Vsonic VSD3S Review

VSONIC VSD3S 

Best in class IEMs, the most bang for your buck.

INTRO

In the audio world, there are few Chinese brands that can boast the same level of recognition as Vsonic, which began with the 100$ range (or about Rs. 7000 in India) GR07 which is regarded as one of the most respectable audio products in its price range. But in the budget segment the VSD line of products do the same that GR07 does to its competition, that is make the user wonder why he/she even needs anything beyond this. Indeed I too have felt the same, when I almost gave up on collecting audio gear after how satisfied I was with this pair. It was a match made in heaven, the feeling of having found just the right one. 

Through this review, I want to convey how much I love these and if possible convince the reader that spending the amount to buy this pair is not only deserved but perhaps one of the most well spent audio purchase he/she will ever make. 

PACKAGING AND INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

At the time of writing this article my VSD3S has already completed 2 years of service. I bought mine from Vsonic's official Indian retailer Hifinage, for about Rs 3400, albeit hesistantly. That was more than I was willing to spend on audio gear as a student. These headphones were all my festive season savings put into one package. It took two weeks to be delivered and arrived in the box shown below. 

The unboxing experience was something special. For the price they were asking it felt premium with the very compact box and the velvety sponge that encased the earphones itself showing off their unique shape, it was clear that a lot of thought went into considering how to best make the user feel like they were holding something special and not some comparatively cheap sub Rs 1000 audio accessory. If you have read my earlier review of the KZ ZS3 you will notice which company I was hinting, that they took inspiration (polite language for 'ripping off') from, if you haven't checked it out yet, do go through it here. 

After opening the plastic encasing on the top, you will find a velvet pouch to carry the headphones, I wish they had decided to put in a hard case like a lot of sub Rs. 2000 headphones do these days. But the quality of the pouch isn't bad in itself and I doubt one would ever feel confident entrusting these earpieces to them anyways. Open the upper layer containing the headphones to reveal some special accessories that you won't regularly find with anything cheaper. 

The package originally contained a pair of foam eartips which by the time of writing this article are ancient history due to overuse. It was my first experience with foam eartips, and led to appreciating how overwhelmingly comfortable they were, as they meld into the shape of the user's ear canal, which also is their biggest disadvantage. Those tips were very, very hard to maintain, they required regular cleaning and God forbid if you ever let someone who doesn't keep their ears clean try these on with the foam tips. Its a stuff of nightmares, and I would have to change this blog's content rating for adult viewing only, to compensate for the amount of gore in that scene. Their lifespan itself wasn't too long, with mine lasting for about just under 7-8 months compared to the almost indestructible silicon tips. 

Inspite of that, for personal use I would easily recommend foam tips to any person willing to spend the premium for better comfort, isolation and fit. A VSD3S with foam tips has passive noise isolation that is a definite hazard for use on the road. 

These also come with a pair of Bi-flange tips shown in the image above, and the standard 3 sizes of single flange tips. The Bi-flange were my favorites after the foam tips died and I use them even to this day. I usually wouldn't talk so much about mere tips, but one must understand that comfort is a major part of the IEM experience and these tips were thicker yet softer than any earphones I had in the past. To this day I swap out any basic tips for these when I intend to make any IEM my primary driver. 

A pair of earhooks or earguides are also in the box to make these fit your ears, which I find myself regularly using, personally I prefer these to memory wire like the one used in the KZs.  

DESIGN 

The VSD3S is a trendy diamond shaped on the outer side and has a smooth curved backside to sit plush with your ear on the inside. The body is good quality plastic and is slightly translucent with a smoky accent to show off the dynamic drivers inside. The VSD3S was originally a removable cable type with a proprietory MMCX connector which they removed in the later model which is the one I have. Yet the thick wire connections to the earpieces is a reminder of that feature. 

