The Sony XBA-H3 is a flagship hybrid IEM which represents the marriage of
the technology behind Sony's classic line of dynamic driver
in ear monitors and their more recent series of balanced armature products.
Sony put a lot of stuff into this monster but in the end is it a beauty
or a beast? You're watching Lachlan Likes A Thing, and let's find out!
Hey everyone! Welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing, the show where I take a
thing and see whether or not I like it. Now please forgive me, I've got a bit of a
cold at the moment so my voice might be a bit
off, but in this video we're looking at the Sony
XBA-H3 and I've been meaning to do this video for a while now.
Especially because recently it was on sale on Amazon.com
for about $230. Unfortunately I checked this morning and
the price has gone up to $324 which is a bit of a shame.
I got this pair second hand from one of my
wonderful subscribers in Latvia and apparently it's still quite cheap in
that part of the world so if you happen to be hanging around there anytime soon
you can probably still grab a bargain. Now the Sony XBA H3
is a hybrid in-ear earphone with three drivers.
It has one 16mm dynamic driver with a liquid crystal polymer diaphragm
like the same kind of technology in the Sony EX1000.
It has one full-range balanced armature unit
Like the balanced armature units found in the rest of the XBA series
and it also has a new super tweeter which is kind of
icing on the cake. Now I confirmed with
Koji Nageno who is the chief sound engineer at Sony,
I managed to - I got a chance to speak with him at
a Sony high res audio event. I confirmed with him that the Sony XBA-H3
doesn't use crossovers just like the rest the XBA lineup
and that the new super tweeter is a completely newly developed design.
And I've been super excited to hear the H3
because as you know I'm a bit of Sony fan myself,
and I had a brief listen at that event and I was pretty impressed.
Even though I didn't love the Sony XBA-H1 I really wanted to
have a longer listen because I was hoping that this would live up to kind
of Sony flagship standards like the Sony EX1000 or the
MDR-7550 which is probably alongside the VSonic GR07 my
favourite in-ear dynamic driver earphone. So anyway, let's start with the design.
So the H3 is a bit of a monster as you can see it's just got this huge
chunky design. It's the same earguide
design as the Sony 7550 and the Sony EX1000
but as you can see these earphones are
much much smaller than the H3. The H3 has actually
gotten a lot chunkier both in terms of the earpiece size
and in terms of the length of the earguides. Now despite
the size the earpiece they are actually quite lightweight - surprisingly so.
In terms of the cable, the cable is now
flat with red on one side and black on the other,
which is a bit of an interesting look. Personally I don't love it,
I don't hate it, but at least the cable doesn't really tangle which is
a really nice kind of thing. One thing to note
on the H3 is the big port here. If you can just see that.
I will get more into detail about what this means later but you'll note that the
H3 is a ported design unlike the H1.
So there is no question that the XBA H3 is a really quite large
earphone. I doesn't look exactly subtle and it looks a bit strange
when you wear them. The earpieces are huge
and the ear guides are long and floppy and that means that
every single time you kinda put them on you have to readjust
the earguides. They are soft, they do get bent out of shape. You can't exactly put the
H3 in your pocket. You have to put it in the including
- sorry the included carrying case. So every single time you put them on you
have to kind of go through this routine of fittin them.
And that means that you don't so much wear the H3
casually as you kind of decide I will listen to the Sony XBA H3 now and
then you kinda deploy them on to your ears.
Despite all that on the earpieces
are quite comfortable. They are lightweight and the earguides
really do take a lot of the weight off. And because the earguides
are soft there's a virtually no cable noise with the H3 which is
really really nice. That said,
the port means that noise isolation isn't
fantastic and in terms
of wind noise because they're quite large earpieces if it's windy you do
get a lot of sound
from the wind blowing over the ear pieces. So again like the EX1000 and the
Sony 7550 these are not earphones that lend themselves well to casual outside
listening.
