Monoprice 8323 Premium Hi-Fi DJ Style Over-The-Ear Pro Headphones Review

Introduction

So.. Monoprice, purveyors of cheap but great cables and adapters have a set of cheap headphones with the words "premium" and "pro" in the name.  Hmm.

I was in the market for some cheap-ish cans to leave in my work backpack. Ideally something closed-back, with enough isolation to politely ignore my colleagues in the break room whilst enjoying my music.  My main cans are an old set of Sennheiser HD 595s. They have a hard-wired cable and I doubt they'd last long bouncing around in a backpack, not to mention they need a little bit more power than an iPhone can provide to sound good.

My first instinct (or hope) was to buy some used pro cans cheap (Senn Momentums, Grados, AKG K550s and Senn 598s were on the list). Several failed eBay bids later and I ended up looking for a retail option (I'm impatient).

Trawling online for suggestions, I stumbled upon this page.

It listed a bunch of cans I was already looking at but there, nestled amongst the $300+ suggestions, were the Monoprice 8323's.  Price?  $22.

Yes, $22.

So I bought them!

Packaging

I'll keep this section brief:  box looks the part but feels a little bit cheap.  What do I expect for $22?  I pretty much expected a plain brown box, so this was a nice touch.

The cans are held safe and snug within a molded card cutout within the box, as is the 1/4" adapter.  The cables are loose underneath the main compartment.

Accessories

The 8323's come with 2 cables and an adapter.  Both cables terminate in straight 3.5mm stereo jacks.

The thicker of the two cables is about 11.5ft long and apparently intended for "home" use.  The jacks are too thick to use with my iPhone within its Tech21 case.

The thinner cable is also a lot shorter, being a tad over 4ft.  It's an odd length but is pretty much spot on for leading to a  device in your pocket whilst also being long enough to reach a device set on your desk and allow some lean-back in your chair.  Its 3.5mm jacks are skinny enough for the Tech21 case.  Nice.

Monoprice also provide a 3.5mm to 1/4" adapter, for plugging into an amp. It's relatively compact and gold plated, as are the other connectors..

Full marks for the accessories; I'd probably expect to pay around $20 just for the cables and adapter.

Build Quality & Specs

Ok, let's get the specs out of the way.

Driver Unit	50 mm
Impedance	40 ohms
Sensitivity	100 +/- 3 dB / 1mW (S.P. L at 1 k Hz)
Frequency Response	20 Hz to 20 kHz

Drivers are a decent size and with the closed back design, there's a lot of warmth to the sound. The Freq response is interesting.. in use, these seem to go a lot lower than the Senn 595s, when on paper it should be the reverse..

Build quality is also interesting.  At first grab, I felt they were a bit plasticky and cheap.  The DJ-style rotating cups then confused matters by spinning around unpredictably and slapping me in the face when I removed them.  Yes, I am a clumsy idiot.

Once I familiarized myself with how the cups move, and didn't just yank them forward off my head like I do with my Senns, I reappraised them: not bad. They fold up nicely, don't feel loose, and rotate smoothly.

The cable is detachable from the left cup.  On such a cheap product, this is unexpected and a great feature.

I have rather rose-tinted views on my Senns.  Critically looking at the build, they're solid enough but the mechanisms to rotate the cups make them flexible and a bit flimsy.

I honestly feel like it'd be easier to break the Senns than the 8323s.

Cushions barely cover my ears but it's on the right side of comfortable.  The material is some kind of "pleather".  The cups aren't very deep but my ears don't seem to be squished against anything.

The headband applies a bit of pressure but just enough to keep the cups sealed.  It's not a skull crusher.

Aesthetically, it's black plastic everywhere.  The cups have Monoprice written on them.  They look functional, not flashy.

Build quality is way better than it has any right to be at this price.

Sound Quality

Ah.  The big one.

Currently A-B-ing it against my Senn 595s (using the headphone outs on my LS56) and can honestly say the Senn's are not worth 10x the price.

The Senn's have a much flatter response and truer reproduction that borders on blandness.  It's more refined, for sure, but it lacks "oomph".

The Monoprice 8323's are warmer and hype the bass just a little and it makes them more fun to listen to.  My only concern is getting ear fatigue, since everything seems pretty full-on.  They're aggressive, but it seems to mostly work in their favour.

I really, really, enjoy listening to rock music on these.  Bass drums thump more without being mushy.

A track I keep coming back to is Portishead's "Roads".  It has a shitload of bass from the organ, which juxtaposes against the haunting, frail vocals.  There's an airiness to the vocals that really stands out.  The track sounds great on these cans.

Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" positively throbs.  It threatens to overwhelm the mix but you can still hear the clean guitar parts chiming.  But it hints at a limitation on these headphones..

Getting a bit heavier, Coheed and Cambria's "Welcome Home" starts well with the picked intro but some detail is lost amongst the thick distorted guitars when it kicks in.  Switching back to the Senns is jarring (much less bass) but there is high frequency detail that the 8323s are missing.

Heavier still, Killswitch Engage's "My Curse" has some gut wrenching lows and screaming vocals.  The top end is definitely being tamed by the warmth of the 8323s.  I listened to this track on my KRKs just for reference and it should definitely sound more "open".

Scaling things back a bit to classic rock, Thin Lizzy's "China Town", things improve a lot.  Crunchy or mildly distorted guitars seem to benefit more from the tonality of these cans.  The bass throbs, the kick drum can be felt, but the other elements in the track can be clearly heard.

Jumping genres entirely, Prodigy's "Fat of the Land" album makes for interesting listening.  There's not much low end distortion on the tracks, so the top end doesn't suffer as much. The low end itself is intense and aggressive.  "Climbatize" is a great example of throbbing lows and articulate highs.