I want to make one thing clear, these are big earpieces. And will often require medium to large ears for the user to be comfortable so most ladies will find this is too big for them, which was often the case for many of my friends. For ones that do fit, like mine these are the most comfortable earphone design I have ever used to this date, compared to other earhooks like the Meelectronics M6P, and KZ ZS3 and some from Brainwavz that I used later. I often tend to fall asleep with these on. The wires are thick and effectively never tangle. 

All this bring us to the few problems I have with the design. First is the lack of proper strain relief on the straight 3.5 mm connector. I have always been worried that the stress on this section will be where the wire will break. And two years later, my fears were on point. This is the state of the cable now. 

I have been fairly careful with how I use these, knowing that buying it again wont be very easy for me, but the wire eventually gave up here and now there is an occasional disconnect on the right earpiece which frustrates me. The inner wire itself suffers from what I assume to be a little oxidation. And finally there is the lack of an inline microphone which isn't actually the best point to make but which led to me later using the Piston 3 for daily commute just because of the hands free controls and the excellent mic it offered. 

But do note, that these lasted me 2 years and is still usable, better than any other IEM I have used, due to being a rough user. Which is a testament to its build quality compared to something like the Xiaomi Piston 3 which I bought later and died earlier. 

SOUND QUALITY

Now coming to the point everyone is curious about. The sound. 

When you put these on, you will notice it is warm and slightly boomy. These are supposed to be mostly neutral/balanced i.e. maintaining qualities of the original recording, but in experience you will undeniably notice the V shaped sound (V shaped is something akin to using the 'Rock' setting on an equalizer). I will say in advance I have very less experience with IEMs costlier than these, so most of the comparism will be made with the rather large amount of IEMs below or close to this price range that I tried like the CX 275s, E10s and VSD1S.

Quantity of bass might be less than some others like the Sony XBA but again I have stressed the difference of Good bass and Bad Bass. Comparing it to the XBA30EX and 150AP is like the bass of the Sony's is scattered all over the place while these give you a better tighter picture which eventually hits you with more relevance making it seem greater in volume than it actually is. There is a decent amount of sub bass, which is some of the lower frequencies perceivable to the ear, reinforcing the effect of bass it contains in general. 

Treble is nicely emphasized which means the higher frequencies like female vocals are brought out with a sparkle, its quite rare to find something that does the treble so right for me. 

Mids is something which I find a bit lacking, and often I boost the mids on an EQ to compensate, but that's upto your liking, and not like many others do it better at this price point anyways. 

Soundstage is open and wide, i.e. you perceive a better 3D environment of the music around you. Which brings us to my favourite point, how responsive these are. It always worries me that using just a phone to drive earphones will be inadequate which is the case for big headphones like HD202. And these puny IEMs have a rather large impedence rating of 39-40 ohms, larger than the stated figure of 32 ohms for the HD 202

(Impedance, or opposition to the flow of current is used to measure how hard it is for a source to drive that headphone) . 

But, in practice these perform better on small sources like phones, I suspect it is due to the rather high sensitivity of the IEM, higher than something like the Seinnheiser CX 275s and the Xiaomi Piston 3 (Sensitivity is used to measure how loud a headphone can get per unit power input) so it scales rather well. These get much louder at at lower volume settings than any other headphone I have or tried. 

CONCLUSION

The Vsonic VSD3S for some time met all my expectations of a perfect In-ear headphone, it was comfortable, sounded great and I was continuously ticking future headphones off my bucket list, because of how satisfied I was with them. Sort of like finding the love of your life, which I realize is a rather tasteless comparison, so please excuse me. Apparently they have improved the build quality in the later iterations of this model, and if money wasn't an issue I did buy them again to replace my dying ones. A lot of people compare these to the Shure SE215, and from the impressions I cannot ever justify paying almost more than twice the amount for something that sounds similar or marginally lesser than my VSD3S. If you can afford it get the GR07 that's what I  would do. Till then, these will be my favourite IEM and a easy recommend to anyone spending the amount on headphones. 

Thank you for reading.