Venture Electronics VE Monk Lite: Reminiscing that Analogue Tuning Era
What's up mates and I present to you another review but this one is different, I'll do an impression on a certain earbud which was quite popular among audio enthusiasts before and even now it was still attested by the audio crowd as competent sounding.
I'm talking about VE Monk Lite SPC, a lightweight earbud from Venture Electronics. It has a single Dynamic Driver set up. The shell is made of a good quality plastic to provide a decent durability and it was connected on a rubbery-like wire insulator coating SPC wire cable to a similar material on a termination plug.
The packaging of this set was only simple and straightforward as it has a sachet-type plastic wrapping along with its contents, The contents inside are the earphone itself and extra donut foams to provide an improvement fitting stability on between the concha and tragus part of the ear.
This set is particularly need a good power source to drive this one to its fullest potential. Despite that it has low impedance of 40 ohms, it really needs a good DAC/Amp to improve its scalability rating. USB DAC Avani that was included in the package that was sent to me along with this set is enough to drive it properly. Even my phones with good hi-fi DACs are able drive them properly.
The tonality of VE Monk Lite SPC lite is warm, slight mid emphasis and neutral treble tuning which is more appealing to casual listener to midcentrics.
LOWS/BASS
The bass is in between punchy and boomy, impactful enough and a shallow depth that I have perceived upon as I expect a more dynamic deep sound from a dynamic driver set. Sub bass has decent rumbling at the end of low spectrum, midbass seems has that texture (or a bloat) that smudges occasionally on the mids in some tracks that I played especially on bassy-laden tracks. The transience is in moderate pace as it really affect the gradual rate on decay of a bass tone. The bass kick is somehow fuller and has the good thudding while bass guitar has the growl and weighty tone that every slapping and fretting on those strings.
MIDS
This is certainly the most dominating part of audio spectrum. The presentation of mids more pronounce and has that warmth and density that both male and female vocals are equally presented-well on the mix. The male vocal has that adequate strong and deep in baritone and bass voice range and average ease and gleaming of the tenor ones while the female vocals of different types and ranges has that pleasing, intimate and sweetness to a densier note weigh. In some instances, there are times that it sucks out some energy and shimmer from treble that it vocals sometimes sounds constrictive and some instruments like acoustic guitar and piano sounded a mellow and rounded ones. All musical instruments from percussive to wind sounds natural and each timbre characteristic of each musical apparatus sounds organic and smoothen a bit but can be still categorize as organic.
HIGHS/TREBLE.
The treble quality is smooth, neutral and at ease. The upper mids is on less texture and has a decent peak that would sound more safer to avoid in any unecessary harshness and fatigue listening experience. The brilliance part of treble region is just a little bit indistinguishable due to the less of airiness reach and lack of shimmering quality as cymbals strikes sounds muted and dampened as I want a crashing even more revealing and shimmering.
SOUNDSTAGE AND IMAGING
It has an above average size soundstage dimension with decent depth and more on height emphasis. The sense of spacing of instruments are ample enough to have some sort of individual spatial cues that they can be locate in a such area in broader manner, not too pinpointing accurately the placement of each manner but more on means of estimation.
As I conclude this review, That this earbud has an advantages and drawbacks on how audio enthusiasts perceives it based upon their prefered type of tonality. Some will really like this one due to its tuning that reminds their younger years on a decent hifi system sounds-like vibe (probably 1980s to 1990s) and some will have an aversion of it due to lack clarity and detail retrieval. For me, to be honest, I really prefer IEMs and headphones over earbuds due the fact that in most cases, most earbuds keep falling from lug holes due to anatomical reason that my concha and tragus aren't that good to put an earbud in between them (sometimes donut foams really works on fitting issues on in my ears). I really want to have a collection of earbuds but earbuds didn't return the favour and hate my ears.
Some Tracks Tested: ( * = 16-bit FLAC, ** = 24-bit FLAC, *'* = MQA, '*' = DSD, *'= .WAV)
Alison Krauss -When You Say Nothing At All *
Jade Wiedlin - Blue Kiss**
Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks **
Mountain - Mississippi Queen *
Queen - Killer Queen **
Guns N' Roses - Patience *'*
Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven '*'
Sergio Mendes- Never Gonna Let You Go '*'
Pearl Jam - Daughter **
Roselia - Hidamari Rhodonite *
Assassin - Fight (To Stop The Tyranny)*
Celtic Frost- Visual Aggression *
New Order - Blue Monday *
The Corrs- What Can I do (unplugged version) *
Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child *
The Madness- Buggy Trousers *
Metallica - One **
Mariah Carey- Always Be My Baby *
Destiny's Child - Say My Name *
X-Japan - X *
Mozart - Lacrimosa *
New York Philharmonic Orchestra - Dvorak- Symphony 9 " From the New World." *
Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold (Sting cover)*
Michael Jackson - Give In To Me *
Exciter - Violence and Force *
Aaron Lewis - Am I The Only One *
PROS:
-A balanced-warm sounding earphone.
-Affordable for its price.
-Lightweight for ease to carry.
-Mid focus tonality.
-Decent technicalities to offer for its price value.
CONS:
-Too bare bone package ( I know...I know for the sake of affordability.)
-Trebleheads will definitely look for somewhere else.
-Encountering some sort of congestion and boxy feel especially on some fast, bassy tracks.
Comments
Post a Comment