Ah, now for something *completely* different.
The PR representative from an audio company named Munitio has been offering to send a review sample of one of their products for some time, and I’ve finally taken them up on it. Munitio, based in San Diego, has a somewhat novel line of in-ear monitor (IEM) earphones that it calls “nine millimeter.” Why? Well, the earpieces resemble nothing so much as 9-mm shell casings. I’ve read somewhere that there’s an old tradition among gun enthusiasts of inserting spent shells into their ears as a sort of ad-hoc sound muffler while they continue firing off rounds.
I suspect, however, that the real reason for the bullet styling is that Munitio is “aiming” (ha ha) for a particular demographic, basically young people with a taste for hip-hop. That suspicion is greatly reinforced by the fact that the headphones’ sonic signature is skewed toward the low-frequency end of the spectrum.
The earphones come in a round case, well packaged with four sets of what Munitio calls “SiliconeHollowPoints” as well as a cleaning cloth and fabric case. The “SiliconeHollowPoints” are the silicone tips that one actually inserts into the ear canal. It comes with two sets of medium-size tips and one each of large and small. I’ve found that I get the best seal and most comfortable fit with the small tips. I started with the mediums that come installed on the earphones and, to tell the truth, they actually hurt a little. The documentation makes it clear that unless you find the tips that fit your ears best, you won’t get the ambient-sound isolation that the earphones are capable of, not to mention a loss in the deep bass response that Munitio’s products have gained a reputation for.
The set’s construction is quite solid. The body of the earphones I was sent is finished in matte black and is machined from copper alloy and coated in titanium. These housings hold (what else?) 9-mm drivers with rare-earth neodymium magnets. Frequency response is rated at 12 Hz to 22 kHz with sensitivity of 100 dB (±3 dB) at 1 kHz. These are somewhat heavy earphones.
The cord is an interesting affair. Rather than the typical vinyl-jacketed wire, it’s a Kevlar-reinforced fabric cable. It’s supposed to resist stretching so as not to damage or short the copper wiring. I’ve found that the cord does introduce some microphonics; I hear it when the cord brushes against my clothes. At the business end of the cord is a straight 24k-gold-plated, 3.5-mm plug. Meanwhile, at the entrance of the cords to the earphone housings, there’s a conspicuous lack of strain relief, which might cause durability concerns. But in my experience, it’s not an issue; they’re pretty rugged. Accidentally yanking them out of my ears rather forcefully the other day hurt me a lot more than it seems to have hurt them.
This [M] BLK set is called “tactical” in part, I suppose, because of the matte black look, and in part because there’s provision for hands-free operation of an iPhone or Droid. Having access to neither of those devices, I must leave that feature unexamined. I have, however, read comments online to the effect that it works well.
The source I’ve used with the Munitios is my venerable 6th-generation iPod Classic (160 GB). I have also tried amping them with my JDS Labs BassBoost cMoy headphone amplifier, but the jury is still out on that. My iPod is packed largely with MP3-encoded music ripped with Exact Audio Copy and the latest version of the LAME encoder set for V0 VBR. My usual IEMs are Etymotic Research ER-6is, which the audiophiles out there will know