Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 20 June 2022

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I get pitches to review new true wireless earphones almost every day. Most seem like perfectly fine products, but there’s nothing special enough about them to warrant a review. The AXS Audio Professional Earbuds ($149, all prices USD) don’t look any different from most other true wireless earphones, but their pedigree got me interested. They’re made by a team who formerly led Riva Audio, which built some of the best Bluetooth speakers yet made.

Read more: AXS Audio Professional Earbuds True Wireless Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 10 June 2022

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The TinHiFi T3 Plus earphones will be the last of the “Chi-Fi” models I’ll review for a while—and they’re in many ways the most interesting, because they’re the priciest of the bunch (typically $79.99 USD) and also the simplest, with just one 10mm dynamic driver per earpiece. This bare-bones design sets the T3 Pluses in stark contrast to earphones such as the CCA C10s, KZ x Crinacle CRNs, and NiceHCK DB3s, which are $30 to $50 less expensive yet have far more drivers—three per earpiece for the latter two, and five per earpiece for the C10s.

Read more: TinHiFi T3 Plus Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 June 2022

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I first got excited about high-end audio in the hospital. I was on an IV for a week, and a fellow editor at Video magazine brought me copies of The Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and HiFi Heretic magazine. The first two I had a hard time relating to, but HiFi Heretic hooked me with its passion and its real-world attitude; the mag’s name referred to the founder’s rejection of the notion that you have to spend a fortune to get good sound. My recent reviews of affordable “Chi-Fi” earphones—the CCA C10s, KZ x Crinacle CRNs, and now the NiceHCK DB3s—have brought back some of that excitement I felt 30 years ago.

Read more: NiceHCK DB3 Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 May 2022

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Reviewing the CCA C10 earphones a few months ago led me down a rabbit hole—and I’m glad it did. The CCA C10s incorporate four balanced-armature drivers and one dynamic bass driver per earpiece, yet they cost just $40.99 (all prices USD). After I ordered those from Amazon, I noticed another “Chi-Fi” model that was perhaps even more appealing: the KZ x Crinacle CRN earphones. Initially known as the ZEX-Pro earphones, the $38.99 (and often lower on Amazon) CRNs incorporate a single balanced-armature tweeter, a 10mm dynamic driver for the bass, and an electret electrostatic driver (basically a miniaturized, permanently charged version of the giant panel drivers found in MartinLogan and Quad planar speakers) for the mids.

Read more: KZ x Crinacle CRN Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 April 2022

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These days, when someone tells me there’s a new brand of true wireless earphones, I assume it’s just a few people in an office somewhere in Southern California, getting their logo slapped onto a generic design from a Chinese factory, with barely a clue about how earphones are designed and tuned. Grell Audio is exactly the opposite. It was founded by Axel Grell, a guy with 30-plus years of experience designing headphones and earphones—most notably for Sennheiser, where he designed, among other models, the top-of-the-line HD 800s. The TWS/1 true wirelesses ($199.99, all prices USD) are the first earphones he’s offered under his own name.

Read more: Grell Audio TWS/1 True Wireless Earphones