Gear Of The Year – Our Personal 2020 Favourites

December 31, 2020October 23, 2021 Jürgen Kraus (Calgary, Canada) 0 Comments

Gear of the Year: Just in time for Christmas we list our our personal favourites of 2020 – the portable audio we personally enjoyed most. Note, these are not necessarily the best, but the ones we…you got it. Therefore, these are highly personal, subjective listings. Please be aware we don’t offer reviews for everything we like/we list here (yet).

That Christmas tree on the right is a carryover from last year. It stood in the lobby of the Windsor hotel at the Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro…and it should be a symbolism for looking forward to travelling again. Viva Brazil!

Most of our reviews would have not been possible without our 2020 cooperating partners. We thank:

Acoustic Effect, ADV, Akoustyx, Apos Audio, Azla, Bill Barraugh/Audiotiers, Blon, Cozoy, CVJ, ddHifi, Dekoni, Dunu, EarMen, Earstudio, Hifigo, iBasso, ifi Audio, KBEAR, Keephifi, Moondrop, NiceHCK, Opa Audio Store, Sennheiser, Shenzhenaudio, Shozy, Smabat, Tempotec, Tronsmart, TRN, Vision Ears, V-Moda, Wooeasy Earphones Store, Yaxi, Don’tkillusifweforgotyoujustsendusanotandwefixit.

For the companies: you can check for your products/yourself in the search field on the right-hand side.

Note: we do not make any money (or getting compensated by products) through the gear we review. No affiliate links, trackers etc. We keep the conflict-of-interest potential as low as possible by attempting to stay at arm’s length.

As to the popularity of our reviews with you, the reader: our top-viewed BLOG POSTS for 2020 were (click to go to the respective article):

Total Number of Blog Posts in 2020: 186

Facebook Group (est. 2020-01-01)| https://www.facebook.com/groups/audioreviews: >5200 members

YouTube subscriptions | https://www.youtube.com/c/audioreviews: 660

Our most-watched YouTube Video of 2020:

And yes, this blog grew and grew and grew in 2020. We are now 8 reviewers on 3 continents. Below are our personal favourites of 2020…

Our Author Team: Jürgen Kraus, Loomis Johnson, Biodegraded, KopiOkaya, Durwood, Baskingshark, Kazi Mahbub, Alberto Pittaluga

Baskingshark…Singapore

My 2020 favourites in the following categories are:

Earphones

$300 – 500 USD:
LZ A7. Provides a mind boggling 10 tuning configs (or more with aftermarket tuning nozzles). It has excellent technicalities, good fit, good isolation, and the best part that surprised me is that the LZ A7 has very natural timbre for a BA/piezo containing tribid (other than the higher treble frequencies handled by the piezo). Most folks would find an ideal sound signature with it, maybe except diehard bassheads.

$200 – 300 USD:
Audiosense T800. It has good technicalities, is “fun sounding” and excellent isolation nearing 30 dB. Even though it contains a BA bass, it sounds like a DD bass due to a vented subwoofer. The T800 may be a bit on the bright side, so it isn’t the best option for treble sensitive folks, but you can use knowles filters, warm sources or eartips to tame the treble.

@ $100 – 200 USD:
TRI I3. Smooth, balanced, grand and coherent despite the weird 1 planar + 1 BA + 1 DD config. It needs amping though, the planars handling the mids are quite power hungry. It has one of the best soundstages at the $100ish region when amped, with sweet planar mids. Treble is safe, bordering on darkish, so maybe not for trebleheads.

KBEAR BElieve. “Bearly believable” for a full beryllium set at this price? The KBEAR BElieve sports a smooth and refined U shaped tuning, great technical chops in the mids and treble areas for a single DD. It has good timbre for acoustic instruments but is very hard to drive, as per the 98 dB sensitivity. It sounds muddy, congested and slow in the bass with a low powered source, but scales beautifully when optimally amped, so those that don’t intend to get an amp best look elsewhere. With power, the KBEAR BElieve does hit about 70% of the technical performance of the famed DUNU LUNA, at 10% of the price!

