u/Mindless-Ad9027

Bass focused on ear, probably endgame in its class. Fantastic bass extension with a good amount of detail up top. Would keep, but the collection must be culled once more... 180 F&F preferred

Founders edition, all accessories included. Excellent condition. 

Bass focused on ear, probably endgame in its class. Fantastic bass extension with a good amount of detail up top. Would keep, but the collection must be culled once more... 200 F&F preferred

Founders edition, all accessories included. Excellent condition. Open to negotiation!

Or, otherwise known as the “retro-face inner ear headphones”. I’m keeping the actual name in the title in case some lost little lamb stumbles on these strange specimens and hits the internet for some info, like I did. Based on the packaging, oh yeah, “retro” is exactly what I expect, from the unnecessarily annoying name to the orange low density foams on the earbuds. It screams it was born in the 80s yet I’m seeing whispers it was released in the early 00’s, specifically to echo retro earbuds? Unclear.

Regardless, it has the haphazard tuning you’d expect of relatively cheap earbuds: it’s a fucking treble cannon. Thankfully, my “audiophile” journey started by being a fan of early Grado headphones, so the treble didn’t stab at me, it merely surprised. Grado’s tuning is a lot more refined - stop laughing - so the treble in this bud felt like a splash of water in the face rather than a gallon of ice cold LIQUID sloshed on me.

I have an entire playlist called “old ahh music” that’s full of tracks from the 70s and 80s that I used to test these buds. I’m not gonna lie, I spent much of my teen years listening to music on dollar earbuds from gas stations, from a combination of spending all my schooling years in boarding schools and being bereft of CASH. My audiophilia is recent. What this all means is I don’t have a developed ear and so I always find something I like in audio gear.

This thing absolutely murders tracks in the 70s era, just everything I want. Led Zeppelin, Queen, Fleetwood Mac (the bass and drum players are GOATd btw), it excels. But once we get to the 80s these buds slam into a brick wall. I went from vibing to Stevie Nicks “Age of Seventeen” to frowning once I got to Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”. That’s when I realized what these earbuds are missing.

Upper mids. Once you get down to the fact of the matter, the tuning rings hollow. This is on the low density foams provided and I never wished something (Da BASS) would come back quicker than my father at his cigarettes and milk run. But we live IN THE FUTURE, baby, so what I did I do? In order to make up for its deficiencies, I put on NiceHCK rings and foams (I can’t find my Hiegis foams fuuuuck) and WOW! I did it.

I made the worlds mildest V shaped earbud. 

Heavily treble focused of course. While the rings and foam did help the foundation of the tuning, it didn’t at all help upper mids. But Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” filled out and so did Fleetwood Mac’s “You make loving fun”. The low end is anemic, but it’s FAAAARRR better than it was before, trust me. So uhhh yeah, if you’re at all a seasoned audiophile who’s vaguely familiar with retro audio gear, it’s exactly what you thought.

Also this cable fucking sucks may God stri–

Fantastic on ear headphone. $450 on Paypal