KZ ATE Hi-Fi IEM Sports Headphones with Copper Driver Ear Hook and Foam Eartips Specially for Music Fans, Mic Edition

Wow I'm seriously impressed with these and I haven't even burned them in properly (not that I would be able to tell the difference?!).I'm not a headphone nerd but I do own a few headsets so am not the average Beats by Dre wearer, I pay attention to sound and want to buy good products.Am listening to these straight out the box and am VERY impressed. Can't believe they only cost 10 quid on Prime (so a lot cheaper a few years ago then?).As I've stated already, these are to replace my old Soundmagic e10s which I have managed to lose somewhere. IMO the KZ ATEs are BETTER than the E10s and are a third of the cost so just go out and buy them. For this amount of money you really can't go wrong.Think of it this way-"oh these are cheap they're only £10 I should get something more expensive as they won't sound good. I'll get something for £30 that will be good."The £30 headphone has to be 2x better (extra 20 quid) than these and considering how good these are I'm telling you it's not going to happen. Now apply this logic to a £12 bottle of wine that you enjoy when you're going to buy one for £36 and you'll be in a world of trouble:)

I've had these IEMs for several months now - I bought them on a whim on the recommendation of a sound engineer thinking that if they were rubbish they'd still be a handy thing to keep in a coat pocket, listening to podcasts when walking the dog etc. - fast forward seven months and they're now my go to.I've always generally been a fan of big, heavy over-ear headphones. I'm a professional musician and tend to be fussy about these things. But I do have to concede that big heavy headphones are irritatingly big and heavy - sometimes it's nice to be able to go out without taking an enormous rucksack full of stuff with me - so I was in the market for some IEMs. I had my eye on a much more expensive Sennheiser pair but funds were tight and they had to wait. Until along came the aforementioned sound engineering friend and said 'just buy the KZ ATEs and save yourself *all* the money'. A bit of review reading later I was intrigued. Those sennheisers sounded amazing, could a tenner on something from China really keep up? And, well: yes they can (or at least very nearly).Sound quality is the most important thing to me, and that is where these excel. I should point out (and this is very important) that they do not sound great out of the box. But a lot of good quality speakers don't. Keep playing music and let them settle. I would say these hit their stride after about 10-20 hours of playing which is quite a lot, though I started to hear improvement after just a couple of hours. Initially the bass was very thin and the upper mids were harsh and a bit nasty, but wait it out. The bass settled into something quite warm and rich. It's not the super tight compressed bass you hear on some celebrity endorsed cans but then I didn't want that (and really neither should you, but that is my snobby voice). Instead it's a very rounded low end and a very full sound. When listening to electronic music the timing could be slightly better, but it's not much of an issue - and for everything else is a great foundation at the bottom of the texture. Above that it's a mostly even response with a bit of a presence boost in the initially harsh upper mids - though very smooth and quite lush sounding. In a perfect world there might be a bit more detail at the very top end - but again, it's only on certain tracks that I really notice it - folk and classical would benefit from a bit more treble clarity, but it's not a dealbreaker. The soundstage is really impressively wide - I'm not entirely sure how they did it. I'm used to open backed over-ear headphones and these come surprisingly close. Obviously when compared to IEMs costing £100+ the fancier ones will win. But since owning these I've tried a few pairs in the £50-£100 range and prefer mine every time. For the price of toy headphones you're getting something that is on the cusp of serious hifi quality. I'll mention ear tips again in a mo, but it is important that you wear these IEMs right, and that means they should be pushed firmly into your ears - if they start coming out then the sound quality will not be there at all, so it's important to get good fitting ear tips to make the most of these.On comfort and durability - tbh, out of the box I assumed they would only last a few weeks, and wound up buying a second pair just in case the first broke. But seven months later of daily use including daily dog walks quite often in the rain and visits to the gym, they're doing fine and the second pair are still in the box. Literally - no signs of wear or ageing at all. So though they look a bit cheap, they don't act it. And having cheap looking headphones isn't necessarily a bad thing - no one's going to steal these. If I could change one thing on the build I'd use a wire that tangled less - but then they'd probably cost more than £11. On comfort, sadly the enclosed ear tips are a poor selection as many other reviewers have mentioned. There's two silicon pairs, large and small, but they're a bit stiff and hard and really quite uncomfortable, plus a single memory foam pair, but I found them too big. But you can buy better ones - and not for much money. I generally prefer memory foam ones, I think they form a better seal inside your ear to keep out ambient noise, and they're quite soft and comfortable to wear for longer periods. Though it's worth trying a few to see what's most comfortable for you. On a side note, I also prefer the style of these where you loop the wire around the back of your ear before putting them in - it probably doesn't make a huge difference but if you are walking / running fast then I reckon they have a much better chance of staying in your ears.So anyway, you could fork out hundreds of pounds on beats and you'd be an idiot because they're terrible (snob voice again). You could fork out hundreds of pounds on Sennheiser or Shure and you'd get something amazing sounding but be a lot poorer. Or you could spend just over a tenner on these beauties and have very nearly amazing quality sound, but still be rich. Option 3 sounds good to me.

The sound quality is good for the price. I tend to listen to a lot of dance type music with a heavy bass line. They bass is good if you have the earphones pushed right in to your ear canal however, that is the stinger; the earphones/plugs are so uncomfortable and difficult to put in that it actually triggers my anxiety and taints the whole listening experience. They do not stay in the ears and even if they are out just a little bit, it still has a massive impact on sound quality. The headphones do not come with instructions on how to make sure you are wearing them correctly and trust me, they need them!

These headphones are incredible value for money. To put this into perspective I regularly run hd 599s with a fiio e10k which I swap with beyerdynamics DT 990s depending on my mood.They are generally extremely wide for IEMs and have a thump in the sub bass, a weaker mid bass, a strong mid range and a slightly low treble(not in clarity but in sound stage)These are incredible value for money. Now bear in mind if you have experienced "good" $100 headphones these will not feel like fresh air in the clarity department. They are however what I like to call comfortable listening. They have the famous vee sound something audio technica is famous for having so if you like those you'll like these.I only have two gripes with them.They clearly traded their budget on design and ergonomics for better drivers. These are very easy to accidentally shove down too far because of their design. Their bass is overly seal specific so if you want the full experience they need to be midway in your ear canal.My second gripe is that they have that low cost IEM sound style. Which if you've tried cheapers IEMs you will know what I mean. It mainly comes down to their unoptimised driver ergonomics. If you don't get the placement just right there's a wash of slight muffle on the midrange. It sort of sounds like the midrange has a pillow over their microphones. But once you readjust or turn up the volume it goes away.If you want audiophile sound then buy audiophile headphones. But if you want what I call happy sound. A thumpy bass and a slight clear sparkle on vocals. These are for you. The only people I would not recommend these to are clear treble listeners. The sensitivity on these headphones is very inconsistent to the point where if it was the only range playing it would sound very distant. I assume this was a driver trick they used to create a larger sound space in which the driver is actually angled slightly to generate physical differences in distance. But clarity kings these are not. If you like clear jazz without that deep bass piano sound you won't like these. But if you wanted those you'd probably blow $200 on some audiotechnicas or shures for that sort of sound anyway.