Before I get straight into this review, I would like to just
point out that I’ve tried a few Shozy earphones in the past and I’ve yet to
even come out of those experiences even lukewarm excited about them. Nothing
I’ve tried has impressed me. Their last set that I had some significant time on
and reviewed was the Shozy V33, which I really, really did not understand it’s
tuning, nor did I think it was technically capable.
So, when Lillian, from Linsoul, reached out and asked if I was interested
in trying the newest Shozy In-Ear, I was skeptical and not totally convinced.
She sent me a link to a new page her team was making for the Shozy with the
information regarding the new IEM, called Form 1.1, and it started to look a
little more promising. The IEM is a dual-driver hybrid, and features a balanced
armature to handle the mids and treble and also a dynamic driver to handle the
bass and lower mids. What makes this IEM a little more unique is that this
dynamic is a driver coated with a thin layer of beryllium. This type of driver design is also the centerpiece of my recent
ZMF Verité headphone acquisition, and one I am quite fond of.
Beryllium drivers have recently made some appearances in a
few headphones and IEMs – namely the Focal Utopia, the French company’s
flagship headphone, and the previously mentioned ZMF flagship. While the Utopia
driver is fully beryllium-based, the Verité, like the Shozy Form 1.1, is a Be-coated
PEN driver, which allows it to share many of the similar properties of the former –
that is, great resolution, quick, agile speed, and dynamics at a lower cost.
Release Date & Pricing Info
At this point, my curiosity piqued. And a couple days later,
the Shozy Form 1.1 package arrived at my door. Now, I had to keep the
information regarding its launch date and price a secret, but I am now able to
disclose that this product will be available on Friday, September 27th
(2019) as a pre-order special on Drop.com for $59.99. This will be
approximately $15 below the regular price of $75. This product will also be available
on Linsoul.com but not at the special drop exclusive price.
As per usual, if you do not have a current Drop (Massdrop)
account already, you can use this referral link to save $10 off your first
order: https://www.massdrop.com/?referer=3XCGPL
Here's the direct link to the product: https://drop.com/buy/shozy-form-1-1-iem?referer=3XCGPL
Here's the direct link to the product: https://drop.com/buy/shozy-form-1-1-iem?referer=3XCGPL
The Package
Shozy’s Form 1.1 comes in a small box that opens up with a
flip top. Inside the box is a polyurethane-coated zipper case that contains the
Form 1.1 IEM, the cable and a series of tips. The cable included is very nice.
I really like how it’s designed – it has a braided cloth covering the copper
wires and each channel is braided over each other and reminds me of a miniature
Paracord-style over-ear headphone cable. The 3.5mm connector and splitter have
a mirrored chrome look with black carbon fabric pattern, and the 2-pin
connectors are also chrome colored. The cable is very soft and useable and
overall a very nice touch to this package.
The shell design itself is a small and lightweight resin
shell that fits relatively comfortably into my ears. The default tips are an
interesting silicone tip that feels like foam. I really thought they were
pretty cool. I ended up using the largest one of these provided, while I
normally wear small tips on most IEMs. Using the large ones, I did get some
occasional pressure point pains, and switching to the medium tips were very
comfortable, but the bass response was tamed noticeably when I wore those.
Sources & Stuff
I played the Shozy Form 1.1 through a few different sources for this review. My primary unit is the Hiby R5 audio player, as well as running it through the iBasso DX220 and my desktop RME ADI-2 DAC. The RME DAC has a built-in EQ which I’ll go over a little later in this review. All of these sources had an abundance of headroom to power the Form 1.1. It’s not as sensitive as some of my all-BA IEMs, but it doesn’t require a ridiculous amount of power like the Tin Hifi P1 did, for example.
Quick and Nimble Speed
Putting the Form 1.1 on, I was met with a surprisingly
detailed, nimble and articulate sound immediately. I actually didn’t know how
much they cost when I first tried them on. I only knew their product
information and that they’d be under $99. Even at $99, the level of detail
retrieval was impressive right away.
Listening a little more, I quickly realized that they had a
few small shortcomings. One was that I felt the treble was a little too elevated and
gave it a false sense of resolution. The second was that I felt the sound stage
was a little narrower than I normally would prefer. I’ll address these two
things a little more in a second.
