Tech Review: Sony XBA-H3 Hybrid Balanced Armature Headphones

 One of the natural drawbacks of using earphones is that with 8mm circular drivers or balanced armature drivers, however many, the sound that is piped through, regardless of accuracy, remains rather lateral and flat. You don't enjoy the same experience you get with headphones of larger driver sizes, which get much closer to reproducing the natural sound-stage of the recording - in other words, the placement of instruments within an ensemble, as well as the unique reverberations of the individual locations where the recording took place, whether a stadium with a live audience, a concert hall, a high-ceilinged cathedral or a small studio.

After the boom, and to a certain extent consumerization (lookin' at you Sony, you market spoiler you) of Balanced Armature products in the market, manufacturers of personal audio products have recently turned to exploring hybrid earphones, in which the two dominant technologies of personal audio, dynamic drivers and balanced armature drivers, are combined within a single product to provide the best of both worlds. To this end, Sony has produced the XBA-H series of products.

The XBA-H3 is the highest grade of the series, with one large 16mm dynamic driver to provide the bass, and two balanced armature drivers: a full-range driver, and a tweeter to further drive higher frequencies. Other products in the series include the XBA-H2, with a 13.5mm dynamic driver and a full range BA driver, and the XBA-H1, with a 9mm dynamic driver and a full range BA driver.

In short, the H3s (I'm just gonna call them that cos it's really quite tiring to keep typing XBA-H3s) completely caught me by surprise with its huge soundstage. It scored impressively on clarity, but having tested the XBAs before I already expected it to. To so tangibly feel the breadth and depth of the recording though, is this product's greatest success.



The dynamic driver is tuned to handle the bass, and it does so tightly and impactfully, cutting through the music most delightfully. I've learnt early on that if you were to press dynamic drivers in to your ears such that a seal is created by the diameter of the earbuds, you actually can get very good fidelity from most earphones, including Apple's iBuds. Given that doing so all the time is not at all a comfortable experience, plus the fact that you look like you are trying to block out your own music and therefore quite mad, that is an impractical solution. I would theorize with admittedly no knowledge of this particular field that a lack of free-flowing air and an overly muffled sound prevented manufacturers from simply sealing the sound in and channeling it through silicon earbuds, much like what the H3 does, but with the addition of balanced armature drivers to cover the higher frequencies, plus the innovative addition of an air vent at the back of the housing, this has been all but smartly eliminated.

Continuing their aforementioned legacy of balanced armature drivers, highs are cleanly delivered, and rarely sound sharp to the ear. It took some mad crashing of cymbals in a drum solo to make me start to wince, but it was generally tolerable and should be extra good news to most other users because 1) I am extra sensitive to higher frequencies, and 2) I listen to my music at generally louder volumes.

Now the catch. Yes. Yes there is, much as it pains me to say it.

There is a disappointing lack of mids in the tuning. Funnily enough, the two pieces of music I found completely acceptable were by the Chick Corea Super Trio and Diana Krall, where mids came through in full glorious force, so I suppose if you are a jazz person, mai tu liao, as they say. I did however, consistently notice hints of crackling at mids-intensive portions of the songs, which again may not happen if you listen to your songs at a lower volume. I was doing about 70-75% on the iPhone audio scale. I know I know. But with the other songs I sampled, spanning across Pink Floyd, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Disney, Immortal, Les Miserables and more, there was a resounding absence of mids, which contribute to the soul of the music - the oomph, excitement, richness and warmth. Many a times this made the music sound like cold and clinical renditions.

Driving the earphones are no problem - there wasn't a significant difference between listening from my audio amp, and listening from the iPhone directly, except for the source amplitude.

