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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a look at really kind of more of
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a brand review in that I've got a number of different products here that I'm going to
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just kind of quickly highlight and do little mini reviews of as a part of this
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When I was looking at the Brainwaves brand, I wanted to kind of look across the scope
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in that they make a number of different things from better quality studio type monitors
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closed back headphones, which we'll look at in just a second, to inexpensive buds
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And then some other accessories that we'll highlight in just a moment. And so a lot of the time when I'm here doing audio reviews, I've reviewed primarily a lot of Bluetooth products
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A few studio monitor kind of wired headphones in the past, but primarily I've been looking at wireless type options
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And so in some ways I will say that I don't necessarily enjoy going back to wires
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And at the same time, I recognize that, for example, in looking particularly at these HM5s
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that there is still something that is pretty special about a set of headphones
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that is just really designed around audio quality above everything else. And so in a lot of ways, I look at what I've kind of gotten out of the Brainwaves brand is that rather than being about a lot of gimmicky type features, they are instead just about those that really care about sound quality
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And I've been very impressed with that. So let's look at a few things
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I'm going to start maybe on the high end here and look at the HM5
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And so as you can see, presentation is nice, although this is one huge case here, but it even has straps so that you can carry it
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But this is a very nice set of closed-back studio monitor headphones
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And bottom line here is that the audio quality is just great on these
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And I've got a brother-in-law who is an audiophile as well. and I was meeting up with him in a city for lunch one day and I said
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you know what I going to bring a set of headphones I not going to tell you anything about them I just want you to listen to them And he brought along his high audio player with a DAC converter on there And so we
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could really push some flax through there and listen at kind of more of a high-end. And he and
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I were very, very impressed by what we've heard. And so a few things on this. Of course, you've got
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a couple of different sets of cables, which you can attach one shorter, one longer. Of course
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it comes with the adapter to go up to quarter inch if you need that, which is certainly nice
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In the box itself, it comes with a couple of extra cups, pads for you to go on there. And so
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you've got an option of more of a round and more of an oval to get your optimum fit. The actual
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comfort level on these to me is very high. Lots of padding in the places where it should be
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and an amazing amount of sound isolation once you slip them on
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And so while they're not actively noise canceling, this isn't really about electronics, as I've said
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the passive noise isolation is very, very good on these. And, you know, you're not going to have to worry about a lot of bleed out of sound outside either
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And so sound quality is fantastic on these. Another thing that Brainwaves does is they make a lot of, you know, kind of custom ear pads
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and they've got a ton of options. I'll throw a link in the description down below to Amazon
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But, of course, you can dress these up with different looks if you want to go to that
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And so, you know, certainly a lot of, you know, flexibility in how you're going to kit these out
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They even have, you know, custom cables and cords for connecting if you're into all of that
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And so that certainly is a plus when it comes to sound quality. If I could point at any negative, it seems that at a few of these junctures when I was examining them
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that we've got plastic instead of metal. And it just looks to me like maybe there's a few weak points in terms of the actual build itself
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They do come with a two-year, 24-month warranty. So if something happens, at least you have a longer than average warranty period
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But if I'm going to point to anything that I consider a weakness in this, It is that there are a few kind of points of vulnerability I would say Another thing that Brainwave sells is these headphone hangers to help you in storing And I don really have this fully clamped down here because I have it It actually
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at the fitting for my desk, but I found this to be a convenient way to have a pair of studio
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monitors handy out of the way. And it's designed in such a way that you have, you can actually
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you can control the angle that you mount it at. And so you could actually be mounted
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say if you're putting it on the side of a shelf, you could mount it in that way. And then also you
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can mount it as I've just had it demonstrated where it is mounted to the side of a desk. And
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it just gives you a convenient place to store a bulkier set of studio monitors like that
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as opposed to the box here. So these run a little under over a hundred bucks on Amazon. I'll throw
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a link in the description down below. And so, you know, if you're looking just for, you know
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a pair of closed back, great sounding headphones. These have great sound quality
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Down on the other end of the spectrum is we have these Brainwaves Delta, and these are wired earbuds
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Once again, a very nice case, high grade there, and a number of different storage tips
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Now, these are pretty inexpensive headphones. You can get these for under $30, but one thing
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that stood out to me is that despite them being, you know, cheaper, they came, you know, complete
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with some comply, you know, premium memory foam tips that I immediately fitted them on. And it
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makes a huge difference in terms of the sound isolation and, you know, bump the sound quality
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up even higher for me. And also I like the fit better because of that. And so once again, these
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are, you know, there's not a whole lot of bells and whistles here. There is an inline control for
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volume, you know, play, pause, you know, track advance, and it does have a microphone built into
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it. But, you know, beyond that, this is pretty much what you might expect a pair of wired headphones
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to be like. It's just the sound quality is very good still and, you know, at a very reasonable
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price point. I did note looking through user reviews, I haven't encountered this myself
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But I not necessarily used it in the situations that people described in that there are some people that said they had some issues maybe out running with the headphones and volume control sometimes just static electricity actually causing them to inadvertently
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start to turn the volume down. As I said, I haven't experienced that, but there were several people
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in user reviews that did complain of that issue. So something that you might want to watch for
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But again, if you're looking for just a straightforward pair of wired headphones
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that has the important features. That sound isolation, they're not active. Again, it's passive, but the sound isolation is extremely good
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I mean, good enough that if I put them on, like I test sometimes around my family and frustrate people
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because they're trying to get my attention, but the sound isolation is really, really good
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particularly if you have those comply tips in there. And I also found that going to the comply memory foam tips
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I found I got a little more low end out of the headphones to where the frequency response across the frame was better to me with that
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And so a pair of very good sounding, reasonably priced earbuds, maybe for taking on the plane, you don't want to worry about a Bluetooth connection
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or you're commuting and you just want something to where you're going to get good sound quality
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and good noise isolation, certainly worth taking a look at. And so some pros and cons here across the board
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I like the ability to kind of customize and replace things on studio monitors
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Sound quality on these, I love. They sound fantastic. And frankly, I can't remember hearing a better sounding pair of headphones than what I've
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seen in these. And I'm not necessarily enjoying going back to wired buds after having a number of really
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good Bluetooth buds available to me. But if you're looking for a good set of just wired buds, they're certainly worth considering at that kind of price point
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I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you look in the description below, you can find some linkage to the Brainwave site
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and then also to some Amazon stores where you can purchase some of these items if you're interested in checking them out for yourself
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As always, you can follow me there on social media, and if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button
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Thanks for watching. Have a great day
