I purchased the tape from Linsoul in 2019 and have use it since. You can buy the Shuoer Tape here
Music I use to test audio here.
In the box
The tapes come in an unusual round box and come with these accessories:
- One round anodized aluminum container to store it. This container feels very slippery but has a nice good quality finish. I never really use but I don't doubt it will provide excellent protection to the tape when inside a bag.
- One plastic bag with several pairs of black silicone tips and one pair of gray foam tips. Despite the different tips provided, I didn't find any that fit properly. Here YMMV.
- One copper cable with transparent shielding and dual mmcx to 2.5mm trrs connector. The cable feels a bit stiff and is very short. The connectors are all metal and of good quality and properly marked right and left. Overall it feels very durable and after a year it hasn't corroded, failed or presented any damage. Something I can not say about other aftermarket cables that I will review later.
- One L shaped 2.5 trrs female to 3.5 trs male adapter. I do appreciate this accessory because you don't need to buy another cable to use it balanced. This is now my way to go for all iems. (All end in 2.5 with an adapter, 4.4 is just too bulky with an adapter).
Fit and finish
The Tapes are made of aluminum with a black anodized finish. I always try to take good care of all my gear but everything after lots of use tends to wear out. The anodization process utilized by shuoer seems to be of the best quality. After a year of almost everyday use, they still look like new. The body might look like lots of edges, but everything is rounded off nicely and feels very smooth. The side of the iem that faces your ear is rounded and it is very comfortable to wear. The nozzle is quite short, so deep insertion is not possible with this unit, but I think it was designed to be used with large tips and sit outside the ear. As I mentioned before, none of the tips it came with worked for me. I ended up using the red/transparent silicon tips that came with the Tin Hifi T4 and later getting the spin fits. Sound isolation is not the best since I can't achieve a deep insertion, but perhaps with hybrid silicon/foam tips, better isolation can be achieved.
Sound
Sub Bass
The Tapes got you covered here, it has good extension, but it rolls off rather quickly past down the 30 Hz, this might not by a problem for 99.99% of the music, but there is always a track that you know the bass should be present but it was a bit weak in the tapes. i.e. pipe organ music. I do not know of many other tracks that go that low to be honest, but perhaps it was just a fit issue. It will give you a good slam and it will be very present on all tracks.
Bass
The bass tends to meld a little bit with the low mids, but by no means sounds bloated or congested. The string bass sounds very snappy and the orchestral instruments that play in that range sound very natural.
Mids
This is where some people start complaining about it. I do find that vocals (female) to be forward a bit too much sometimes, but never in a way that offends or make it sound bad. I experienced this the deeper I inserted the nozzle, especially with foam tips. And this is even more noticeable when increasing the volume. Utilizing silicone tips with a long bore and wide flanges made the iem sit farther from the ear canal. I think what this does is to elevate the bass compensating the elevated high mids and balancing it out very well. However, that fix doesn't change the timber which I find to be somewhat artificial. Some people describe them as "metallic" but to me that sounds harsh and I wouldn't describe them that way exactly. What I can say is that your brain kind of knows how an instrument or a voice should sound like but the tapes reproduce them differently, not veiled, not distorted, just a bit shifted from reality.
Treble
This is where the Tapes shine. The treble of the tapes is good, nothing is overemphasized, with no offensive or sibilant frequencies, very well extended with a natural roll-off. The treble gives you the impression of a large soundstage, and is extremely detailed, to the point it can become fatiguing after a while, not ear fatigue, but brain fatigue of the number of details that it presents. Sometimes it gets difficult to enjoy the music since the tapes present you so many details that your attention is grabbed every 2 seconds and you aren't listening to music anymore, you are just listening to sounds. I find the treble very well done.
Soundstage and imaging are above average for an iem. It can have an “out of your head” presentation.
Conclusion
The Shuoer tape is a fantastic set for OCDDetailHeads. It sounds very good with electronic music, but because of its unnatural timber, they are not the best match for vocal music or pure acoustical recordings.
Due to the lack of isolation and the exaggerated high mids at higher volumes, I wouldn't recommend it as an “on the go” iem. But if you listen to mostly electronic music in quiet environments then it gets a solid recommendation from me.
Observations
- During a brief time the right earbud developed a buzz/distortion around the 3000k, it went away after a couple of minutes and never came back.
- The tapes presented some channel imbalances in a frequency sweep but they were not detrimental to sound quality or enjoyment of music.