@ Sub $100 USD:
HZSound Heart Mirror. Nice mirror like shells, as per its namesake, it is a neutralish bright set, excellent timbre for acoustic instruments. I like how it manages to get a forward upper mids without going into harsh or shouty territory, a very fine line to balance. The Heart Mirror has good transients and speed on the driver. Note weight is thin and soundstage is not the best though, and it needs amping to shine, sounds meh from a smartphone. Good set for vocal lovers and timbre lovers, but maybe not so all rounded due to the lack of bass, but it takes to EQ in the bass like a champ.

Favourite earbud for the year:
SMABAT ST105 Black Gold. Neutralish set with subbass and upper mids boost. If you have always looked down on earbuds for not having subbass, think again. The SMABAT ST10S Black Gold has the best subass quantity and extension I’ve ever heard in a bud. It has excellent technicalities, is MMCX
detachable and can be worn over ears or cable down. It needs amping though, as per the 150 ohm impedance. Not to be mixed up with the SMABAT ST10S Black Silver, which is tuned differently (and has lower impedance).

Best lucky bag/Fukubukuro/Mystery bag:
Urbanfun YBF-ISS014 – it is extremely exciting to see whether u get a beryllium vs “noble metal” driver. Or a working versus wonky mmcx. Even newer batches of the Urbanfun have been reported to have QC problems in the audio forums.The Urbanfun can be summed up in this statement by Forrest Gump: “My Mom Always Said Life Was Like A Box Of Urbanfuns. You Never Know What You’re Gonna Get.”

Best price to peformance joke IEM of the year:
TRN golden ears $14,750.00 USD IEM paired with $3400 USD xiaofan ortiz “king of the gods” cable. Mere mortals cannot hope to use these gear if not you’ll be struck down by lightning! I hope the Bellsing BAs inside are also made of gold!

audioreviews — Baskingshark’s bargain bin.

Biodegraded…Vancouver, Canada

Sorry, from me you get stuff that mostly hasn’t been reviewed. In no particular order; and most aren’t new this year.

Digital transports:
Pi2Design Pi2AES (+ Raspberry Pi)
For streaming (via wifi or Ethernet cable) digital music from your computer, you could go cheap and crap like a Chromecast or Airport, brutally expensive like an all-in-one streamer from Naim or PS Audio, or this $US 149 HAT for a Raspberry Pi which will produce excellent quality AES or S/PDIF digital audio to feed into your audiophile DAC. DIY aesthetic & philosophy, audiophile quality, fantastic convenience once you figure out how to set it up (variety of OS solutions, some better than others).

Amps/Preamps:
Ifi Audio Zen Phono RIAA phono preamp
$US 149 for excellent resolution and transients and the ability to work with a wide range of cartridges. Might benefit from an improved power supply such as Ifi’s own iPower, but my jury remains out on that. Audioreviews summary here.

Amp accessories:
GE JAN 5670W vacuum tube
Cheap and widely available true new-old-stock military-surplus tube that works really well as a 6DJ8/6922 preamp tube substitute (great in the Schiit Vali 2). Nice tight lows, smooth but detailed mids, sparkly highs. 6922 to 5670 adapter required to translate the I/O pin pattern so nothing blows up.

Headphone accessories:
Yaxi pads for Porta Pro / KSC75 / PX-100
Tastefully boost bass and treble while (on the Kosses) lowering the prominent 5kHz peak. And they’re comfortable! Audioreviews summary here.

IEMs:
Drop/JVC HA-FDX1
Champion single-dynamic earphone with great DD timbre and almost BA-fast transients. Slightly boosted in the uppermost mids, heavy in the ears, intermittent availability, but huge bang-for-buck. Audioreviews summaries here and here (note that Loomis isn’t their greatest fan).

Headphones:
Fostex T50RP Mk3 with cheap angled pads and other mods
Closed or semi-open (depending on how much you stuff the cups) planar magnetic phones that with a little effort (see eg here for ideas) can be made both neutral and extended while retaining deep bass and technicalities. Need amp power to perform.

