Sound Impressions
Summary
The EA500, again, comes with two types of nozzles that will alter the sound a fair amount, depending on which set you use.
You can further compound the change in tone and presentation with 3rd party ear tip rolling, so this then becomes a 25-page review that I don’t think anyone wants to spend half their evening reading just to cover every single variant sound type that you can get.
Thankfully, the tone and texture of the experience do not alter that much between nozzle sets, although it is certainly noticeable on the treble side mostly.
For now, note that bass and midrange purity and quality do not alter between the nozzle sets, but the treble does. So, I feel there is no need to detail both nozzles for bass and mids, but I will do so for the treble area of this review.
Bass
The EA500 offers a moderate quantity of bass overall and between both nozzle sets. The only real difference is that one of them offers more physical tactility, (the red ring), and the other offers a flatter and less physically thumping experience that is a bit smoother in its approach, (the black ring).
But the overall purity and quality between them remain the same, regardless. For $79, I am impressed with the quality and pristine purity of the low-end. Not that many other models out there have a similar quality that I have reviewed.
The stock experience, with no EQ active, is less than desirable and heavily offset by the prominent and very plentiful treble. You really need to crank up the bass dials to even things out, and even then, at a +7dB or more bass boost, the SIMGOT EA500 is still only bass-moderate overall in quantity.
Similarly, the Moondrop Stellaris and this EA500 are basically blood brothers in almost every single way.
The bottom side tone and texture are pure feeling, and not woolly or thickened in physicality. The strike factor is prominent sometimes and can be toned down with dropped bass levels, which makes the experience less fatiguing over time.
Overall, the bass on the EA500 is just good in quantity, responsive enough, and robust enough to allow for a bit more bass quantity if you want it, and on the pure and crystalline side of texture that comes across as more neutral and closer to analytical bass type than warm or velvet-like.
Mids
I don’t hear much of, if any difference at all, between the two nozzle sets for midrange appeal. At least not until we get to the very upper areas of the upper mids. At that point, yeah, you can hear a bit of a difference in presentation and brightness factor. The black rings add a more prominent appeal to the tone and forwardness factor.
Once more, the mids are on the pure side for tonality needs, so if you like the more analytical and clinical appeal for coloration, then this is a great set for you. The mids are very forward, engaging, large feeling, and dynamically interesting.
SIMGOT says they aimed for this, and they certainly hit the bullseye on that one. That excellent forwardness in physical placement makes vocals feel extremely interesting and fun, despite it also offering a clinical and more icy tonality.
The upper mids are where things go astray. These headphones are excessively bright and akin to the Moondrop Stellaris in brightness factor. SIMGOT seems all about treble and prominence for this model, so I am not taking points away if that was literally their intent from the get-go.
However, there are times when the upper-mids become too much for me and I need to down-toggle the EQ just to get rid of the spike and bite of some vocalists who provide a lot of energy in their tracks. Both nozzles have this problem, the black ring version is a bit more than the red ring.
Treble
The EA500 feels like I am standing on the mountaintop with an approaching blizzard on the horizon. Both nozzles offer a different tone and presentation that can be audibly heard when you swap them.
The black rings are much more prominent and gift the user a sense of tizzy prominence at times. The red rings subdue that a bit, but still are well into the very bright tier of tonality.
The black rings have a steep bite factor that can physically slam noticeably more than the red rings. We’ve taken an already bright IEM and also added too much physical strike factor at times.
As mentioned, I need to drop off the top side via EQ inside of my sources just to feel like this headphone is even approaching balanced sound in terms of a physical sense of the word.
The treble being so bright and prominent is fine, but the physical slam and wince factor is even more than the Moondrop Stellaris, which is fairly bright up top.
Even with excessively warm amps and sources, I am unable to alter the EA500 into something less ice-provoking on the top side. The only way to do that is to massively drop down the EQ on the top side and that invokes a nasty sense of nasalness and an unappealing experience overall.
In stock form though, clarity is not a problem. For $79, the EA500 is one of the cleanest feeling treble IEMs I’ve reviewed recently, without a doubt.
