THE PLUS:
-well balanced bassy L shape tonality
-warm, smooth and laid back musicality
-beautiful sub bass with dense rumble
-well layered and extracted bass line
-warm and thick mids with good note weight
-beautifull female vocal with wide presence, dense and smooth timbre
-safe tuning with no sibilance, splashyness or harshness
-dark but not dull sounding
-wide and tall soundstage enough
-good for jazz, soul, pop, R&B, rap and any slow music
-nice construction and cable
-good sound value
THE MINUS:
-a bit hazy in resolution
-lack of mid bass thumpy punch (ultra dark kick drum)
-poor imaging
-cloudy definition
-half cooked treble that will not fully extract sound info
-safe tuning might be boring for some
-not good for metal or fast rock and complex music
-not a BL03 upgrade
TONALITY: 8.5/10
TECHNICALITIES: 8.2/10
CONSTRUCTION: 9/10
SOUND VALUE: 8.5/10
INTRO
BLON is an IEM company from China that get lucky with the BL03 release which become some kind of legend. Since then they have mostly launch questionnable earphones, betting either on the look or even trying to be controversial launching an infamous IEM call “Fat Girl”. Before this they launch an IEM using a mythological God name, Prometheus. Let’s say it’s hard to take this earphones company seriously and I loose hope about their release until a well known tuning collaborator call HBB aka Bad Guy Good Audio Review came in. WHy? Because he see an opportunity (oppoty) and decide to take BL03 dream (driam) in it’s hand and well, never-give-up for the sake of it’s wallet and the one of Linsoul I guess.
And their come the Blon Z300 I will review today because of my hope revival that HBB can help Blon to achieve a decent tonal balance, something they struggle alot with numerous post-BL03 release.
Priced only 35$, the Z300 use a 10mm silicone diaphragm dynamic driver and promise high sound value.
Let see in this review if these will mark they end of Blon company, or will be indeed the revival some of us are still wishing for.
CONSTRUCTION & ACCESSORIES
The construction is all metal, feel sturdy and have an elegant look. It make me think of Moondrop Aria design and built but with a dark blue color that appeal my eyes more. The dragon design on back plate is refreshing and quite well made and eye appealing. The built feel durable and offer good sound isolation. It’s a bit heavy but don’t fall from the ear and offer good fit. 2pin connectors are QDC which I find annoying, I would have prefer slightly recessed 2pin connector but all in all, nothing to complain for 35$.
The cable included is surpringly good too, it’s a 4 cores high purity copper cable, only drawback is QDC connector which mean I will never use it apart for the Z300. About these connector, the plastic used seem cheap and even fragile…but easy to cut too if you wan’t to transform it into normal 2pin!
Unboxing is nothing to write about and include minimal accessories like 6 pairs of silicone ear tips, a nice cable and a cheap pouch, all this in a KZ like mini box.
SOUND IMPRESSIONS
“We are all driamers.
I have to driam and reach for the stars,
and if I miss a star then I grab an handful of clouds.”
-Mike Tyson
This beautiful quote translate well the Blon oppoty tuning of HBB, which doesn’t reach the original star and choose to grad cozzyness of clouds instead.
The Z300 aren’t BL03 upgrade, nor about pushing the bundaries of it’s tuning DNA, nope, it ”cloud” it instead, polish the balance to make it smoother and more ethereal.
While I need to underline this, it doesn’t mean these are bad IEM at all! In fact, tonaly wise, it might be more musical for alot of us, including myself which tend to enjoy warm and dense vocal as well as not too bright or grainy timbre, which the Z300 deliver.
But i’m sensitive to bass punch too, which is clouded by sub bass boost here. The Z300 are quite bassy, but in a mellow rumbly way. This lower bass extension, slam and rumble is very addictive since it’s dense and vibrant, but a bit slowed in attack too, so it will be more appropriate for soul, R&B and Rap than fast rock or jazz, where the kick drum will be hard to perceive or felt in impact, this tend to annoy me since I can’t separate properly the acoustic instrument, we have good amount of bass warmth here which have pro and cons depending of music genre.
So, warm bass, with good flexibility in sub bass that can render bass line beautifully apart if it need lot of texture, which is a bit lacking here, but again, this extend deeeeeep and this is rather rare in a non resonant way, because thats the thing, it’s not a clear, clean or transparent sub bass presentation, its about physical slam and juicy rumble.
