Intro
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Anyone who ever looks on Aliexpress will have noticed that a lot of audio equipment is for sale “Made In China”; direct delivery, no shipping costs. DACs, streamers, amplifiers, cables, mains filters, pro audio; it’s all there. Some products look suspiciously like branded products but without the brand. More and more Chinese brands are (also) operating under their own name. Hifiman is a good example. The headphone brand has a wide product range, starting at EUR/USD 350 to a staggering 50,000. In this review, we will do much cheaoer and test six in-ear monitors from Chinese brand KZ.
Who or what is KZ? Well, this is what KZ itself writes about it:
KZ, the brand name under which the Guangdong-based Shenzhen Yuan Ze Electronics Co. operates, was founded in 2008, making it a legacy brand by Chi-Fi standards. The founders are Keith Yue, a former Audio-Technica engineer, and Zen Li, a Western-trained classical musician. The name KZ isn’t just a nod to the founders’ initials, but is also short for “Knowledge Zenith”. The company offers an impressive range of low-priced earphones that crib the form-factor from many moderately priced earphones provided by the mainstream brands.
That sounds promising. Audio-Technica is a renowned audio brand, known for phono cartridges and indeed headphones.
KZ has over 80 models on the market, all in-ear monitors (IEM). There is are IEM’s equipped with dynamic drivers, balanced armature units, magnetostatic (planar) and electrostatic systems and mixed variants of all these. Most models are wired and there are KZ True Wireless in Ears. The nice thing is that KZ also offers an option for wireless listening to the in-ears, with a kind of ear clip to which the earphones can be connected. KZ has its own connector type, not the CCX system used by many in-ear brands.
KZ delivers the in-ears the way pro brands do: the cable is pre-shaped at the ear. This not only enables easier ‘buckling up’ of the IEM, it also ensures that the in-ears have a better fit and stay where they should be staying.