Players:
USB Audio Player Pro
Gets better with every update. Neutron is more configurable, but unnecessarily so. Put this on your Android phone, plug in a USB DAC/amp, and enjoy great lossless sound quality on the go. Equalizer plugins available. Android only though.

Durwood…Chicago, USA

CCA this year might as well been a lump of coal, it’s only two letters shy of selling your soul. If you want to talk to your boring Uncle Bob, (no offense Bob’s of the world) get yourself an iBasso IT00 or Tin Hifi T2 Plus you knob. Your uncle Bob is the guy who has lots of interesting things to say, but leaves you wondering what did you just listen to today. My only favorites this year were TRN STM who is the punk that your family doesn’t like to talk about and the Shozy Rouge as your killer looking date that likes to party but not shout. Waiting to see if Shozy Form 1.4 is in good form, only thing I decided to buy during the holiday sales storm. BQEYZ Spring 2 was a nice lively upgrade to the BQEYZ Spring 1, but fix that bass man, maybe take some lessons from the Nicehck NX7 Daniel son. Some of my friends from last year are still good folks to have around, Sony MH755, BLON BL03 for sleeping, and TinHifi T4 (I just wish you would hang in my ear longer than a few minutes of sound). Simgot EN700 is a carry over as well. I like a mild V if you can see.

Jürgen Kraus…Calgary, Canada

Blon BL-05s: These are very articulate playing single DDs also appeal to me through their hideous colour. Probably my most used items of the year (together with the JVCs and Shozy Form 1.4 below). Following the footsteps of the popular Blon Bl-03 – the Blon Bl-05s disappeared fast in the big black hole of anti-hype. And for a good reason: they look like the Bl-05, smell like the Bl-05, measure like the Bl-05, but the Bl-05 had been thrown on the market prematurely, and they sucked. The more distinguished audience may have realized that Bl-05 and Bl-05s have different drivers and sound completely different.

Drop JVC HA-FDX01: Hailed as arguably the best single DD on the market until Dunu Luna and Final Audio A8000 took over, this labour of love was originally only available 665 times….which has extended to above 2000 by now while the price dropped to $200. Carryover from 2019. Still my best earphones because of their organic timbre and great resolution.

TRI I3: Planar magnetic. Something totally different. Big and bold sounding yet soothing. Nothing offensive, nothing dull.

Sennheiser IE 400 PRO ($349): The best of their PRO series. Classic Sennheiser quality midrange. Super ergonomics. Nobody will dislike this one.

Shozy Form 1.4 ($199): The Shozy team somehow got their tuning 100% right. The Form 1.4 simply sound appealing to my ears…warm and fuzzy.

Guilty Pleasure: I pull the $70 FiiO FD1 out for the road: nice’n’punchy.

Vision Ears Elysium in the Endgame category. At 2500 EUR hand made by elfs and some Rhine mermaids in Cologne, out of reach for longer than a week (borrowed). Produce vocals better than real life but also melts credit cards. Cymbals as crisp as Swedish bread…

Perversions and Subversions: the Moondrop Spaceship at $20 beats the Moondrop SSR and SSP…less accurate but the better “junk food” for my ears. Moondrop have a history of undercutting their own mid-tier earphones with their budget offerings…we remember the $30 Crescent and the $180 KPE.

Inasmile Cable Protector: Discovery of the year. 20 cents that protect my fraying Apple cables from total breakage.

I still use the Koss PortaPro headphones with Yaxi earpads for video conferencing and listening when I need comfort around my ears. Also great are the Koss KSC75. Grab all of them when you can, they are affordable standard staples. And my standard full-sized cans are still the Sennheiser HD 600.

Tempotec Sonata HD Pro dac/amp dongle ($40): comes at the price of an adapter – but with all possible adapters to connect this little rascal to anything, including iPhones. Good enough to drive any iem. The very best dongles are the $199 EarMen Sparrow run on their balanced output, and the $120 Earstudio HUD100. In terms of larger portable dacs/amps (with integrated battery), I like the $199 ifi Audio Nano BL, the $149 ifi Audio hip-dac, and the $249 EarMen TR-amp. And I don’t think I need a bigger desktop amp.

