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Articles -
Reviews
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Written by Aenn Seidhe Priest
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 01:56 |
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So, the WeSC Oboe.
AKG K-240 Studio, WeSC Oboe, Soft Cell's "Cruelty Without Beauty" CD. And a cat ear.
How shall it be put... They're not exactly horrible, no. As it happens there're commenters who insist they're really great, and there're some who wrote they're not worth the money. Truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.
Looks
The Box.
Oboe could've been more garish in looks. The WeSC logo, combined with joyful colours and overall "happy late 70s-early 80s" aura makes them look like an orange Atari console accessory. There's a nostalgic appeal in that.
Some folks might like showing off their kit, but really all showoff is somewhat goofy... Though they can be a conversation piece.
Comfort
Sliders.
Comfortable they're not. Matt had a problem with them constantly sliding... They also tend to do that here. Snag is, the headband is not an adjustable clicker-type. It's just a plastic leather and slider rails arrangement. The Oboe only stay in place thanks to pressing on the ears. There're some headphones that press worse (AKG K-81/K-518DJ, which everyone seems to love for their exaggerated bass), but the Oboe are not comfortable. They're mildly discomfortable, and the cups can't rotate, so the headphones always press the same way (and slide downwards as this is being written). The Oboe try to flat-iron the ears. Ears have to (painfully) unfold after wearing the Oboe headphones. After the barely noticeable Roland RH-50 (which are also supra-aural), the Oboe are obviously uncomfortable.
Build & Design
The Oboe are supra-aural, smallish closed (yes, closed) headphones with 30mm diaphragms and a rather good factory damping. The diaphragms are called "high-power", and they are. These things are very powerful, with good dynamics, and outstanding sensitivity (129 dB/1 mW declared efficiency). The Oboe can shout and kick, only snag is, they don't do that very musically.
Cable is single-entry, connected to the left cup. The meshes on the cups are decorative (painted plastic), cups are fully closed.
The cable is 50 cm., cloth-armoured, with a 1-metre extension.
There's no carrying pouch, apparently WeSC's intention is for headphones to be constantly displayed on an owner's neck. The Oboe do not fold.
Isolation
...is rather decent, as closed headphones would have it. Being supra-aural they don't isolate as well as circumaural, exposing earlobes to noise. Still, isolation's pretty good.
Sound & Music
The distinction's in the name for this paragraph. There's sound, and there's music. Unfortunately these two are often mixed up by audio kit makers. Sure enough, something that can play music can also play sound, but it's not always the other way around. What plays sound fine isn't always musical.
Oboe's problem is the EQ. It's not natural. It does sound lively on electronical pieces, but it just doesn't cut it when there are vocals. Marc Almond's voice sounded artificial and with poisonous resonance in reverberation. And that, in Soft Cell's "Cruelty Without Beauty", a synth-pop album (the Oboe are obviously meant for electronic music). Oboe have this nasty knack for highlighting high-treble echo resonance, making it stand out in an artificial way. Yes, the Oboe treble EQ tweak does highlight reverberation; by exaggerating it.
On the other hand, Jarre's "Teo & Tea" - a kind of "disco music turned music" album, sounded rather lively, though still somewhat artificial, bloating some leads while slightly thinning others. Again, it's the tonal balance. As the girlfriend noted, they sound like a "rave warehouse".
Somewhat boomy, with kicking bass, and resonating treble - while inconsistent in the midrange.
The EQ highlights bass and depresses certain areas of midrange. In a mix, the agogo bells just didn't ring much - they sounded like muted, faded ghosts somewhere far out there. On the speakers (Roland MA-10), the agogo bells were audible. Usually it's the other way around - headphones show details speakers miss. There's also not much space audible in the Oboe, or rather, it's a specific portion of space (high treble, treble extension, part of high midrange) that gets highlighted, at the expense of everything else. The result is a toyish midrange with weird soundstage and bass bloated out of proportion.
In another mix here, the synthesised strings are completely smeared while the background pad stands out. When it really ought to be the other way around - synthesised strings in front with the pad in background. The strings are mixed by a margin louder than the pad, so why the mockery?
There're some pieces that can be engaging with the Oboe, like this one:
Though obviously this plays well because the notes fall into frequency bands highlighted by the headphones.
These droning synthesised strings fall apart:
The body just isn't there. Only the low midrange, bass, and treble stand out.
And so, the designers of WeSC Oboe made the classic mistake of equalising headphones for the tracks they used to play, highlighting certain frequency bands while ignoring others. As a result, the headphones are not a good all-around performer.
Conclusion
The Oboe highlight certain parts of the frequency range at the expense of a portion of midrange. Unfortunately, this portion of midrange can include bodies of musical instruments. The synthesised strings above just lack any presence played through Oboe - contour and reverberation are pushed forward at the expense of body. Oboe were obviously designed around electronical music tracks with little body, but with obvious contour that the designers decided to highlight, together with high-treble echoes. The result is a rather weird sound signature with a broken midrange.
Not recommended.
Headphones in the Same Class (~$40-60)
Roland RH-50, Yamaha R5HMA, OVC HC1000, AKG K-81/K-518DJ for extra (possibly nauseating) bass.
RH-50 is the price counterpart from Roland; though not coloured, they do look elegant in a "studio" way. And they're more comfortable (some would say a lot more so, but all supra-aural headphones aren't as comfortable as circumaural). And they're more musical, though also more mid-rangey (monitor headphones lift midrange to highlight detail). Price is around or less than $50. Here's our review.
Yamaha R5HMA are large, comfortable, and with a clean and warm sound. These are another set of headphones in the $50 price range.
OVC HC1000 are cheaper ($29, free worldwide shipping), have excellent efficiency (slightly lower than the Oboe), great clarity, and are foldable, portable, come with a colourful carry pouch and switchable colour inserts (red, silver, blue).
Yuin G2A are Yuin's new clip-on headphones. These promise being more impressive than the Yuin PK earbuds (earbuds are earbuds, after all). Price is $49, worldwide shipping included.
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Last Updated on Saturday, 23 May 2009 07:39 |
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