Received my Zero today from Amazon. Out of box, one of the driver grills was sloppily installed as seen in photo. I was able to work it back in gently with a toothpick. I guess this is the quality you get with a mass market, low dollar item. The grill is very flimsy. No spares were in my box.
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Luckily, that is where the bad stuff ends. I had a balanced cable ready to go and plugged it into my Onkyo DP-X1 DAP. (No equalization and normal gain. DSF and high rez FLAC files played with no additional processing) My first impression is that, yep, these things bring the bass. I am not used to Harmon levels of bass, but I am not in the least bothered by it. I don't think the bass is bloated at all, just pretty dominating. Luckily, the mids are not recessed and I don't feel the highs are sibilant or piercing. In fact, everything sounds really balanced except for the slight elevation in bass compared to my normal levels of listening.
I feel these are warm like my Senn HD600 with elevated bass.
I detect no distortion at higher volume where I don't usually go. Low volume listening is really great, the extra bass is very welcome there. And older recordings of rock that are bass shy are excellent. I had a go at Supertramp Crime of the Century. The recording has excellent defined bass but relatively low dB. The Zero really warmed up the sound and gave the recording superb balance.
For $50 plus the $18 cable, I am pretty impressed to say the least. No they are not the be all, end all, but they offer great value IMO. Carrying this around as a spare would satisfy me just fine.
I will be giving these extensive listening over the next couple of days with no tweaking. Not sure if they will break in a bit or not. I selected a pair of the included tips and have excellent fit. They are very comfortable in my ears and I could wear them for hours easily. So, off to a good start, once past the grill issue.