Pioneer SE CL711 Earphone Review

(Updated as of 2/25/2014)

 

Pioneer is one of the oldest brand when it comes to audio equipments. Personally, I recognize them for their loud speakers and component systems that produce great sound quality and are built to last for a long time. I have been shopping around recently for earphones that sounds good for a reasonable price (and by reasonable I mean INEXPENSIVE) and when I saw Pioneers brand on this earphones, I told myself to atleast give it a try. Join me as I dissect Pioneers SE CL711 in-ear earphones from build to sound quality and find out whether it was a worth while purchase.

SPECS:

Driver - 10mm Dynamic Driver

Frequency Response - 8hz-22khz

Impedance - 16ohms

Sensitivity - 105db

Cord Length - 1.2m Y-type OFC litz wire

Plug - 3.5mm (gold plated / L shaped)

Accessories - 3 pairs of silicon tips (S/M/L), Shirt Clip

Price - around $20 (US) or around 900PHP if you are in the Philippines.

PACKAGE AND BUILD:

The CL711 is encased in a very basic and minimalistic package containing the earphones, 3 pairs of different sized silicon ear-tips (S,M,L where M is already attached to the earpiece), user manual, warranty paper, and a shirt clip (which i lost since day one) to help reduce cable noise.

The earpiece is made out of hard but lightweight textured plastic and is topped with a glossy circle plastic plate which adds contrast to the overall design.

For strain relief, the cables are guided downwards by the same hard textured plastic that the earphones is composed off and so far suffice despite its lack of flex. The strain relief on the left earpiece has a small raised dot for the user to conveniently distinguish which side they are holding with just a touch.

The cables are of decent thickness, lightweight, and doesn't retain bend marks although I did find it suffering from some wind and cable noise (but not too much) whenever I use it while running which may be a factor to consider if you plan to use this while exercising. The cables also loves to tangle whenever they can but I believe this to be acceptable since they are not the thick or flat kind. There is also a cleverly hidden chin slider on the Y-Splitter that will come useful for some people. Reaching the end of the wire you will find an angled jack with a thick and durable strain relief and a gold plated 3.5mm jack.

Durability wise, there was an incident recently where my son dragged and rolled on it from a 3 floors high slide at the playground so that thought me to keep my gadgets out of my sons reach. That aside, I was surprised to find out that my CL711 is still working despite some disfiguring scratches, cable twists, and damage that exposed the guts of the cable.

SOUND QUALITY:

To make it simple, the Pioneer SE CL711 has a super bass boosted V shaped sound signature.

Its sub bass performance is exquisitely delicious. The bass is solid, punchy, and would give you the impression that it is pumping your chest if the volume is turned all the way up.

The mid bass is well textured. You will definitely hear the definition on bassy instruments quite well.

The mids are a mixed bag. Voices are recessed yet is beautifully full and warm. Because of the bass hump on the mids, i gives me the impression of listening to a decent home theatre setup which is why i often use this earphones when watching movies.

I'd say that the mid highs is the weakest part of this earphones in terms of sound quality. The details are there but is recessed and often over powered by the bass.

The highs have a nice sparkle to it which makes cymbal crashes sound accurate and sparkly although i did find some piercing peaks at times.

For sound stage, it is more on an intimate level. It makes you feel that you are right in the middle of two speakers rather than the instruments sounding well placed on the surroundings. I did not detect any signs of spaciousness on its sound.

Isolation-wise, i believe this is more of a subjective experience on how well the silicone tip fits your ear canal or whether or not you use a different tip. I generally think that closed type in ear earphones do a beyond average job in isolating noise off the bat.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall, i think this set of buds does the job very well if you are looking for a budget pair of earphones with great bass but does not drown out all the details. Not to mention that i am completely sold with its durability and flexibility when it comes to using it for movies.

It is true that one can find something that sounds and looks better and even something that comes with more accessories but most of those earphones falls on a higher price range.

I would recommend the CL711 to people who loves hip hip, dubstep, electronic music, club music, action or dialog heavy movies, and most modern day type of music.

For people who likes listening to rock, alternative, love songs, and some choice of RnB music, you will need to tweak the EQ setting a little bit to get a satisfactory experience.

Here are some other earphones that I have tried which shares the same sound signature as the CL711:

-JVC HA FX1X and FX3X

-NuForce NE600x

-Superlux HD381

-Promac Pro One

Thank you for reading my review of the Pioneer SE CL711. Please let me know your thoughts about this or earphones in general, I would love to hear them.

