Venture Electronics Bonus IE (VE BIE) Review – My Apologies
Pros — Stellar timbre, great haptic very appealing V-shaped sound, good depth, fun…and a great case!
Cons — Not the best resolution, old design…but who cares at this price.
SUMMARY: The Venture Electronics Bonue IE (“VE BIE”) are warm sounding iems with a pleasant low end and good depth that do not excel by their technicalities but by their general, agreeable sonic appeal.
INTRODUCTION
I could not claim I have ever been a fan of this company, Venture Electronics. Owner “Wild Lee” is a rather outgoing promoter and their highly lauded $5 earbuds “Monk Plus” sound like…errr…$5 earbuds to me. I felt I had wasted my time listening to them, even on a FM radio…and I pitied those reviewers, who dedicated half a Masters thesis to them. What makes the company somewhat interesting is their location in Northern China (most Chi-Fi is situated in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province and Moondrop hails from my alma mater Chengdu, Sichuan Province). After all, Northern China offers really good beer – Harbing, for example – so why not good earphones?
SPECIFICATIONS
Shell: Aluminum Alloy – matte finish
Driver: 10mm Dynamic Driver (N52+)
Cable: 99.99% OFC
Impedance: 32 ohms (1kHz)
Headphone Sensitivity: 115dB (1mW 1kHz)
Frequency Range: 17 – 22 000 Hz
Product page: Venture Electronics
Tested at: $20 (plus shipping)
PHYSICAL THINGS
I purchased the VE BIE (“B” for bonus) for $33 CAD (including fast shipping) upon the recommendation of co-blogger KopiOkaya. He told me it was his current go-to earphone. It came without real packaging but in a very sturdy and attractive zippered case. No waste, great!
The looks are nothing special: piston-shaped metal earpieces sporting an XX dynamic driver with a fixed, generic cable. The left-right labelling is so small that it takes perfect eyesight (or a knot in the cable) to insert them correctly. The metal earpieces feature a fine matte finish that provides a very attractive waxy feeling – great haptic. Fit is great for me, as with all piston-shaped earpieces, none of the four earpieces fit me so that I used Tennmak Whirlwind short-stemmed wide-bores…which generally tame the bass (work also well in the KBEAR Diamond).
TONALITY AND TECHNICALITIES
But it is the sound that really impresses me: warm, with good depth, and a natural punch….a very pleasant bass somewhere between firm and…but not quite…wooly. And although V-shaped, there is good clarity and openness in the midrange, whereas treble remains modest and well behaved. I liked this combination so much that I stayed out longer shovelling snow in the western Canadian winter. No annoying upper mids, no sibilance…despite that dreadful frequency response graph. Soundstage is also nothing special. Nevertheless can’t I find any earphones in the 200-300 specimens or so I have tried so far that sounds close to or the same as the VE BIE.
I don’t think I have to go too much into the nitty gritty technicalities. Timbre is absolutely spot-on, these really work well for classical music, too. They also work for rock because of their good impact. Overall, The VE BIE excel by their homogeneity and not by their details. It is the total package, the relaxed presentation, that is appealing. The VE BIE are currently underrated by the budget crowd – but they have had their rightful place in my earphone collection for some time. I always pull them out for chilling.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The VE BIE are “nothing special” done extremely well. $20 well spent. I had obviously underestimated Venture Electronics. My apologies!
Until next time…keep on listening!
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DISCLAIMER
I bought them myself.
Our generic standard disclaimer.
You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.
Interesting, definitely I’ll give it a try. How’d you compare them to the BL-03 SQ-wise? Thanks.
Ohhhh…the Blon are a bit more upper midrange forward, the VIE are more u-shaped. VIE work out of the box, Blon do not.