass-boosted. As such, I am opting for the Harman 2018 curve with the bass target from the Harman 2013 curve, which is what is being referred to as the "Harman Combined" target there. Before we get talking about the sound signature of the Sineaptic SE-1, I want to first talk about the channel balance achieved here. You will notice how the left and right channels show a slight discrepancy under 50 Hz, which isn't really audible given the lack of much useful information here beyond sub-bass thumps. The two channels are then consistent in the mids and close enough to each other to once again exhibit no channel imbalance. Then things do take a turn wherein I heard the upper mids clearly sounding different before I measured the set to confirm as much. This made some vocals and instruments seem off-center which affected imaging too, but it's hard to say how different units will sound. It's not bad enough to be a dealbreaker though so I moved on.


Sineaptic's product page tries to draw comparisons to some more expensive headphones, including a $50,000 set, claiming the SE-1 has a commitment to neutral sound reproduction. The reality ends up being more V-shaped than neutral though, almost reminding me of the FiiO FT5 with its warm-neutral sound but with even more pronounced treble. Then there is the "extra bass mode" which is the built-in EQ mode on offer and tilts the frequency response from the pivot point of 500 Hz to have more sound below 500 Hz and less afterwards. It sounds quite bad to my ears, including with added distortion and a muddy bass with boomy mids to where there's really nothing beneficial here, and this is before we see the lack of any presence for vocals, strings and really most music genres. Let's just say I found myself quickly going back to the default sound mode. Here too I should point out that most of the reviews for the Sineaptic SE-1 were based off the pre-retail units which had a different set of ear pads as well as a slightly different tuning in the sub-bass. The current version that paying customers get is an improvement in terms of having slightly better bass extension in addition to sounding cleaning in the mid-bass, so it's a proper improvement there.

The nature of ribbon driver headphones on the market and associated wonky tuning makes it easy to accept the Sineaptic SE-1 in its default mode. We have a slight bass shelf that adds emphasis to electronic music without compromising the mid-bass for guitars and drums alike. It's extremely fast and fairly resolving too although now is the best time to mention I found drum strikes sound overly plasticky and even sometimes recessed despite it not having being so. This could be a result of the angle of attack from the drivers themselves which are angled differently on the left and right sides, and I noticed poor imaging in general across the board. Some instruments such as piano keys and violins also felt like they were playing from a different room altogether compared to others. I don't think this is down to the drivers themselves and is likely a combination of the driver angle and tonality. It also makes some female vocals feel subdued over others and the difference compared to the more natural-sounding male vocals is striking. There aren't a lot of music genres which work well here thus and the poor technicalities mean EQ won't do much to improve the listening experience either. Treble energy is also far too excessive, especially after the recessed upper mids, making for a fatiguing sound if your music library has a lot of orchestral music with cymbal clashes ringing incessantly in your head.


I am not sure if all retail units will continue to ship with the fabric suede pads so I decided to keep this section short. The fabric pads ultimately sound better to me in terms of having a more even, more neutral sound in the higher frequencies. There's less fatigue in general and I also felt string instruments now were more prominent compared to the hybrid pads. The counter point is the bass notes come off softer and the whole speed of the ribbon drivers used here feels somewhat neutered.


I don't really have any other open-back wireless headphones here, let alone anything else using ribbon drivers. As such, it's not easy to draw comparisons either. The price point of the SE-1 is also quite interesting in that you have a bunch of open-back dynamic driver wired headphones available, including the excellent Sennheiser HD 6XX, and the SE-1 has the benefits of being wireless as well as having significantly better bass extension. But that's really about it with the HD 6XX besting the SE-1 in comfort, fit/seal, mids reproduction, imaging, and even sounding more accurate despite being darker in the treble. I can maybe see a place for the SE-1 to be part of a two-set collection with the likes of the HD 6XX but it's not easy to justify the Sineaptic offering unless you simply want something different from the usual. The usual closed-back wireless headphones have boosted bass which are closer to the extra bass mode on the SE-1, although those use DSP and also have app-based EQ to help with tonality. They also don't boost the treble as much and this may be a good thing.