Question mark of the year: The KBEAR Believe with their Japan sourced Beryllium drivers were too cheap to be true…which was underlined by some competing cheater Be-less Beryllium earphones and doubt seeded by the Dunu competitor. Hey, but the Luna have that Chi-Fi peak…

Personal Disappointment of the year: the continuing Chi-Fi peak between 2 and 4 kHz that kills western eardrums…TRN are leading the charge…the TRN BA8 cuts steel like butter.

Yaxi earpads — Everybody loves Yaxi pads (including Sybil) – and not only on the Koss PortaPro.

Kazi Mahbub Mutakabbir…Munich, Germany

I’ve tried and reviewed more stuff this year than ever, and part of it (actually, most of it) is due to the awful home-arrest that we’ve all succumbed too. Hope things get normal soon, sigh.

IEMs:

Final E500 ($20): This otherwise “cheap/beater” IEM does one thing better than *anything* under $100 – binaural tracks and gaming. At least it did so until its brethren VR3000 came out, but I’m yet to hear that and that’s got a 4x price tag attached to it. People call the Sony MH755 the best value IEMs, for me it’s the Final E500.

Dunu Studio SA6 ($550): This is a great all-rounder IEM. Great bass for an all-BA IEM, the lower-mids are full and organic whereas upper-mids tread the fine line between forwardness and shoutiness. The treble has good amount of sparkle and air. Great design and accessory pack. Really, hard to pick a fault.

Honorable mentions: Final E5000, Samsung Galaxy Buds, Moondrop Blessing 2, Sony IER-M9, Final FI-BA-SS, Dunu Luna

Headphones:

Koss PortaPro X + Yaxi Pads ($40): Just buy one. Don’t be stingy. Thank me later.

Sennheiser HD650 ($300): The once and forever king. The HD6XX esp is a no-brainer. Scales better than any headphone I’ve tried.

Honorable Mentions: Hifiman Sundara, Focal Clear, Final D8000

DAPs:

Sony NW-A55 ($200): If your primary need is to run efficient IEMs, look no further. Great ergonomics, actually usable UI, good display, fantastic battery life, and then there’s the MrWalkman mod to turn it even more awesome. The only “budget” DAP I recommend.

Questyle QP1R ($600): Questyle made the QP1R 6 years ago. It’s still one of the best DAPs out there when it comes to overall dynamics.

Honorable mentions: Cowon Plenue V, iBasso DX160, Sony ZX300

Desktop sources:

YULONG Canary II ($230): One of the best budget all-in-ones I’ve come across. Criminally underrated too which is a royal shame.

Questyle CMA-400i ($800): The all-in-one system I ended up with after countless trials and tribulations. Perfectly aligned to my tastes.

Honorable Mentions: iFi Zen Can, Headamp GSX-Mini

And that’s a wrap. Hopefully 2021 brings us better times.

KopiOkaya…Singapore

This year there are 8 of us, thus there are more choices for our readers to choose from.

This year also marked the year of COVID-19…. Meaning, people are staying home longer and more often, thus they can listen to their gears on desktop systems other than portable music players and phones. Fortunately, desktop gears are much better and more affordable now.

Desktop DACs:

Denafrips Ares II (US$700): I don’t own one but my friend do. If you like natural, organic sound with a huge, deep, tall soundstage and don’t mind its higher price tag, look no further… This is it!

Topping E30 (US$130): A nice warm-neutral DAC. It doesn’t sound as natural, as organic or has a huge soundstage like the Ares II but it offers great audio at an affordable price.

Note: Extremely sensitive to the quality of power supply used. Make sure you power it with something decent like the iFi iPower X.

Desktop Amps:

Yulong Canary II (US$250): This is actually a DAC/Amp with a Class A amplification stage. It posseses a warm-neutral sound signature with lots of low-end drive thanks to the Class A topography. Very good value and performance consider this is both a DAC and an amp!

