Blon03 testing and comparing with SM E10c and Inkax EP01

 Blon 03 is my latest catch ,bought from a Ali seller after two more items bought earlier

The first is a Nintaus DAC player (tested long ago ) and little later a BT earphone set Ezear that operated for very short time  and then died

I had already read many reports from various sources before ordering it with very good reviews and kept a few screenshots with its frequency response . A u shaped in ear earphone with rather low levels of bass and trebles and good idea to replace my nearly linear sounded Soundmagic  E11c (upgraded E10 with microphone. AFAIK this model  won the award of WhatHiFi  on 2014 and possible its newer model for its sound )

Blon costed that time (Jan 21) at around 21EU pus shipping only a very good bargain price with  Microphone cable . At the time of writing (2 May 21) the seller hugely increased the price into 45Eu but at 9/5 the price was restored again to 21!

It has been received around 2.5 months after the order and tested immediately showing  bad audio I immediately told the seller and the next days i designed a drawing showing them its  grave shaped response curve. the person in communication was rather unable to understand and started unnecessary questions by reduplicating my requests.  It sounded with no bases but with increased lower trebles  that stop in their middles. 

This is nearly how it sounded in a graphic form. There is a peak on 3 kHz but the remain part above 5 kHZ was rather nil

After that I left them aside and tested a few times later with the same response and asked other users experience . All of them were very enthused with its sound. In the meantime the correspondence with the company was oriented towards faulty the Bluetooth ear pads. 

The user guide uses very good and comprehensive easy to use engish. 

Two weeks  after I made a minimal experiment by replacing  the thin tips with wider ones (T). They were the tips as provided by the  Soundmagic model  . It standard tip was replaced by a foam Comply^TM   clone type. It adds some more bass than the standard tip including deep bass.

The same time I was also testing the sound . Each step of replacements provided a better stage towards  sound excellence The wide silicone tip corrected the sound curve towards what most reviewers know but still the trebles were 'bleeding trebles but bassier' to my ears comparing to the SM E11  . The foam tip provided even better sound with deeper bases. All these tips complied with the standard T400 size

 

copy photo from the sellers page

The model has been then compared with two more models for this review  :

• My main SM/ Soundmagic E11c ie the E10 with built in microphone with Comply eartip.
  
• A Inkax EP01 model of only 8.5Eu with same eartip It was  found from the local market Also with microphone
  
• A 3.9mm audio splitter  cable with two outputs 
• Q3 my standard type recorder and player.Sounds are from my personal Malay  music collection  with increased trebles and the Chinese test songs included in the sold Nintaus SD card but copied in my Amoi player . I m a fan of Asian music sine my birth
  

 

a bit messy table with the earphones and the connectivity cabling

 

 My results were very good:

Soundmagic shows a relatively bassy neutral sound. Cross testing them with sounds from a Tescun Q3  player and 2:1 splitter cable shown
(a) mini increase of basses over SM
(b) mini  increases of low trebles again in Blon
(c) SM has  some sounds that are near to the 15 kHz that are not audible in the BL
(d) same sound stage
(e) similar audio and span in parallel stereo listening with buds of the same channel The sound is shifting by 2/10 towards the BL that means around 1.5-2db* (read below for the process)

The frequency response complies with the drawings  noted by other reviewers 

from primeaudio page

-Inkax shown a bit higher and extended trebles over the BLON and lower basses. When using the (e) test the sounds the "correlation distance" is +3 for the basses to -4 for the higher trebles

 

      The above picture is the frequency response of these three earphones as recorded with a Aufgeld dynamic microphone in my smartphone, using a file with a set of 17 tones from 20 to 17 kHz as  played in the same volume in the Q3 in a totaly noise isolated room . Just open the photo in a separate widow to study them
Νοτιce that such type microphones is a compromise of testing earphones. They dont respond so well in lower frequencies but i think still  they can do partially the job in the mid and higher freqs. This is a simple amateur approach to get some  simplified frequency responses the easy way   The professional approach costs more than 6000 Eu.

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Verdict  4/5 : The Eu 21 BLON is still a very good earphone that goes the job very well but still cant compare the nearly neutral Eu45 Sound magic.  

 APENDIX

------My parallel listening idea--- 

this is my idea  : the same audio channel  with different bud in each ear.
I tried to keep as deep possible the buds in the ears

 

A further notice on the photos above  . It was a rather funny experience to use these earphones. it took some time to get accustomed with these weird cables.I preferred not to turn the cable around the ear in order to remove and put it again asap.

Notice:* this idea is very simple :  putting buds of the same channel from both earphones in your ears Therefore  you get a monophonic  sound that is heard over  your nose if volumes are identical. Any variations of sound volumes in frequency components  can shift this point towards the higher sounded bud. You can now think of an linear axis with 0 for the middle point (nose) and -10/10 for each bud In the following photo the INAX are in the left ear and he BLON in the ear at right

TRN vs BLON 

replacing the ST1 with the BL03 bud for test

Now adding towards TRN ST1 that seemed to be very close to the BLON03 by chance, i tested them with the A/B switch with the following results:
ST1 was heard with a rather "flat" sound that introduces a sudden raise on the higher treble band towards to the ear . this is the band part that BLON cant play
BLON seemed to be quite richer in sound with a sudden raise on the 3 kHz band 

Graphically using the BLONin the right ear and TRN in the left ear the graphic can be shown roughly with  this picture

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I have made this idea many times over the years before testing various earphones

I would like very much if you comment below in this review with your opinions and my interesting I hope graphical method

 

 

Addition : after finding the bug with the BLON 3 that was simply the mistaken use of the mid- bud and changed into the widest tips, the sound  was clearly much better and didn't fell from the ear. The buds with the wide 'sponges' offered even bassier sound with near to AKJ  headphones audio quality Checking them with the Inkax model i found them to be quite treblier with both buds: their standard  silicone tips and also with the large 4.5mm tips !

Νinsheng P18 ΒΤ headphone

And this is the final model that was tested after finding a series of headsets for the family . That is because "....everyone reserves to have his personal Bluetooth headphone" if you think it is more logical or not. IN away yes as the anyone's ears are a  bit different  with different hearing or musical abilities and interests in the one side and the possible transfer of bad molecules in  this very bad period as the doctors advise.  As for example my wife has not any aural requisites while listening to videos while my daughter most times advises that all headphones are excellent even if i can see huge response differences in each model she used so far And believe me she already destroyed more than 5 headphones  in just 5 years. all fo them were of prices below the 15 EU range

Unfortunately for the remain of the family my ears are quite prone to audio problems  tat is a mix of tinnitus the persistence or  the long history  of using studio headphones and earphones for more than 20 years Most of these  models are referred in this site. 

Among the models i checked there is an interesting model from a company called Ninsheng with he code number SN-P18 as noticed in the box and the headphone. Its very funny that is not noticed in the Alixpress page. With a very short Goo-search is sold with many other names Uukuer Hanshi Bakeey etc 

Short overview

in its box

This the biggest by size model in full plastic i used so far. as with the remain models bought via Ali  its price was just  Eu17 plus 3 shipping  a rather 'cheepish' model that offers 'too much' for its price.

 

 

as with all packs the packet contains the headphones a typical USB cable for charging and a 3.9mm jumper to connect with audio gear. Instead of the typical 50 cm jumper as the remain models this is around 100 cm flat cable with red colour 

The photo turned right for better view . There is a SD slot with the new design that tested to support 16 GB  memories. 

The typical USB D plug for charging the microphone and the 3.9 mm plug for the jumper. 

...and the set of the standard buttons with multiple functions. ONe of them can select between SD, memory and wireless usage . Plugging the cable the headphone switches off 

 

The earphones are over ear even if they seem to be quite big due to their egg shaped design , They are around 2 cm longer than the model reviewed previously

 

Performance 

First lets mention something important. as with the previous two models i have understood that this basic category introduces a quasi 3D sound that is 'adding spatiality' that is active in stereo mode.

A second fault of this category is the "abnormal" frequency response  that enhances part of the band either by 'adding' more bass or by 'adding' more middles. 

The added middles etc are simply a passive way of filerting the audio spectrum by the headphone design and its base. This base design is possibly also the reason to dissipate the lower part of the band to give a 'fake' sense of 'audio widening' that can spread across the middle point - over the nose - and a few cm towards left and right. IN my opinion it helps you to listen a bit better your calling counterpart but does not help so wall if you intend to listen to the music for the optimal experience.

As with the remain models the Ninsheng model shows also this spatiality  and  introduces  a peak on the bottom mid band. Just  see this picture below as tested with the AKG DJ81, my most favorite headphone with nearly linear frequency response It is designed in a piece of paper as you may understand.

 

The ninsheng model shows a peak of around 4-5db between 400-700Hz that is a bit annoying to my ears. Low basses are also minimum but above the upper middles the sound is very close to the response of AKG with less than 3 db of loss. The total sound level is around 2 db higher than the AKG.   Really comparing to the remain Bluetooth models it has the best audio with Awei as second. 

To add to the above the one speaker shows a loss of trebles

Enough for the sound part that is the most important of the review 

-Line in : the sounds is the same as from the Bluetooth with the same 'spatiality'  

-SD card :nearly the same fidelity and spatiality as long as the volume is not very high   . It supports both WMA and MP3 The first time i used it in its maximum level the sound was totaly terrible

-FM There is an FM option  that first needs to auto store all channels. in the point i leave the signals are quite strong but the radio is not enough sensitive  While walking cross the room the signals can also be lost and return fair in signal. 

The above review is made with the Bluetooth transmitter  in mind as tested before . It requires around 35-50 second to connect.

Connection via  smartphone /PC. It is shown with two identifications as stereo headphones (P18 stereo) or just as monophonic headset  (P18 hands free AG audio ) Hands free option has inferior monophonic sound . My Xiaomi smartphone could only connect to the P18 mode and only after the second try to search BT gear! 

 

Verdict 

3.5/5 As in result the headphone the does a good job in its category with good but wide sound but not as the linearity a  'linear' wired studio model does In this situation it is rated as 2.5/5 Anyway though a interesting gadget , due to my hearing problems is a reason to replace it with a better model 

I finally sold this model

An unbranded bluetooth headphone reviewed

 ((LPT660))

 

The model you see above is a non named model as can be found  from the aliexpress page : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32752545510.html at only 10 USD
Notice at Oct 22 the price raised   to 13-20 USD

Very cheap  indeed  don't you think? Just looking for more info and reviews in the page there were few Greek buyers reviewing it this model very shortly . More than 5000 people have reviewed it with high scores , that can mean ti can be quite good 

ON January this year the model was under fair price that is,  lower than the usual. Indeed the model was priced at only 10.6 Eu showing a 'fake'  standard price  at around 19EU. I more than 8 months so far looking for interesting products and understood that most sellers in this platform show a standard price plus a inflated 'original' price. As in time of writing the price  is 64% off  the original price at 43Eu!!! 

MY wife was quite impressed for its low price and design and we processed to order them . It was delivered to the local post 90 days after the order The cheapest alternatives in the local market start from 20-25 Eu except OEM models.  

 

Overview 

This is a photo from the its web page . There is no any info about the code number.It means to me it is just a direct  OEM  product or just unbranded. Unfortunately my wife littered the carton box to the waste container, directly after she used it,  due to limited space in the house. 

 

It is also fortunate that its phones can be folded to the minimum possible and not to waste so much space

Now look on the bottom part  of the above photo: there is a on/off  switch I think that this is a nice enhancement over the typical on off switch that can drain the battery if the headphones could not be used for a very long time . This protects the battery much better 

They are also the typical volume / play /stop buttons etc 

In the bottom of the earphone there is also a micro SD card slot plus a 3.9mm socket for audio jumper . In the package there was a small cable for this purpose but we preferred to use a standard cable of the market, about 1,5 m long 

 

The design of the headphone is nice and typical with fatter than normal cushions than in most other models i tested . They offer better noise reduction than my Silvercrest earphones . Also my wife agrees with that! 

Performance

I used them both wired and wireless. Sound is quite better than my daughters AWEI 760  model tested already before. Awei sounds rather dull and a bit spatial. This model has a bit less trebles,shifted basses but sounds less 'dull' Reversing the headphones the sounds in the spatially middle points (ie as heard in the nose )  remain in the same position. It does not happen to the Awei! 

AKG DJ81 or even the cheap Silvercrest headphones are heard quite better than this at a flat , as i can call, audio frequency response.I can suppose that these BT headphones are designed to favor basses and middles at the expense of the higher frequencies. It  also happened older times when i tested other display models before, in a store . They were immediately rejected for only this reason!

Using it at first time with the BT transmitter : the time to pair with the BT transmitter was much longer than with the Awei model. Around 1 minute.There was a "lip-sync delay"  of around 300 ms caused from the transmitter. I used it to  watch a favorite TV series. 

With my smartphone : around 30  seconds with second try, It was identified as LPT660 The signal is lost at around 9 meters with a wall of 50cm in between. Typical in all cases so far. While calling someone , the fist two tones are garbled! They sound quite good with their inner mic as someone told me.  

Just a  short research with revealed the name Alexly as the producer. 

Overall 

My wife prefers to connect it with her smartphone, Her needs are very limited to watch movies of the remote past and telenovelas  while getting  isolated from external noises Even as a long movie and series fan she still cannot recognize what HiFi stands. Instead my daughter is in the start  of understanding what it stands for!  

My personal experience : the earphones are good as far as they are used for remote listening but cannot replace any HiFi model.  2/5

Rate 4/5 considering its very low price and the good reception as noted just above. 

Update Oct 22 

Still  3 yeas after the headphone is working peperly with no  problems and good Bluetooth connectivity in a house where a fireplace quite fat and irregular shaped  walls make 3 BT models show connection instabilities  in just 6  m far from a android TV which possibly has  low Bluetooth transmitter. but my ears are now a bit more sophisticated so at after short time my brain gets irritated when listening .