My little review of the Soundmagic PL30....Astonishing!

[Musicalmadness]

Well this morning i became the proud owner of the Soundmagic pl30,after a nice shopping experience with hi-fi headphones (thanks guys...oh and love the e-mail messages "looking forward to arriving at it's new home"), Although i must admit i wasn't entirely sure when i opened the package,read on for my thoughts.
I have heard many iem's in my time,too many to mention but these include top models from shure,ue,westone etc and i have always felt that iems in general are a bit pricey and do not perform,for instance i have a pair of creative live full size phones which use the same drivers as some denon phones and not one iem can compete,maybe the ie8 comes close,being dynamic itself but as that costs way more and is impossible to get a good isolating fit with them it really doesn't come into the equation.
So As i had heard glowing reviews on these i thought why not,as they were incredibly cheap especially when compared to the so-called top ones,although in my heart i really wasn't expecting much,i was wondering whether to go for these or the PL50 but as the 50 is a ba driver i decided to stick with what i like best...dynamic drivers,don't get me wrong i dont mind ba drivers but i prefer the depth and power of a dynamic one.
Anyway i opened the box and thought wow is that it! and my heart then sank completely,no way would these be any good,maybe on a par with a pair of marshmallows but nothing more.
Anyway i thought well lets just find out how bad and laughable they are,so i found the best tips for myself which were the double flange ones popped them in my ears plugged them into my S638f loaded with high quality v0 mp3's and and hit play.
........One word "Unbelievable".
Seriously i cannot stress how utterly blown away i was by the sheer power and tonal brilliance to these little phones,clarity,powerful bass,clear and true mids and the treble...oh the treble,talk about fizz, wow the treble on these is to die for,so crisp and cymbals literally fizz and sparkle it's just so beautiful.
The only earphone i think thats better with highs is the er4 so once again with price in mind these are a winner.
I can honestly say hand on heart these are probably the best all round iem i have ever heard and in my opinion they are better than ie8 and se530 and i truly mean that,the detail is insane i can hear everything it's just amazing how they have managed to get this sort of audiophile sound into such a small and very well built phone.
Even the isolation isn't bad either ok it isn't as good as the shure but i can live with that.
I haven't been able to take them out yet lol,i'm just very happy with these indeed.
Think i may get another pair as a back up too.
Anyway there you go,just my thoughts on what i believe is a truly outstanding earphone and performs way better than i ever thought possible,way better!
Thank you soundmagic and thank you hi-fi headphones,you have made my music loving ears very happy.

[ShaunG]

Thank you for the review of the SoundMAGIC PL30 Musicalmadness, and welcome to the forum!

SoundMAGIC really have excelled themselves with the PL30. In my opinion the sound quality is right up there with some of the higher end earphones. They are an absolute bargain.

How do you get on with the over ear cabling? I wore the earphones the wrong way round for a couple of hours before I twigged!

[Musicalmadness]

Lol.
Yeah i couldn't work out which was right,left or upside down,finally i had to look at the diagrams and i finally got it.
I love the cables over the ear,such a professional touch and so comfy too,i'm used to over the ear with the shures etc and much prefer it,besides when people see them they think coo he must be a musician or something,i love the attention rofl.
You are so right about soundMAGIC excelling themselves,i dont know how they did it.
And you are also so right about them being able to compete with higher end models,in my opinion they are a high end model.
The entire sound spectrum is there,if i had to pinpoint it i'd say they were a cross between the sleek audio sa6 and the ety er4, quite big footsteps to follow in indeed plus they are dynamic so they have power on top as well!
Quite brilliant.

[ShaunG]

Being hyper critical of the PL30, I find there is a bit of resonance in the mid-bass range that isn't quite accurate. Overall though it is an incredible earphone for the price. We think they are so good we've put them in our top 10 best headphones guide.

Yes, I definitely agree about dynamic earphones having more power and punch behind them than balanced armature models. This makes because BA drivers move less air than a (generally larger) dynamic driver. The IE8 is a great example of an dynamic earphone having more than enough bass impact!

[Musicalmadness]

I agree with you on the Pl30 but its a real struggle to fault them at the price,but yeah i know what you mean.
On the subject of ba drivers i dont know about you but ive always found (especially with my shure) is that even well mastered lossless music sometimes sounds compressed with a ba driver,Maybe because they are tuned for real instruments on stage rather than listening to music via a cd player or vinyl set up.
Speaking of dynamic drivers i love my Futuresonics atrio m5,and i'm not a bass head but the bass on those are incredible and so well done as well.
Yes the ie8 certainly pumps out the bass as well,i dread to think what the highest setting sounds like!
Having said all that for me personally my perfect iem (which i hope one day i'll find) would be dynamic driver with say etymotic er4 isolation,bass like ie8/atrio m5 Mids slightly recessed like say a dt880 can and highs like er4, Wonder if there is such a thing???.

[Saiyajin]

Thank you for your review. Yes the clarity of these perform are indeed rarely heard for that budget. I do really enjoying the sound as well and prefer it over some more priced iems. For me the highs perhaps overdoing sometimes but could be fit related that isn't isolate into the right place in my case.
I've got PL50 too and those will give you in general more lows and better cable.
The overall presentation of these are softer, the treble doesn't go as sharp as PL30 which maybe kill a little bit of details but overall still airy, smooth and good soundstage. SoundMAGIC somehow forgot to use time on the provided tips this time, so what ever I put on, the mids go out lacking a bit.
IE8 of cause an entire different iem in every expect. They give me actually less detail, that why I rather dislike them. They bass monsters, some like that, I'm not fan of this genre.

[Jingo]

I purchased a pair of these recently and just can't get on with them. They sound fine if I'm sat still but walking anywhere is a nightmare. All I hear is the thud of my feet walking, and I'm not eating with them again. I've tried the behind ear plastic clips and a variety of different size ear buds (thus making the product un-returnable) to no avail. This is not a problem I had with my Sennheiser CX300, am I doing something wrong?