All in all, the silicone dynamic driver is a marvelous one when it come to low end flexibility, rumble authority and density as well as well layered sub bass line and slam, the rest is a matter of tuning choice it seem, but for bass lover this diaphragm material should be noted.
Then the mid range is surely my favorite part of the Z300 even if we are into guilty pleasure territory when it come to critical listening since it’s not an open, crisp or well resolved mid range. Without being plain dark, its softed in texture and a bit boosted in lower harmonic so we have full sounding vocal with a creamy, breathy feel to it, which is very plesant and musical and tend to make the presence wide and polished, not concentrated in energy and dynamic loudness.
Natural timbre is very subjective in perception and I tend to prefer a hint of warmth coloring, so I get extra density and note weight instead of presence brightness and attack bite. This is exactly what the Z300 deliver, lush and smooth mids with good note weight but not the fastest nor tighest attack since as a whole it’s a bit ”cloudy”. But the layering capacity isn’t that bad and the transparency is kept minimaly even if foggy way we can perceive piano in the back of saxophone, but not in a sharp way.
And piano sound good, warmed way, sax too, as well as other woodwind instrument that aren’t shouty at all nor thin, the tone is right while the resolution is softed in sharpness.
The piano extend well after the warm note impact, it’s not a dry and compressed sustain-decay like we often have with Harman target IEM. So while thick, the mid range isn’t dark and muddy, it’s open but fullfill with dense sound layer so it favor macro presentation cohesion over a clinical presentation that will boost micro details and each instrument presence. It doesn’t feel very recessed for a L shape balance too.
And now the treble, which will be perhaps the controversial aspect of Z300 for BL03 fan base. Firstly, it’s not plain dark but it’s very softed, yet not exactly what I would call buttery smooth. We have a bit of spice on top that permit minimal brilliance and snap, which is hit or miss depending of instrument or sound, it make me wonder if it should have gone plain dark in fact but this permit the sound to be open and guitar to have slight sparkle. This will tend to extract upper register percussions and tame cymbals crash, snare too will lack a bit of proper snap, so it’s not a treble that is exciting or highly captivating, nor that magnify the sens of speed of drummer. We are in lukerwarm territory, which is hard for a reviewer to dig in. But don’t expect the Z300 to extract micro details that your never heard, don’t expect lot of air or varied and well shaped instruments. Texture is very polished and organic here and while the bass and mids sound dense and bodied, highs sound a bit thin as wella s forced in fake brilliance where guitar and clavichord will not be fully restitute. I still find the treble refined for it’s price range, non fatiguing and not too dull too.
The soundstage is quite wide and tall, but lack deepness and isn’t airy nor very holographic. It’s a wall of sound that surround you that lack air and clarity to make us travl freely into it’s spatiality.
This mean imaging is rather poor even if the layering have proper speed to be well articulated. Here, bass and vocal will be easiest part for positioning, then percussions and multiple instrument will become harder, this can go plain impossible with very speedy and busy track.
SIDE NOTE:
While not particularly hard to drive at 28ohm of impedance and 115db of sensitivity, the Z300 will scale up with amping power as well as clean audio source. I don’t suggest pairing those with warm, dark or lean in dynamic source since it will make them sound dull and all about bass.
The included eartips don’t work well for me, I use the BGVP A08 which balance the sound while keeping spatiality wide open enough….as well, it match the dark blue housing very well.
COMPARISONS
VS BLON BL03
The Z300 doesn’t have BL03 DNA, it’s notably more U shape and warmer, thicker in mids and less spiky in treble. The BL03 offer a brighter W shape with more boosted presence grain and more snappy and crunchy treble. The sub bass of Z300 is more boosted, have longer, chunkier more vibrant rumble, but the mid bass is lacking for proper kick drum punch as well as texture is more creamy, affecting even more the kick presence perception. So we can say Z300 have more warm heavy slam and rumble sustain but less thumping and well rounded punch than BL03.
Mids is where the Z300 differ quite alot, it’s fuller, warmer, smoother with a more natural timbre and less upper mids sibilance and texture brightness-grainyness than BL03. But it’s darker and less open sounding thant BL03 too, definition edge is more blurry and softed and overall resolution is less transparent. Mids dynamic is leaner with the Z300 too, vocal and instrument being less agressive in loudness.
Then the treble is where the Z300 might feel underwhelming, and even a bit imprevisible due to slight spice added to permit minimum energy to snare and percussion, for better and the worst.
