David Frangioni, Ed Cherny, Tony Maserati, Frank Filipetti, and Noel Lee

Ben handled the setup for this article HERE. So I’m just going to add my first impression of the Turbine Pro Copper Earbuds.

As Ben mentioned, the Copper Turbine Earbuds are aimed at audio professionals while the Gold are more pro-sumer or audiophile.

Here are some first thoughts:

• No hype.  The first thing I noticed was the total lack of exaggerate Bass or Treble.  It might seem “less present” than some other earbuds or headphones, but the reality is, most consumer headphones boost the low and hi ends creating this hyped up sound. Unfortunately what usually seems to suffer for this is mid-range clarity.
• Much much lower noise floor than cheapie ear buds.  I got a chance throw in my ten dollar Skull candy ear buds and compare.  I’m tempted now to toss the Skull Candy buds and upgrade – the noise floor was at least 10dB louder.
• Last Transient and Sustain definition seemed crisp and clear.  The real caveat here is that I’m comparing that to cheap earbuds that I’ve never really listened critically too before.

Long story short, they’re really much nicer earbuds than anything I’ve used before – and I’ve used shure, sennheiser and m-audio earbuds before.  However I haven’t really gotten to compare these in depth, which is what is really required to tell if I’d use these in a reference situation.

The announcement of the Turbine Pro Earbuds was accompanied by a panel of Audio Industry movers and shakers including Tony Maserati, Frank Filipetti, Ed Cherny, and David Frangioni.  They gave their general impressions of the Turbine Earbuds – all of them impressed with the sound.  But then I also went on to discuss ways in which we music industry might be able to encourage the average consumer to listen to higher-fi audio.  I’ll spare you most of the details, but they made one REALLY great point.

So many people listen to headphones so often – it’s almost become it’s own delivery format.  So it makes sense for audio professionals to at least reference mixes and tracks on earbuds and headphones of some sort, if only to get into your audience’s head.  But in order to make real mix decisions we’ll need a better generation of earbuds and headphones.  Hopefully the Turbine Pro Earbuds are a sign of good things to come.

AES 2009: Monster Turbine Pro Impressions Part 1

Oh, and here’s a short clip of Noel Lee introducing  the Turbine Pro Earbuds to the Press.

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