A few weeks ago i came across a Facebook post telling me that for US$2.75 and an Aliexpress coupon code, i could have a KZ EDX earphone delivery to my house, with no catches whatsoever.
At any other day these cost around US$7, but i got extra lucky for finding that coupon and i already know KZ, i listened to a fair share of their IEMs and even multiple versions of their bluetooth adapter, so why not? I promptly ordered the black version with a microphone (here’s our US$0.75 optional extra).
And today, 20 days after the pressing the “buy now” button, here they are!
My order was attended correctly and it arrived in a neat slide out box that reads “Customized Heavy-bass Earphone” when opened.
It comes with 3 pairs of eartips, small, medium (already installed) and large; as well as a chain style cable with a microphone.
As for construction, the shape and quality of the materials remind me of my old TFZ Series 1S (US$39 from Penon Audio), however KZ opted for a removable cable instead of the permanently attached one like TFZ did back then, this is great for both the customer and KZ themselves, since the customer can opt to upgrade the cable or replace it in case of damage, and KZ benefits from this selling replacement cables and even a Bluetooth module to transform these (and many others) into wireless earbuds.
The cable, while looking quite fragile, has an angled connector (that fits my phone case almost like it was designed for it) and a little module with a button where the microphone lives, but most importantly it is not microphonic, meaning that, unlike my Samsung earbuds, the impacts and rubs against clothes are not transmitted to the user’s ears, anybody knows how annoying those can be.
One common complaint with older KZs, from 2017 or so, is that these 2 pin connectors were super tight and could even break during installation, at least on my unit this seems to be fixed, the connectors were easy to install and stayed firmly attached to the earbuds the entire time.
How does it sound?
I tested them both through my Samsung Galaxy S10e with Dolby Atmos turned off and my PC with a Meridian Explorer Mk1 DAC/Amp.
Right out of the gate you can tell KZ aimed right at the average customer profile, like the box promises, the focus here is at the low frequencies.
The single 10mm drivers are super quick to deliver the frequencies, bass is punchy and plentiful, the mid range is a little recessed and the high frequencies are forward sounding, just behind the lower notes, so its logical they feel right at home with bass focused genres like Hip Hop and Electro, however they can still play more diverse genres, pretty much everything i tried on them, in fact.
They to do pretty well with female vocals, artists with higher voice pitch, like Junko Yagami, are presented in front with a lot of energy and can even become “shouty” if you’re at the top of the volume range, male vocals in comparison, specially of artists with a deeper voice like Tyler, The Creator, don’t feel as forward sounding, however personally i do not consider this a detriment as the voices are still pretty easy to hear and don’t get tangled up in the rest of the frequencies.
Imaging is very good for a IEM and if i could forget i had rubber stalks in my ears, i could’ve sworn i was listening to an over ear closed back headphone, detailing is really well presented, i’m yet to find a song where the details are lacking in comparison with more expensive earphones.
Borderline being, for anybody that likes a warm, bassy earphone this is going to be an easy pick, specially if you compare it against what you get bundled with your smartphone, these blow away Samsung’s Earphones tuned by AKG and Apple’s Earpods easily.
Our optional extra, the microphone, works really well too, its placed on the cable a few centimetres under the user’s chin, the voice capture quality is about as good as any standard lavalier mike, if you guys want to hear it in action, i can even record a little demo.
Conclusion
I gotta say, i’m really impressed with what KZ managed to achieve here, in my opinion these don’t sound like a US$2.75 earphone, nor a US$7 earphone, this is better than many earphones around the US$40 mark or more, if we focus on my local market.
During the Chinese black friday (11/11) i ordered a Whizzer B6 true wireless earphone (for US$42), i’m quite curious to compare it to this, but also a bit afraid, i really hope the B6 blows these out of the water because if they come close to each other in sound, i’m going to be super disappointed with the well reviewed Whizzer.
These will occupy my bedside table from now on, replacing the Samsung earbuds i’ve been using for a while before sleep, time will tell about their durability, specially of the cable, since the cases where i fall sleep listening to something and wake up tangled in my earphones is not exactly rare, and i managed to ruin my TFZs for this very reason.
