KZ has been a regular manufacturer in my reviews. I believe we’re in a headphone renaissance right now, and numerous brands are duking it out, bringing ever incredible audio experiences to customers, at lower and lower prices.
KZ is back now with a refreshed Vader earbud, and it’s sporting some new tricks I don’t think I’ve heard before.
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It’s wild to me, that my first KZ review was nine years ago.
The KZ-ATE blew my mind. At the time, we still cared about cabled headphone audio on phones. Manufacturers were trying to impress with expensive partnerships. LG had B&O earbuds. Samsung had AKG tuned buds. Accessories that came with the purchase price of your phone mattered a LOT in our reviews.
There was a steep divide between the disposable buds you’d get at a gas station, and the nicer buds someone might “invest” in. Some of those acoustic experiences priced well over $100.
Then I tried out the KZ-ATE for $15, and they kinda broke my brain.
Then I followed that up with the ES4 for $20, and I knew something wild was happening.
Audio quality has never been a “linear” exercise. A $200 headphone wont sound “four times gooder” than a $50 headphone. In that idea, we can find radical competition, and that’s where the Vader Pro absolutely shine.
$30 earbuds have no business delivering THIS kind of experience…
Vader Pro continues on a track of customizable or “tunable” earbuds. There are two flavors made by KZ, a standard edition and an enhanced bass edition, which KZ sent the latter for me to test drive. Beyond those options though, Vader Pro has a set of small pin tool switches that can further adjust lows, mids, and highs to the user’s preference.
I think there’s an engineering idea, that someone might use these for multiple roles, and adjust switched before listening to certain kinds of music, then change the tuning again before watching a movie. I doubt that’s happening on these or similar earbuds. The setup is too small and fiddly to adjust on the fly like that.
Instead, this is a way to home in further on the kind of tuning someone might prefer. We want to get as close to a sound we like as possible, and this allows us to broadly recommend an earbud that someone can adjust to better fit their wants.
This is a large earbud case, and they seat a little deeper in the ear canal. They arrived with a mic cable, sized ear tips, a pair of foam tips, and a little pin tool to adjust the earbud switches.
The case is metal, and there is a bit of weight to the Vader Pro. Someone sensitive to larger ear tip sizes, and the extra weight on the ear (and over the top of the ear with the cable) might struggle with this style of bud. My wife cant wear or use anything like this.
The size is critical to this kind of earbud though. The “3DD” moniker means literally that there are three dynamic drivers in each earbud case. These are not only multi-driver, but triple DYNAMIC driver.
Dynamic drivers are larger, so there’s an engineering challenge in getting all the drivers to fit into a pro-style earbud casing. Often our multi-drivers use balanced armatures, which are a lot smaller.
KZ’s mounting and stacking of drivers is a remarkable solution.
I opted to use the foam tips for all my listening and testing. Most of my testing, the Vader Pro were connected to (and powered by) my Shanling UA4 mini dongle DAC.
How Do They Sound?
This is a really fun earbud.
KZ’s tuning has sometimes been grating to my ears. They went through a phase of “deep V” tuning I never enjoyed.
The Vader Pro Enhanced Bass edition come in rich and fat. This is a bass-head earbud, but obnoxiously “MEGABASS” dull.
KZ pulls a fast one with these tunable earbuds. To me it’s a little like the old Pepsi Challenge. The Vader Pro arrived with all the switches turned on, which is the “juiciest” and bassiest presentation available, on the version that is already bassier.
It’s like a hyper-color overly saturated photo.
I think this is a winning strategy to impress on that first impression, but I wonder if that style might get fatiguing over time. It’s sweeter for a sip, but is that the cola you want to drink a WHOLE bottle?
I turned all the switches off, and I really liked the change. These differences aren’t as dramatic per switch as previous “tunables” I’ve test driven, but with all four, the representation is noticeably different. These already attack with a strong bass response, and I’m not particularly a skull rumbler bass head.