Also, I welcome any kind of suggestion or sponsorship for future reviews.

Celestial Seasonings SleepyTime Herbal tea (Chamomile Tea)

I have always loved tea since i was young and i thought it's time to explore its different types and flavors. Today i will discuss my experience with Celestial Seasonings SleepyTime Herbal tea which is marketed as Celestial Seasonings take on chamomile tea.

PACKAGE:

It comes in a 3"x3" box that contains 10 tea bags with a caption at the back with the following text:

-"The comforting aroma and flavor of spearmint from the pacific northwest blends with soothing egyptian chamomile to make this the perfect cup of tea for bedtime. The ingredients come from all over the world. Generations have wound down their day with this classic blend. With herbal ingredients that have been soothing for centuries. Sleepytime helps you relax by blending the best of nature. There's no time like Sleepytime!"-

On another side of the box, we are advised to steep the tea in boiling water for 4 to 6 minutes and is said to have the following ingredients:

-"chamomile, spearmint, west indian lemongrass, tilia flowers, blackberry, orange blossoms, hawthorn, and rosebuds"-

Opening the box, I was surprised to find a big white paper pack that contains all the tea bags. The seal on the white paper was held by a thin sticky but probably non toxic and non tasting glue of some sort.

The smell gushed out as soon as i opened the paper pack and it had a strong smell of peppermint (same smell as the doublemint chewing gum) with a light aroma of what seems to be flower petals. I must confess that I enjoyed sniffing its aroma for a while and pondered about the taste as I wait for my water to boil.

I grabbed a tea bag from the bundle and was again surprised to realize that there wasn't any string for me to dunk the tea bag up and down in the cup, but i guess that's ok since I will use a spoon anyway to stir and press on the tea bag to extract that tasty smelling tea essence. I have also noticed that Celestial Seasoning invested on tough tea bags as i pocked and played around to see how much force it would take to puncture it and it didn't puncture at all. The smell was quite pleasing due to the mixed minty and flowery smell.

TASTE:

6 minutes have passed, Time to taste the tea! I took small sips at first and tried to circulate some in my mouth and tongue to analyze the taste. My first impression was, "this is weird, I can't detect any hint of tea" I took a good look at the packaging again (specifically on the ingredients list) and realized that this is what herbal tea is.

Herbal tea doesn't contain Camellia Sinensis leaves (Camellia Sinensis leaves is basically TEA itself) rather, herbal tea is made by taking leaves, petals, or what ever they want from plants and made them go through the same process that Camellia Sinensis leaves goes through to make it into tea.

I was deeply disappointed and hoped that I have known that earlier because I was hoping to taste some sort of Camellia Sinensis taste  jiving and jazzing it up with other ingredients. Despite my disappointment, I kept on drinking this tea day by day to decipher what made it appeal to some people.

Same as its smell, the taste is govern more of peppermint and a mixture of flower petals (with the chamomile and rosebuds standing out). I also realized that you have to have a very analytic sense of taste or atleast an extended experience with all the other ingredients to successfully distinguish them from the mix due to the mildness of their taste.

This tea also has a very mild after taste, milder than what tea fanatics usually look for and enjoy when drinking tea.

I have also tried mixing this with several strong teas like black tea and sencha green tea to see how the flavor reacts but the peppermint taste is simply too strong that it covers most of whatever flavor you mix with it (unless maybe if you put just a little of this tea which I didn't have the chance to try).

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Although I don't have plans of purchasing this tea again because I want the natural taste of tea in the mix, I can definitely see its applications.

The name sleepy time may have something to do with the fact that this has no actual tea leaves hence drinkers will be able to maximize the relaxing effect of tea without the kick of caffeine to wake them up.

Both the aroma and taste can also help a drinker visualize what it's like to be on a field of flowers and enhance the relaxing effect. The peppermint however is a double edged sword. While peppermint has some soothing effect, it also has a stimulating effect on some people that may keep them alert.

That said, I can see people using this tea to aid them in meditating, to help them relax, to serve as a substitute for decaf tea, or simply to experience the taste of herbal chamomile tea.

Thank you for reading my review and i hope you had fun and learned something from it. I would love to hear your thoughts and/or suggestions about tea in general.

Please let me know if there are any other product you want me to review =)