Audeze Sine review: The ultimate iPhone headphones?

The Audeze Sine are an exercise in understatement. Look beyond that classy, almost retro-looking exterior, however, and Audeze has given its latest headphones a modern twist: the Sine comes with an optional DAC and amplifier that connects directly to one of Apple’s Lightning connectors. If the rumours are true about Apple killing off the headphone socket in the iPhone 7, then the Sines are one step ahead of the pack.

Audeze Sine: Design

If BMW made headphones, then they’d probably look like this. There’s good reason for that, though: as BMW Group’s DesignworksUSA has taken the design reigns, it’s no surprise to find that the latest addition to Audeze’s newest family member is oozing understated, classic style. And given that every inch of them is covered in black – black metal, black leather and black rubber cables – I’m mildly surprised to find that they aren’t also endorsed by Kanye.

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As you’d hope for in a £450 pair of headphones, the Audeze Sine feel every bit as expensive as they actually are. The Sine’s skeleton is formed from rigid black anodised aluminium, and luxuriously soft black leather spreads across the earpieces and around the thick, padded headband. The weighty build quality is immensely reassuring, too: the hinged earpieces fold flat to make for easier carrying, yet still feel pleasingly robust.

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There are two further things to note about the Sine’s design. First, headphone geeks should note that these are the first on-ear, closed-back headphones to utilise Audeze’s trademark planar magnetic driver technology (Wikipedia is your friend) – given that Audeze’s range previously kicked off with the £600 over-ear EL-8, these are the first genuinely compact, portable headphones from the brand.

Second, you can connect the Sines directly to an iPad or iPhone via Apple’s Lightning connector. Even if Apple isn’t your bag, you can pick up the standard Audeze Sine for £400, but spending the extra £50 means that you get both a standard 3.5mm cable and Audeze’s Lightning-connected Cipher cable.

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The Cipher adds an in-line remote which, thanks to some kind of sorcery, squeezes in a miniature DAC and headphone amplifier in addition to the usual playback and volume controls. And of course, you still get the ability to take hands-free calls or chat to Siri without taking your phone out of your pocket. Nifty.

Audeze Sine: Sound quality

Connect the Sines to an iPhone via the Cipher, and a message immediately pops up prompting you to download and install the Audeze app. The app provides a ten-band graphic equaliser, which allows you to tailor the sound perfectly to your tastes by adjusting each band in 1dB increments. The only minor annoyance is that there are only two user presets, so you’ll just have to tweak the EQ manually if you have particularly eclectic taste in music.

Leave the EQ alone, however, and the Sines are likely to make you wonder where someone’s hidden the subwoofer. These compact headphones deliver brutal, seismic pulses of bass and a supremely detailed, punchy mid-range. It’s the kind of sound that’ll leave you reaching for the most bass-heavy tracks you can lay your hands on, and you’ll be well rewarded – the Sines lap up the deepest bass you can throw at them. In many ways, these are headphones that sound more like you’re sitting right up close to a pair of seriously expensive speakers.

Continues on page 2: Sound quality, comfort and overall verdict

If there’s a negative to be found, it’s that the low-end is exaggerated via the Cipher cable. Apparently, this is intentional: the Cipher purposely adds a 3dB lift to the bass. This might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s surprisingly easy to acclimatise to the Sine’s bass-heavy nature: every other pair of headphones sounds decidedly lightweight once you swap back.

Personally, though, I found it harder to like the Sine’s top-end: where headphones such as my reference Sennheiser HD 580 Precisions have a treble response that ekes every bit of airiness and depth in a recording, Audeze has opted for a far darker sound for the Sines. Thankfully, the Audeze app makes it easy to largely fix the problem – it only takes a tiny treble lift around 8kHz and 16kHz to get the Sines back on track – but there’s no escaping the fact that the Sines closed-back, on-ear design leaves them lacking the wide, airy soundstage of other headphones.

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Connect the Sines via the 3.5mm cable, however, and getting the most out of them is a tad trickier. The first issue is that phones and laptops may struggle to provide enough power to hear the Sines at their best – the Cipher fixes that issue thanks to its integrated amplifier, but my iPhone SE struggled to reach acceptable volumes on some recordings. The second issue is that, without Audeze’s handy iOS app, it’s trickier to fix Sine’s rolled-off treble. That’s easy enough to remedy with iTunes’ Equalizer, but if you listen to a lot of music via YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and so forth, you’ll need to splash out on a system-wide EQ app, such as eqMac or Boom 2 – and these won’t necessarily play ball with an external DAC such as the Chord Mojo.

Audeze Sine: Comfort

This is by far my biggest gripe with the Sines – and the key reason why I’ve knocked them down to a three-star review. As these are fairly heavy on-ear headphones, the Sine’s soft earpieces left my ears feeling numb after about an hour or so. Rather than taking them off, I found that shuffling them back and forth now and again relieved the pressure on my ears, but this raises other issues. Indeed, one thing I noticed was just how much the character of the sound seemed to vary in different positions: moving them a few millimetres forward, back, up or down was enough to make some very noticeable changes to the sound. Everyone’s ears are different, so your mileage may vary – but I’d definitely recommend trying before you buy to see if you experience the same problems.

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Audeze Sine: Verdict

At £450, these are not a cheap pair of headphones. For this kind of money, there’s no shortage of superb alternatives, in both in-ear, on-ear or over-ear flavours. For instance, Sennheiser’s £90 HD 25’s don’t have anything like the delicacy or precision of the Sines, but if you want a tight, punchy sound from an on-ear headphone, they’re a dramatically more affordable option. And if you’re looking for an exciting-sounding pair of portable headphones, but noise-cancelling is an essential feature, then the likes of Bose’s wireless £290 QuietComfort 35 win out overall.

For all that, though, Audeze has done a great job of delivering a taste of its planar magnetic magic at a slightly-lower-than-usual price, and while the Sine’s unique sound won’t be to everyone’s tastes, there’s no denying that they’re a class act. Thankfully, Audeze offer a 14-day trial period, so if the Sine’s fail to tickle your eardrums – or just aren’t comfortable – then you can always return them and get your money back. Just be warned: it’s highly likely that you’ll end up £400 poorer.