User-unfriendly, poorly documented engineering marvel. Consider the following text as an attempt to write coherently about the ADC itself, as well as the process of using it. It’s sort of a loose (and certainly incomplete) user manual if you like.
This review matters for me a lot because it’s my first one of a kind: the very first review of a sound source that I would never have intended to write if it hadn’t been for Hidizs, which suddenly offered me to test their portable DAC.
A job change and all sorts of other adventures made me take some time off from the reviews. But, as the saying is, “Don’t count on it!” — there will be a lot of them in the short run, and they will be interesting, well balanced and spot on! Let’s talk today about the in-ear wired earphones Truthear x Crinacle ZERO: RED.
Another chance. I decided to give MoonDrop’s TWS earphones another chance, and it was a tough decision because MoonDrop Alice were shamefully poor in terms of connection stability and proprietary software.
When it comes to MoonDrop Golden Ages 1979, my attention was drawn to their design, low cost, and a planar driver. And I also had a glimmer of hope that at least MoonDrop managed to bring the software to the users-don’t-get-sick-and-tired state, after all.
The KZ company approached me and offered to write a review for them, and I didn’t refuse, as you can see, with my usual condition that they won’t be able to influence the review result. So! Here it is – the CCA Rhapsody in-ear wired hybrid headphones costing $42.
‘I’m looking for some decent earbuds. Wired model. I want to just hang these on my ears and not shove them inside. And so that these would be just a little bit audiophiliac!’ ‘Are you freaking serious,’ I thought. ‘Wow,’ I said. There was absolutely no way I could imagine the words ‘audiophilia’ or even just ‘good sound’ and ‘earbuds’ in one sentence – not to say in one product!
I didn’t have a chance to use any of the Aune products until recently, although I’ve read a lot of good reviews: their amplifiers usually have nice ratings on the Internet. That’s why I got curious when their first AR5000 headphones were announced in November 2023, and not just headphones but over-ear full-sized ones!
The TWS headphones are difficult to make. The Moondrop couldn’t, and the Noble couldn’t, too. This is why the WF-1000xm4 always were and still are an excellent model for me: the Sony managed to match some good sound, rich feature range, excellent ergonomics and software stability. And then Linkbuds S were released: ‘they’re the same picture’, though much cheaper. These are great, really the best TWS headphones to date, which I honestly stated. Did I expect much from the WF-1000xm5? Heck yes, I did!
A friendly reminder about important things.
