Shure SE530

The SE530 is made from plastic and fake bronzed/chromed for enhanced tackiness.The earphones themselves are very comfortable, even for lengthy listening sessions. Their form factor is quite ergonomic; they fit my ears really well. The SE530 don’t stick out as much as, for example, Ultimate Ear’s Super.Fi series, and I have no problems using them even while sleeping. Yes, the SE530 are comparatively big phones, but due to their cleverly designed housing they don’t feel or look that way. Isolation from outside noise is one of the strong points of these Shures. With the thicker than usual silicon tips isolation is already a bit better than with many other universal-fit IEMs. With the black “Olive” foam tips however isolation becomes really outstanding.

The bass is quite fine on the SE530, it’s clean and fast, but it doesn’t really extend all too well to the lowest octave. Around 40-50 Hz is where they still perform well, but below that it’s all quite rolled off. Comparable phones like the Future Sonics Atrio or JAYS q-JAYS go deeper than the SE530, are less recessed, and deliver more sub-bass impact. The amusing thing is that the q-JAYS have one teensy micro-armature for the bass, while the SE530 have two regular sized ones – and the q-JAYS have at least the same bass quality and quantity, but extend to the very bottom of the lowest octave… On the positive side, the SE530’s bass isn’t muddy at all and doesn’t veil midrange frequencies. It’s a good bass for most kinds of acoustic music, but real bassheads might have to look elsewhere for earth shattering quantities.

Soundstage/headstage is very good on the SE530, considering they’re in-ear phones. Of course the sound doesn’t expand in all three dimensions, but well mastered recordings can extend quite wide to the left and right of your head.

The Shure SE530 are a slightly contradictory mix of features and qualities. Some of their strong points are usually found in dynamic driver earphones, not in balanced armature ones: good sound at low volume, good sound with dense orchestral works, good soundstage, low fatigue, and so on. Most other balanced armature phones I know don’t excel regarding these issues, the SE530 are rather special in that matter. Where the Shures clearly surpass most dynamic driver in-ear phones is their excellent clarity, precision, and “snappiness”. Their weak points are in the extremes of the audible frequency spectrum. The SE530 are neither overly analytic nor overly “fun” sounding phones but they’re certainly not boring. They sound fine for most applications, but they’re quite picky about their source. They don’t really like many portable players, so a headphone amp should be used to get the most out of them.

source by anythingbutipod