Monster Turbine High-Performance In-Ear Speakers by Monster

By Finn Christensen "FC"

I have had the opportunity to listen to the Monster Turbine for a month or so. In my experience the earphones I have purchased, especially the ones with dynamic drivers, they often need a certain amount of burn-in time before they reach their full potential. I have burned in the Monster with a mix of pink noise and a variety of music for around 100 hours before I started listening to them seriously.

In the past couple of years I have "collected" earphones in my search for the ultimate sound. I have used these to compare to the Monster Turbine and I have categorized them into three groups:
Lower budget earphones($15-40): Koss Sparkplug, Skullcandy Ink'd JVC HAFX66, JVC HAFX33, Sennheiser CX300, Soundmagic PL-30 and 12, Maximo IM-390. Mid budget earphones($50-90): Ultimate Ears Super fi.3, NUFORCE NE-7M, Denon 551, Shure E2c Crossroads mylarone Bijou 3 and Altec Lansing IM716. Upper budget earphones($100-200) Audeo PFE 112, Shure SE310, Q-Jays and Yuin OK2.

The music I have been listening to The Turbines with has been a mix of different artist and genres.
Classical rock (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Eagles, Neil Young, The Doors, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Rush). Electronica (Infected Mushrooms, Daft Punks, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twins )
New wave/eighties music (Spandau Ballet, Lloyd Cole, Talking Heads, The Clash, New Order, Peter Gabriel). Alt.Rock ( Nirvana, REM, Pearl Jam, Coldplay, Smashing Pumkins, The Pixies). New Metal (Nightwish, Dream Theatre, Porcupine Three, Evanescence, Metallica). Female artists within Jazz/folk/opera ( Diana Krall, Kari Bremnes, Joni Mitchell, Sara Brightman) Jazz/fusion (John Mchauglin, Al di Meola, Andy Mckee, Charlie Parker John Coltrane, Pat Metheny) And many more..

My sources has primarily been a very portable Sansa Clip, a less portable Creative Zen Vision M and an old classic, but great sounding Rio Karma. Also PC with an internal creative soundcard, also been listening through USB D/A converter amped with an ibasso headphone amplifier.
I have on the portable primarily been listening to 192-320 lame mp3 or wma compressed files. On my PC I usually listen to FLAC lossless files.

The Monster Turbine comes in a very impressive, classy and well designed box, making them look like a much more expensive item. The build quality is as impressive as well. The Monsters metal housing has a sturdy, solid and smooth looking design and build. The build quality is in general much better than any of the earphones I'm comparing them with. It has been mentioned that the cable looks a little weak, but I have encountered no problems so far.

The supplied eartips works very well for me. I usually use medium sized eartips, but with the Turbines I get a decent fit with the small ones.
The same type of Shure eartips(small) fits me slightly better.
The large triple flange tips gives a great seal and isolation, but not as comfortable over an extended period of time.

Soundwise I will characterize the Monster Turbines as an bassy type of earphone, but also with very decent presentation of mid and higher frequencies.
The bass is in a total different league than any of the lower and mid budget earphones I'm referring to. It's definetely not bloated, muddy or over dominating the mid and higs, but the bass has great quality. It's very well defined with a nice airy and punchy sound that sounds great with electronica or rock type of music, where you may want to hear the lower frequencies being emphazised and presented in a dynamic and powerful way. It's a diffent quality of bass that you can hear with for instance the Audeo PFE or Q-Jays where the bass tends to have a more lean sound.

The mid frequencies are well presented in the Turbines. Many bass oriented earhones (basically any earphone below $100) lacks a decent mid representation or almost have none at all, but with the Turbines the voices of for instance Dina Krall or Joni Mitchell sounds very forward, natural and clear. This is something where I experienced that the Turbines really benefitted from the long time burn-in before they adjusted to this level.

The higher frequencies benefits from a burn-in time as well. The higs sounds clean and undistorted, maybe not as detailed as the PFE, IM716 or Q-Jays, but more pleasent to listen to if you are listening for a longer period of time.

The soundstage of the Turbines in width and depth is much better than most of the lower and mid budget earphones I have mentioned. It's pretty much close to the Audeo PFE, that I reckon has the widest soundstage of the ones I have heard.

The Monster Turbine is a very fun and enjoyable sounding earphone. The sound and build quailty is in any aspect way above any cheaper $15-70 earphone I have heard so far, so is it worth the price 2-4 times as much? I believe they are.
Comparing the Turbines to a pricely evenly match earphone like the Phonak Audeo, which today is regarded as one of the better earphones on the marked and by many regarded very close to high end earphones like Shure 530 or Sennheiser IE8. The Turbines may not be a detailed or accurate as the Phonak PFE, but I would say that enjoy both evenly for different reasons since they complement each other well. The details, tonal balance and soundstage of the Audeo PFE are prefered for some type of music or time of day.. The Monster Turbine with it's wonderful deep, punchy and subwoofer like bass and at the same time very smooth balanced mids and highs, is preferable for other types of music and moods.

If you enjoy the sound signature I been trying to describe and also listen to some of music I have mentioned, you won't be disapointed listening to the turbines. Defenitely a step up from budget earphones to a pleasent entry level of a Hi Fi(End) experience for your ears.