Transcription
Oh no, oh, saying so it's the IE600 already dead. This came out, just came out. Hey friends, if you come back to have your own giz audio, and yes, I'm gonna leave the screen like this cinematic DMS here. But yes, I did go and demo the Sennheiser IE200 today, alongside a lot of other IEMs as well. So in today's video, we're gonna go over all those impressions, starting with, of course, the IE200.
So, quick disclaimer, of course, as I do with all these videos, this is a first impression video. It's not a review; it's not my final thoughts. So I don't want to see people in the comments going, "Oh, there, this guy reviews I am something just one or two songs with an amateur, he sucks, don't trust this guy." Oh my God. And if you're wondering if you do sound like that, yes, you do. Now, aren't you? The impressions, the IE200, how does it sound in comparison to the IE600 and also the IE900? I did go and demo the IE900 again at the store just to compare. As for the IE600, I owned that one personally, and I love it; one of my favorite IEMs, I rank it pretty highly. IE6, so how does the IE200 sound compared to IE600 and IE900?
The IE200 sounds to me like a baby IE600, honestly. There's so much in common between the two IEMs that it really just feels like a budget-fied IE600. And budget-fied in this case is not like a huge downgrade from IE600 either. In tuning, it has a bit of differences in the bass department, especially. The IE600 to me felt like it has more sub-bass or more bass presence overall than the IE200. The IE200 came across more balanced to me, but for the rest of the tuning, they're rather similar. I feel the IE200 just falls a little bit short in the overall vocal clarity in comparison to the IE600, but beyond that point, I legit have nothing to criticize it, nothing. It is a budget-fied IE600, but they're put into context. The IE600 is 700, the IE200 is retail 150 MSRP USD. So with a price difference of 550 dollars, it's really hard for me to go tell people that, "Hey, the IE600 is better, should go for this one instead," when the IE200, though performance-wise, does sound less technical, less clear than the IE600, but it's not by a big enough margin to justify a jump of 550 dollars over to the IE600 side. The IE200 is very competent and probably among some of the most competent IEMs around this price range. Um, yeah, I'm pretty confident of saying that, even if it is just first impression.
So now I'm going to introduce a new scoring system for these first impression videos. If I like something upon first impression, it gets a star, and a star means that it's worth the demo time; it's worth going out of your way to find this IEM to try out. And if it gets an X, it means that I don't really care for it; you can skip this one; it doesn't really impress me. And the IE200, of course, gets a star. It's absolutely worth the demo, and for me, if you've been wanting to try an IE600 and it's just too expensive for you, the IE200 is definitely a good, solid alternative option. And I already ordered one for myself as well. Mine will arrive after January 31st; it is on pre-order. And once it does, I'll do a proper review of it and also graph it on this quick, of course. Oh, forgot to compare to the IE900, which I also demoed today as well. And the IE200 and the IE600 run circles around the IE900 a few times over. Now, I already see some pitchforks coming right at me for this one, but let me defend myself. The IE900 is not a bad IEM by any means; it's just boring; it's just okay. Like, there's no wow factor about it. It's a solid IEM, but solid in a sense where there are better solid options out there and for cheaper price. I don't want a solid IEM if I'm paying over a thousand dollars. I want something amazing. If I want solid, I'll go under 200 and get something solid there. It's just good, not impressive, and for the price, you would want impressive.
Next IEM I tried was the Campfire Audio Holocene. Yes, I'm kind of late to this one; it's been out for a while now. And the Holocene is just so-so, more meh than good. It has some decent qualities, as in the upper mid-range and the treble area is somewhat alright, but the big cons of it come in the lower ranges. Like, the bass and lower mid-range is just not that well controlled, and the bass itself is not really well defined. All in all, just not good. The timbral qualities of some vocals and instruments are affected by this bass invasion. Overall, just comes across meh, like there's there's too many things it needs to fix for it to be good, and especially for the price, skip.
The last three, we have three from Noble Audio. Yes, I'm finally dipping my feet into the Noble Audio rabbit hole here, and I tried three, like I said. I tried the Khan, the Kublai Khan, and the Sultan. Let's first start off with the Khan. The Khan, I thought was good. I quite enjoyed the tuning of it. It has more of a sub-bass focus, not a lot of mid-bass, so that's already going to be a big no for a lot of people out there. The lower ranges are very clean-sounding, to the point of it maybe sounding a little bit lean. The upper frequencies is definitely the focus of this IEM, the upper mid-range and especially in the treble area, and for me, it sounded pretty analytical, referency, detailed, that kind of signature, which I quite enjoyed. So this one I give it a star; I liked it. It's good, though. How good, I would have to really go back and spend some extra time with it, but so far I quite like this signature.
Next is the Kublai Khan. Now, Kublai Khan just sounds like a thick version of the Khan. It added more low and more mid-bass and got rid of the leanness that the original Khan has. The treble is also more natural, to say more tame is also valid here. Just a thicker, less analytical, more balanced-out version of the Khan. Needless to say, I enjoy both signatures for what they are. I may like the original Khan a little bit more for that extra bit of unique or wow factor, but the Kublai Khan is a solid choice as well, and I think to the majority of the public out there, the Kublai Khan will be the more palatable, easier-to-enjoy choice out of the two.
And last, and definitely least, the Sultan. Oh, oh, what can I say about the Sultan? I really saved the worst for last for myself at earphone today and also for you guys on this video, so you guys can feel the same pain that I went through. To my surprise, of course, I like the Khan, I really liked the Kublai Khan, and I was like, the Sultan, you know, it's the most expensive one; I like the other two; it has to be impressive. And a lot of bass, uncontrolled bass, vocals are unnatural, uneven upper mid-range as well, and the treble is not a lot and made worse by the amount of bass that it has. So you're losing a lot of micro-details, and the extension to the instruments and vocals are just not natural in general. All in all, a dead IEM. X, double X, triple X disappointed.
Alright, that is it for this video today. Thank you so much for watching. Stay tuned for the IE200 review coming in the near, near, near future. And with all that being said, I'd like to thank my Patreon subscribers. Now we have K Chadwick, SUNY roll, Norm, Ben, Robert, and Mason. Thank you so much for the support of the channel. If you guys want to support the channel yourself, link to Patreon's down below; many good perks there. And I'll see you guys the next video. Peace and bye together. [Music]