They're the more the kind of earphones that you sort of sit down and listen with them in.
Honestly,
I've enjoyed these more listening around the house than I have
enjoyed them wearing outside. So speaking of enjoyment how do the Sony XBA H3s sound?
Well I'll put it this way. The H3 is the first hybrid
earphone I've heard where I completely
understood why they needed to use a hybrid design to get the sound that
they wanted because the H3 actually sounds very unique
and it actually sounds, frankly a little bit weird.
Because, well on the one hand you have the H3's bass.
The H3 has a lot of bass. This
is not the kind of extended, restrained, base that the dynamic drivers
on the EX1000 and the 7550 have.
This is big, fat, almost bass head but not quite
level of bass. Now I like
some bass - I like my bass actually, and the H3 works tremendously well with
electronic music and that kinda thing with the bass but at times I think it
can be a bit flabby.
And especially when the passage starts to get a bit faster
the base dtarts to sound a bit blunt and one note.
So it's just a little bit messy. It doesn't sound
awful but if you're looking for that classic kinda well extended
bass that the EX1000 has, you're gonna be disappointed.
Moving on to the mids and the vocals the H3 is actually a little
under-emphasised in that region especially with male vocals. It's just a little bit
recessed.
Everything sounds a little bit distant. It's not
unnatural in that regard but it's not a particularly
emphasized aspect of the sound. Then we move on to the treble.
Now the treble is what I think is the best part of the H3
because the super tweeter is absolutely doing its job.
It's - it's just shimmery incredibly well extended treble.
Actually probably more well extended than any earphone that
I've heard. It's definitely better than the Sony EX1000
and the Sony 7550 and unlike those two earphones the treble
is well extended without being ear piercing or sibilant.
It's just kinda smooth but at the same time it's very detailed,
it's very textured. It has this really lovely
shimmery quality to it that makes female vocals sound
amazing and string instruments sound amazing.
So the H3 really is a bit of a rare beast. You have this
lovely extended treble. You also have this
fat, kind of aggressive bass which is
perhaps a little over enthusiastic at times. But it's still pretty fun.
And on top of that you have a sound stage that
thanks to Sony's kind of earhanger design is very expansive, it's very wide
and quite unique. So overall the H3 has
quite a unique signature especially for the price. So if you can't tell by now I love
the sound of the H3 and I'm willing
to forgive the times that the bass is a bit uncontrolled because overall it's
just
a unique signature. Now for those people who don't
love the kind of bass sound that the H3 produces some people have determined
that if you put
tape over the port on the H3 and then you poke a hole through it with a pin
you can increase the damping on the driver
and therefore you can kind of tighten up the bass a bit and
I've tried that myself. I can confirm that it works
but honestly from my perspective I don't mind the bass so much
and- maybe you can call me OCD but there's something about having pieces of
tape stuck on my earphones that really kind of bugs me.
So it depends on what you're comfortable with.
Definitely if you're interested in the H3
but you're still concerned about the bass and you're happy to mod your earphones
the tape mod is completely reversible. You can give it a go and it's
well worth trying out if you're curious.
So I love the sound of the H3 but do I think the H3
is worth buying? At $230 on the Amazon price
I have to say yes it's a bargain, go out and grab it.
But at $320 I might hesitate a little
because even though the h3 has a
sound signature that is really going to please people who want both substantial
bass and really
nice detailed treble, it's still an earphone that has a lot of ergonomic
issues that prevent it from being really a casual
kind of earphone and it might not replace your everyday
in ear earphone just because it's not
completely well suited for environments that are particularly noisy
or being worn outside, etc etc. So
there does have to be a bit of a compromise that way.
If you're willing to accept all that then I say go for the H3. It is a
really unique product. It's a beauty and a beast,
and I think it's awesome that Sony is actually kinda finding its legs
as far as utilising it's different kinds of
technology with all its flagship. Anyway thanks for watching this video you can
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