S500:
The clear sound, good looks, and bountiful extras on display here help the S500s easily surpass their price point.
S500:
Glasgow-based Reid and Heath Acoustics has built a reputation for selling affordable in-ear monitors with an upmarket feel, but the S500s are the best instance of it bringing that mindset to the budget level.
Though it’s not as significant with a pair of IEMs, the design here is excellent. The metallic earpieces qualify as elegant, the kevlar-tinged cable is sturdy, and little touches like the aluminum around the connector surpass what I’d expect from $40 earphones. They aren’t for working out, but you’ll like looking at them.
The headphones come with seven sets of eartips, which is a ton, and should make finding the right fit straightforward. If you pay $10 more for the S500i model, you also get a three-button set of inline volume and playback controls. Unfortunately, those are only fully compatible with iOS devices.
Either way, these things are noticeably light and tiny. As a result, they jam deeply into your ear canal, almost hiding in your head while they’re on. That may be irritating to those who already find in-ears to be slightly uncomfortable, but it creates a tight seal that blocks out an impressive amount of outside noise. You need to crank them up a bit to leak much sound, too.
The most important thing is that the S500s also sound great. They have a very bright profile that greatly emphasizes the highs and high-mids, with tight, solidly powerful lows laying underneath that. For the money, they wring out a great level of detail; they’re consistently crisp, and they feature a relatively wide soundstage. Their sharp, edgy signature makes things like lead guitars and (most) women’s vocals shine in particular, though the bouncy bass lets hip-hop hold its own as well.
This definitely isn’t a natural sound, however. The emphasis on the high-end makes the S500s a bit too harsh at maximum volumes, and you’ll notice at least a little sibilance on most vocal tracks. The mids never feel prominent either, though what you can hear is usually well-defined.
Still, even if it’s not tremendously balanced, the clear sound, good looks, and bountiful extras on display here help the S500s easily surpass their price point.
Read the full article at Business Insider