Here are a list of artistes and songs that I tried out, and my impression of the output from the H3s:

• Chick Corea Super Trio: sparkling, lively rendering, crackling at piano solos, nearly peaking at drum solo cymbal crashes.
• Diana Krall: near-perfect rendition. Both ensemble and solo parts clear as day.
• Asian Kung-Fu Generation (Japanese rock): great Rock-like EQ, but lack of mids = lack of excitement.
• Disney classics: every individual instrumental and vocal part in Disney orchestras and ensembles, which are HUGE (think Under the Sea and Be Our Guest), can be clearly heard. You can quite clearly imagine where each section would be sitting if you were in the conductor's spot.
• Pink Floyd: The stereo bounce in Us and Them was aurgasmic, to say the least. The high reverb in Money's emotive, soaring solo is generously reproduced, although the solo itself felt thin with the lack of mids. Similarly for the scatting in The Great Gig in the Sky, one of the most emotional lengths of senseless yelling anyone's ever done, there was little impact in the output.
• Immortal (black metal): no mids, but extreme metal relies a fair bit on the high mids, so the tweeter sort of saved it by reproducing the gritty crunch of the highly distorted electric guitars.
• Muse (live rock recording in a stadium): no sense of excitement, and this from a mids-heavy live recording.
• Les Miserables: Nicely reproduced, almost captivating. I do play this quite high on the volume.
• Casiopeia (Japanese fusion jazz): anti-climax at electric guitar solo.
• Daft Punk - Random Access Memories: Great tight bass, immersive environment.

Quick note about ergonomics before I conclude: it is quite cumbersome handling. The audio unit itself is already so blocky, you definitely aren't gonna be sleeping on your side with them on. The wires are rather disobedient, especially the top loop around your ear, although I will say it does a mostly good job of keeping itself out of tangles. ... when it doesn't get caught up with the rubber portion of the top loop.



The success of the H3s, therefore, are highly dependent on how sound engineers tune their final mix to be burnt on to the disc, which should not be the case. Even as someone who understands that I have a highly personal taste in musical output, I can't really imagine alot of people appreciating the lack of mids, unless perhaps clarity is a personal preference for you. For audio engineers and other professionals whose jobs require on audio monitoring, the earphones don't have the flattest tuning, but depending on your personal audio consumption tastes and needs at work, this pair of earphones can serve a good balance between both. They retail for a recommended price of S$438, and can be found at Sony stores and retailers around the island. Go to Sony's Singapore flagship store at Wisma Atria to try them out.

Sony 2nd-generation XBA Balanced Armature Earphones

When Sony first launched the XBA series in late 2011 (and in Singapore early 2012), its suggested retail prices took many by surprise. Single driver in-ear monitors (IEMs) from well-known high grade audio brands such as Ultimate Ears, Westone and Shure were priced at approximately S$199, often breaking the $200 point. Sony's XBA-1 was priced at S$109. Did they spoil the market? Absolutely. Did they minimize the risks associated with entering the market?

I doubt. Being a corporation of their size they could definitely lower production costs by mass manufacturing, but that would have made for a major loss if it didn't sell. In fact, the 2011 Japanese tsunamis nearly wrecked the manufacturing process, and threw Sony into a delay.

I only have a fleeting impression of the first generation XBAs, since they were mostly tested at the event, save for the XBA-1 that we had each received. This time however, I have been sent all 4 earphones (XBA-10, 20, 30 and 40) to try out, so I can take my time to make my humble judgments on each one.


The Set Up
I decided to test the earphones in 2 different settings - powered by my iPhone (5, if it matters to you) on the go, and powered by my trusty little desktop headphone amp, with my old iPhone 4 as my music source via Line Out. The amp did not make as much of a difference as it usually does because the XBAs have relatively low resistance, but it did help me confirm certain points that I couldn't judge with my iPhone. All models' silicon earbuds were swapped out with the noise isolation earbuds, which includes an extra layer of sponge within the inner flange of the bud to absorb ambient noise. I always start my tests with tracks from Muse's HAARP live concert (hard rock, sharp bass, keyboards, stereo effects, live audience) and slowly branch out after that to jazz, metal, opera, classical and classic rock tracks.

General Good
If I had to describe the series in a single word, it's obvious that clarity is the XBA's main focus. How that clarity manifests itself though... that comes up a little differently. The XBA's extensive range of silicon earbuds, both normal and noise isolating, also ensure that you have the best fit possible. Little things like lapel clips and cord managers also let you customize the way you use your earphones.

