iBasso Audio SR1 Review

SR1

$499

8.7

Sound Signature

8.2/10

Build Quality/Design/Accessories

8.8/10

Value

9.0/10

Pros

• Great Value, Removable Cables, Quality Leather Headband
• Excellent design style and build quality, light weight
• Powerful warm open natural sound signature

Cons

• Limited availability might make these hard to get
• Cable screw jack for 3.5 will protrude from source and cannot be flush
• Source dependent, Stock earpads congest signature but easy fix with perforate pads

Build Quality/Design/Ergonomics

The design of the SR1 headphone is very impressive in our view, the style  somehow marrying a retro with a futuristic industrial style.

Having a solid build quality with the majority of structure components made out of metal, surprisingly these are relatively light in terms of weight, so are comfortable to wear either indoors or on the go.

The matt silver style nested shell frame circles coupled with the black vent cups and frame are quite contrasting with an industrial elegance.

To suite all sizes the quality Minerva Tuscan leather headband has a great finish and has ‘iBasso Audio’ sunken in print on it.

Adjusting the headband is easy and good comfort can be achieved easily. The clamp force is sufficient to ensure these staying securely in place.

There is a small angle of axis rotation that is present on the cups and this helps for a more customised fit and assists with comfort during head movement.

Stock supplied cable is interesting and is 3.5mm Single Ended with and ingenious screw adaptor that can convert it to 6.5mm jack.

This is convenient for switching input sizes but bear in mind that when using the 3.5 mm connector it will not be flush against your source as the screw part will protrude from your player by around 3mm.

The connects still remain secure and this did not cause any issues for us. Also to help avoid strain issues there is rubber re-enforcement at the base of the cable.

We did experience quite a lot of cable microphonics, a slight flick on the cable shows this effect, this was only really adverse when using on the move.

The cables are removable so you can use a balanced or other preferred upgrade cable of your choice that has MMCX connectors.

Another interesting feature is that the cables are very secure due to the addition of small plastic sections protruding.

So to install these you first click them into the cup entry ports and then rotate them a little, this ensures that they are secure.

To remove them you rotate the opposite direction and pull, if you are unsure which way to rotate them if you look on the bottom metallic circle ring, there is a small cut out rectangle which shows the protruding plastic, if the plastic is not visible you can remove the cable, if it is visible you cannot remove the cable unless you rotate.

There is a metal black inner cup that has holes punched throughout which helps to make this a semi open Headphone.

We noticed that the stock pads effected the sound signature quite a lot and resulted in a more restrictive thick signature, to quickly remedy this you can use perforated pads.

IBasso Audio stock these also along with other well known headphone manufacturers, we recommend using perforated pads as they open up the signature and make it sound more open and effortless sounding.

Considering the price point, the solid build quality, ergonomics, leather headband, removable cables and pads are very good value.

This model is limited to 500 units so I suspect these will sell out very quickly as they are priced very reasonably at $499.