Imaging
The prominent upper mids and treble make this IEM sound very open, very spacious and significantly aired out.
The coherency factor is also good, as the stage left and right, vs the stage height are not in constant odds against each other, and both reflect a similar physical scaling size between each other.
That means one doesn’t sound overly expanded, IE: more width than height or vice versa. Depth of field is excellent, probably one of the best cavernous IEMs in feel and imaging that I’ve reviewed in the sub $100 tier in the past few years.
So yes, the imaging factor is very good, this is a sound staging titan for being so cheap and the added flare of the depth of field and airiness factors being that good, really do make this a value product to look out for in the holidays upcoming later this year.
I can see this being on the short list of audiophile best deals just for the excellent coherent imaging this IEM offers.
Select Comparisons
Moondrop Stellaris
These two IEMs are essentially blood brothers. The Moondrop Stellaris doesn’t go quite as far up the icy mountain as the EA500 though. The EA500 is much more forward, engaging, and physically striking in slam across the board.
The Stellaris is more relaxed, and bassier by a few dB. The Stellaris is more comfortable for me despite being massively heavier, it just fits in my ear way better and doesn’t slide out like the EA500 does.
More so, the EA500 is significantly more efficient and the Stellaris requires amplification to get the best out of it.
Thieaudio Legacy 2
At just a smidgen more in cost than the EA500, the Legacy 2 remains one of the most comfortable IEMs I’ve ever worn. I can jog and run and walk up steps without that model even slightly budging, which is something the EA500 cannot perform equally.
The bass on the Legacy 2 is warmer, thickened, and deeper reaching, but lacks the nice sense of purity of the EA500. Treble prominence is fairly similar, I find both to be overly striking and impactful, with the EA500 taking that to another level entirely.
FiiO JD7
The FiiO JD7 is a match in the price for this EA500, yet I find the FiiO to offer noticeably less clarity on the bass and treble.
The FiiO is a trillion times smoother and relaxing in strike factor top to bottom, the more resolving/easygoing and less chaotic model here. It has a significantly more powerful bass slam but lacks treble quantity compared to the overly abundant treble on the EA500. Mids on the FiiO are soft and relaxed in placement.
Mids on the EA500 are very forward and in your face for placement. The FiiO is bested in the depth of field by the EA500, but the FiiO sounds pristinely effortless and more coherent than the EA500.
TRN Kirin
The TRN Kirin is so much flatter and more balanced sounding than the more top-heavy EA500. Both are in the same general ballpark of close to or around $100 now.
The Kirin has less interesting and smaller imaging than the EA500 by a fair margin. Also, both have customizable parts to alter the sound but the Kirin’s parts actually do change the sound much more from top to bottom than the included nozzles of the EA500.
Yes, the Kirin is Planar, so it sounds meatier and hefty compared to the much thinner tone of the EA500.
Our Verdict
If SIMGOT was set to develop a treble and imaging god of the budget realm then they certainly birthed a new champ in that regard.
The SIMGOT EA500 is crazy bright at times, but it offers some physical alteration potentials in different nozzles that are included, so you can tame the treble a bit with the red ring option.
Ultimately, they are very well made, offer a fantastic cable, and dish out excellent, even amazing quality imaging for the price.
For this entire past year, just one other budget IEM came close to offering an imaging performance that is deep feeling and spacious.
SIMGOT EA500 Technical Specifications
- DRIVERS 10mm dual-magnetic-circuit & dual-cavity structure dynamic.
- DIAPHRAGM Fourth-generation DLC composite diaphragm
- IMPEDANCE 16Ω+15% (@1kHz)
- SENSITIVITY 123dB/Vrms (@1kHz nozzle with red ring) 124dB/Vrms (@1kHz nozzle with black ring
- FREQUENCY RESPONSE RANGE 10Hz-50KHz
- EFFECTIVE FREQUENCY RESPONSE 20Hz-20kHz
- CABLE High-purity silver-plated OFC wire
- CONNECTOR 0.78mm 2-pin
