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 we're looking at in this video is the Sony XBA-H1 hybrid in-ear earphone.
Now by hybrid I mean that this earphone actually has in each earpiece a full range balanced
armature driver and a dynamic driver.
And I've confirmed from talking to Koji Nageno, who was the Chief Sound Engineer - who IS,
sorry, the Chief Sound Engineer at Sony, that this is the same balanced armature unit as
found in the XBA-1 and the XBA-C10.
And they were both earphones that I enjoyed quite a bit.
So the whole point of adding the extra dynamic driver and having a hybrid design is supposedly
you want to be able to fill in the bass line with the dynamic driver.
And we'll get into what that means for the sound of the H1 in a moment, but I found that
in my review of the XBA-1 and the XBA-C10 bass was one major area where those earphones
were lacking.
Now I picked up this H1 for $110 just from a store that sadly was closing down, so I
was able to get this at a good clearance price.
The recommended retail price is a fair bit higher than that.
In terms of design the XBA-H1 is as you can imagine quite a large earphone, because they
had to put in the uh... dynamic driver and balanced armature in the same earpiece.
So you get something that's quite large and quite bulky.
But that said it's also completely made out of plastic, so it's also quite lightweight.
It's actually surprisingly light weight given the size of the earphone.
In terms of overall build quality I think the H1 is quite despite the overall all plastic
build.
The strain reliefs are quite good, as for the cable itself we have a flat red and black
cable which may or may not be to your taste.
But we have this, you know, Sony cable where, all the new Sony cables have the serrations
that run along the length of the cable, and this is supposedly to keep the cable from
becoming tangle.
In practice I've found that this actually works quite well, so again, quite happy with
the cable on the H1.
And on the other end we have the classic 90 degree jack (plug) and again this is quite
nice and secure in overall build quality.
Now in terms of comfort again we use Sony's silicone hybrid tips which are my favourite
eartips.
And pretty much you can only wear the XBA-H1... well, it's least awkward to wear just hanging
straight down, the cable going straight down as you can see.
The earpieces although they are quite light weight, they are still quite large.
So if you have a smaller outer ear you may find that this earphone will be uncomfortable.
And as you can see the way the H1 works is that it sticks out of the ear.
It's not a negative profile fit.
You can wear it around the ear like this and that kind of relieves some of the tension
and the weight from the earphone.
But overall I do kind of really wish that Sony went with a negative profile design like
that of the Shure SE215 because with this kind of design, when you put it in your ear,
it's much flatter overall, much lower profile.
You don't get wind noise, because the problem with a design that sticks out of your ears
is that when it gets windy the wind will blow around it and you do get wind noise as a result.
Yeah, so I do kind of wish that they had adopted a negative profile design for an earphone
where the earpieces are this large.
The thing about the H1, one nice thing, is that isolation is quite high.
This is a fully sealed design, there's no vents or ports.
So isolation is good on trains and on your commute.
But again, wind noise can be a factor.
So in terms of sound, the XBA-H1 sounds exactly like you'd expect if you took an XBA-1 or
an XBA-C10 balanced armature driver and you added a dynamic driver to boost up the bass
response.
So you do get a much thicker, a much warmer sound overall, with quite a substantial bass
impact along the lower frequencies.
The overall earphone as a result, it sounds thicker, it sounds warmer.
Now in terms of actual sound I do think that Sony has done a good job of what they set
out to do which is to integrate the dynamic driver and the balanced armature driver together.
There's no crossovers in this earphone so it's pretty much going to be very very well
integrated, the two sounds.
But the problem I have with the H1 is that one of the big critical issues with the C10
and the XBA-1 were that for a balanced armature, and this is probably the case with any single
balanced armature driver, it really lacked bass, but it also really lacked treble extension
as well.
you got this kind of blunted quality to the sound, and somewhat of a brittle and kind
of feathery treble region.
This is not really solved on the H1 by adding the dynamic driver.
And in fact it's kind of made even worse because now you have a, quite a thick, substantial
bass line, but you do really lack that sense of air and space from the treble extension.
So I find that as a result strings, stringed instruments, vocals, all those kinds of things,
do end up sounding blunted, they sound fuzzy on the H1.
And while this is kind of forgivable on the XBA-1 and the XBA-C10 which were earphones
that cost about $20 to $40 at street prices, this earphone costs several times that amount.
And especially if you compare it to the Shure SE215, and I think this is a really worthwhile
comparison because these are both very thick sounding earphones, the Shure SE215 is in
fact thicker, it has a bit more of a bass kind of hit, but also in the treble region
it actually has more extension, it actually has more of a sense of air and space.
So this earphone, if I had to pick an earphone that I would recommend for people who are
after a warmer or a thicker sound, I think this SE215 sounds more natural.
And coupled with the fact that it has a negative profile fit, it has detachable cables, overall
a really nice package that has been put together by Shure, and it actually costs less than
the XBA-H1, I would not really look at the H1 unless you were absolutely allergic to
high frequency treble.
Like for whatever reason you were very sensitive to the sound, then I would look at the H1.
I don't think the H1 is a terrible sounding earphone but I feel like that the addition
of the dynamic driver to the balanced armature driver didn't really solve any problem that
they were looking to solve.
I mean I've heard lots of single dynamic driver earphones around this price range which I
think sound better than the H1, so the only thing that the H1 really has got going for
it is that because of the lack of any ports or vents, the isolation is higher.
But the tradeoff is that you get this large earpiece which again I think they should have
gone with a negative profile design.
I do have a review up of the SE215 if you haven't seen that.
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