The bass response on the Form 1.1 has a bump to it and it’s
got sub-bass that is present and a punch to it that is weighty, feeling more like a ported-sub than a sealed-sub. What separates this IEM from others in this price class in this
area is the quality of the bass response. The dynamic driver decays faster than most normal drivers do, and
that projects a cleaner bass response that still sounds like a dynamic (and not
a BA), which gives the bass response more detail, more texture, and more
definition.
I don’t know if I’ve really experienced that in an IEM in
this price, so that’s why I was pretty impressed quickly. The stock bass tuning
is warm, and provides the midrange a nice rich sound. Vocals in the mid-range
sound natural, but as we move up to the upper-mids and lower treble, the female
vocal range does seem a little stretched at times. Guitar plucks sound
extremely detailed for an IEM of this price point and even more so. Each pull
of the string has a nice resonating quality to it that feels lively and real.
The brighter treble response adds some remnants of sibilance
and edgy artifacts occasionally. This type of response in IEMs can vary from
ear to ear and some may find it sensitive and others not. For me, I am, or at
least have become more sensitive to it if it’s within a certain peak range
(approximately 8kHz). This IEM peaks at around 7.3kHz, and that’s why sometimes
I find the harsh peaks painful and sometimes I do not.
At worst, it’s a little ear jolt of spiky edginess. At best,
it’s a little annoying and may cause some longer-term fatiguing listening. And
that’s a little unfortunate for me, personally, as I find this IEM tuned pretty
well outside this big peak in this 7-8kHz range.
This type of boost, however, does provide a little more
detail to push forward, so recording quality and mastering can affect sound
quality. I don’t typically like to judge a headphone by this, because I typically
review a headphone as something that can be used in many situations, and if it
can’t then I try to give my idea of where they work best and don’t work in. The
Form 1.1 isn’t the best for poor recordings, at least with not some help from
equalization (see below).
So back to my original thoughts: Tonality.
My first negative was that I thought the treble was a little
overexaggerated, and I’ve tried to explain it a little bit already. And
normally in a lot of IEM reviews, I don’t always bother going in-depth
regarding equalizer usage. I’m not against it either. I have the RME ADI-2 DAC
specifically so I can do hardware-based equalizer for a number of headphones at
once. But for my review sets, I only tend to spend time on this topic if I feel
like there’s a small deficiency in a capable headphone that has potential, and
I feel like this one is in that category.
I took my IEC-711 coupler measurements and threw it into
Room EQ Wizard and worked out a Parametric Equalizer (PEQ) setting that was
close to my ideal frequency response curve and set up the RME ADI-2 DAC with
this setting and turned on some music. For reference and for your possible
enjoyment, my PEQ setting as of the time of writing this is:
Peak: 200 Hz Gain: -3.0dB Q-Factor: 0.5
Peak: 7.3 kHz Gain: -3.5dB Q-Factor: 5.0
Peak: 7.5 kHz Gain: -5.0dB Q-Factor: 2.0
Peak: 7.3 kHz Gain: -3.5dB Q-Factor: 5.0
Peak: 7.5 kHz Gain: -5.0dB Q-Factor: 2.0
With most songs, flipping the EQ on, helped reduce the
brightness just a smidgen, and enough to tame the treble for longer term
enjoyment. I played around with it until I found a good balance of keeping that
treble sizzle contained but without losing the sparkle it creates.
![]() |
Equalizer Predicted Frequency Response: Light Blue is the Filtered Response and Dark Blue is the Original Response |
Not all songs behaved though. I still struggled with Elton
John’s classic 1970’s music. Perhaps it’s the recording and mastering or it’s
just Elton John’s vocals back then, but the Shozy Form 1.1 presented occasional
sharpness in his music.
But not all was bad. In fact, for the most part, I found
that with or even without the EQ settings, a lot of rock music and country
music excelled in this IEM. Obviously for my preference, I found turning the EQ
on and providing a more neutral bass response, while still maintaining
elevated subbass, and reducing the treble peak at 7-8kHz improved my
satisfaction with this IEM significantly.
The ability of the drivers to project very intricate qualities
was impressive. I’m really surprised by what I heard. Obviously, this IEM does
better with more laidback music and not something very treble-centric, and that’s
why I find these working really well with organic rock and country music, jazz,
and classical. I don’t find this does as well with some other genres, because
it can be fatiguing.
