Egghead: Experience Audio Porn At Its Finest – Try Before You Buy!

When in Manila and looking for an audio high, where do you need to go? EGGHEAD!

This blogpost is not really a technical review, but merely an introduction to the audio world.

Egghead is a headphone/earphone/in ear monitor and everything about audio concept store located in the heart of Metro Manila that was established back in January of 2012 with the mantra of “Hear ’em before you buy ’em”, which is fairly new and almost unheard of in our market. The last time I experienced this was when I was back in Singapore checking out what Sim Lim Square had to offer. By the way, if you are a gear head, Sim Lim Square in Singapore is a must visit!

Anywho, Egghead is the only audio store I know of here in the Philippines that will happily allow you to test the product before actually buying without the prying and judgmental eyes of the personnel while doing so. 

Yes, you can try all of them. I’m also sure that they get cleaned everyday.

Egghead was known back then as GoGadgets to local headphiles who frequented the Gilmore Avenue area to check out the latest piece of audio gadgetry not found in local retail stores. Yes, there are more products there than just Beats by Dre, Skullcandy and Coloud. But hey, if you are currently an owner of those brands, I’m sure that you are happy with them. I just want to point out that there are a lot of other brands out there, as well, that are just as good, if not better.

The famous SoundMAGIC IEMs AKA the gateway drug. The SoundMAGIC ES18 can be had for a ridiculously low price of PHP 600 and one of the cleanest-sounding ones, even at three times it’s price point.

A good earphone or In Ear Monitors (IEM) does not necessarily need to be expensive. SoundMAGIC is the perfect example of this – a Chinese company founded in 2005 landed in our shores about 2-3 years ago by word of mouth in the form of the SoundMAGIC PL11 (PHP 800).

As I remember it, getting a pair before would take a long wait since they were almost always sold out. However, the long wait was always worth it because back then, this little gem was raved about in the portable audio world, not just for its price but also for its quality and performance that punches above its weight. My pair lasted for 2 years without a problem before I lost it, but I can still remember the initial smile it gave me listening to it and how many people I converted to itin the office of my audio religion.

It will take time to test all of these in 1 day.

If you are more into headphones, you will be glad to know that whatever your budget is, be it PHP 800 or PHP70,000 (yes, that is 70 big ones, and not a typo), you will be well served by the knowledgeable staff that will help you pick out the best ones for your budget and needs. You will be surprised how knowledgeable the staff is. Naturally, that is a good thing.

Trying it before buying it, the Supelux HD651 for PHP 995 and it comes in purple too.

So, what to do next? Best thing to do would be to bring your own audio player in the brand of your choice and listen to your favorite or your reference song (my reference  song is Colored Kisses from the album Nina Live!) and hopefully in its best format like FLAC or ALAC, or the 384 kbps audio quality bit rate, which is the highest one for MP3.

If you don’t have one at hand, though, the store will gladly lend you theirs to try out the vast selection of headphones and earphones with.

Cabling services for damaged headphones, earphones/IEMs or just add some bling bling.

In our local headphile community, there are certain individuals who do re-cabling services for damaged headphones, earphones/IEMs or just to add some bling. As most of them are in hiatus, though, it is good to know that Egghead took up where they left off. And yes, again, good quality cables do affect the overall sound quality.