{"id":55,"date":"2008-12-23T01:34:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T01:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/?p=55"},"modified":"2009-09-04T19:00:46","modified_gmt":"2009-09-05T03:00:46","slug":"soundmagic-pl-30-earphones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/soundmagic-pl-30-earphones\/","title":{"rendered":"Soundmagic PL-30 Earphones"},"content":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I stumbled upon a website called FocalPrice.com<\/a>, and they were selling some pretty decent headphones. A certain set called the Soundmagic PL-30 has also been getting a reputation for being great headphones for the price, so I decided to give them a go.<\/p>\n

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I’ve been listening to iPods, CD players for a long time now, and headphones never really mattered to me. There was certainly a difference between the dollar store headphones from China and the ones bundled with whatever player I was using at the time.<\/p>\n

A year or two ago, almost everyone seemed to be using the stock set bundled with the iPod, and now everyone seems to be about the bass or whatnot with their Skull Candies or Bose earphones. Ten minutes on Head-Fi<\/a> gave me lots of good information about why NOT to get those headphones, or NOT to stick with the Apple headphones, but to get a decent pair.<\/p>\n

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First suggestion that seems to be to buy a $200-$300 set of earphones that will blast out your ears in a matter of days, pretty dumb, and definitely not worth experimenting. But then the PL-30’s started to appear, at a price of $20 (when I bought it), it seemed like the pair I should start off with.<\/p>\n

After a few weeks of waiting anxiously I got the set, and I honestly thought that it wasn’t mind blowing, but definitely worth the $20, more as an experiment for newbies than anything.<\/p>\n

The most brilliant thing about the package is that it comes with a ton of tips for the in-ear headphones. At first sticking the piece of silicone or foam or plastic into your ear canal is going to feel weird and uncomfortable, but after a day or so, it’ll feel natural, more so than any old earbud did.<\/p>\n

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The ton of tips is what makes the PL-30’s a great buy, you get to try out the foam tips (which apparently is at least $5), you can try out the bi-flanges (another $5 to buy alone) and of course the regular tips that come in different colors and sizes.<\/p>\n

To answer your question, the foam and bi-flange tips generally come with extremely high-end headphones, and replacements aren’t exactly cheap. The foam ones are supposed to be really comfortable because you squeeze them, set the into your ear, and they sort of mold to the shape of your ear. The bi-flanges on the other hand seal your ear, twice, which keeps the sound out and the bass in. I thought the foam tip kind of sucked, but it was worth trying, and the bi-flanges were absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n

The headphones itself was in a way a disappointment. A lot of people made it sound like it was a billion times better than a stock set of iPod headphones, and perhaps to an audiophile it is, but to me, the difference is pretty small. It does sound better, the voices are clearer, the instruments sound more realistic, and the bass has a bigger presence but not overwhelming like some of the other headphones I’ve tried.<\/p>\n

To an average user, these headphones sound marginally better. But the $20 I paid (or the $25 you will pay because of the raise in price) is definitely worth it as an experiment of sorts. The different tips are cool to try, the headphone is functional, and will replace your current headphones without a doubt, and well, it has a really nice case. If you are annoyed with the sound quality of your headphones and you are looking for a replacement, then you might want to try the PL-30’s before buying the hyper-expensive set.<\/p>\n

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I’m enjoying my PL-30’s, and most likely this is as expensive a pair of headphones I will ever buy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I stumbled upon a website called FocalPrice.com, and they were selling some pretty decent headphones. A certain set called the Soundmagic PL-30 has also been getting a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-electronics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}