This is the official thread for the Blue Mix-Fi
This thread is for discussion and reviews.
- Type: Over Ear
- Amp needed: No
- Closed Back
Hifiguides Amazon Link[Reviews]
Z Reviews
TL;DR
This is seriously one of the weirdest things I’ve ever put on my head! A set came up for sale locally for $60, and I decided to try them out. They are worth $60. Maybe even $100 for the interesting conversations they generate. But in no way should you spend $300 on a new pair.
My Impressions
To me they look really interesting - almost like a work of art. Everyone who sees them on my wall either loves the look or hates the look. And for anyone who doesn’t know headphones, they immediately ask if these are the nicest / most expensive pair I own. Nope, in terms of sound the kph30i whoops these all day long! But for some reason everyone tends to assume that if something looks this crazy, it must sound good.
Along with the truly alien “headband” and “yoke” system, the other unique aspect of these headphones is the internal amplifier. Maybe I’m a little slow, but it took me a while to fully understand what was going on here: the headphones made by Blue, with an internal amplifier, don’t have Bluetooth… or a DAC… just an internal amplifier that you turn on and off… and need to recharge… 
No wireless, no DSP, nothing interesting to be worth the effort to remember to charge them. They just need charged to run the amplifer.
What possible purpose could this serve? The amount of engineering and effort that goes into something like this is significant. They are obviously a thought out, intentional design, doing something very different than everyone else. Why do this?
From reading through Blue’s documentation I think the idea is that you can use them with the amp off when you have a good amplifier available (ie in the studio), but when you are out listening somewhere (mixing your latest creation at the local coffee shop?) that doesn’t have a good amp available, you can just plug into any 3.5mm source and switch on the internal amp to get better sound.
Sure… I guess so… but why would I take a large, heavy set of cans with me “on the go”? If I was going down that path why not just bring a portable DAC / Amp, and a really good set of cans? What’s the benefit of including an amp in the headphone? And not even a DAC / Amp, but only an Amp. So I just get whatever the cheep DAC is doing in my laptop, and the Mix-Fi amplifies it. I’m not sure how this actually makes things any better… garbage in garbage out?
It does make some sense that if you have an amp paired with a driver the two can be tuned together to sound as good as possible. That’s a reasonable concept. But in practice these aren’t doing anything to be worth my listening time. They don’t sound bad, but they don’t sound special either. In the $300 price range they are competing with the likes of Sennheiser HD 6xx, Hifiman Sundara, and even Grado SR325x. I can’t think of anything in the $300 price range I would not buy over these.
So… if you find them from $60, sure try them out. Otherwise, my 2 cents, save your time and money.
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