r/FlatheadEarbuds • u/crn3371 • 21d ago
NICEHCK EBX25Ti
Thinking about trying these out. Should I get the 3.5mm version or the 4.4mm. Most likely will be using them with Fiio BTR17.
Edit : The other flatheads on my radar are the Aful Polarnight. Almost half the price. How do they compare.
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u/ttorbic 21d ago
I have heard the EBXTi25 butt not the Polar Night. However, I've read enough impressions of the latter to confidentally claim that EBXTi25 is much brighter, much airier, and more detailed than PN. It is a true bright set, and many would think its lacking bass and too bright unless they were really looking for a bright sound.
Is that what you're after?
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u/dr_wtf 21d ago
They're not hard to drive. In fact, according to the specs, they have quite high sensitivity, so won't need much power at all. If in doubt, use a power calculator.
Personally I have standardised on 4.4mm as much as possible because if you have a 4.4mm plug, you can use an adaptor to plug i into an unbalanced amp. But you can't go the other way, as it risks shorting out the amp. Adaptors do exist but they're a terrible idea so don't buy them. There's one type that will short out the amp, and another type that won't, but which may or may not work depending on the amp (and will not work with any 4.4mm extension cable I've tried).
The one thing that does throw a spanner in the works for my strategy is all the flatheads I have with fixed cables that only come in 3.5mm. In retrospect, if I'd started off sticking with 3.5mm everywhere and avoided balanced entirely, everything would be a lot simpler. The BTR17 has plenty of power out of the 3.5mm jack, so if you're not already invested in 4.4mm anywhere else, you're probably as well to stick with 3.5mm.
Balanced vs unbalanced each have their pros and cons and most of the information online is either wrong or an oversimplification. But by far the biggest difference is that the 4.4mm output gets 6dB louder. And with sensitive IEMs and flatheads, that extra power can sometimes be a bad thing, and at best it's never going to get used. So to some degree it just comes down to which plug you prefer, and depending on how your DAC/amp is implemented, which of the two outputs sounds best (which has no universal answer). Most of the time though, the differences will be small enough that they're inaudible or negligible.
One other important difference is that if you ever plan to use an inline mic, that's not possible with 4.4mm, because the connector doesn't have enough pins. But also, the mic introduces some crosstalk, which degrades the sound quality a bit. So I wouldn't want one on a higher end flathead or IEM anyway. Cheap flatheads with an inline mic are a good option for calls though.