When jumping between the Monoprice 8323s and the Sennheiser HD 595s, I'm repeatedly taken aback by how little bass there is on the Senns.  It's got me thinking some better at-home headphones might be needed, or else some EQ-ing..

Pricing

They're $22.  With shipping and tax they came to around $31 direct from Monoprice.  Same as Apple's EarPods.

 I can't name a single other set of cans in this price range worth mentioning.

Conclusion

These are amazing value for money.

In terms of performance, I'd rank them equal to the Beats Solos.  Not hating on the Beats, it's just that they are typically used with mobile devices and are a good comparison to make, especially given the hyped bass.

Up to, and including, hard rock, the Monoprice 8323s are perfectly capable.  Depending on the mix, heavier genres are fine too but the thicker the distortion, the more likely you'll lose top end definition.  Death metal lovers may want to look elsewhere.

There's no way I would try to mix anything using these headphones, yet there's a lot of music I'd be very happy to listen to on them.

They'll be going in my backpack and becoming my daily headphones.

And I now want to find replacements for my Sennheiser HD 595s, as these cheap little cans have put things in perspective.

Got me some fancy speakers... KRK Rokit 8 G2 Review

Introduction

Dominating my desktop space are the KRK Rokit 8 G2 studio monitors.


After years of listening to my uber-cheap and cheerful Logitech 2.1s and relying on my trusty Sennheiser HD 595s for infrequent mixing, I decided it was time to upgrade.

In a big way.  Literally; these things are huge, sonically and physically.

Installation

At 15" high and 11" wide, make sure you have room for them in your setup.  Wall brackets may not be suitable here due to weight (26lbs!) and depth.

The VideoSecu Side Clamping Speaker Brackets (MS56B) I sourced were not appropriate, despite on paper meeting all requirements.  The L-bracket, mounted to wall studs, was solid as a rock. They're rated to 33lbs and I believe it.  Sadly, the rotating mount lacked sufficient depth to safely hold a speaker while allowing full rotation or any tilting.  The side clamps flexed slightly, as they were at max extension.

In the end, my wife pointed at my Blackstar speaker stack and asked why I didn't just use that for the left side.  Turns out it was the perfect height!  Feels solid as a rock too.  My Blackstar HT-5 amp head now lives under the desk.

Some old binders form a stand on the right side of my desk for the right speaker.  This side is definitely a temporary solution!  I need to build or procure a stable stand or shelf.

For both, I'll be looking into getting some Auralex MoPADs Monitor Isolation Pads.

$25 for some foam padding seems a bit steep..

Connections

The entire Rokit G2 line has identical connections (which is nice, given other manufacturers' propensity for skimping on lower end models).

You get Unbalanced RCA and Balanced TRS and XLR inputs.

The 2 knobs are for High Frequency adjustment and for Volume.  I've left both at 0db until I can develop my ears and determine if my room acoustics merit tweaking the HF at all.

Your experience with the RCA inputs may vary but I got the most obnoxious hum noise imaginable outputting from my Edirol UA-25 USB audio interface's.  It was so bad that listening to music was unpleasant, never mind using it for mixing.  Oddly, hooking them up to my Pioneer AVR's Zone 2 RCA outputs was fine, so I think it may be specific to the Edirol UA-25.

Regardless, buying a new audio interface was not an option (no matter how much I love getting new gadgets!).

The solution to the hum was twofold:

1. Eliminating ground loop / dirty mains as a cause.
2. Switching to balanced TRS cables.

I was short on outlets anyway, so a new power strip was ordered.  

After some research, the Tripp-Lite Isobar 8 Ultra seemed like a safe bet.  Love the isolated pairs of outlets.  Even with no connections, there had been a very slight mains hum. The Isobar got rid of that entirely.  Additional benefit: built like a tank.

However, it did not resolve the hum coming from the UA-25.

Switching to some cheap Hosa Balanced TRS cables sorted that out.

End result?  Silence when not playing audio.  I have to get within 6" to hear the faintest of noise from the tweeters.  Chuffed.

Audio Performance

Confession: I'm not a sound engineer.

My ears work and I have a feel for what sounds good but I am not trained in any way.  I've read that KRK speakers tend to have a slightly emphasized mid range (in a pleasing way), which may need to be factored into your mixes.

Listening to tracks I'm familiar with, I'm hearing more detail than I previously realized existed.  Parts of the song that before seemed buried now jumped out at me.

Bass is present and defined without dominating.  You feel like you should be able to feel it but don't (does that even make sense?).  Bass lines in rock songs that have complex mixes can now be heard.

I like a pretty wide range of music, including some fairly heavy rock and metal.  Playing Slipknot's Duality, I was blown away by how tight and defined everything was.  Same with my favorite Killswitch Engage tracks (My Last Serenade, and My Curse).  Mars Volta have some crazy mixes but all the pieces could be heard and picked out.

KRK make a 10" subwoofer that I'd been thinking of getting (eventually; at $400, it's way outside my budget!).  It's something I'll be putting on the back burner, given how great bass sounds with just the speakers.

Pricing

KRK have recently released the G3 versions of their Rokit line, so bargains are to be had; I snatched these up for $165 each, and that price has since dropped to $156 (seems like Alto Music and Amazon are trying to undercut each other).

Now, $165 may seem like a lot to pay per speaker but the Rokit 8 G3 models are coming out at $249.  For what they are, it's a tremendous saving.

Conclusion

For the price of a pair of KRK Rokit 6 speakers (or a single Yamaha HS80M) you can now get a pair of KRK Rokit 8 speakers, with all the sonic benefits that brings.

If you have the room and these fall within your budget, you need to try these out.