Intro: Feisty little peas
Chi-Fi has been flowing through the audio market recently. Whizzer is one of the new Chinese brands that came up recently and they’ve announced their first product, the Whizzer A15. During then I started to have interest on them, though one fact came to me as a concern; barely any information was available about the brand back then. I’ve thought they could possibly be those typical DIY earphones available on the Chinese markets, but soon I’ve realized that wasn’t the case here. Anyway, the A15 Pro is the second product they’ve recently released and meant to be a Hi-Fi version / upgraded version from to the A15. Today I’ll be reviewing both the A15 and the A15 Pro and also do some compare and contrast about their sound.
Packaging
Both A15 and A15 Pro comes with a neat, decently sized box. There’s a little difference in presentation and included accessories, but they’re pretty much similar; A15 Pro comes with a leather case, 3 pairs of soft silicon eartips, 3 pairs of hard silicon eartips, 2 pairs of foam tips, and some paper works while A15 comes with all those accessories but an addition of a tweezers and a set of filters.
Earpieces / Cables
The earpieces have a pea-like shape which are meant to be worn over-ear. It has a MMCX termination and the built quality is great, since these are all made out of metal. The A15 Pro has a matte black finish while the A15 has a silver hairline finish, and both looks great in terms of design. Both A15 Pro and the A15 comes with a mmcx – 3.5mm OFC cable with an integrated earguide. The one from A15 Pro appears to be better in both quality and performance, but not a drastic difference.
Now due to the shape of the earpiece, both A15 and A15 Pro have light depths when they’re inserted to my ears. That’s fine, though I’ve found the L-shaped mmcx connector stopping me from tilting the earpieces a bit more backwards. It’s pretty much up to your ear shape whether you’ll have these problems, but at least I did. Switching it to a straight mmcx cable would likely solve this issue, but an easier solution is to use eartips that have longer stems like the ones from KZ. Definitely not everybody’s going to have this problem, but keep this in mind in case you have problems with the fitting.
Before moving on, I’ll have to note that there are two versions of A15. They look almost identical, however the only difference is that the newer version has a SN number and a has a metal mesh that covers the inner vent (not the nozzle though), while the earlier version doesn’t have either of them. I’ve chose the newer version to be the reference for the review and will leave some info about the sonic difference between the two versions at the end of this section. The overall sound signature is slightly V-shaped with an emphasis on the mid-bass.
Bass feels smooth, meaty, and takes the major role throughout the frequencies. It dives deep, responsive, and has good punch on the mid bass. It also shows adequate resonance; however not to the point where it screws up the higher frequencies and make the overall sound soggy. I’m pretty picky when it gets to loosened up bass and didn’t particularly find A15’s bass to be disappointing, so no big worries about that.
Mids sound rich and bold, without being particularly recessed or pulled forward. The thickness on the vocals are slightly on the thicker side, showing nice performance on both male/female vocals, however does a slightly better job on male vocals. Mids on A15 tend to sound relatively even throughout the mid frequencies. Sibilance is not present here, however it does get slightly brighter and sparkly.
Trebles on the A15 feels to be a bit more highlighted than the mids, roughly about 20%. It also sounds brighter and clearly presented even during bass-heavy tracks with a good separation. The texture feels to be crispy and pretty natural as well. The scale of the staging is decent, though front/rear staging feels be on the narrow side.
Brief notes about the older/newer A15: The new version sounds a bit more sparkly, more controlled on the mids, and has better separation between bass/mids. The bass became denser with a slightly lesser amount, whereas the older version sounds to have a bit more loose but spatial on the lowends, also a bit bloated on the mids. The differences are pretty visible here, but I don’t consider to be drastic. The newer ones definitely sounds better to me.
Sound – A15 Pro
Bass amount from the A15 Pro is more on the lighter side, just having a bit more bass than what’s called flat. It hits with a firm punch and then quickly steps back. The bass here doesn’t express much resonance and ultra-lows/lows doesn’t take a big role here, meaning that these likely wouldn’t be appreciable for bassheads. However mid-bass is adequately present with some good darkness, so it won’t sound completely hollow at the bottom. A15 Pro would be more adequate for those who enjoy flat or treble enhanced IEMs as these bring a very clean, unbloated bass.
The main dish on the A15 Pro are the mids and highs, taking dominance of the overall sound signature. It somewhat makes me feel like this is how it would sound if there’s something that sits between in-ears and earbuds. A15 sounds widely opened with great airiness, just like an earbud while consisting the distinct yet dense sound of an in-ear. Mids are slightly on the brighter side, though A15 Pro manages to keep the mid frequencies pretty even without piercing frequencies, so it doesn’t get too hot or fatiguing. The thickness on the vocals are bit thinner than neutral, making a very nice match with female vocals. Male vocals show adequate thickness, however the mids here sound more feminine so not the best choice if you’re looking for meaty vocals.
Upper mids and trebles are very sparkly, transparent, and clean. I’ve seen some treble enhanced IEMs (or with light bass) to have messy and unorganized highs, but that’s not the case here. The mid/highs are well tamed, producing quite refined high notes. A15 Pro also managed to stay away from the texture feeling dry or grainy, so more points added to the score.
Verdicts
Although A15 Pro is listed on the higher league overall, I still consider A15 to be worth the money, since there’s a big difference in sound signature and price. I surely consider A15 Pro to be on the higher rank than A15. A15 Pro is one of the most open-sounding IEMs I’ve tried and I much enjoy them listening to tracks from female artists. The Pro model sounds more organic and natural on mids/highs, as well as having better clarity and texture presentation compared to the A15.
But again, the price gap is big enough to justify A15’s performance, and I’d still recommend A15 for those who are looking for a budget, entry model to start with. Besides, the sound signatures are very different between these two, so A15 could actually be a better choice for those who need pleasant amount of bass. A15 has a likable sound for most people while there’s a chance for A15 Pro to be a lemon, depending on your personal preference.
I’d definitely consider either of them to be worth the price and I like the fact that they’ve put much attention on the build quality, packaging, and especially on accessories as well. I think it’s a firm start and like to see how they advance themselves!
Thanks to Whizzer/Penon for providing the A15 Pro for an honest impression/feedback.
The newer version of the A15 was purchased by myself.
I am not affiliated with them and none of my words were modded or asked to be changed.