Shozy Form 1.4 Review (1) – Universal Soldier
Pros — Great balance between imaging and timbre; works for any genre and at any volume; comfort & fit; all of the above combined; minimal packaging.
Cons — Not all included tips big enough for huge ear canals; iem may prevent people from impulse buying other stuff.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Shozy Form 1.4 is a slightly warm L-shaped (forward-sloping) 4+1 earphone that is wonderfully balanced and therefore a Swiss army knife for all musical genres.
INTRODUCTION
Shozy are a Hong Kong company that appear to put a lot of thought in their products, be it design or functionality. They offer a wide variety of gear, from daps through amps to earphones. During writing this review, I had a few questions for them and they promptly, openly, and readily answered them. Appears to be a good business. You find more information on the Shozy website.
The $199 Shozy Form 1.4 (as the name implies: 1 DD and 4 BA) follows their popular Form 1.1 model. The Form 1.4 has already experienced a few reviews. It was generally liked but found to be pricey. I conducted a “deep” analysis of the 1.4 to find out whether these reviewers were right.
SPECIFICATIONS
- Driver: 4 balanced armatures, 1 dynamic driver
- Cavity: Imported medical resin (3D printed)
- Faceplate: Imported wood stabilized panel
- Technology: 3-way crossover
- Sensitivity: 102 dB
- Frequency: 20 Hz – 20KHz
- Impedance: 16 ohms
- Cable: 2-pin 0.78 mm
- Connector: 3.5 mm
- Carrying case
- 9 pairs of eartips
- Tested at $199
- Purchase Link: HifiGo
PHYSICAL THINGS AND USABILITY
Pragmatic packaging: a simple small box around the case…the goodies are all inside. Environmentally friendly and easy on the mailman. Bravo!
You may have read on the product page about the one-of-a-kind faceplates and the medical-grade resin of the earpieces. The earpieces look, feel, and handle very well. The cable’s outer material is textile, it is just fine, works well, and I never felt the need to change it.
The earpieces are extremely light, the nozzle angle is perfect for my ears, which resulted in great comfort and fit. These were extremely comfortable over several hours and more so than the much heavier Moondrop Starfield and KBEAR Diamond. Isolation varied with tips used.
From the selection of included eartips, only the largest small black foams fit my ears — and they work well. The KZ Starline tips do the same job. Azla SednaEarfit Light Short tips increase the bass somewhat, and the JVC Spiral Dots even more so. This for bassheads as the “standard” bass is more than enough. The Shozy From 1.4 are easily driven with my iPhone SE. I use the headphone jack, the Apple lightning adapter, and the Scosche Strikeline adapter…it makes no sonic difference.
TONALITY AND TECHNICALITIES
My tonal preference and testing practice
To say it right away: I really like this earphone, it is one of the best sounding ones I have ever tested, and it will not disappoint anybody. The tonality can be characterized as being slightly off neutral through a slightly elevated bass and a signature that strikes the balance between naturalness and detail resolution. I found this earphone universally usable from Joy Division and Heavy Metal to Jazz and Classical, something that is rare.
Considering that four of the five drivers are BAs, it is surprising that a symphony sounded like a symphony, and a cello sounded like a cello. The sound has enough air to even let older recordings shine, without getting lost in unnecessary detail that may let the analytical listener/reviewer jubilate — whereas the casual listener misses the coherency of the sound image.
The Shozy Form 1.4. is also a good example of how L-shape can be beneficial: this is the case in a situation where the midrange is firm and dense enough to be alone standing and the upper midrange/lower treble does not add an icepick factor — and bass quantity does therefore not have to be compromised: the bass can be a bit above neutral without spoiling the overall sound image.
With such a tuning, the listener can turn up the volume without the fear of compromising pleasure and even damaging their eardrums. The Shozy Form 1.4’s tuning works well at all volumes. So much to practicality and usability of the Shozy Form 1.4.
