Audio VSonic GR07: Initial Impressions

SM3? SM3? :mad: :mad: ......As if I'll ever part with them ... (Ask me again after I buy a few more top-tiers :p)

In round I of rough comparisons, GR07 comes across as technically very competent. It could hold it's own against many IEMs I tried today. I am too lazy to even make notes. Oh! well!

Edit: I am guessing a score of 9.3-9.5 from Joker. Could be 9.5. Let's see if I've guessed well this weekend :)
 
I finished 200 hours on GR07.

I don't trust my audio memory one bit. So, instead of writing 'notes', I wrote them on TE. So unlike public figures who often claim that they are 'misquoted' by the press to cover up, I have nowhere to run.

My first out of the box impressions are here and here. These are basically background listening. I mentioned the mids were smooth, not bringing out the micro-details, treble lacked sparkle and sibilance was not there.

Next, I posted my 50 hour burn-in impressions in the first post of this thread. The mids were more open, details were well present, treble had sparkle and sibilance was annoying.

Next, I listened at the 115 hour mark. I posted this on head-fi and compared to DBA-02 in Post #17 of this thread. Sibilance was still present.

Once again, I did a straight 85 hour outside the ear burn-in. I did not listen in between, except for a very brief two song check for sibilance around the 140 hour mark. Yes! I heard sibilance and let it continue.

Strangely, it does not seem as sibilant today. Checked Diana Krall's "'S Wonderful", one of the tracks sibilant IEMs have affinity to - no sibilance at all. Just to ensure that I am not imagining things, I A/B/A-ed against M3, one IEM I am sure is not sibilant. Next up was Opeth's cover of "Solider of Fortune" from "Ghost Reveries". This is one track on which Hippo VB cut me with it's trained sibilant samurai sword. Again, not much. Checked with M3 - very, very similar. Unless it had to do some alteration to the recording, can't get any better. Next was Gojira's "Backbone" from the album "From Mars to Sirius". Here, M3 did a tad better than GR07. Just a tad, but that is due to the overall smooth, lush M3 being up against a revealing GR07.

I guess I will write a full review after all.
 
^ NOOoooooo! :ashamed:

Even though I still want to rationalize it by saying that my mind could be playing tricks on me, I think there are a few IEMs every now and then that do not sound the same after X hours.

HJE900 post my high volume 12 hour burn-in. But, also changed tips soon after. So, still not sure

RE0 post 50 hours. But, I didn't know enough back then.

ECCI PR401 - dry out of the box. Making even RE-ZERO sound warm. But, it has become slightly warm now (> 80 hours on it).

GR07 of course.

But for the rest, it's all just the same - out of the box to 100 hours later. That's what - 4 / 31

But then, may be I should compare an out of the box GR07 and mine just to be sure :p

Update on 2011-04-23: I was doing comparisons between PR401 and RE-ZERO as part of my review. The relative warmth is the same as what I felt out of the box. Now, what are the chances that my mind is playing tricks about GR07? A LOT.... May be instead of listening in isolation, if I did the comparisons with M3 at the 50 hour mark, I may not even have believed it to be sibilant. Skeptics can hardly change :)
 
I have got mine today. :)

Like Santhosh said, they were not a WOW on the first listen. But just after 10 mins I was completely blown away by the sound.

I just completed 2-3 hrs listening on them.

After a slight turning of the nozzle, this is damn comfortable on ears. Regarding the frequency response, these are very balanced or has the perfect balance for my ears. I always used some kind of EQing for all my previous earphones. But for this one I don't care, they are really good as it is. The bass quantity is perfect for me, the mids are exactly on center to my ears and the treble has the perfect crispness and energy I wanted. But I did notice sibilance with few Malayalam movie songs that made me press the next button. I hope it will be fixed after a good burn-in.

My special thanks to Santhosh and Faheem for helping me on deciding these.
 
Thanks for bumping the thread and congrats on buying the GR07.

Reminds me of the review I planned, which hasn't seen the light of the day for 2 months now :ashamed:
 
esanthosh said:
Thanks for bumping the thread and congrats on buying the GR07.

Reminds me of the review I planned, which hasn't seen the light of the day for 2 months now :ashamed:
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Now I feel lucky not to wait for your original review...lol ;)
 
As for the full, updated review, you have provided the kick (I needed in the a$$) by bumping this thread. Let's see if I can finish it off by this weekend or next.
 
^ Your wish has been granted.

@nizarp

You initiated it. Now, be ready to suffer the consequence. The word count came a little shy of 7,000 words :ashamed:

Just to put it in perspective, my RE-262 review - combining both the one in Reviews thread and individual comparisons in the other thread is only about 120 words longer. If I decide not to count the comparison summary in the 262 review, this would be my longest review to date. I don't know if I can condense this properly, but will try sometime next week.

Note: Now that the head-fi review is available, a link to my blog is unnecessary.
 
I usually don't post reviews in head-fi. But, felt that head-fiers won't mind long reviews. So, a slightly trimmed version was posted in head-fi - VSonic GR07: Exquisitely Balanced

For TE, I'll work on getting something within 4-5K words next week once I have time - something in between my blog and Head-fi version, hopefully.
 
Very nice review santhosh on Head-fi....detailed and too long to read but job well done for first.....:)

So when an i see ur review on ex1000, they have touched 400$ mark now
 
esanthosh said:
Sooner than you think ;)



You'll be getting e-Q5 next week. I am curious to know how you'll find it compared to the RE-262.
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I didnt know India have real audiophiles !
When I told my friend I was going to get 5-6k IEMs he fainted.

Newayz I am looking for new IEMs for myself moving from Steelseries Siberia Inears.
I want something that will really open my audiophile exprience which is very close to none.

I also have Denons AH-D510 which are nice cans but not portable.

So getting back to what I want -
IEMs for rock/metal genre
coldplay,adele,linkin park,keane,mumfords and sons,ok go,florence and machine,radiohead,metallica,megadeth,korn,amon amarth,potf,etc
These all bands make most of my music.

So any IEMS which can complement the above genres in a huge way
And also I am planning to get pa2v2 amp from gary hopefully.Any other cheap bang-for-buck amp ?

I really wanted to get HifiMan re262's but they are laid back thats what I heard so they will be slow for metal right ?
Vsonic gr07 brought me here Thank god !!

Help me out people !

Thanks
 
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