Dashbon SonaBuds Lasso Bluetooth sports earphone @ 爆肝工程師之奇幻旅程

Stylish Design, High Clarity

Dashbon SonaBuds Lasso Bluetooth Earphone

Pros: Prefect wearing / Stable Bluethooth / Warm bass and clear sound / 8 hour continous playing

Cons: Vocal behind / Too rational sound

This is my first review in English. I've been writting many earphone reviews in my blog, but in Chinese only. I am not exactly a audiophile guy, but certainly a music or headphone lover. My portable music history started from Shure SE-215, Grado SR60 with iPhone4S. Comparing to many head-fi members, I think myself still a child in terms of earphone age. And I was the early taker of FiiO X3, and X5 DAP. Following by IE80, Grado RS1e, and AKG Q701. After that, my earphone equipment purchase totally stuck for couples of years. I have several execuses for that, such as, my wife forbid me to buy any more, or my storage is full.... But I know the real reason is, my ear tell me that's enough for now.... There always better sound with advancing technology if you are willing to pay more. But just wondering I need better or I just want better? Thus, I depressed my greedy and find a better way to enjoy different earphones --- to become a blooger. Spending money to buy above earphones and DAPs was good traing before becoming a earphone blogger. In the 2.5 years blogger life, I review more than 20 different earphones, some was free samples, and some was just borrowed. I don't have to pay any but can enjoy them for long time. By the testing and reviewing improve my audiophile attitude and knowing more about sound. To me, that's not that easy.... My listening is not that smart, I cannot tell the sound advantage or characteristics of certain earphone by short time testing. I always have to do several time A-B test on the same song, and then test lots of different songs before I can make any conclusion and write down something, even till now the same.

With 2 years self-trainning, I am now more confident to quickly recognize the speciality of a pair of new earphone. And the real purpose of testing so many earphones, is to find our my favorite taste. I accept all kind of music, from rock, ACG, jazz, pop, classic, everything is eatable to me. But my favorite are mostly Jazz, light POP. I used to call them casual music, comfortable, no pressure, never disturbing my writing or working. Good news is that lately I convinced myself to buy two piece of music tool, nothing to do with upgrade, just fond of them -- They are FiiO X5III and Pioneer SE-CH9T. I knew them from review, too.

Above is a brief introduction about my earphone history. I am not that serious or precise guy with earphone. My review are kind of easy article, I just writing personal opinion of what I hear and how I feel.

-----------

If you are looking for a good piece of sports wireless IEM, I would recommand this one-- Dashbon SonaBuds Lasso. The are just launch lately.

Dashbon is a Taiwan company, starting from 2013, still very young. They've been successfully launched several bluetooth earphones, headphones. You may not consider it as a 'audiophile' brand. Their product design oriatation is most likely to be "living convenience" rather than "hi-fi". That means nice appreance, high quality artwork, easy to operate, clear sound, and resonable price. If you are looking for a pair of hi-fi earphone, you can just skip this review.

Previous review of Dashbons products. (In Chinese)

[SonaBuds] [SonaBuds ES] [DoublePods]

What is your concern while selecting a pair of sports IEM?

To me, I used to jog every two evening in summer. About 30 minutes per run. I am really not good at that, just need a regular way to burn my fat. I always sweat a lot in 15 minutes continuing jogging. When the sweat flood comes out from my head to my check, some leave around my ear. Some sweat always come into my ear concha, always make the ear buds come out easily. This is my biggest trouble. As to the sound quality is not my first concern. Clear sound and slightly stronger bass is good enough to catch up the high tempo music, like Jogging music in Spotify. (Sometimes I will set to jogging mode). Another thing, I think very important is the bluetooth stability. I always run with my iPhone 6, which is put in arm belt. The distance to the IEM is less than 1 meter. Very short, but trust me, even such short dististance, some interference may happen due to many invisable wireless signals. My experience is that always happen in crossroads of busy street.

So, let's see if Lasso will function well for jogging or exercise.

PRODUCT SPEC

Driver: 6mm dynamic
Impedance: 16 ohm
Output: 105 db
Harmonic Distortion: 5% max
Frequency Response: 20~20K Hz
Battery: 100 mAh (full charge 1.5 hours / Play time 8 hours)
Bluetooth: V4.1 with EDR

ISOLATION / COMFORT

I do like the earhooks or earwings design (I am not sure the correct way to call this). It's a two piece design, separated from ear tip-- make the wing stay at the right position, so the earbuds perfectly fitting to my ear concha cymba. The wearing experience is very stable and comfortable. During the 30 minutes test, I still sweait a lot, but it remain just steadily as the first time I put into my ear. Less pressure to my ear and also ear canal. Thanks to the wing sport, I can choose smaller ear tip (from L to M).

Walking along on the street with heavy traffic, I can hardly hear any outside noise by setting my iPhone6 volume at 55%.

WIRELESS CONNECTION

About the wireless work, it works perfectly as well. Adopting CSR 4.1 chipset, stable and high penetration. Right upon you turn on the power, it will reconnect to latest smart device immediately. Very awesome reconnection speed! During the 30 minutes test in the park, not any interference happened. I am very satisfied with this wireless quality.

