Monoprice 8320 Review – The best bang-for-buck earphones

Pros: Price, Good mids, highs, punchy lows
Cons: No accessories, uncomfortable, wire is tangle-prone

Packaging & Accessories: 1/10
Build Quality: 6/10
Design & Look: 6/10
Microphonics (higher ratings means lower cable noise): 8.5/10
Isolation: 8/10
Comfort: 6/10
Audio Quality: 7.5/10
Value: 10/10
My final Rating: 10/10

Purchase Date: January 2012
Purchase Price: £8

By far the 8320’s are the cheapest, yet best for their price point, earphones I’ve ever bought.
I bought them for £8 shipped. I really can’t complain, these are not even worth their price, they are worth much much more. For me these are easily worth 3x their price. They are simply too good to be worth a big mac meal.

Accessories
They didn’t come with anything, simply put

Comfort
These are comfortable to some extent, depending on your ear shape, but I wouldn’t recommend them for extended listening, as they are somewhat sharp around the edges, and thus are a little uncomfortable in your ears.

Look
When I first got them in my hands, the first word that sprigged to mind was: “skullcandy” these remind me of some punk-rock earphones, that would typically be sold by skullcandy

Build quality
They seem to be built quite well, their wire is of good quality, and the jack seems to be a little reinforced. In short, they have a decent but not amazing build quality

Wire
As mentioned above, they have a decent build quality, however their wires are very tangle prone. I haven’t spent so long un-tangling earphones in my life. Thus they do tangle quite easily, but for the price you may for these…you really shouldn’t be complaining.

Sound Quality
-Highs are clear, rolled off as you can imagine, but highs that I would hear from the EX500’s for example they also don’t spike like the EX700’s nor are sibilant like the Denon C710’s

-Mids, I think this is a love/hate relationship. It really depends on you really. They are quite forward, and by far this is the most notable frequency you will hear in these. I find the mids good, not unpleasant – although at times can sound a little tinny.

-Lows: These do pack a little punch, but are not at basshead levels. They don’t really extend at all either. With the ZO2, when adding bass to them, it came to the point (near the orange contour) where they wouldn’t change any more, due to the fact that they don’t respond to those frequencies.

Sound Quality Ratings
Lows: 7/10
Mids: 7.5/10
Highs: 7/10
Soundstage: 7/10

Overall, if you can get hold of them, do so, you won’t be disappointed. End of the day, these are cheaper than apple ear buds! And these beat the hell out of some IEM’s let alone stock ear buds.

TotallydubbedHD

2 thoughts on “Monoprice 8320 Review – The best bang-for-buck earphones

  1. hornboyx

    good read but I wished you didn’t put a 10/10 final rating because your previous score were not perfect so you can’t put 10 anymore.
    it would have been (final rating) 7 or 8 but nice article though.

    Reply

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