BQEYZ Spring 1 Review (3) – Assume The Perpendicular (Our Third Opinion)

Pros — Wonderful midrange; well-dosed treble; great definition; small earpieces; great build, quality accessories.

Cons — Wooly bass; requires tip rolling.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The BQEYZ is well-resolving, largely neutralish 3-driver hybrid with a slightly boosted and slow low end that competes with a wonderfully lively and accurate midrange and a pleasant treble.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Impedance: 43 Ω
• Sensitivity: 108 dB
• Cable Length: 1.2m (no mic included)
• Pin Type: 0.78mm-2 Pin
• Driver units: 13mm Coaxial dynamic driver+7 Layers piezo electric+Balanced armature
• Tested at: $139

PHYSICAL THINGS AND USABILITY

The earpieces are small despite their 3 drivers and are ergonomically pleasing. Fit it great, they were comfortable for hours, but the seal is only soso (I tested them on the airplane between Houston and Rio de Janeiro). Haptic is great, the earpieces are made of metal with a matte coating and feel pleasant between my fingers. Build quality is as good as it could be and the included storage case is sturdy and roomy. The cable is the typical but good $10-15 fare, it is pliable and therefore does not have to be “upgraded”. The nicely presented included tips turned out to be useless for me: the narrow bores produced an overly muffled sound and the wide bores a flat, bassless sound. I blame the combination of my monster ears and the thin silicon membranes for this. A set of low-cut wide bores that came with the NiceHCK M6 solved the problem. Because of their high resistance, the Spring 1 need some juice but can still be driven with an iPhone SE. I occasionally used it with the Audioquest Dragonfly das/amp but this added quite a bit of bass that helped congest the lower end.

TONALITY AND TECHNICALITIES

My tonal preference and testing practice

The bad first: the bass, the bass, the bass: it is mostly slow and wooly and not very articulate. It can be like a “hardening mousse” when the music is naturally bassy (or when using a bassy source such as the Audioquest Dragonfly dac/amp connected to my iPhone). And, once again, in this case, 70 hours to “break-in” made no difference. The extension into the sub-bass s ok, but the upper bass can bleed into and congest the lower midrange, and it reduces the image’s clarity. Although the extension could be better, the sub bass is fairly well focused. Others may achieve different low-end perception with different tips/ear canals. The robust low end, however, can be trained by using the right equipment. My ears got used to it after a while.

Midrange is the star: clear and clean with a good weight, and more so when no strong bass is present in the music, e.g. when a guy plays the piano. Vocals, male and female, are dense, intimate, and wonderfully sculptured. And — the upper midrange is tastefully dosed, high piano notes are focused, crisp, and clean…and not shrill, shouty, or piercing. Good tuning in the midrange, where my money typically is. As a downside of the well-behaved upper midrange, the bass appears borderline overbearing and boomy, as our ears hear the whole frequency spectrum in context.

Treble is also a bit dialled back, the piezos are quite moderate…cymbals have a reasonably natural attack and decay but can be a bit behind…which does not bother me. The BQEYZ Spring 1 is certainly not a treble forward iem.

To the technicalities: dynamics/speed (“the punch”) are quite natural (and not overdone), and timbre is ok (considering there are BAs involved). Imaging is great, too: spatial cues and definition (except in the bass) are exceptional. Soundstage has good width, height, and depth, with a healthy breath of air.

You find an INDEX of all our earphone reviews HERE.

What you really should take with you from the above description is that the Spring 1 is a well resolving and neutralish iem from the midrange up, but could do with a bit of a more refined low end…which is somewhat a matter of taste. Some may actually really like it as it is.

COMPARISONS

Durwood covered this quite nicely in his review:

CONCLUDING REMARKS

First, I didn’t like the BQEYZ Spring 1 at all for its thick low end. But when discovering its other qualities such as the great midrange, definition, and imaging, and its physical advantages such as its comfort and fit owing in part to the small size of the earpieces, I got somewhat attracted to it. I was on a business trip to Rio de Janeiro when I wrote much this review and thank my Brazilian friends for their inspiration.

Keep on listening!

DISCLAIMER

I had asked BQEYZ for a review unit after reading the reviews of others and thank them for it.

And yes, we feature even another review of the BQEYZ Spring 1 (making it a total of three):