KZ x Crinacle - CRN (ZEX Pro) (Unboxed)

Pros : Good imaging, decent sound stage,nice rumbling sub bass. Neutral tuning. Good instrumental separation.
Overall it has very good sound quality.
It requires a 20 hours of burn in to get the full sound.
A better sounding earphone than blon bl 03, kz dq6, tripowin mele.
You hardly get this kind of tuning in this price bracket.
Though It has an unnecessary pick at 8k and it overpowers on others .so go to equaliser and pull down 8k.

And finally... finally.. They have changed the eartips. And it is good and improved. Thumbs-up for that.

Cons : The size of this earphone is humongous. It comes out of the ear.
It has fin like kz dq6 which start paining after sometime.
Not at all comfortable to wear.

Pros : A decent sound stage, good rumbling sub bass, decent amount of bass. Nice instrumental separation. Neutral tuning. You hardly get this type of tuning in this price bracket.
Overall it has a very good sound quality.

Definitely sounds better than, kz dq6, blon bl 03, tripowin mele. Though it has a unnecessary pick at 8k and it overpowers other. So go to equalizer and pull down 8k a little.
It requires a 20 hours of burn in to get the full sound.

Con : The size of the earphone is humongous. It literally hangs from ears. And it has fins like kz dq6 and it starts paining after sometime. Not at all comfortable to wear.
And finally kz has improved the eartips and it is really good.

Verdict : No issues with sound quality and built quality. Issue is with it's size. If you have small ears you can avoid.

The KZ x CRN or ZEX Pro, whatever you want to call them are a 3 driver in-ear monitors that are made by KZ Acoustics and by famous redditor and YouTuber Crinacle. I follow them on his YouTube channel and he runs the in-ear Fidelity subreddit which consists of the world's biggest database of frequency response graphs for IEMs. He has also partnered with Moondrop, Fiio, SeeAudio etc and most of his collaborations are exclusive to certain market and sellers. This one is different because this is a comparatively cheap iem and it's available everywhere. So, I had to buy them if it was available in India. Thanks for the folks at Headphonezone to bring this here.

Now, as per the iem itself. I would rate the build as above average. First I found the units itself as pretty huge. But now I have used it for a couple days now, they are fairly comfortable for me. The cable provided is quite nice. There are no cases included but you can grab a hard case from KZ itself here for a fairly cheap price.

As per the sound, I have become quite liked the sound reproduction of these. They are very balanced and I have heard KZ iems have fairly v-shaped tuning but these are very balanced. I think it's because of the Crinacle's tuning. I used my Blon bl-03 as my daily driver and compared to that, they have bigger soundstage. Blons are better in imaging and bass (both quality and quantity) but the scale and sense is much better in these. All in all, these are my kind of iems as i like to listen on very low volume and these are perfect for that purpose. Using these on ifi Zen DAC, they sound a big better but it's sufficient to drive these on phones and laptops. Be warned though, these had a bit weird sound out of the box and I am not an equaliser kind of guy but i have found online that eqing these with 8K down to 5db and 12K up to 10db (or in my case 16K up to 6.5db in Poweramp's equaliser) fixes tonality a lot. I highly recommend using eqing these if you looking to buy these because without this adjustment they sound a biy metallic and harsh in trebles. If you are looking for a balanced sound then you can definitely check this out as most of the iems in these price bracket are tuned V-shaped. All in all, a good product.

Ok, first of all, Kudos to the customer care at headphone zone. I bought the iems and sadly it became faulty under 10 days. I thought ill just hold on to it and try and buy a replacement cable just because i thought the replacement process will be a big hassle. I didnt expect the team at headphone zone would contact me directly. They provided me the best assistance, responded fast to every mail i sent and updated on every step in the replacement process. Got the replacement iems today and its just awesome. The soundstage felt much better than the previous one, seems like a good working unit. You can never expect this level of customer care from any other platform(believe me ive had many experience from other online sites.) The thing is they cared enough to contact me and provided me options to solve my problem. Thats the best thing i felt about this site. Even if they didnt replace the product with a brand new unit, these kind of communication between the customer and platform will make a lot of difference. In other platforms normally well have to book the replacement ourselves and stay behind it all the time till the product reaches back, but here, they booked the return themselves and was picked up the product in time. There was no hassle in my side. So thanks to the headphone zone for the wonderfull experience. Youve earned a life long loyal customer. Keep up the good work always!

My first ever tuned IEM! Absolutely loved it! I don't know the audiophile jargon as i am relatively new to this world so I'll refrain from using terms i don't understand yet fully. Also, i struggled a lot while learning how to wear these IEMs properly. If Headphone zone could make a few tutorial videos that'd be great! Also i'd request buyers to try out all the different sizes of ear-tips as i wore incorrect ones for a long time only to eventually realize i was wearing the wrong size. Nonetheless, these IEMs sound great!!

They sound amazingly well. They are detailed, however the mids bunch up sometimes. It will help of you were listening to vocal based songs or orchestra. If it were rock/metal, the guitars do not sound , well, to the point. These are very minuscule issues. I am comparing headphones to this. I have ATH M50x, to base this off.

I am deducting a star, because of the comfort. It's big and takes time to put on. A bit too much hassle for me as they are over ear.
However, given the price point, these are absolutely scores. You cannot go wrong! Step aside sound magic e10 or Sennheiser or Sony. This is the new king under 3k!

Comfort is a bit subjective. They’re big. 3.5/5 for me.
Fit is very snug. 4.5/5 (I recommend using eartips that are shallow but big.)

Bass: 5/5
Mids: 4.75/5 (Male Vocals could have been better)
Highs: 4/5 (Timbre is weird. It feels kinda hollow.)
Soundstage: 4.5/5 (You won’t complain about it at all)
Imaging: 5/5
Instrument Separation: 5/5

The sound signature is following the Crinacle target, which is a smoother version of Harman.

There is a peak on 8kHz, and is missing some air in the 12kHz area.
The sound is almost perfect after EQing. I have tried EQFY and Poweramp EQ, but I found Wavelet to be the best for android.

Timbre Fix for Wavelet: https://paste-bin.xyz/download/32102

Overall, best value for the money, and a taste for what you get as you move up the price ladder. These are great as a more “fun” IEM for someone who comes from dead neutral signatures and does not want to go V-shaped.

I was interested in this as it was a collab with crinacle and kz. It was an impulse purchase, but with over a few days of usage, it will get better since I already like it as it is now.

Original EQ adjustments that were recently shared by Crin, and the current EQ circulating around his discord as of 12 Jan 2022.

Adjustments:

General EQ settings for CRN (ZEX Pro)

**Treble (Timbre fix, kinda):**

*8000Hz-5dB 5.0Q, Peak filter*

*12000Hz +10dB 4.00, Peak filter*

**Bass (Extra punchiness):**

*150Hz +5dB, Low shelf*