BLON BL01 Listening Impressions and Mini Review
Summary
At under $30, the BLON BL01 offers a premium build, good comfort and a sound that delivers wonderfully natural timbre, great soundstage and decent detail. The tonal balance features a mid-bass elevation and some extra high treble energy that conspire to push vocals a bit too far back for my taste, bass lacking a little depth and percussion coming across as a little soft.
I find the BL01 it suitable for casual listening at lower volumes where decreased bass and treble hearing sensitivity flattens out the tonality, very enjoyable for more critical listening with purely instrumental acoustic jazz and classical recordings, as well as older recordings in general, but slightly disappointing with vocal centric music or anything that depends on impactful sub-bass.
Note - The BL01 requires more tip rolling than usual to find an agreeable signature. I usually wear large tips to ensure a perfect seal, but due to the BLON’s elevated bass I settled on some medium tips from the Sony MH755, which seal well enough to maintain bass but keep it under check.
Recommendation
The BL01 is far better executed than something like my old KZ ZST, its timbre and soundstage actually top my Moondrop Starfield, on the right material it can sound excellent and with EQ it can sound generally excellent. So for IEM enthusiasts, I’d say it’s definitely worth a try. However, for anyone looking for a single all-rounder IEM on a budget and who doesn’t want to EQ, I’d steer people more in the direction of the QKZ VK4, which while less detailed and not staging quite as well as the BL01, has a more agreeable tuning that works with anything you throw at it.
Music Impressions
The BL01 really shines on something like the Mono version of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” from Kind of Blue. This is the kind of music I listen to just to relax and let my thoughts melt away. The BLON delivers a warm and enveloping performance, with the horns and piano sounding as correct as I’ve heard them, the double bass providing a nice foundation to the song, and the the ride cymbal sparkling just enough. Although very smooth, it’s not smoothed over and I’m not left wanting for detail. I’d go so far as to say that the stock tuning works better on this than any of my attempts at EQ, perhaps because these older recordings tend to be a bit light on both bass and treble.
Staying on old material, Ella Fitzgeral and Louis Armstrong sound wonderful on “Stars Fell on Alabama”. The vocals on these older recordings can sometimes become shouty, but the BL01 keeps them in check and adds a nice bass foundation, and the soundstage really sucks me in.
The BL01 does similarly well with classical music, especially simpler stuff like Bach’s Cello Suites as played by Yo Yo Ma. Again timbre is spot on, there’s no harshness in the treble and it lets me just relax and enjoy.
Switching to something like Sonia Dada’s “Lester’s Methadone Clinic” from A Day at the Beach, we get to hear a largish modern ensemble with multiple vocalists, piano, amplified bass, electric guitars, and diverse percussion. Again timbre is great. The BL01 projects a pleasing soundstage with pretty precise imaging, the various vocalists and instruments occupying clearly defined positions in a cohesive and contiguous sound field that’s not particularly wide but actually provides some sense of depth, and that projects the center image a bit towards the front rather than right between my ears.
At the same time, this song starts to expose some of the BLON’s weaknesses. The bass vocalist in the left channel dominates the tenor in the center, which also falls noticeably behind the instrumentation. The vocals don’t get buried in the mix, but they don’t pop out as they should and vocal lovers may be disappointed. I also noticed the song feeling less energetic than I expected, and the percussion sounds a bit splashy and soft.
“Caravan” from the Whiplash soundtrack reveals the BLON’s flaws in representing percussion. Everything sounds a bit soft and a little too even keeled, with kick drum lacking some punch and cymbals sounding too splashy and lacking sharpness. The horn section and piano sound great, but this song is all about the drums and rhythm, and I’m left feeling kinda flat.
“Bardo” by Go Go Penguin reveals the sub-bass shortcomings. The double bass is heard but not felt, missing rumble and impact. When I saw them live, the sub-bass pressure made my chest feel like it was going to implode and knock me over. IEMs can’t reproduce this physical sensation, but good ones give a hint of that sub bass pressure… the BL01 does not. There is an upside though. The pressure from more sub-bass focused IEMs can become uncomfortable over time, which is not a problem here.
Movies and TV
Recently, I’ve found that TV and movies make for great test material, as they’re usually very carefully mixed and combine a wide range of sounds from vocals to environmental sounds and sound effects. The show Supernatural is very much a dialog driven show punctuated by periods of intense action and mixing in a generous amount of environmental sounds. It really exposes the flaws in the BL01’s tuning. Environmental sounds are not just clearly audible, but almost distracting, and if I turn up the volume enough to clearly hear all of the dialog, when the action picks up it becomes too loud.
Performance Categories
Bass
Mid-bass focused and quite elevated, but without sounding bloated or muddy. This bass is more heard than felt and doesn’t reach particularly deep. It’s well suited to acoustic music that’s not bass oriented, contributing to the BLON’s great timbre, but on genres like metal or electronic music it’s insufficiently visceral to convey the power of the music.
Mids
Slightly warm, extremely natural timbre and well detailed, but tending to emphasize instruments over vocals. Individual instruments sound right, and individual low and high vocal parts sound right, it’s just that their balance relative to each other isn’t true to the mix. Can be distracting.
Treble
Well extended and airy, very detailed for this price point, a little bright but not sibilant. My ears detect a peak at around 11KHz that mars an otherwise good treble, making cymbals sound overly splashy and pianos a touch too bright.
Soundstage and Imaging
Really good! Not very wide, but deeper than I’m used to with center image that actually projects a little in front, and no noticeable gaps in the stage.
Comparisons
QKZ VK4
The VK4 costs about half as much as the BL01 and features a cheap plastic build quality that’s commensurate with the price. Still, it’s comfortable and I don’t expect it to fall apart or anything. The VK4 loses to the BL01 on timbre and treble extension, has a less impressive (though decent) soundstage, and it suffers from a treble peak around 8KHz that flirts with becoming sibilant. The VK4 wins on sub-bass extension and more balanced tonality that lets vocals take their proper place. Whereas the BL01 sounds great on some songs and mediocre on others, the VK4 never sounds as as great but always sounds pretty good. Supernatural sounds well balanced and correct, and very enjoyable.
Moondrop Starfield
The Starfield costs four times as much as the BL01. Its build quality is basically equivalent, though it sports a paint job that’s been known to chip. It’s also comfortable. The Starfield has a very well rounded tonal balance that’s as versatile as the VK4 and even less offensive thanks to its rolled off treble. It’s also got very well tuned bass that’s never intrusive but there when the material calls for it. Unfortunately the Starfield’s timbre doesn’t do it for me, with a somewhat oversharpened/digital edge that comes from an upper mids emphasis which pushes it in the direction of bandwidth-limited telephone sound. The Starfield’s soundstage also doesn’t do much for me, perhaps because of what I perceive as missing treble air. Though I don’t have the best ear for detail, I honestly find the BL01 more detailed than the Starfield too.
EQ
I haven’t spent a ton of time EQ’ing the BL01, but I find that the below settings fix the tonal balance, sub-bass and treble issues for me. The BLON still sounds like a BLON, but with better energy and crispness, and better vocal balance. The cool thing about this is that I haven’t felt the need to mess around with upper mids/lower treble, which can be the hardest area to get right.