The BL-03 have faster and more snappy treble response, it’s more open and airy and deliver higher amount of micro details, it’s sharper and more agressive too. Violin and high pitch instrument willl sound thicker with Z300, but not as abrasive in attack bite, sure it make the BL03 more prompt to splashyness but it mean acoustic guitat will like sparkle decay and crispness and electric guitar will sound too blunted in texture. As well, percussions of Z300 are half cook, just extracting metallic part of it, not the fullness of its harmonic.
The Soundstage is inferior too with the Z300, it’s similar in wideness but less deep and tall, resulting in a less open and airy spatiality.
Which does inflict on imaging capacity, which is inferior with the Z300 due to darker instrument definition and slower attack speed. BL03 have cleaner wider instrument separation and sharper more accurate postioning, the layering too is more spacious due to more articulate dynamic amplitude.
All in all, the Z300 isn’t a BL03 upgrade nor a Driam following, it’s a new Oppoty for a smoother balanced and more laid back musicality for those who complaint about BL03 treble vividity. But technical performance is superior with BL03, attack speed being faster and more controled, imaging and resolution being superior, it’s hard to lie to ourself about that. So, Z300 offer more natural tonality and timbre as well as more sub bass rumble, it’s a good complement to BL03.
VS SIMGOT EW100P
So while not complete opposite, these aren’t similar in tonal balance, the Z300 is notably bassier and warmer while EW100P brighter, crisper and more neutral.
The bass is more textured and bright with EW100P, it’s more rolled off and tamed in sub bass so you dont have any rumble nor chunky slam like the Z300, the separation with mids is better since mid bass definition is less blurry and more edgy in impact.
The mids are thinner and brighter, more transparent and resolved, cleaner too but less wide in presence a bit compressed in energy as well upper mids loudness is notably higher so it’s more prompt to shoutyness or hearing fatigue than the smoother darker Z300, here the EW100P favor presence and high pitch instrument while it’s the opposite for the Z300, so cello will sound more natural and dense but violin will have a cello feeling to it, while cello will have violin feel ot it with the EW100P and make soprano female vocal more screamy and fowards, less laid back and polished than Z300.
So again, the treble is very different here, we have typical budget harman treble with the EW100P, quite similar to the Moondrop Chu in fact, so it’s dryer and brighter, it’s more edgy in attack lead but not as natural in decay than Z300 which offer a fuzzy and grainy treble but while the sustain decay is more natural, the attack lead is more softed too so at they end EW100P is both more abrasive and snappy for percussions, snare, clavichord or guitar.
Soundstage wise, Z300 is wider and taller, but less deep and clean than EW100P which offer more accurate and sharp imaging.
All in all, i prefer musicality of Z300, but at 2 times the price of the Simgot, it doesn’t really impress technical performance wise.
CONCLUSION
While far from perfect, I like the Z300 and this is mostly due to the mid range since piano, female vocal, saxo, cello and violin all sound full and lush, without texture spike that distract me or loud upper mids that make me jump from my seat.
This make me forgive the lack of mid bass punch and questionnable bass separation, since the sub bass is captivating, fun and musical too.
But I can’t overseen the fact that BL03 energic magic isn’t there, so perhaps the marketing choice was bad in the sens it make people think it’s a follow up of this very IEM.
In fact, Blon rarely go warm balanced tonality and to me this is the refreshing take and it’s well done, very refined and musical and unlike all those harman wannabe IEM we see invading the Chifi market, it’s not lacking in bass slam authority, it isn’t shouty and thin in mid range and we even have a hint of crispness to add minimal excitment and sens of openess.
Blon can’t get lucky anymore and need help for proper tuning, but does this mean it’s their revival? Not really, it will be their next release that will decide if this company worth being followed since the technical performance is more than OK in sub-100$ range but doesn’t impress me that much.
All in all, the Z300 offer great musicality and above average sound performance for it’s asking price and is well worthy of consideration for those that favor sub bass and mid range fullness before treble.
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PS: I want to thanks Linsoul for sending me this IEM after i manifest my interest to try them. I’m not affiliated to this audio distributor and even wonder why I’m still collaborating with them….but hey, sometime it’s usefull to be able to test cheapies marvel with a snap of finger!
You can order the Z300 for 35$ here:https://www.linsoul.com/products/blon-x-hbb-z300?variant=43874951987417
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