Signature

Downsloping response. I’d probably just describe it as “warm”. There is a mild midtreble emphasis to rein in the persasive midbass and lower midrange, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.

The good

VSonic set out to do one thing and they certainly achieved it: they made the GR07 laidback and fatigue free. Gone are the errant treble spikes and brightness, now replaced with a much safer and much less offensive tuning.

That’s it for this section.

The Bad

Look at how they massacred my boy.

This section is more gushing about the GR07 than it is about the VS7 so bear with me for a bit. Even till today, the GR07 remains highly competitive and is still my main recommendation for a neutral DD IEM at $100. In a price bracket where V-shaped signatures are a dime a dozen and people can’t seem to tune a flat-sounding headphone to save their life, the GR07 reigns supreme simply by existing. I think that reports of it being sibilant and harsh are either overexaggerated or made by less experienced ears, but perhaps that’s just the fanboy in me talking.

Note: I don’t actually own a GR07.

So here comes VSonic, listening to the pleas of the vocal minority about how they simply can’t stand the GR07’s treble. And to their credit, it’s always good to listen to your customers anyways. Perhaps this is less of a fault of the consumer’s demands than their own incompetencies on the tuning bench; rather than reducing the higher frequencies beyond 6kHz where the sizzles and zings sting the ears of some, what happened eventually was a wideband reduction of the midrange upward, killing its originally adequate tonality and replacing it with what sounds like a corpse of its former self.

The VS7 sounds boxy and deep, which is pretty fine for lower pitched instruments but almost an atrocity on anything higher than tenor. Its transients are certainly more than serviceable so this seems to be purely a tonal issue rather than a technical one. Other descriptions like “veiled” work too, though I think you get the point.

I have to stress here that the VS7 isn’t bad. Clearly it isn’t good, but maybe I’m just being extra critical due to the history behind it. A lot of things are middle-of-the-road and justifiably so, but the VS7’s placement as simply another average Joe stings me on a much deeper level, as much as I want it not to.

Conclusion

I keep alluding to the competitive IEM industry constantly in my reviews because it is absolutely a reason why it might seem that so many things get shoved into the dark realm of mediocrity. There are so much great stuff out there that your average consumer is absolutely spoilt for choice, and the difference between the average versus the ones just a slight cut above can be the difference between a successful product and one that quickly fades into obscurity.

Sorry, VSonic. You’ve been left in the dust.