SIMGOT EA500's Review

 

General/Build/Packaging/Comfort

SIMGOT has been on fire lately with their releases, make no mistake that the releases are not a hit and miss, rather more of a quality release that received numerous positive feedbacks from the audiophile community. I have not heard their previous release, hence the EA500 is my first experience with SIMGOT’s product.

Let’s talk about the packaging and build quality, in my opinion, it is a wise move for SIMGOT to not follow the “waifu” trend on the packaging, i personally is not fond of those and most of the Chi-FI brands starts to use the “waifu” printing on their packaging box and its getting out of hand. I have to say, this is a rather positive unboxing experience as I rarely write that much about the unboxing part. I am greeted with Pascal’s quote “Don’t try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.” in which i totally agree with, quality rather than quantity. The box contains the IEM itself, OFC cable, a roomy storage case, the additional tuning nozzle, extra black and red silicon ring.

Build quality is solid on the EA500, doesn’t feel heavy and fits very well in my ears, and I wore them for several hours without feeling any discomfort. The only downside is that it is a fingerprint magnet

Gears used for this review

• Earmen Angel Dac/Amp

• iFi Gryphon

• Macbook Air M2 3.5 Out

• iPod Touch 5th Gen

• EA500 with stock cable and stock eartips

Foreword

My review is solely based on what I hear via my equipment and I never consider my reviews to be objective in any way rather a subjective approach. Do take into consideration that everyone’s ear anatomy is not the same, so the psychoacoustics perception might be different as well, but i believe it will not stray too far

Sound Impression ( Stock Nozzle with Red Silicon Ring )

EA500’s tonality is leaning towards neutral with slight warmth to my ears. Timbre sounds very natural to my ears and it has quite a good body to it overall with sufficient note weight to it. Good tuning in my opinion, musical sounding at the same time with good technicalities.

Bass

• Bass on the EA500 is not lacking by all means, maybe just a touch light but overall it has good quality bass with sufficient quantity, but still will not please bassheads

• It has good textures and body to it, doesn’t sound loose and thin

• Mid bass has good slam and punch to it, listening to Metallica’s Lux Aeterna is very pleasing as every hit on the drum be can felt

• Sub bass rumble is there when the track calls for it, doesn’t really extend that deep, it is evident in Hans Zimmer’s Why So Serious, slightly lacking the rumble

• The speed is also excellent on the EA500, handling complex tracks with ease without sounding muddy and bleeding into the mids

Mids

• The midrange is good with sufficient note weight, not sounding too thin and quite lush to my ears, this is based on my listening experience with EarMen Angel’s DAC/AMP, switching it to iFi’s Gryphon, it doesn’t sound as lush as the Angel

• Vocal positioning is not too forward nor laid back

• Female vocal has the energy to it and good texture

• Male vocal that has low baritone voice such as Zhao Peng retains the warmth and texture to it, it doesn’t sound thin at all, very pleasant experience

• The upper mids are not shouty at all and it does very well in terms of giving the female vocal a slight boost

Treble

• Treble response on the EA500 is crisp and smooth, no hint of darkness within the range

• Non sibilant nor offensive even when you crank up the volume

• Good amount of air and presence and contributed to good sense of staging and imaging as well

• Detail retrieval is good and i can hear the nuances distinctively without having to try hard, an example of such track is Faye Wang’s 旋木，the finger slides from the guitar can be heard easily

Soundstage/Imaging

• Soundstage for EA500 is good for the price, having a good sense of width, depth, a little lacking in height but very good overall. It is quite spacious sounding, listening to orchestral or live tracks is very enjoyable on the EA500

• Imaging is also a strong point for EA500 as well, instruments can be pinpointed easily even on complex tracks such as Slipknot’s People = Shit!, well layered and good separation

Driveability

• EA500 is not hard to drive, give it something like Apple’s Dongle is actually sufficient to get good sound and listening volume out of it

• However, when you feed it with more power, it sounded even better, tighter bass, and a little more punch, also sounded more open, this is when i turned on the gain+ mode on Earmen Angel, feeding it with 7.2 vrms via the SE out and extracting more “sonic performance” out from the EA500, impressive scalability

Sound Impression on Black Silicon Ring Nozzle

• From the bass response to the mids, it is more or less similar sounding to my ears

• Vocal positioning however is more forward compared to red ring nozzle

• Female vocal is even more lively compared to red ring nozzle, this is due to an early rise on the upper mids, i find the female vocal to be very enjoyable on this nozzle, but i can’t say the same for those who are sensitive with the upper mids boost, do take into consideration that your experience might vary

• Soundstage is slightly smaller on this nozzle, but imaging capability is excellent

• The treble is also being boosted to give more resolution and better perceived detail retrieval capability

• I would say this is a more of an analytical kind of tuning compared to the red ring nozzle which is balanced or safe

Final Thoughts

I have a very positive experience with EA500 and I definitely look forward to trying out their upcoming products when I have the chance. EA500 is a solid product overall that offers versatility with the swappable nozzle, although this is nothing new in the industry, but it does offer the user to switch to different kinds of tuning whenever they feel like it. With all things considered, this is not to say that EA500 is perfect and without flaws, or perhaps i shouldn’t say flaws because i’d be instilling my own preferences instead of properly reviewing the IEM itself, i would say if the bass quantity is slightly boosted while retaining the same quality and control over it, it would make the overall listening experience more “musical”. EA500 gets an easy 4.5/5 from me. 

*EA500 is being sent over for the purpose of this review. I thank LINSOUL and SIMGOT for the opportunity. I am not influenced in any way to produce this review nor do I receive any monetary compensation.

Head over to the following link if you are interested in getting a pair!

SIMGOT EA500 - Non affiliated