Gizaudio x Binary Audio Chopin's Review

 

General/Packaging/Build/Comfort

Gizaudio is a name that I believe most should be very familiar with, the man behind it, Timmy, has collaborated with Binary Acoustics along with HifiGo to release Chopin. For those who are not familiar with Binary Acoustics, here’s a snippet of it from HifiGo’s site “Binary Acoustics has been pursuing better sound quality since 2017. They aim to achieve the smallest possible size and streamlined design. They develop the products on the concept of "Let your ears！“ "convey sound and emotion". Their products disappear into the ears when listening to music, allowing their users to completely immerse themselves into the world of music allowing them to feel the original, pure sound!!”

The packaging is minimalistic, clean,simple and elegant overall presentation. Upon unboxing, it consists of a hard case which stores the left and right channel with a small iem pouch for each channel, the 4.4 cable as well as eartips. The cable is rather thin and will get tangled up easily sometimes, but overall, it works well.

The build quality is good, the shell is 3D printed resin with stainless steel faceplate, and overall it feels solid, sturdy and lightweight. Despite having an odd shape(personal p.o.v), the fit and seal is very good, it literally disappears in your ears when you are wearing it.

Gears used for this review

• Earmen Tradutto -> Earmen CH-Amp

• Earmen Colibri

• Hidizs S9 Pro Plus 

• Hiby R6 2020

• Chopin Stock cable with Divinus Velvet 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

The first thing that I noticed upon listening to Chopin, it is very clean across the overall frequency range. I would say it is quite neutral with a bit of bass boost. Timbre sounds quite natural overall, but if you try hard enough, there are some minor BA timbres. 

Bass

• Bass has good texture and control, has very good speed

• Speed is good and handled Metallica’s Lux Aeterna without sounding bloated

• Bass doesn’t bleed into the mids

• Sub bass does have some rumble when the track calls for it, it doesn’t go really deep but it is good enough for EDM enjoyment, tested this listening to Ping Pong by Armin

Mids

• I’m quite surprised that the mids are not as recessed as shown from the graph, very clean mid range overall

• Male’s vocal sounded a little lacking in terms of body, overall it's not too bad, i tested this with Zhao Peng’s song, it doesn’t sound that full, but its not bad either

• Female vocal such as Faye Wong does sound fuller compared to male’s, very enjoyable

• Lower to upper mid range are very lush and enjoyable, even at high volume, it doesn’t get harsh

Treble

• Treble is smooth and not fatiguing, energetic enough but not excessive to the point where its harsh

• Extension is very good and it has good amount of air,

• Detail retrieval is good, higher expectation is just nitpicking in my opinion

Soundstage/Imaging

• Good sense of width and height, depth as well, it doesn’t sound boxy and very open sounding to my ears

• Imaging is quite good, instruments can be pinpointed easily

Driveability

• Chopin is not hard to drive, but it does scales with power as with most dynamic drivers

• Amping it does exhibit slightly better bass control in terms of tightness and a little bit of refinement on the top end

• However it does scale with source, in terms of how the dac/amp affect it in terms of colorization of the sound

Comparison(Truthear Nova)

• Nova is a slightly warmer set overall, with a little bit more note weight

• Sub bass doesn’t rumble as hard as Chopin, mid bass on both are rather close in terms of performance

• The mids on Nova has thicker note weight compared to Chopin, not necessarily a bad thing but more of a preference, some preferred a cleaner mids while some preferred a slightly thicker mids

• Treble is slightly more energetic on the Chopin while Nova has tamer treble

• Technicalities is also better on the Chopin, in terms of imaging, soundstage and detail retrievals

Final Thoughts

This time around, I think Timmy has done it right, i personally think that Chopin is an improved Galileo from every aspect, bass, mids, treble and technicalities. At the price of 199$, it is definitely a solid pair that you can’t go wrong with, be it you are just starting out in the hobby, or have been in the hobby for a little while, it is definitely a solid choice. It works well with a wide range of genres, but of course there are also some where its performance is lacking. Recommended!

If you are interested in grabbing a pair, head over to the following links in getting one (Non affiliated):

HiFiGo： https://hifigo.com/products/gizaudio-binary-chopin

Aliexpress：

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006135789174.html

Amazon US:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL6LNF82/binary+gizaudio+chopin/

Amazon JP：

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0CL6MRTW9/binary+gizaudio+chopin/

*Received the review sample from HifiGo, however, i am in no way influenced by them in producing this review, all thoughts are of my own, big thanks to them for the support as always