[bowei006]

Brainwavz S0 Headphone Review

 
Introduction:
It’s 2014 and Brainwavz is hot off the success of their S5, R3 and S1 IEMs before they have, yet again, introduced another IEM for the world market. This time, it’s a budget unit called the S0! It’s a petite black and red colored earphone that has the sharp looks of the S1 and S5, but at a fraction of their price.
 
Unboxing Video:

 
 
 
Build and Design:
Getting right into the unit, we are met by a heavily downsized unit from what Brainwavz has given us in the past. No longer are we given aggressive plastic on the wire, a super thick 3.5mm jack, or even an over-ear design. Nope, this time, it’s fully stock and ‘normal’. Quite weird considering how eccentric Brainwavz has been in the past year –check out the R3 – and how much success they have had with them.
 

 
The unit is utilitarian throughout. The driver housing is quite small and uses a ‘bullet’ insertion style that then angles itself naturally to your ear. It’s terminated by a small but sizeable stress reliever that is colored a fiery red. The flat cable – a stable feature of their IEMs recently – ends up at the cable splitter and hidden chin slider. Honestly, the best kept secret of this unit is the chin slider because of how intricately it fits into the pattern of the cable splitter. It appears to be part of the splitter construction itself, but a few prods and pulls revealed a petite delta shaped morsel that separated itself from the pack. But after that, we end up at the small terminating 3.5mm plug that sports the same jigsaw pattern as the terminator and splitter. It’s a much downsized and torpedo shaped plug this time.
 

 
While the overall usage of the unit has been improved drastically, a few annoyances still remain. The flat cable and over-ear design on the S5 makes it angled weird (as the cable is ‘shaped’ and not circular), and so the regular hang-down style of the S0 fixes this quite well. The unit fits snuggly in the ear, and the overall cable is light enough to not cause a lot of tugging during walking. The problem then remains in the y cable itself. The semi thick plastic that wraps it is not of the highly maneuverable kind, it holds a sort of crinkly shape that it develops overtime from bending. This makes unknotting the unit hard at times as the stiff y-cable just makes it a pure joy to work with, said no one ever. The second problem I had was that due to the stiffer nature of the cable (not saying it is by any means ‘stiff’, but it is just enough to have a few problems that I’m noting) I have problem using the chin slider as it keeps getting stuck. The unit is overall fine for use, but a few kinks here and there could be worked through in the future.
 

 
 
Accessories:
The accessories that the S0 came with were the standard that Brainwavz gives us. It’s the usual multiset pack of ear tips and a pack of the S0 specific specialty tips. Next up we got the 3.5mm to quarter inch jack, and lastly the shirt clip. All of this is housed in the nice soft – but fairly hard – case that Brainwavz gives standard with nearly all their more expensive IEMs right now. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s nice to have. My only criticism is that the case is just a tad bit too cramped. This works better for company logistics and personal packing, but I’d rather it have a bit more room.

 
 
 
The S0 was tested with the Encore mDAC sporting a Sabre ESS 9023, the FiiO X5, X1, and an Objective 2 with Burr Brown op-amps and finally a Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC.
 
Sound:
The general sound signature of the S0 can be said to be warm with an airy mid and a strong bass. The S0 had a fairly good sound signature for the price, especially considering the accessories they include.
 
The mids of the S0 are a bit pulled back with a tendancy towards being clear rather than ‘accurate’. The unit is able to produce a clear vocal range that is separate from the other sonic frequencies. Not to confuse clear with forward or bright, as there is a difference and the S0 is neither of those. The downside to this is the vocal fullness is a bit thinner than usual, but at this price point, it’s not that much of a strike against it. But the clarity really helps it as it works well on close to all genres. This makes lead singers stand out from the rest, and it’s pretty good at doing it consistently. The spatial separation in the mid range was something I was not expecting from a unit in this price range. It has an almost concert hall sound for the mid-range whereas the instruments and bass are much closer.
 
The bass is quite polite with good texture. It’s not very noticeable or loud, but it offers a well meaning background ‘oomph’ to most tracks. It adds to the song, but it isn’t as prevelant as I would have wanted it. This isn’t necessarily bad as it means it works better for classical music. The best part about it though, was the texture. It was this vibrant buzz deep in the song that kept it going when the bass kicked in.
 
 
Conclusion:
Overall, the layered sonic ranges, textured bass, and the clear vocals make the S0 a nice sounding unit for the price. It’s normally $50, but Brainwavz puts it on sale for $25 every now and then which is a fantastic price!
 
 
 

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Product Info:

 
 
Buy it here:
http://www.mp4nation.net/brainwavz-s0-iem-earphones-free-fedex-2-day-to-select-destination
 
Product Page here:
http://www.yourbrainwavz.com/s0.html