Brainwavz B100 Review: Balanced Armature Earphones
Brainwavz launched their latest B-series earphones B100 & B150 in the mid of January 2007 in India, I hope you remember our coverage of Brainwavz B-series earphones, which we posted just after their entered the Indian market. The B-series earphones by Brainwavz came with Balanced Armature speaker technology and is known to produce high-grade audiophile quality sound in an affordable price segment. Today we'll be reviewing one of the earphones from Brainwavz B-series, the B100, which are the low-priced earphone among others in the B-series. The Brainwavz B100 is priced at Rs.4199 in India, the price does not look cheap at all but according to Brainwavz, these are the most affordable & reasonably priced Balanced Armature technology earphones in the country.
We covered a wide-variety of Brainwavz products on this blog in the past, we reviewed quite a few different Brainwavz earphones which include biggies like Brainwavz M3, BLU-200 & M2, you can take a look at them here. We've been testing Brainwavz B100 for a week now, during this period, we used B100 for hours each day and made them go through different tests, in order to obtain data for this review. Below is the testing procedure we use for reviewing earphones & headphones.
Testing Procedure: To ensure that I can test the earphones on their uppermost limit, I used high-quality audio files & Lossless formats. For MP3's, I used 320KBPS files and for Lossless formats, I used FLAC & WAV files. To squeeze out the best performance out of them, I used custom equalizer settings & tweaked them throughout to test their extreme capability. For mobile listening, I used custom music player (Poweramp) to get more control over the output & to boost the performance. On Laptop, I used iTunes music player & VLC player. Throughout, I used high-quality music files and also tested them on different phones.
Unboxing
Brainwavz B100 comes in a fancy rectangular box with a simple design, the Brainwavz logo is present on the top-left section of the box, the center contains a large B100 logo which is shiny and slightly bumped out. The box comes with identical front-back & side design, on opening the box, you'll find an elongated hard carry case and nothing else. The carry-case is similar to the one which comes with other Brainwavz earphones, the only difference is that this one is longer & narrower. When you open the carry-case, you'll find the Brainwavz B100 earphones along with accessories. Below is the unboxing video, you can take a look at it and while you do that, please subscribe to the channel.
To sum it up, the Brainwavz B100 came with a Hard carrying case for storing the earphones, a warranty card cum user manual, 6 pairs of Silicone ear tips in Small, Medium and Large sizes, a pair of Comply Foam Tips T-100 Medium, a shirt clip and finally the earphones wrapped up in a velcro belt. Brainwavz was once again kind enough to provide a pair of Comply foam tips, the foam tips come with memory foam, which takes the shape of your ear canal & delivers better noise isolation.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications of Brainwavz B100 as mentioned on the retail box & the manufacturer website.
- Single Balanced Armature Drivers
- Frequency Range of 15 Hz ~ 22 kHz
- Rated Impedance of 50 Ω
- 110 dB at 1 mW Sensitivity
- 1.3 Meters Y-Cord
- Comfortable Over-The-Ear Design
- Oxygen Free Copper Cable
- Gold Plated 3.5 mm Audio Jack
Design & Build Quality & Comfort
Brainwavz B100 comes with an Over-the-ear design with cable hooks, which are designed to stay on your ears without causing any discomfort. There is no microphone or remote, the Y section of the cable contains a 'cable shortener' which easily moves up & down, shortening the cable, whenever required. The drivers are made up of glossy plastic, there is no branding on the drivers, except for 'L' and 'R' labeling on either side. Even though its plastic construction, the materials used are of good quality. The overall cable is made up of plastic, slightly twisted and seems pretty durable. Brainwavz used oxygen-free copper cable for the B100, the cable feels premium and is also good at preventing tangles. The overall length of the cable is 1.3 meters or 4 feet 3 inches roughly, which is long enough for running or other activities, the over-the-ear design helps the earphones stay in your ears when running, jogging or performing any other activity, this makes B100 perfect for sports.
I was a bit disappointed when I found that there was no microphone & remote, as that would've been helpful for runners & sportspeople, also looking at the price of these earphones, the lack of microphone does hurt a bit. Moving forward, Brainwavz has always been generous when it comes to accessories, the B100 comes with six different sized ear tips pairs and a pair of Comply foam tips, along with a shirt clip and a hard case. The B100 earphones are really comfortable, even when using for long hours. Some people who are new to over-the-ear design might experience slight discomfort when using it for longer periods, but once you get used to them, that won't be a problem.
Brainwavz B100 comes with an Over-the-ear design with cable hooks, which are designed to stay on your ears without causing any discomfort. There is no microphone or remote, the Y section of the cable contains a 'cable shortener' which easily moves up & down, shortening the cable, whenever required. The drivers are made up of glossy plastic, there is no branding on the drivers, except for 'L' and 'R' labeling on either side. Even though its plastic construction, the materials used are of good quality. The overall cable is made up of plastic, slightly twisted and seems pretty durable. Brainwavz used oxygen-free copper cable for the B100, the cable feels premium and is also good at preventing tangles. The overall length of the cable is 1.3 meters or 4 feet 3 inches roughly, which is long enough for running or other activities, the over-the-ear design helps the earphones stay in your ears when running, jogging or performing any other activity, this makes B100 perfect for sports.