SOUND QUALITY

About the sound quality, it's far from perfect, but condisering at the market price at about $40, and for exercise purpose, it is good enough. Clear sound in all frequency, not muddy, not gloomy, not sluggish. Quick and right position to show every details.

The Allocation of three frequency, about 35% low, 32% mid, and 33% high.

Low

Bass is the most attractive sound. You cannot believe 6mm driver can deliver such powerful decant bass. The sub-bass is especially strong, response quickly. Solid but a liitle wide, clear but not too punch, so it make the music warm and no uncomfortable to me. But for normal lows, not so impressive, just okay. For most high tempo music, Lasso provides powerful enough energy to accompany my jogging, but never too much to make mid gloomy. With this roboust and warm bass, make the tempo more clear and easy to follow up. For daily life, the bass can handle most music well, too.

Mid

Vocal sound is clear but a little bit behind the stage. But it's too clear to hear to many details. In some songs, I can even hear clear tooth sound. But while running, I pay more attention to the rhythm not the vocal. So I think this is a big issue to me.

While play songs with tender bass, such as country or folk music, the vocal become much clear.

High

Crystal, Pop up, quickly reponose to every rytham. Like dark sky shining with stars. Very straight forward shining net when playing rich accompanying music. Especially like quick songs, like ACG style, electronic music. This is very important to structure the sound picture from a flat to a 3D space shape. The crystal and shining highs like stars above the big bass ground. The total space consistaents with wide ground and high top. All the sounds around me like a middle size ball or small concert.

CLARITY

I would say this is a very rational sound without much fun. From the lows to highs are so smooth without too much add-on color, nor harmonics sound. Just very clear and regular. But it do manage all frequency very well. Test it with a Japanese electronic song -- 宵々古今 by REOL, full of various of electronic sound effect. Lasso can handle it very well. The output is totally clear to recognize several sound effect at certain position.

PACKAGE / APPEARANCE

Lasso comes with Dashbon standard design -- dark black box with clear image of product. Very strong and hard paper box.

Well arrangement inside the box, too. Lasso is fitting into EVA form plate.

All the accessory is placed under the plate. Including:

SonaBuds Lasso, charging cable (Micro USB), soft carry bag, ear tips (3 pair). You can see two special accessoy: a small S hook (lower righ corner) for earphone cabl ande, and three pair of earbud wings (upper left corner).

The earbud wings design is quite special. Normally, the earbud wings are part of ear tips. So when you roating ear tip, the wing moves, too. I like the two separate design of Lasso. The wing can stay at correct position all the times.

Lasso is a light weight, stylish earbuds. Noble and elegant black color, like a black jewelry.

Woven wraped connecting cable, with rose pink dots, make it look more gorgeous .

The back shell is in diamond shape. Wide in the bottom and smaller in the top. The shinny treatment make it very smooth and stylish.

Front shell is coverred by rubber, sweat-proof and increasing friction for stable wearing.

Magnents inside both ends. Attach both end and make a necklace, you wil not lose it when not in use.

Wide sound tube with perfect in-ear angle. Very comfortable.

Three buttons controller close to the right end. Suitable distance about to staying on my shoulder while wearing.

The MFB button (the middle one) is for on/off/pairing, also for answering calls, pause/play music

And the +/- buttons for volume ＋/- and music forward/backward.

You can just install the ear tip and use it for normal circumstances.

But if for jogging or exercise, suggest to put on the earbud wings. The separate design make the wearing very stable. With this wing' support, I can change ear tip size from L to M. Release the pressure in my canal.

The earbuds wings also come in three different sizes -- L / M / S. Pick up the right size according to your ear shell. Make sure to put the wing correct side according to the L/R remark on the wings.

Then, plug in the suitable ear tips.

If you find the cable is too long, you can use the small S hook to clip the extra cables.

The metal shell and woven cable make Lasso durable and stylish. The woven-wrapped cable provent sticky problem from normal PE material.

I really like the design of the earbud wings. Very comfortable and stable.

MUSIC TEST

I like to listen high-tempo soungs when jogging. So I test some electronic ACG music, such as . Lasso perform perfectly with such kind of musics with quick tempo and rich accompanying music. Although the music is complicated, Lasso can handling very well. Robust and quick bass and clear high frequency, can reponsely quickly to show the details.

Also good for rapid tempo pop music. Such as Justin Bieber - Sorry. Every rythan are daning. Listening this song, feeling like stay at the middle of a dancing pool, surrounding by all kind of instruments. Both high and low frequency are controlled very well. Especially the high frequency pop up very quickly.

How about the sound with few lows? Test it by John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads. Without too much bass, pull ahead the vocal more ahead of the stage, and the guitar sound is so clear with touching feeling. Totally comfortable and nutural.

Lasso is a very good bluetooth earphone. Bluetooth 4.1 with CSR chipset, quick connection and stable.

With less than $40 MSRP, you can hardly find any other similar products can provide such clear sound and stylish design.

Of course, some drawback is not avoidable. Because the clear sound, some tooth sound between breath is obverious. But not big problem for exercise purpose.

Want to enjoy jogging with music? Lasso is good choice for you!