Focus EDM

Focus EDM

Very small, very nice, with powerful bass.
They are excellent for the price.

I loved them and had a great sound, but the left side died after 30 days. It started making clicking sounds after insertion and now they work and then they go quiet. So they have been retired, another wasted set.

So, where do I start with this IEM? Well, the packaging is great. Accessories are also nice, but this is expected with an IEM that retails for $169 normally. The name is also very accurate and electronic dance music sounds great with this IEM! The sheer punch of this bass is enough for even the most demanding basshead, "Here Again" by Osanzi sounds INCREDIBLE with the sub-bass wobble and dynamic drops / cut-outs throughout the song. Playback of vocals and live instruments is tonally and texturally distorted and unnatural. I did not realize just how the focus on EDM (heh) would affect other genres. All in all, if you listen to purely electronicly synthesized instrumental music, this set will blow you away. But if you listen to acoustic or vocal heavy music, this isn't the one for you. To me, this is a CRAZY good IEM good for wowing your friends with bass-heavy electronic tracks and I recommend it for anyone looking to understand why bassheads are bassheads.

Seeing these at half price during the 6.18 sale I thought I'd give them a go, not expecting too much. I generally go for a reference-ish tuning (for comparison I own Tin P1, Etymotic ER2XR and Mangird Tea) and thought the Focus EDM would be a nice addition that is totally different to what I already own.

As others have voiced, I thought these would be very niche and that I would only enjoy them on a very narrow cross section of my library. Not so! In fact, I've been quite impressed by their versatility. They're certainly bass-forward, but the hefty low-end doesn't overpower the rest of the frequency response as I imagined. What you get is an incredibly fun set of IEMs that are (mostly) solidly built (the wood inlays are prone to falling out) with above-average soundstage and competent detail retrieval.

Pictured with the Thieaudio EST cable, which complements them nicely.

Oh boy, was this a pleasant surprise.

I got these, not really expecting much beyond a niche set that I can throw on when I'm in the mood for bass heavy tracks. I'm a writer, so I typically listen to bassy lofi-type beats throughout my writing sessions without vocals. These will be perfect for that, I thought.

And they DO live up to that expectation. What I did NOT expect is how far beyond those expectations these actually go. Not an all-arounder, you say? Niche set, you're thinking? Too much bass to enjoy classical, jazz, or vocal-oriented tracks? You'd be perfectly reasonable thinking that. It's virtually a given, right?

As I'm writing this review, I have Myrkur playing in the background. Her ethereal vocals sound every bit as clear and haunting as they would on my Starfield. Black magic? Some kind of dark enchantment? Maybe.

Are you a fan of more audiophile sets, and you're a basshead? Your mileage may vary, but believe it or not, you may have just found both here.

As for accessories, they are perfectly sufficient. I -like- the cable. It's soft, flexible, light, and feels comfortable in the ear. However, I'm not in love with it like I am the IEMs themselves. I've ordered a few premium cables to try out. These deserve the best. Will they make it sound better? No, but let's not act like we don't care about look and feel. You may also decide to change cables, but know that it's not a necessity. You'll most likely be perfectly happy with the stock cable.

What is a necessity, however, is changing the tips. The material manages to be hard, slippery, and I couldn't get even a decent fit without hurting my ears. I have some other tips lying around, so I experimented for both sound and comfort. My favorites ended up being Final Type E tips, which most of you probably already know about and own, and Moondrop's spring tips. The spring tips offer a fantastic fit, and to my ears produced an ever-so-slight improvement in the sound by making the treble feel a tad more even. Very minor change, but the fit is now amazing. FInal Type E is a very, very close second.

These are now my favorite set, and if you are a lover of the bass, they may be yours as well.

Note:
There are three different versions of these, and they have different tuning. The Vocal and Rythm versions are NOT the basshead sets. Don't buy them thinking they are. They are tuned completely differently. The EDM is the one you want, though you may have to keep an eye on the stock.

HIGHLY recommended!

Right. Now that the overly confusing title has caught some attention time to explain why I say this...
The Focus EDM has a naturally bassy-V shape signature. Forget about getting practically any detail in the mids out of these without giving them a bit of EQ.
BUT! After they have received a bit of EQ they are surprisingly detailed and sound quite good. The 5 star rating stems from the fact that the EDM is made for bassheads, no doubt about that, and for bassheads these will satisfy 90% of your needs. Even if they seem too bloated and bassy for your tastes then it's literally a case of fixing whatever you don't like with a tiny bit of EQ.

I got the Olinas with these and in terms of picking up detail in music, as long as the track isn't overly complex these can pull out almost as much detail as the Olinas but with worse imaging and seperation. These slam a bit harder than the Olinas though.

All in all recommended.

(P.s Most comfortable IEM's I have worn thusfar.)

Nice bassy earbuds. I pull them out for genres and songs that call for a lot of bass. Treble can get a little sharp on some songs if you play them loud.

The Vocal version that I got has little bass and sounds quite bright. The stems are short, causing the pieces to constantly fall out of the ears. Detail retrieval and tonality are good, but just ok in this price range. I much prefer NF Audio NM2 and TRI I3 Pro to this Focus EDM (listening to rock and metal).

Muy buenos bajos, no opacan las otras frecuencias.
Es increíble los detalles que se oyen al ver películas.
Muy recomendable. Llego más rápido de lo esperado.