Topping L30 (US$140): My current reference amp… If you have noticed, so far I don’t have any balanced amp in my list. When I tune earphones, I never tune them in balanced, simply because if it sounds good in single-ended, it should sound even better in balanced… Well, this is usually the case! The L30 is great (for me) because it has a gain REDUCTION switch for IEMs with high sensitivity… Not many headphone amps have such feature. This is a very neutral, clean and transparent amp that doesn’t colour the sound of the source. That’s all I ask for when tuning earphones.

Portable DAC-Amps:

FiiO BTR5 / Shanling UP4 / EarStudio ES100 MK2 / Qudelix 5K (US$120 or less): I don’t want to decide which is better. To me, each has its pros and cons but my point is… acceptable Bluetooth quality listening is finally here! Almost everybody owns a smartphone these days, so why not use it as a music player? Some of you despise this idea but c’mon… A TOTL DAP still runs slower than my $150 Android phone operating on Android 10.

Earphones:

Etymotic ER4XR (US$350): My reference for tuning hybrid earphones. If you are familiar with Etys you should know their earphones have a near-neutral Diffuse Field Target tuning. The “XR” version has slightly more bass.

Etymotic ER2XR (US$100): Similar to the ER4XR except this uses a single dynamic instead of balanced armature, thus my reference when I tune dynamic earphones. The ER2XR has more natural timbre and punchier bass than ER4XR. You can forget about Moondrop SSR/SSP if you plan to buy one. This is better.

Note: Etymotic earphones are to be worn deep inside the ear canals touching the bone… #Etyheads call “deep insertion”. This can cause discomfort to first time Etymotic users but you will get used to it eventually… I used to hate it but I am OK with it now.

Headphones:

Singapore is too damn warm for headphones, unless using air-conditioning while listening to music… Sorry, I am too cheap for that. Electricity is expensive here.

Tweaking Tips – A Simplified Guide To IEM Silicone Eartips UPDATED 2021-03-2

Blog post of the year 2020.

Loomis Johnson…Chicago, USA

TRN STM–$20 wunderkind is not, as Durwood aptly states, a purist’s earphone, and it veers towards sounding over-pixilated and artificial. However, it has that certain toe-tapping rightness that keeps me reaching for it over much pricier “audiophile-tuned” pieces. Did I mention it’s $20?

KBEAR Diamond—you can spend a lot more and get a bigger stage or a richer timbre, but this smooth, highly-resolving single DD is awfully refined for the price, with class-leading coherence and premium aesthetics and build.

Cambridge Melomania TWS—they don’t have ANC, EQ customizability or the bells and whistles of their Apple/Samsung peers, and microphone is sub-standard. However, they sound damn good for wireless buds—and are surprisingly good value at <$99. 9 hour battery life a plus.

Honorable Mentions: Shozy Rouge, Shuoer Tape.

TRN-STM Review I – The Devil Wears Lucite

Slater…Cincinnati, USA

Slater is short for “See Ya Later”…and you will see him later…

KZ ZSN Pro – Should You Go Pro, Bro?

KZ ZSN Pro review from May 2019…made our top 5 in 2020.

And This Was The Previous Year:

Our Earphones Of The Year!

Jürgen Kraus (Calgary, Canada)
Head-Fier since 2016. He has been known as “Otto Motor” to Head-Fiers, as “Dr. Schweinsgruber” to audiobudget.com users and Youtubers, and as “Brause” to Super Best Audio Friends and the Headphone Community. - For the purpose of confusion, he decided to pose under his real name Jürgen Kraus (“JK”) from now on. - This is a hobby. In “real” life, Jürgen is a professional geologist operating his own petroleum-exploration consulting company Franconia Geoscience Ltd. (see ad in the footer) based in Calgary, Canada. He holds German and Canadian passports. Jürgen had a classical music education from childhood through high school in Germany and he has been following popular music developments since the late 1970s. His understanding of arts and crafts was influenced by Bauhaus pragmatism: “less is more” and “form follows function”.
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