As an experiment I bought the cheapest Sony IEMs I could find. The EX15.
To be honest I had some time to kill and had forgotten to bring any headphones with me. PC World was nearby, I check what they have for cheap, see if I can find a frequency response…
I think for the price (€9) this doesn’t look too bad, well apart from the treble.
But I also forgot my Qudelix, so I didn’t have an eq ready to try. I checked to see maybe if sonarworks had something on Android, find the app.
I quickly try it. Do some quick A B tests, it applies a mystery EQ. This does sound better. Quite listenable.
Later I get home, there is a longer set of tests, kind of like a hearing test at a bunch of different frequencies, then another a/b comparison.
Some adjustment has been made.
You can choose two eqs by default, this preference one and a “flat” one. If I understand correctly, this flat response means that I should perceive the response as flat with these earphones and whatever information was learned from the heading test. I can’t be sure because very little info is provided in the app or online.
However, the result is phenomenal. The recommended profile by the way was kinda U shaped. But to me the flat profile is more natural sounding. I think these €9 buds + a free app, sounds natural, detailed, musical etc.
When I turn the EQ on and off the improvement is … Well it sounds like a different earphone.
I couldn’t find much discussion of this, so I thought maybe it could be of interest too someone. Or maybe someone else has experience with this they could share?