Hi! Welcome to 'Lachlan Likes a Thing', a show where I take a thing and see whether
or not I like it. Now, the thing that we're going to be looking at in this video is the
Sony XBA-40 balanced armature earphones. Now, if you came to this video looking for a review
of the XBA-4, please stick around, because the XBA-40 is the updated model of the XBA-4,
they're very similar, and I've owned both. This video is going to go through the basic
sound, and design of the XBA-4, as well as some of the changes they made with the XBA-40.
In a previous video, I looked at the Sony XBA-1, which uses a single balanced armature
driver. Well, in the Sony XBA-40, they've taken four of the drivers from the XBA-1 and
packed them into the same earphone.
However, Sony's arrangement with multiple balanced armatures is a little different from
some of the other manufacturers. Most manufacturers for a balanced armature earphone with many
multiple drivers will use a crossover to divide the audio signal between the bass, mid and
high frequencies, and then send those frequencies to individual drivers.
Sony has actually done something different. They've wired all four balanced armatures
in parallel, and they send the same signal to all four drivers. Then, the drivers have
been mechanically tuned, so that one driver can only reproduce the treble frequency, one
driver reproduces the mids, one driver reproduces the bass, and then there's one more driver,
which reproduces subwoofer bass frequencies.
Now, the supposed advantage of not using a crossover is that you can avoid any of the
distortion or phase issues introduced by that crossover's electronics. However, there is
one big disadvantage to Sony's approach. Basically, by wiring all four drivers in parallel, Sony
has created a headphone with a very low impedance of 8 ohms, and what that basically means is
that the Sony XBA-4 and the Sony XBA-40 will sound very different out of different sources.
It will sound different out of headphone amplifiers, it will sound different out of different phones,
it'll sound different out of different laptops. And the difference will be nothing to do with
how much that laptop or that phone or that headphone amplifier costs, the difference
will come down to the very basic figure, of what is that source's headphone jack's output
impedance.
This is a very technical distinction, and what it basically means is that out of some
players the Sony XBA-40 will sound bassier, and out of some other players the Sony XBA-40
will sound less bassy. If you're interested in a more technical explanation of this issue,
have a look at the review that I've linked in the description of this video.
This is a review I wrote on head-fi, and it goes though a more technical explanation of
what impedance and output impedance mean for a earphone. It also links to some of the published
information and graphs about the Sony XBA series. For now though, lets have a closer
look at the Sony XBA-40's design.
The Sony XBA-4 and the Sony XBA-40 basically share the same design. However, I got the
XBA-40 in the golden champagne colour, which is not available with the Sony XBA-4.
Now with the XBA-40, you get quite a large earphone earpiece, and this may not fit in
every person's ear. That said, the actual nozzle itself is fairly narrow, and I actually
haven't read many accounts of people on forums with the XBA-4 or XBA-40 not fitting into
their ears. That said, it's something to look out for.
Also with the design of the earpiece, because it's [unclear] quite so large, you can't really
wear the earphone up with the cable over your ear. You have to wear it in the traditional
way with the cable down. However, that's not such a bad thing, because the XBA-40 is quite
a light earphone, and the design of the cable means that cable noise when it bumps against
objects isn't so bad. That said, it's not completely silent.
With the XBA-4 you get a relatively well-built earphone. On the left earpiece, you'll find
that there's a little bump on the back, which lets you know in the dark that this is the
left earpiece. Now, with the cable, you get a flat, elliptical cable which is quite interesting.
One difference between the XBA-4 and the XBA-40 is that the Sony XBA-40 has slight kind of
serrations along the length of the cable,it's very hard to see on this video, but it basically
means it helps that the earphone doesn't tangle so much. On the other end, we have the headphone
jack which is relatively sturdy, well built, and it's quite a nice headphone jack.
So the XBA-4 and now the Sony XBA-40 are the flagships in Sony's line of balanced armature
earphones. So how do they sound?
Well, with the XBA-4 and the XBA-40, let me just say that you do not get a neutral or
balanced-sounding earphone. You will get a sound that is tuned to be very thick, and
very dark, and very smooth, and for some people, this sound will be actually too dark, it will
sound congested.
If you've ever heard the Esonics' SM3, you actually find that this is the same kind of
earphone, where the emphasis on the lows and the mids will be immediately polarizing to
a lot of people, they won't like the sound out of the box.
However, if you have a careful listen, you actually realize that, through that kind of
thickness of sound, there's actually an intensely detailed and articulate earphone lurking underneath.
Everything is very tightly controlled, and extremely articulate. Now, one difference
between the Sony XBA-4 and the XBA-40 in terms of sound, is that the Sony XBA-4 had a particular
kind of metallic shimmer to the treble note which made it sound quite unnatural and unpleasant
for a lot of people, myself included.
With the XBA-40 they actually corrected this issue, so the XBA-40 sounds much more natural
and also a bit more darker as a result of the removal of that particular emphasis in
the high frequencies.
The standout part of the Sony XBA-4 and the Sony XBA-40's sound is the holographic soundstage,
the way that they're able to place instruments within this space so that it feels like you're
actually inside the music, and it's very enveloping and it's quite intense. That said, for some
people this might actually be a little claustrophobic, because it's a very intimate kind of soundstage,
and they may prefer a presentation where the instruments are more in front of them rather
than being inside the music.
With the Sony XBA-4 and the -40, I believe these earphones are actually the perfect earphones
for electronic music, and for synthesized instruments, because the way they put you
into the music, and the way tones and electronic bleeps and bloops just pop out of nowhere
is really exciting with the XBA-4 and the XBA-40.
However, with more natural instruments, the XBA-4 and the -40 can actually sound quite
off, both because of the unbalanced frequency response, with the emphasis on the lows, and
also because of that soundstage being quite, ah, quite intense and intimate.
Now I love the XBA-40s, I love the way they sound with electronic music, if you've heard
Grimes' Visions album, I think that this is the earphone that was designed practically
just for that album. I love the fact that they fixed most of the metallic shimmery issues
with the XBA-4.
However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the XBA-40 to everyone because you may not
be quite so into the thick and warm and dark sound of the XBA-40.
The other issue is that they may not sound the way you like with t he source player you're
using,so if you have a chance, try and listen to them on the player that you're going to
be using, to make sure you actually enjoy the sound.
In terms of value for money, I think that there are probably better options, for instance
the HiFiman RE-400, which is about half the price of the XBA-40 and sounds very very good,
and works with a wider variety of music.
However, I still haven't come across any earphone that does electronic music as well as the
XBA-40, and I really do like electronic and syth-pop and that kind of music, so I really
like the XBA-40 for that reason.
Anyway, thanks for watching this video, thanks to everyone who's liked my videos and subscribed
to my channel, and happy listening.