Soundstage & Imaging
Now, back to the other negative – the soundstage. I found
the Shozy had a narrow soundstage right away. I felt that music was being
played well within my ears, and it was narrow like what I’d hear from an
Etymotics IEM. Music had width to it, but trapped inside my head, and there was
never a sense of depth or verticality. Psychoacoustics is a real thing for me,
and I use certain songs, like Tool’s “The Pot” as a way to hear music coming
from left and right, above and below, and in front or behind me. The
introduction is enough to hear that type of imaging to me on my headphones, and
even IEMs like my qdc Anole VX can separate the instruments into that type of
3D space within my mind. The Shozy Form 1.1 failed that test.
There’s definitely a sense of left and right panning, but
not as wide and dynamic as I would expect and some small sense of forward
sounds (or a phantom center channel) but not nearly as defined as some other
IEMs. With my EQ activated, some of this sense actually started to come back.
And to be clear, in the song “The Pot”, the faint echoes give me some forward
and depth, while at around 16 seconds in, the drum beat starts to kick in and
pans around each channel above and below you (on the VX and some of my headphones).
That’s not to say that the Form 1.1 is extremely narrow. It’s
just not up to my normal listening standards. I didn’t find them as congested and
closed-in as the recent Tin Hifi P1 planar IEM nor as the Shozy Hibiki IEM.
Those were extremely narrow and everything just came at you all at once and
imaging became a bit of a disaster to wade through. The Form 1.1 manages to
separate instruments decently, but lacks a large space to put all of them in as
some others would. Still, I don’t find this too problematic at all.
Comparisons
GuideRay GR-I
The GuideRay GR-I and the Shozy Form 1.1 share some
similarities. They both measure similarly, however the Shozy Form 1.1 is
noticeably elevated in the higher frequency band. This is definitely audible,
as the GR-I was pushing the border of harshness for me, but rarely crossed it.
With the Form 1.1, in it’s stock form, it did become harsh with some music and caused
some fatiguing. That said, the Form 1.1’s resolution of detail was a marked
jump from the GR-I, and it’s bass driver has a more noticeable rumble with defined
layers, where the GR-I lacked this level of detail.
Tin Hifi P1
In a battle of two detail monsters, the Tin P1 Planar might
edge out the Shozy in resolution, but only by slightly. I found the P1 to very
extremely narrow and closed-in and this caused a lot of issues for me in terms
of proper imaging and just a feeling of chaos in busy selections. Both have accentuated
highs but the P1 felt more piercing than the Form 1.1 does. The Form 1.1 has a
more elevated bass with a lot more punch, and those who felt the P1 lacked in
this region should be happy with the Form 1.1’s bass performance, along with a
similar level of resolution and speed.
Moondrop Kanas Pro
The Kanas Pro, like I’ve mentioned several times in the
past, is one of my favorite IEMs of any price. The fit on it is still more
comfortable to me than the Form 1.1. I also like the way it looks overall and
it has a sensible sound signature that is clean and smooth. The Form 1.1 may
actually out-resolve the Moondrop Kanas Pro in every area, but also is a little
brighter and has bigger rumble and punchiness.
KZ ZSX
The KZ ZSX is a warm balanced tuning that lacks the definition
that the Form 1.1 has. I find the ZSX to have more flabby bass response, but at
the same time, the lower mid-range is warm and rich and the treble is tamed
down and well controlled from harshness, which I can’t always say with the Form
1.1.
Conclusions/Wrap-Up
I came into the beginning of this process extremely
skeptical I’d like a Shozy in-ear product, but have come out of this rather
impressed. The Form 1.1’s new driver does it’s job and gives the bass and lower
midrange a fast, punchy, and very good definition, that is unmatched in the
In-Ears I’ve heard in this price point. I do advise that the treble is rather
sharp and can be harsh and fatiguing, depending on each individual’s
sensitivity and their preferences in music.
I was able to come out this review with a parametric
equalizer setting that works well for my needs: taming the treble beast and
putting it down to a level that I can handle, while still keeping the spicy sizzle
of cymbal crashes, and airy sparkle present but controlled. With this EQ, this becomes my favorite budget
IEM I’ve heard and it can compete with much more pricey earphones that I’ve
heard. Without the EQ, it’s still got a lot of promise to it, especially if you
can handle more brightness than I can. The detail quality won me over on this
one.
Shozy Product Info at Linsoul: https://www.linsoul.com/pages/shozy-form-1-1
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