It’s a playful, punchy, and dynamic consumer friendly sound.
We’re focused on lows, because that’s why this flavor exists. There’s a fun clarity to attacks, and then there’s PLENTY of decay and rumble down into the range you’ll feel more than you might actually hear. Even activating the bass switches, this is one of the better solutions I’ve heard from KZ, reigning in what might have been a sloppy or dull mess. We have two other drivers to help define audio in the mids and highs. Isolating the lows on a single driver works well here.
What was a bit confusing, KZ lists a frequency response on the back of the box of 20Hz to 40,000Hz. The website though lists a frequency response down to 5Hz, and that makes more sense. In something like ‘Lullaby’ by A Perfect Circle, the rumble never ceases between phrases. The sub bass sustains. I’m pleased that for a product in this price range, the lows will vibrate you, but even with the bass enhanced, it manages to avoid outright sloppiness.
The fun thing about multi-driver, we can hype specific parts of the EQ, but this is where the Vader Pro can sometimes lose control. I’m a mids junky, and I love hearing a punchy and articulate headphone. I prefer the sound of planar cans, which are know for an exaggerated presentation of mids and “articulated detail”.
Vader Pro avoids the more cloying aspects of “deep V” tuning, but mids and highs exaggerate in ways that might get uncomfortable for some listeners.
Specifically, a rim click or cross stick can stand out, and depending on the mix, can sometimes induce blinking. This is exacerbated by flicking on the “3” switch, and the highlights there get aggressive. Highs, like in ‘WTF’ by OK GO, can start to sound piercing, but rounding that out with a 1+3 switch can sound really fun. Especially on electronica, and you know you’re trying to push a hyped sound.
At once, I can praise these that there literally is room to position instruments across multiple drivers, but depending on a mix, and lifting a switch or two, that presentation can sound artificial.
Flipping all four switches delivers a boosted sound that reminds me of the effect you’d get from old “HTC BoomSound” style filtering. It’s the same general shape, but MORE of that shape. It’s tough to describe. I’d have thought “turning everything up” would kind of just deliver the same general sound, but these tunable earbuds manage to find a different color and novelty when you jump to “BOOST MODE”.
Isolation with the foam ear tips was better than average, but I wouldn’t quite put these near the IEMs I use for location audio. You’re not completely separated from your environment, but they go a long way towards reducing distractions around you.
For being closed up and moderately isolating, I appreciate a respectably wide sound stage. This won’t compare at ALL to some good open cans. On my ears, it’s a front facing, but “half sphere” kind of positioning. That’s a nice effect considering the price. I don’t feel like my head is in a vice, or that the majority of a mix is stabbing me between the eyes. I can “feel” instruments to the sides with some verticality to more technical stereo mixes.
This is such a fun buy…
With “bass enhanced” tuning, of course I would not recommend these for professional applications, but I wonder if the slightly leaner tuning on the “standard” version might work for recording. I think there’s too much color on a lot of these KZ buds to use for mixing or mastering, but there’s something interesting about the idea of using these on field recordings. I could plug them into the mini wireless microphones and receivers I shoot with now, and hear interview audio really well.
It’s completely unreasonable to judge a $30 earbud against premium or professional audio solutions, but that’s how much potential this hardware demonstrates. The Vader Pro can sometimes land a bit cloying, sometimes these sections are exaggerated or fatiguing, but it’s not difficult to also soften some of the edges on this presentation. Flip the switches down, or maybe stick to just the +1, and then dial in a few EQ adjustments on your DAC or in a music app, and we can make this more comfortable without sacrificing much articulation.
This sounds really geeky and technical and “audiophile”, but this is a $30 earbud that can hang in a more technical or audiophile conversation.
They are not flat. They are not “accurate” in that way we recording nerds might value, but they are really fun. I think the Vader Pro can win a lot of “Pepsi Challenge” comparisons against more expensive solutions.
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KZ Vader Pro on Amazon https://amzn.to/46QwtQW