Nevergiveup In The Belief And Oppoty To LetMusicBurn – The Evolution Of BLON BL-05s

September 23, 2020 KopiOkaya (Singapore)

[Estimated reading time: Approximately 2 minutes]

The story behind BLON BL-05s is quite an interesting one but earphone development is an extremely boring subject thus I don’t want to bore you with too much detail. Let’s keep it short and sweet. All-in-all, its development stretched a total period of about 10 months.

Blon BL-05s Review – New Gold Dream

Life of the BLON BL-05s did not begin after BL-05, rather it started after BLON BL-03. The idea was conceived when BLON wanted Jurgen’s and mine input on how to improve the BL-03. Both Crinacle and Hawaii Bad Boy contributed their valuable opinions as well. The intention of this tuning was meant to be an upgrade from BLON BL-03.

So how did the original BLON BL-05 come into the picture? During the fourth quarter of 2019, BLON was experimenting with the idea of piezoelectric drivers and they included it into their BL-05 earliest prototype… Which we know turned out to be a total flop thanks to a well-known friend’s over-enthusiastic YouTube review. The idea of a piezoelectric-equipped BLON BL-05 thus disappeared into thin air.

To cash-in on a higher-priced earphone, BLON banked on the success of BLON BL-03, dropped the piezoelectric driver and sold BLON BL-05 for almost 2x the price. Yes, the BLON BL-05 had cleaner bass and midbass compared to BLON BL-03 but was cursed by the “see-saw effect”. That is whenever bass is lowered, treble MUST be reduced if not the tuning will sound bright and harsh – similar to levelling a balancing scale beam. Eventually, the BL-05 was mercilessly bashed by both Crinacle and HBB… Of course BLON wasn’t pleased at all.

Aggrieved by the outcome, BLON decided to engage help from a close friend. This close friend contacted both Jurgen and myself (also our close friend) to re-tune the BL-05. After experimenting with their 3rd generation CNT driver (which has a thicker CCAW voice coil compared to 2nd generation), BLON sent us the “BL-05 MK2”, which sounded quite good… Almost Hana-like… Both Jürgen and I liked it… BUT… A slip of my tongue triggered BLON to scrap the tuning, and that is “Hana-like”. As we know Tanchjim is a business client of BLON’s, so it is definitely a no-go.

After a few WeChat correspondence with our common friend, BLON finally decided to base the final tuning of the BL-05s on my BL-03 improvement proposal “blueprint”. Hence, BLON BL-05s can be considered a BLON BL-03 “Mark 2”.

If you wonder what the future of BLON BL-03 lies… Will there be a “real” BL-03 Mark 2 or BL-03s (whichever name it shall be called)… Well, I can’t foresee the future but there is a plan for a BL-03 successor. Meanwhile, enjoy your BLONBL-05s… It is worth waiting 10 months!

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RELATED…

BLON BL-05 MKI Review I – Do You Belief In Letting Music Burn?

BLON BL-05 Review MK1 II – A Giant Step Sideways

Belief in Driams: The Oppoty To Tune The BLON BL-05

Author

KopiOkaya (Singapore)
Head-Fier since 2018. “Who is KopiOkaya?” that is the first question many audiophiles and earphone enthusiasts ask when stumbled upon his coffee cup avatar… “I am just a nobody…” – that is his usual answer. This “nobody” has his audio roots stretch until the mid-1970s when his father hauled back a set of Sansui-Luxman-Coral combo from “a friend’s place” (so that mom believed it was a given set). He fell in love with the sound instantly, and the rest is history. Previously taught in a public school, now a full-time tutor and an “ad-hoc” multimedia producer, Kopi wants to divert his attention from his teaching job and focus on something he truly loves – hifi audio. Throughout the years, Kopi owned many “nice” equipment and accessories… until the year 2009 when he discovered Chi-Fi or Chinese Hifi. An euraka moment, it was the sound he had been looking for all these years despite spending thousands and thousands of dollars on branded, highly-reviewed equipment. He sold everything (except a few good cables) and downgraded to pretty much bare minimal.Back to the very first question… What is “KopiOkaya” then… In Singapore, where Kopi is based in, kopi O simply refers to thick black coffee and kaya is a type of toast spread made of brown sugar, coconut milk, eggs and pandan leaves, commonly served as breakfast in Southeast Asia regions.
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