Shure KSE1500 Review – A Revolutionary Approach In Its Class

Shure KSE1500

£2500

8.9

Sound Signature

9.8/10

Build Quality/Design/Functionality

9.0/10

Value

8.0/10

Pros

• New level of reference sound signature for portable audio. Very detailed sound presentation.
• Solid build quality and simple to use with a classic design.
• Micro detail outstanding and excellent dynamic transitioning.

Cons

• Quite large and makes stack a bit bulky.
• Cable a little thick in terms of ergonomics.
• Price out of some people reach but then again this is a revolutionary product,

2 Testing methodology

Below I have outlined the methods I privately use when I am testing new gears for my own collection. It is in no way perfect but I hope it shine some lights on how I came about writing this review.

2.1 Find a set of test track: I have chosen 9 test track of which 6 are I am familiar with and 3 I have not listened to before. The logic for this is to reduce the bias of knowing what I am about to hear. In another word the music that I am familiar with are used for testing how good is the IEM is in reproducing those details I am familiar with of and the philosophy behind unfamiliar music is to see how much detail and information I am about to hear in this new music, they are just random music.

Track list:artist/album/Title:Reason for track selection

• Keith Jarret/The Koln Concert/Part 1: Excellent micro detail, piano note that sound lively and 3D. Very good for testing atmosphere/ambience
• Michael Brook/Coblat Blue/Shona Bridge: Very good for testing mid-bass, treble and overall air between different sound. Can some unbalance with most IEM (overly bass oriented).
• Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble/When Strangers meet/Mongolian Traditional Long Song: A great track to test the for sibilance in human vocal and the 3-6 kHz
• Donald Byrd/Free form/Night flower: Random track
• Coldplay/Parachutes uk edition/Yellow: A highly compressed, that almost most gear present as merely a vocal presented with other noises mashed up together. Few IEM are able to give some air and make this music sound less confused when it comes to inner ear sound.
• Jackson, Hazeltine, Reedus, Gill/Sugar Hill/Things Ain’t What They Used To Be: Random track
• Various/Color of sound/Persimmon: Used for testing ambience, micro details, instrument placement.
• Armin van Buuren/A state of trance 2012/J’ai Envie De Toi: Random track
• Various/Sounds inquiry/Being a person like him: Live piano harmonics, with certain item sound flat and with very few it can sound alive.

2.2 Finding set of IEM:What is the point of a review if you are not going to compare it against its competition but than again I have nothing in the same technology class as the KSE. Despite this I have selected the following gears to to do my review and I have include the reason why I have chosen these IEMs.

1. Kaede II: Imaging, bass decay
2. FAD VI: Euphonic midrange
3. EX-1000: Soundstage/transparency
4. CK100PRO: Bass detail
5. AKT8iE: Bass detail/speed/decay/midrange resolution

2.3 Method: I will perform a direct A/B which has been widely use and supported in loud-speaker research.

2.4 Terminology:To reduce any confusion the audio terminology i will be referring to is the one found on stereophile website prepared by J. Gordon Holt. This terminology has been widely used in this hobby and to reduce any bias I will do my best to use the terms as closely as I can based on that list.  Were I feel I disagree with those definition I will point out my disagreement and reasoning behind it.

3 Sound impression

3.1 Just an idea where I am going with this review; the so called TLDR

If one has the patient to read all the  top of the top of the line(TOTL) IEM reviews it shouldn’t be hard to notice a trend and that trend is the reviews all seem to indicate that in large all TOTL IEM possess a distinct sound signature. For example warm lower-mid (JH audio IEM, including Layla), neutral to warm in the case of Adel A12, even the infamous UERM seems to possess a certain sound characteristic despite of its neutral oriented design mentality.

Rarely do we see the term transparent be use for what it is; in large transparency normally associated with any reproduction of sound that is free from any thing that alters the sound from the original mastering source. Listening to KSE1500 and comparing it with other IEM and to various music made me realise that KSE1500 has no tonality of its own, perhaps if we are to define what a neutral sound can be like from and IEM it is to be based around what KSE1500. To this day the neutral IEM I have listen to sounded either lean or bright. Those who had the luxury to compared the HD800 and SR009 side by side should have an easy time understanding what I mean. To me HD800 is in large a good representative of a neutral analytical and SR009 is the best of what understood a transparent sound is. Sometimes when it comes to SR009 we hear complains that it sound lean, that is perhaps because it does not like to colour the midrange where the bulk of the sound “thickness’ come from.

To me a neutral sounding IEM can make a warmer recording sound neutral whereas the strength of a transparent source is to expose the warmth of the recording as naturally as it can and that is an important distinction I make between this two similar natured terms.

I think it is important to note that KSE1500 transparency will not win anyone over on the first listen, the same way SR009 probably is not going to win anyone over in a direct comparison beside the HD800. On a particular occasion I was testing the HD800, TH900 and SR009, the mentality I had was something like this: well SR009 is out of my price range however it is said to be the ultimate headphone and I must try it where as the TH900 and HD800 are in my budget. I ended up getting the TH900 which is no doubt the more coloured of the three. So in short winning people upon first listen is normally the job that is reserved for coloured IEM.

KSE1500 requires a long listening and those who appreciate the approach of letting the music do the colouring should rather fall for the KSE quickly. Those who also generally like the alter the sound using various EQ setting should be right in home using the PMEQ feature of KSE amp module. In larger the DAC used inside the KSE module did the job. Certainly Chord Mojo did much better than the internal DDAC but have you seen how much messy it gets if you want to go down that path?