Sure, the bass is a bit north of neutral, which is indicated by the small buckle in the graph. And, although I am sensitive to bass, this hump is forgivable, one gets used to it fast, and it is minor. The Beryllium-cated dynamic driver is reasonably fast, controlled, and the low end is well extended. It is the low end that adds the organic component to the sound, and it is in good harmony with the midrange. The forward dipping graph points to a slightly warm overall tonality.
I tend to say that I put my money on the midrange…or, the other way round, the value of an earphone is reflected by the quality of its midrange imo (ignoring the technicalities for now). And this midrange delivers: male and female voices are beautifully imaged in 3-D. I sometimes have the feeling my ears are wrapping around the singers’ heads [don’t try this at home!]. Vocals are wonderfully natural, dense, with a good depth, and the right amount of air. Even voices in older recordings sound reasonably fresh again. In this respect, I have problems finding another earphone in my collection to match this quality.
Upper midrange is well behaved, no sensitive areas of our hearing are affected negatively. It is just the right dose to add some air. Treble is also rather in support of the midrange, and micro detiail at the upper end are lagging behind the rest a bit. The Shozy Form 1.4 is certainly not treble forward, which adds to its pleasant and easily digestible overall sound.
Soundstage is very wide and tall…the music really leaves my head. And it has a healthy depth and height too, which results in superb spatial cues with great instrument placement and separation. I listened to some dummyhead recordings that literally blew my mind because the were so realistic to the point of being creepy. Timbre is also astonishingly natural as said above. The image is clean and clear, the BAs do not accelerate the decay to unnatural levels.
WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY?
Being an amateur tuner myself who had contributed to the KBEAR Diamond and the KB04 (plus a few betas that disappeared mysteriously somewhere in a hole), I would do very little differently, essentially only one thing: I’d “flatten the curve” (hey, isn’t that the phrase of the season) at the low end to make the mid-bass less punchy. But this is guided by my personal taste and may not be shared by everybody. It is easy to add bass to the Shozy Form 1.4 by the choice of eartips, but it is difficult to reduce bass. The inclusion of different tuning filters giving the listeners more flexibility to adapt the sound to their individual tastes would have been an asset.
SHOZY FORM 1.4 COMPARED
The Shozy Form 1.4 resolves and images better than my beloved JVC HA-FDX1 $250 single dynamic driver, but does not quite reach its timbre (because of the BA drivers). The same accounts for the $109 single DD Moondrop Starfield, which is inferior to the JVC in all aspects. Where the Shozy outclasses the Starfield is in the three-dimensionality: the Starfield sound much flatter. The Form 1.4 does not have the wooly bass of the otherwise great BQYEZ Spring 1. I don’t know any other $100-200 iems to compare them to, but I also don’t think this is necessary as the Shozy Form 1.4 does most things very well. To me, the Shozy Form 1.4 is definitely an upgrade over the $150 BQEYZ Spring 1, hence I don’t feel it is outright overpriced, also considering that prices are all over the place.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Shozy Form 1.4 is a very good, well-tuned earphone imo, and it does everything I expect well: it is comfortable, handles all genres of music very well at all volumes, it is well built and beautiful. If there is room for improvement it is in the micro detail, but there is also room for a couple of thousand dollars to achieve that. I am a man of timbre and this earphone is pleasing me 100%.
People who are not sure about the price — I have to repeat that prices are generally all over the place — should be aware that they get an earphone in the Shozy Form 1.4 that may prevent them from further impulse buys — which will save them money in the long run. I have identified my personal sweet spot here and could be very happy with just this one model on a lonely island. And now go and read all the other informed opinions and paint your own picture.
Keep on listening!
You find an INDEX of all our earphone reviews HERE.
DISCLAIMER
The Shozy Form 1.4 review unit was supplied unsolicited by HifiGo and I thank them for that.
Our generic standard disclaimer.
You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.
FURTHER READING
Moondrop Starfield review by Jürgen
Jürgen’s BQEYZ Spring 1 review
