Some EX's are worth more
It was the summer of 2005 and I had just completed my "bridge course" - An idea that my old school came up with, with unrealistic hopes of creating a "bridge" for students graduating from 10th to the 11th grade. 4 hours of advanced calculus everyday combined with PhD-level organic chemistry injected right into our tender brains. 4 hours straight. Every. Single. Day. Obviously, none of us could wait till it got over, so we could go back home and do some other important work..you know, like playing Counter Strike, Quake and GTA.
Back then, we all were quite young and carefree. As for me, I had a whole floor for myself in a 3 storey building! The only people who got to enjoy that floor were just me and my friends. Obviously, we were living the dream life. The floor was equipped with some of the finest audio gear you could find at the time. I had a 7.4 channel home theater setup, custom built, with speakers from three different brands - Pioneer, Sanyo and Aiwa. In 2005.
I was just getting my feet wet into the world of Hi-Fi audio then. I started learning about cross-overs, impedance matching and other theories. Still, they were better than the bridge course BS, I must admit :D The consequence of this learning process was me investing heavily into new speaker systems, amplifiers and headphones, most of which I would just break open and study the structure, almost in a couple of days after owning them.
After owning and studying a dozen earphones from Sony, Panasonic and Aiwa, I realized, there was something wrong with them. There was something wrong with the music I listened to. I couldn't exactly tell what, but I knew something was wrong. It was the way they sounded - It was...artificial. How can sound be "artificial"? What the hell does that even mean?! I didn't know, then..just like you.
Then, one day, I found the answer. The sound was artificial because, it was "colored". Colored? What does that mean?!
You see, the normal headphones, speakers and earphones are tuned to make the music sound more pleasant to the ears. They emphasize some parts of the sound over the others. In other words, it's not authentic. It's not how the person who made that piece of music wanted it to sound. At first, it feels good, but, after a while you realize this kind of emphasis only works for certain types of music and actually worsens the music you hear for the rest.
That's why, in the music industry, no one uses cheap $20 headphones or earphones to record audio. They use something known as monitors. Monitors are loudspeakers (or headphones/earphones) which faithfully, accurately reproduce sound without adding emphasis on any frequencies whatsoever. You play a song with more bass, you get more bass, you play a song with more vocals, you hear more vocals. In contrast, for a traditional headphone/earphone, if you played a song with more vocals, you may also hear more of cymbals or drums, depending on the quality of your headphone.
The first time I heard of monitors was in late 2005; when Sony had just launched their flagship IEMs (In-ear monitors). Sony used to be a very reputed manufacturer of Hi-Fi equipment and audio gear, especially (They still, are; although overshadowed by the competition). This monitor series was labelled as the EX series, a legend used by Sony only to describe their top-of-the-line product categories. The EX-90 was one of them and was also their flagship, followed closely by the Ex-85.
When I first saw the EX-90, I almost immediately fell in love with them. They were made of machined Aluminium, with such subtle details around the Aluminium housing making it more than just a earphone - A beautiful masterpiece of an art. The stock had just arrived in the showroom, with just ONE of them available for sale. I promised myself to be the one to buy it. The only problem? Money. The EX-90 costed about 6000 INR (~$120) when it was launched (2005-2006). It was frankly, unaffordable . But, that was the point - Like everything else in life. (Back then, $120 is almost like $250, and I was still a high school student)
I spent hours and hours on the internet, trying to find reviews, advice, pictures, anything about the EX-90. Because, I knew, I would somehow own them. Some day. Maybe in a month. Maybe in two months. Maybe in a year.Luckily enough, I had saved money in a span of two months to buy the EX-90. When I went back to the showroom, it was sold. My heart broke. I didn't give up - I called up every single showroom in Chennai. But, no stocks and they weren't going to come, either, according to the sales person.
It was 2007, and it was a sunny morning. I had finished my schooling and I was in the extraordinary position of hunting for a good pair of IEMs again. I went straight to Chennai's famous Burma Bazaar and to my surprise, I found the EX-90s! Impulsively, I took my wallet and was about to pay the seller, until when I noticed something strange about them - They looked like plastic! Wait a minute..did Sony run into a loss or were these actually fakes? Curious, I opened them and auditioned them and quickly realized they were fakes. The cheap muddled sound is a dead giveaway for the counterfeits, as always. This was my second closest encounter with the EX-90s.
Fast forward. Ten years later. 2015. It's a full moon day, a warm, busy evening.
Here I am in Singapore, hunting for a good Home theater system for my room. To my disappointment, the model I had in mind was being replaced by a newer one and I was advised to wait. Lazily, I just walk past the headphones section of this gigantic electronics store, glancing at the cheap retro-styled headphones and in-ears. "What can I possibly find here that's good?", I thought to myself, laughing inside. Lying behind the retro-styled Beats competitors was a legend housed in machined Aluminium. I had to look twice to believe my eyes. It was the EX-90, again, with it's cheaper cousin EX-86 and a newer version labeled EX-510. The packaging was different, but it was the same model. I immediately asked the salesperson to show me the box so I can make sure it wasn't a fake.
The packaging for the Asian market has "Compatible with iPhone" sticker, added on top of it, hoping to sell it to the regular masses:
I chose the EX-90 over the rest because of one simple reason - The choice of materials. The EX-90 is the only model in Sony's entire range of earphones to use brushed Aluminium housing with such intricate attention to detail. The recent ones are made of cheap plastic and don't sound as good.
You see, Sony's headphones are SO good that companies put in so much effort to clone them to profit off them. The EX-90 is no different and luckily, there's a handy image that I use as a reference to determine if the product is a counterfeit:
Image courtesy: http://blog.massanti.com/2007/12/23/be-aware-of-fake-counterfeit-sony-in-ear-headphones-on-ebay-and-similar-places/
The product looked like it was quite original, although I was only 90% sure. Still, I bit the bullet and bought them. They costed around $200, which is quite a bargain for these legends. Immediately opening the box, the first thing I did was check the Sony logo. It wasn't printed, but rather, embossed. Phew! The next thing, I checked if they had any plastic artefacts protruding out - Nope. The only thing left to check was the Sound Quality.
I nervously, put them on, quickly connected them to my iPhone (my best available audio source then) and listened to Blackhole Sun by Stella Starlight Trio. In my experience, Jazz music usually has much more dynamic range and is one of the best music genres to test Hi-Fi audio. The sound quality on the headphones, even on a shitty source like the iPhone, completely blew me away. I have NEVER EVER have heard of something sounding as good. Not the Sennheiser HD-600, not the Audio Technica M50x, nor the Sony V6. I know, I'm comparing headphones with in ear monitors, but trust me, my point is, even the best monitor headphones don't hold a candle to to this IEM. They're that good. Even after 10 long years. Luckily, it turns out that these were the LAST pieces of EX-90s available in the entire country. Wow, talk about luck!So, why so much hassle for just a pair of earphones? In my opinion, these are much more than just a pair of earphones. These are masterpieces of art. Legends. It's not just about the sound quality, it's also about the detail. Let me show you.
Show me a company that puts in so much of detail into their product design. Show me a earphone that has sound quality AND the classy looks. I will throw these away. I've never ever used a earphone that had actually pushed me to re-discover my entire FLAC collection.
The earphones also come with a beautiful leather pouch and additional rubber cups. They have good filters as well.
Frankly, the best $200 I've ever spent in Singapore. And yes, your definition of EX is very different from mine! ;)
