Pioneer’s Bass Exciter in-ear headphones drop the bass

SINGAPORE — For those with an insatiable thirst for club beats even on the go, Pioneer has introduced a line of in-ear earphones that promise an otherworldly bass kick.

The SE-CX9 and SE-CX8 earphones come with what Pioneer dubs “bass exciters” at the back, sending beats through your skull through vibrations, just like how a full-sized subwoofer might.

Pioneer said the earphones would allow you to actually feel the bass and it was not joking. The sound they produced had so much depth and texture it sometimes felt we had a speaker built right into the head, between the ears.

The earphones performed beautifully through the length of our playlist of workout music, which included drum and bass, as well as electronic dance music.

But they hold up for other sorts of music as well — even the floatiest, most ukulele-filled ditties benefited from the crisp sound emanating from the earphones.

The bulkiness of the bass driver did have its drawbacks though — the earphones were fairly unwieldy and the two lumps of metal sticking out of your ears make it easy for them to be knocked out of your ears by accident.

The pointy piece of plastic sticking out of the base as a balancer also dug into the shell of my ear: That bit could probably have been better designed. The thick D-shaped cables did not tangle easily, but did not roll up easily for keeping, either.

I appreciate that Pioneer thought well enough to include volume up/down controls as well as a playback button on the cable. It added bulk, but it was really useful.

The difference between the SE-CX9 and SE-CX8 is in their inner workings. The CX9 have what Pioneer calls a balanced armature driver, while the CX8 have a dynamic driver. Practically, the difference between the two was not significant and the fuller sound on the CX9 might have been due to simple expectation that the CX9 would perform better.

In the end, whatever drawbacks the earphones had were far outweighed by the good bits. If you have ever wanted to get lost in an aural bubble of your own while travelling, this is not a bad choice.

The SE-CX8 and SE-CX9 are available at S$299 and S$399 respectively.