Here we are with another brand we aren’t familiar with just yet until now. This seems to be a big month for running into new things, and this round we have a pair of ZS10 HiFi Hybrid Earphones by KZ. These in-ears are a little different as they seem best fit for artists simply looking to hear themselves sing (or talk if you are simply a presenter) vs something you are going to rock out to with music, but what they excel in, they do so pretty well.
Design
The earphone bodies are made mostly of plastic with all of your familiar innards. The plastic body offers a level of transparency so that you can see these innards, which is a cool touch. You have three color options to choose from, including red, black and blue (obviously, we have the red we are testing out). The design-style of the body is that of your typical in-ear monitor, albeit a tad bulky feeling at times.
Cable-wise, the cable is either braided or twisted depending on the section of cable you are looking at. Near the earbuds themselves, the cable has about 3.5-inches of metal wire wrapped to the cable via heat shrink tubing, allowing it to bend at this end and take shape around your ear.
The cable can be detached from the buds by pulling on it, revealing the two-pin connection. They do this so that you can swap them out with another cable, such as a Bluetooth cable (allowing you to take them wireless). It does not come with this cable and we do not have one lying around here, so this function could not be tested. However, you can find some of these (Bluetooth) cables here that will supposedly work just fine. This makes for a neat feature. This also means you can easily swap out the cable with a new one if you ever damage it, keeping replacement costs low.
There is an in-line remote on the cable, with a single button. It is a catch-all/do-all solution, allowing you not only to take or reject calls and play/pause your music but also skip or move back tracks and trigger your phone’s digital assistant (ie, Siri). If you press it once, it can play/pause music or answer/disconnect a phone call. If you hold it down for a few seconds as a call is coming in, it will reject the call. If you hold it down, your voice command/assistant will be triggered, and so forth.
Performance
These seem to be pretty simple, which kind of limits their niche, but also does well within it (as I mentioned above). They have a specific use as in-ear monitors. Their focus is mostly within your mid-high to higher frequencies, leaning towards voice and higher-pitched instruments like brass and certain strings and keys. The detachable cable screams work-place use. So these are best on-stage and/or touring around as simple monitors.
The highs are super crisp and clear, and the mid highs aren’t bad at all. The mids are ok, and this is where you begin to get limited if you plan to use these for general music listening. The lack of strong mids will take away from any reference listening you may be hoping for since a lot of the track will be missing. As for your lows, there is next to none, so no hip-hop or club listening for you.
That being said, they still do perform quite well on certain (types of) tracks, thanks to their crisp mid-highs and highs, allowing you to get some highlighted moments out of them. Some of the winners we found were “Dim Sun by Umphrey’s McGee“, “Perpetual Motion by Al Di Meola“, and “Besame Mucho by Andrea Bocelli“. Still, I would stick to using them as monitors for mid-high to high sources.
Microphone performance seems to be around average. It isn’t going to blow you away or anything, but both parties will be able to hear each other just fine during a phone call. Voices are clear. You just want to stay away from any environments that are too terribly loud. They are obviously not going to perform as well as multi-hundred dollar headphones with special noise-isolating mics.
Comfort-wise, they feel ok in the ear. We found that the large tips work the best, but were still re-adjusting them here and there like a lot of the in-ear solution that isn’t custom molded to your ear (so this is a bit common). The wires wrap nicely around the ears holding well regardless of the shape of your ears.
What’s in the box?
Inside the box, you will find the earphones, three tip sizes (small, medium and large), as well as some instructions. Besides them coming with the cable detached, there is nothing else to point out here.
Update/Sale: Gearbest seems to currently be running a sale giving 10% everything sitewide, scoring you 10% off these earphones. The code is GBmidyear2018
Our Conclusion
So these earphones are best for in-ear monitors for on-stage performances where you need to capture your voice or specific instruments that benefit from your mid-high to high frequencies. They really help some of these sources shine. Breaking outside of this niche will limit their performance and they won’t sound so good (most general music listening), so it’s best to stay within this niche. The cable design is nice since you not only can easily replace it, but you can replace it with a Bluetooth cable. This doesn’t affect the score heavily since we couldn’t test this out per se, but it still had a positive impact on our decision process. Our score is also based on the current price of $43.99, which seems to be a current sale that is running on Gearbest, which is KZ’s main central point of sale. If the price comes up too much from there, I would say there are better earphones to pick from. If it stays within this range, then they seem to be pretty good if you stick within the mentioned usage niche. They are available from Gearbest.com, which seems to be KZ’s main hub for sales in the market.
Our Rating | Average Price* $43.99 |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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Specifications:
Model: ZS10
Type: In-Ear
Cable Length (m): 1.2m
Connectivity: Wired, 3.5mm (Aux)
Driver unit: 10mm
Frequency response: 7Hz – 40KHz
Impedance: 32 ohms
Sensitivity: 104 dB
Package size (L x W x H): 10.20 x 7.20 x 3.20 cm / 4.02 x 2.83 x 1.26 inches
Package weight: 0.0800 kg
Product size (L x W x H): 120.00 x 7.00 x 3.00 cm / 47.24 x 2.76 x 1.18 inches
Product weight: 0.0270 kg
Package Contents: 1 x Earphones, 3 x Pair of Eartips, 1 x User Manual
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