Esmooth1
Esmooth1

Woodies! China’s eSmooth delivers for less than you think

Marcus
Dynamic Driver

To be honest we are not an environmentally friendly lot us audio nut jobs, and never more so when it comes to our favorite material for headphones, wood!

Thus it didn’t escape my attention that yet another Chinese firm (count them? Nope, me neither) have jumped onto the audio bandwagon with their stunning looking wood encased headphones and IEM’s.

Ok, say’s you, plenty of wood headphones in the market, why do these merit any mention? Well quite apart from the exquisite list of woods used, they are superbly cheap, great to look at and for a few measly dollars it will either give you bragging rights with your plasticly challenged headphone buddies or at worst have an awesome woody DIY project (can anyone say thunderpants??) in the making if you don’t fancy the EQ.

My sample IEM and on-ear just arrived today so give me a few weeks and I will churn something out on them but so far the wood is shiny and pretty and that is just fine with me. The SQ I have no idea just yet, but fingers crossed.

For now I don’t believe they are in the retail domain, looking more like an OEM manufacturer for more recognized brands in the market.

For those who want to explore in the name of science then here are the details:

Esmooth Acoustic Technology .Co.Ltd
Add: Xin He District,WanJiang Town,DongGuan City,GuangDong, China
Tel: +86(769) 2217 7188 22181576 ext.811 Fax: +86(769) 2218 1575
Mobile: +86-13717404695
Website : http://www.woodheadphones.com

Here are a pic of the units I ordered:

Ebony Wood

The wood materials lined up are just to die for:

Ebony Wood
Bamboo Wood
Black Walnut Wood
Bubinga Wood
Chicken wing Wood
Green Sandalwood
Litchi Wood
Maple Wood
Rose Wood

And they make their cans in the following formats which I believe can be customized slightly for your needs though this may affect price I am sure.

In Ear Headphones
On Ear Headphones
Around Ear Headphones
Clip-On Headphones

I can certainly see a market for the casing alone!!

Oh let us not forget the price eh guys? Ranging from about $10 to $15 for the IEM and $20 to $35 for the flagship (looks like a top of the line ATH or AKG).

Now that is a bargain if you ask me.

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Marcus
Editor
Marcus is the Founder & Owner of headfonics.com which started in 2011, and a former contributing music journalist to European regional printed newspapers in the late 1980's and 1990's. Prior to the start of Headfonics Marcus was the admin of the Headphiles national audiophile forum from 2009 to 2012.

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21 Responses

    1. I used the contact form when I initially reached out to them and to be fair they responded to me quite quickly. Payment was done by Paypal when I got my units.

  2. Well, I got 3 Esmooth products today. I got the ES610 (These things are SMALL. Like, smaller than Portapros.), ES360, and ES530. They’re all pretty impressive if you take price into account.
    The ES610 is light in bass and lack body throughout, along with failing to reproduce complex music, but for simple female acoustic music, they’re very enjoyable for the price one would pay for them. They’re very bright though. Like…really really bright.
    The ES360 is very nice in fit and finish, and sound very good for what it is, although Esmooth headphones seem to have a problem with congestion.
    The ES530 is a typical warm IEM, but is between my M31 and CC51 in overall sound quality. I’ll post more when I get more time with them.

    I’m REALLY excited to hear the circumaurals now.

    1. I got the on ear 821 I think, been a while since I checked and for the price it was so so, it does need some modding though. The IEM was not too my liking, the 8mm one. Very dark and veiled and the pressure was too much on my ear. I think the bigger it goes the better it will sound since the top of the line is only $35 or something like that.

      I wonder if you could make an esmooth thunderpants?

      1. I don’t think the chambers are big enough for the square drivers. If the cups didn’t taper off, maybe, but from the looks of it, you’d have to totally change the damping and stuff. I could very well be wrong though. Maybe an HP1 driver would work though, but they’re rare enough as it is.

        And I just made my bassless 610’s bass monsters by poking only 4 holes in the back of the drivers. This pleases me.

        1. I might open up the 821 and see what is inside it the mood takes me but for now I am awaiting the arrival of the dt1350 which will distract me for quite some time. 

  3. Any updates on the soundsig, isolation, comfort, and durability for the headphone? I’m eyeing a portable one 8)

    1. I can give you a demonstration sample at the next meeting. It definitely feels like a woody and sounds like a woody but the IEM is inferior to the portable on ear woody.

  4. The IEM looks like a little FX500ish to me.

    For its price, if it can produce FX500ish SQ as well at the most, wow we got a small assassin here.

    I’ll try that next meet marcus. It’s dirty cheap I can spare some for that wood. =)

    1. I think the headphones are stronger than the IEM but their range is huge and it would be unwise at this point to say this IEM is the same as the rest of others. Try before you buy as always is my motto :)

  5. I have the sample with me as we speak, you can test them when you get here. They have a huge range of cans and IEM’s so we may go back for more depending on the demand if you know what I mean. I also think they changed their sales rep recently. The guy I am talking to is Steven and he was good. Just waiting on a reply on issues such as modding and pre-ship customization.

      1. For 2 items including packaging they charged around $35. I think that is a major hurdle since Hifiman can ship out items free of charge or $20 at most using similar couriers.

        1. It’s the only thing that’s hard to justify them…unless you have friends that start GB’s like y’all do. Then again, it’s hard to complain when they’re selling $60 full sized ebony headphones. Wish there were more people here that are interested in them for the sake of science. I mean chicken wing wood? How does that not sound tasty enough to try?

          At any rate, Steven answered my second email and is hopefully sending some things my way ;) Can’t wait. He told me to pick and choose, and the ES881 and ES piqued my interest the most since they look to be the most mod-friendly. Wish I could have gone to HK to tour the factory like he wanted me to though…so much wood.

          1. Ah a tour, I think they are mainland China but not far away from HK. Would personally bookmark the factory tour next time I am in HK. The ES881 is the big daddy with the 50mm drivers. I suggest getting your blue-tack and cotton wool ready and think about ditching the stock cable and see what happens.

            1. Actually, I was going to do much more, like angle the drivers and different felt behind the drivers a la the ESW9 mods, among other things. I’ll also get some SFI ortho tweeters too probably, just to see if eSmooth should work with orthos like I have, along with another person. Mmmm budget wooden orthos… They should have made a rosewood version of the ES881. I mean they already have one rosewood headphone, I don’t see why they shouldn’t make more.

  6. I’ve been trying to contact Esmooth for the past month, but every email I’ve sent got rejected :(

  7. So far it is a mixed bag, build on the cups is a joy to behold with some seriously nice wood. The plastic headband looks reasonably durable and isolation so so. There is not much leakage on the esw9 lookalike I got which is what I sampling along with one woody IEM. The ESW9 clone is dark IMHO with roll off in the highs. I am thinking of allowing anyone who is interested to try them out at a meeting before making a decision.

  8. Will definitely be waiting for impressions on these.

    For me, isolation, and build in particular. ;)

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