I was a bit disappointed when I found that there was no microphone & remote, as that would've been helpful for runners & sportspeople, also looking at the price of these earphones, the lack of microphone does hurt a bit. Moving forward, Brainwavz has always been generous when it comes to accessories, the B100 comes with six different sized ear tips pairs and a pair of Comply foam tips, along with a shirt clip and a hard case. The B100 earphones are really comfortable, even when using for long hours. Some people who are new to over-the-ear design might experience slight discomfort when using it for longer periods, but once you get used to them, that won't be a problem.
Audio Quality
The earphones which I tested & reviewed before these ones (Creative Aurvana In-Ear 2 Plus) were also equipped with Balanced Armature drivers and were decent in terms of sound quality, I was expecting a lot from Brainwavz B100 since I had heard a lot about them in the past few weeks and was hoping that they turn out to be something I can boast of. But when I plugged them to the audio source, they surprised me.
The B100's were pretty good, the sound coming out of them was quite detailed, crisp and clear. The B100's lean more towards the mids & treble, as compared to the bass, that's quite the same story with most of the Balanced Armature earphones these days. The mids were terrific if I have to say it in one word, not perfect but pretty good. The highs or treble was again impressive. The highs & the mids were clearly distinguishable but on higher volumes, the treble used to get quite sharp. The bass was present, it wasn't very boomy or overpowering, it was clear & pronounced. The soundstage was quite good, the classic rock song Back in Black by AC/DC sounded amazing on these earphones, Sweet Child O' Mine was another pleasantry, from the iconic intro guitar riff, light chord strums during the verse, powerful chorus & pre-solo sections to the main classic guitar solo, everything sounded amazingly clear & distinct. We played different music genres and got satisfactory output, except for bass heavy music genres. The bass is decent but not at all heavy so bass lovers might not like these earphones. Overall I was happy with the performance of Brainwavz B100 earphones, they really are impressive as an entry level Balanced Armature earphone.
The earphones which I tested & reviewed before these ones (Creative Aurvana In-Ear 2 Plus) were also equipped with Balanced Armature drivers and were decent in terms of sound quality, I was expecting a lot from Brainwavz B100 since I had heard a lot about them in the past few weeks and was hoping that they turn out to be something I can boast of. But when I plugged them to the audio source, they surprised me.
The B100's were pretty good, the sound coming out of them was quite detailed, crisp and clear. The B100's lean more towards the mids & treble, as compared to the bass, that's quite the same story with most of the Balanced Armature earphones these days. The mids were terrific if I have to say it in one word, not perfect but pretty good. The highs or treble was again impressive. The highs & the mids were clearly distinguishable but on higher volumes, the treble used to get quite sharp. The bass was present, it wasn't very boomy or overpowering, it was clear & pronounced. The soundstage was quite good, the classic rock song Back in Black by AC/DC sounded amazing on these earphones, Sweet Child O' Mine was another pleasantry, from the iconic intro guitar riff, light chord strums during the verse, powerful chorus & pre-solo sections to the main classic guitar solo, everything sounded amazingly clear & distinct. We played different music genres and got satisfactory output, except for bass heavy music genres. The bass is decent but not at all heavy so bass lovers might not like these earphones. Overall I was happy with the performance of Brainwavz B100 earphones, they really are impressive as an entry level Balanced Armature earphone.
Warranty Information & Price
Brainwavz B100 earphones carry 24 months warranty, which is two years, so make sure that you keep the invoice & warranty card safe so that you can redeem it when required.
Brainwavz B100 are Priced at Rs.4,100
Available for purchase at Amazon India.
Verdict
So coming to the conclusion, Brainwavz B100 is again an amazing product from the brand, Its good to see that Brainwavz is offering Balanced Armature earphones at such aan affordable price, I personally liked B100 because of the comfortable fit, no matter what activities I participated in, the earphones never came off my ears, they stayed there. The cable of B100 looks rugged but seems like a normal cable, it has slightly twisted design and feels quite durable. I would suggest experimenting with silicone ear tips sizes to see which one fits you perfectly and seals your ear canals completely, this will help in achieving better noise isolation, the package also contains a pair of Comply foam tips which come with memory foam and takes the shape of your ear canal, they're really good at noise isolation.
My Rating: 4 Out of 5
Brainwavz B100 earphones are decent when it comes to audio quality. The mids and treble is really good on these, the bass is just average, but present, you can spike it up a bit by tweaking the equalizer, I recommend using Power amp or similar music player app, as you have a number of options for tweaking the audio, by doing that I was able to improve the bass output on B100 earphones. Anyways the audio quality of B100 was satisfactory to me, I'll recommend these to people who are into classic rock, pop, blues, jazz etc. the classic guitar riffs were a pleasure to listen on B100's, same goes for blues and modern pop songs. Bollywood songs also sounded great on B100 earphones, however songs with more lows or bass sounded average but controlled, tweaking the equalizer setting did improve it a bit. So I hope this review was helpful, please share it with friends using the buttons given below, see you until next time.
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