April 29th, 2018

KZ ZS10 REVIEW: A PLEASANT SURPRISE

INTRODUCTION

A glamour shot to do the IEMs justice.

KZ is back at it again, with their first IEM for 2018 being the KZ ZS10, now with 5 drivers (1DD + 4BA), a new design and tremendous amounts of hype due in part to it's predecessor, the KZ ZS6. Can the ZS10 live up to the hype? Does it warrant an upgrade for ZS6 owners? And what can first time buyers expect from KZ ? