Knowledge Zenith ATE Review: A Rough Little Gem

After more than 5 years, my faithful, much abused, Melectronic M6 is throwing the towel. No, not the driver, but the wire which gave up. So, after drying my non existent tears I shop around for the new IEM (in ear monitor). Yay.....?

As usual, the only place to research audio stuffs is ofcourse head-fi.org. (I swear, this forum is so, so poisonous, it will poison you to spent hundreds or thousand of dollars to buy that beautiful sounding stuffs. So, don't you dare go there if you want to keep your walled thick. You've been warned!).
After reading the portable stuff on head-fi, I was eyeing the beautifully build Auglamour R8. But I'm not 100% convicted, because the reviewers said how the mid take steps back compared to bass and treble. So I shop around again and (almost) decided on Audio Technica IM50.

But, both IM50 and R8 priced around 50-60 dollars here. Because I am stingy broke, I looked around, again, for lower priced IEM. Enter Knowledze Zenith ATE. Reviewers seems like like it very much. Boosted bass? Check. Beautiful, warm mid? Check. Smooth, forgiving treble? Check. Cheap price? Double check.

At BukaLapak.com, a vendor sell it at IDR 140.000,- (which equivalent to 12-13 dollars). Several clicks later, the IEM are on the way. It arrived 2 days later. Read on for the review.

The box.
It came with pretty heart shaped hard plastic case. Inside is the IEM itself, placed on cut out foam, 2 pairs of silicon tips (small and large size, I think) and a pair of foam tips.

The Case

Inside

The build.
The build quality is quite good. There's no creaks or flex, there is none of those driver flex like my old M6 used to have. The body and the cable is translucent, you can see the inside of the shell (the drivers and whats-not) and the braided cables. The cable coating is some kind of soft rubber, making it (almost) tangle free. There is no memory wire on the cable like my M6. Oh, and it has mic too, so you can use it with your smart phone.

The IEM

It's light enough, heavier than my M6 was, but more comfortable to wear. I can use them more than 3 hours straight without discomfort, not like M6 which make my ears sore after 1 hour.

The Sound.
How does it sounds? Beautiful, warm, and smooth, with more than adequate bass.

The mids is the star here. Liquid, organic, warm and forward. Male voice are to die for. I played some tracks by male performers such as Il Divo (En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor), The High Kings (Galway to Graceland, Red is the Rose), Gotye (Heart A Mess), Apocalyptica (Not Strong Enough) and all make me close my eyes and melt. Seriously, it's that good. What price this IEM again? 12 dollars? Hell yeah!

The mid are warmer and more forward than my beloved Sennheiser HD600 (review here). Lower mid, especially warm. Upper mid and lower treble (where the female voice) take a step back, so they are not as good as male voice, but, it still good. Smooth, unoffensive, liquid are how KZ ATE render female voice.

The treble are soft, smooth, with dip in 5 khz, rendering those pesky bright female vocals smooth. I love it. Take that, Postmodern Jukebox's Historical Misappropriation!(*)
The treble extension are so so, you can hear how it rolled down early. For some, KZ ATE can sounded dark and muddy. To me, it's perfect, like darker, closed version of HD600. In fact, it reminds me to Goldring DR150 (review here) I had (broke the headband to pieces, still looking to cannibal a cheap headphone).

I played some instrumental and classical stuff and the rolled out treble punish ATE rather heavily here. I loved wind instrument such as flute, oboe etc, and with ATE, those good stuff take two step back. Roger Subirana - The Ritual at Dusk had this beautiful native American wood flute as center piece, HD600 render it as beautiful as it deserves, while ATE, it take two step back. I got similar result with Yasuharu Takanashi arrangement for Naruto OST titled Despair and Kaoru Wada arrangement for Inuyasha OST titled Bojou (Longing). All the flute (the good stuff) take two step back.

Closer Shot #1

The bass is forward and BIG. Way bigger than HD600. Again, reminds me to DR150, except, ATE bass is more forward and hit harder than DR150 was. Most are in mid-bass tough, so for you guys who looking for ear shaking bass better look for other Knowledge Zenith IEMs. The deep bass are rolled quite early, although not as thin as HD600 bass, still won't win bass competition. It's still punchy and in your face bass.

The sound-stage (or head-stage, if you prefer that terms) is small. Thats ok, sound-stage is never IEM strength. And it quite closed too, ATE lack that breath of air HD600 had in abundance. Fatoumata Diawara excellent album Fatou just not as atmospheric, the excellent sound-stage and positioning diffused. But then HD600 is an open headphone, so it's no competition.

Comparing the sound-stage size to HD600, if HD600 sounded like the singer or band play in small, open venue, and you sit several row from them, ATE will sounded like they play in a closed middle-sized venue and you sit in front row, right in front of the band / singer.

ATE separation and positioning is just so-so. You could still tell where the sounds coming from, but it's rather mushy. I think my M6 separation and positioning is little bit better than ATE. This is the weakness of KZ ATE, I guess. Just don't compare it to HD600, that headphone positioning and separation is INSANE.

Closer Shot #2

As good as the mids are, I found that KZ ATE sounded rather metallic. And vocals could be shout-y. Voice and instruments are not as organic as my HD600. But then, my Sennheiser HD600 is a 250 Euro headphone, equivalent to, what, 300-350 dollars? That's like 25 times ATE price! So, I can forgive this weakness no 2.

KZ ATE is a polite sounded IEM. I tried playing some metal / rock / hard core stuff on it, and it render them beautifully. Beautiful, not grungy as it should be. The speed, the attack, the rockiness or metalness (sorry for the made up words, but you get the gist) is just lack. It's like Dragonforce, Avenged Sevenfold, Seraphim and Linkin Park sudenly playing jazz or pop song. Definitely not for hard stuff.

KZ ATE strength is in jazz, acapella, pop, acoustic, and other vocal heavy music and stuff. It's sounds OK with instrumental and classical piece, and rather bad with metal and hardcore stuff. That rolled out treble is the culprit for this, although that punchy bass is OK for RnB and Dance music. Robyn's Dancing on My Own is toe-tapping stuff.


The Others.
KZ ATE is easy to drive. You don't have to buy separate amplifier to drive this, your phone can drive it well. I used it with my Xperia P and OnePlus One, and both sounded good on it. Even my tiny, old Sandisk Sansa Clip (the 1st gen) is able to drive it.

On Sansa Clip, this IEM sounded rather dark and muffled tough. Better pair this IEM with neutral or bright player. With Fiio E10 (the first gen, not the E10k. Impression here), ATE warm sound neutralize the slightly bright sound of E10.

The Conclusions.
Just buy it. Especially if you still listening music with your generic, 2 - 5 dollars generic, cheap no name earphone (shudder). Or if you still rocking the earphone included with your smart phone. Seriously, just chuck them at the garbage bin. Except Sony MH1, I read they are good. If you fortunate enough to have Sony MH1 included in your smart phone package, keep it.

For about 12 dollar (like what I paid for it) this is a steal. At online stores, they usually sell it from 15 to 25 dollar equivalent. I think at that price, it still a steal. Especially compared to that anemic sounded, over priced Apple earbud, earwax, iEar or whatever they called their loopy shaped IEM are.

Recommended.

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note on (*): I love Postmodern Jukebox, but I think Historical Misappropriation album is mastered with boosted 5 khz, rendering it downright painful on my Audio Technica SJ33 (review here) and little bit too much on my HD600.

PS: Auglamour R8 is really beautiful! Google it! I swear, when I had money, I'm going to buy it! Just so I can take photos of it and parade it around! It's just beautiful!

Review: Zella Day - Zella Day EP

I stumbled upon this artist from Sputnik Music which got lot of good albums recommendation. So I decided to give it a go and, bam, I was hooked.

Sweet Ophelia,
When young blood escapes
Vows that break
Go up, up away
Zella Day - Sweet Ophelia

This album (or mini album) from Zella Day consisted just of 4 songs, totaling in 12 minutes and 25seconds. But, boy, those four songs just soooo good. I keep hitting replay button again. And again. And again. And again...

So, how should I describe Zella Day? I would say like Lana del Rey met Florence Welch met Elly Ghoulding: the sheer epic result is simply mind blowing.

Many EP is just an epic song with lots of filler. But in Zella Day, there are no filler, all her four songs are strong: good lyrics combined with big hook and blasting melody. Oh, and the melancholy, we must not forget the big dose melancholy.

You did to me so well
Hypnotic taking over me
Make me feel like someone else
You got me talking in my sleep
Zella Day - Hypnotic

The lyrics is good, I love how poetic all her songs are. The theme is mostly about blinded in love.

Take me to the garden of your ecstasy
Make myself a heaven from your falling leaves
Woven in the fabric of your tapestry
Cover me in honeysuckle memories
Zella Day - Compass

From Hypnotic, Sweet Ophelia to Compass and East of Eden, we will meet pounding bass,  strings and layer upon layers of sounds. Her musics is really rich. The only sparsely instrumented is Compass, which only capitalized her vocal.

And she sing really good. Her high register is really good. She soar effortlessly to falsetto, without sounding breathless. However, I would like to hear more of her lower register, because she had this dark voice which I liked.

Call me wild, drinking up the sunshine
Be my man and show me what it feels like
Denim sky unbuttoned down the middle
Spilling out little by little
Zella Day - East of Eden

I would like to see how her full album sounded, I hope it would be even better than this epic EP. If you liked Lana Del Rey, Florence Welch or Elly Ghoulding, I would recommend you to try Zella Day. She is good.

Zella Day + Deadbeef + Aune T1 with Phillips PCC188 + Sennheiser HD600  = eargasm.

My New Sennheiser HD600 (vs Goldring DR150)

Hello, hello... How are you guys? Sorry for the long interval between my posts, but my work life is getting into my blogging life. Pardon. So, here I am, wanting to post about my new Sennheiser HD600. Okay, maybe not so new, as I buy it as B-Stock, but well, its still new for me. Not bored yet? Well, read on!

I was happy with my Goldring DR150. For the price I paid, I got this wonderfully smooth and dark sound, with good sound-stage and positioning. It was easy to drive too; my FiiO E10 is more than enough to drive it. But I was growing unhappy, mainly because the grain on the sound, and plastic-y timbre which more and more apparent as I used to the sound.

So, I’m saving for an upgrade, and then after searching and asking on head-fi.org, my choice fall to either Sennheiser HD600 or HD650. But the price is really high here in Indonesia, much more than in the Europe or US. I was going to search for another, cheaper headphone but my good friend, who was completing his doctorate degree (damn, I'm so jealous!), said he was going home to Indonesia for 2 month, and offered to hand carry things for me. Yay! God bless you, my friend!

My HD600 is a B-Stock. FYI, B-Stock also known as Open-Box, so when I open the box and saw how it was in completely pristine condition, I knew I'm very lucky guy. It's practically new!
I'm not going to write a full review of this headphone. Mainly because this headphone is a classic and there were so many review out there about HD600, I don't have anything left to add. So I guess I'll just write an impression versus my DR150.

HD600 comes with this nice box, very handy to store the headphone when not in use, but rather troublesome to store because its big size. The headphone itself is slimmer than DR150, and the build quality is much better. DR150 looks like a plastic toy compared to HD600. The grill is much more open, you could see the internal driver from outside the grill. It's heavier too, and the clamp, oh dear God, the CLAMP! It's practically head-crusher. After very, very carefully bending the metal headband, the clamp is tolerable, although still quite tight. DR150 sit feather light in comparison, although the velour is not as comfortable.

People said HD600 as warm, dull headphone, but I found them quite neutral, even little bit leaning on brighter side. Yes, it's brighter than DR150, which has this dark sound to it. The treble on HD600 is fuller, smoother with no nasty peak. The bass isn't as big or as hard hitting as Dr150, but still punchy, more detailed and well controlled. Then the mid, oh dear God... So beautiful, detailed, and natural, my Dr150 sounded so mushy and plastic-y in comparison. But, I wish HD600 little bit darker. Just little bit, not as dark as my DR150. Maybe changing the tube (or valve) on my Aune T1 could remedy it?! (I'm NOT going to spill some 450 bucks for HD650!)

Ok, now, the not so good parts. First, as I said before, the clamp is quite tight. And it not exactly light headphone either. The impedance is quite high, 300 Ohm which need some amplifier to sound best. My FiiO E10 could drive it loud, but the sound is not as good as my Aune T1 which much more powerful. And the sound still has some grain in it, not so much as DR150, but its there. I guess the aging driver showing its weakness. Oh, and as I said before, I wish the sound little bit darker.

So that's my impression of my new HD600. I keep going back to it, especially when I listen to acoustic and vocal songs. The sound is so smooth and organic, and natural (I really can't stress this enough). For 250* Euro I paid, it was no regret.

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*note: HD600 usually priced closer to 300 Euro, or 400 USD.