General Bad
The wires aren't so much anti-tangle as tangle-resistant. A fair bit of acoustic noise from the cable can be heard, but that can be solved by looping the cable over your ear. The problem with the higher models though, especially the XBA-40, is that the light wires keep popping up when looped around the ear, making you look weird. And slightly loony.

XBA-10 (Full Range, S$98, iPhone version S$118)
The XBA-10's clarity take the number 1 spot out of the four models. Mids were rich and full-bodied, and to my treble-sensitive ears, highs were delivered with sparkling precision, without shredding my ear canals. This actually allows your music to cut through and overpower a fair bit of ambient noise.

However, as brilliantly as Sony's full-range driver handled mids and highs within a single armature, bass, the number one problem with single armature earphones, was still conspicuously missing. This gets slightly better while the earphones are driven by the amp, along with slightly more pronounced mids, but the higher frequencies can get overwhelming before the bass reaches an amplitude of your liking.

Use for: traveling on public transport, plugging in at work or in cafes

XBA-20 (Full Range + Woofer, S$238, iPhone version S$268)
The simple addition of a woofer driver pretty much compensates for what the Full Range driver is missing, and adds bass to your experience, with both drivers operating at full amplitude (if you don't quite get what this means read on to 30 and 40). This can make the earphones too bassy for some ears, but for me and my favourite music, this is an almost ideal output that comes close to matching my triple-driver custom earphones in richness and clarity. For this reason, the XBA-20 wins my vote as the best model of the lot.

Use for: needs specified in XBA-10, your bass-hungry ears, and probably if you listen to hard rock with heavy distortion and overdrive.

XBA-30 (Full Range + Woofer + Tweeter, S$318, iPhone version S$338)
The triple-driver offering adds booster drivers to either end of the audio spectrum, but instead of accentuating the high frequencies, some tuning and volume leveling of the drivers completely flattened the sound signature of the XBA-30. Especially after having listened to the richness of the XBA-20, the XBA-30 seems to withhold the life from my music, pumping it out in a very matter-of-fact way. What it does give you, however, is an incredible soundstage, so wide and distinct that I could clearly map out the placements of sections of a 50-piece orchestra, along with a similarly sized chorus and the main singers. I could tell when singers shifted position on the stage, or when two similarly voiced sections of the chorus were singing different lines side by side (for example, Tenor 1 and Tenor 2). That, to me, is the XBA-30's principal selling point. That said, I hate my music flat (delivered as-is without aural influence of the output device), but if there is some insight that most audiophiles who would consider the XBA-30s like their music flat, then hey, go for gold I say.

Use for: a portable solution to serious music study, listening to how orchestras or bands work and how they place themselves. Or if you are a stickler for flat output.

XBA-40 (Full Range + Woofer + Tweeter + Super Woofer, S$388, iPhone version S$408)
From a manufacturing point of view, the XBA-40 could be said to be Sony's bud-sized trophy. Where similarly-speced earphones cost close to or over S$1000, the XBA-40 retails for just over 40% of that price.

Aurally though, it feels like the XBA-40 falls short of the success it very well should be. Little more can be said about it that hasn't already been articulated for the XBA-30, save for the fact that with the addition of the last driver, the Super Woofer, music with very deep and subtle bass parts, such as that elusive bass drum in classical orchestras, are done justice with a satisfying rumble. That said, it isn't a 100% hit rate, and for bass heavy music like techno and rock, it doesn't really matter as much because the Woofer can more than deliver on the output.

Use for: ultimate music enjoyment if you enjoy your music delivered flat

The packaging. Really love the design and efficient use of space!

Conclusion
Sony's definitely gone in the right direction, and for the brilliant work they have done in commercializing balanced armature drivers for the mass market, I'm willing to shrug off their misses with the 30 and 40. Personally, I think they can make the 30 and 40 even friendlier to a larger crowd of prospective buyers, and I think these buyers wouldn't even mind forking out more than the current price for future iterations, if it can hit their sweet spot.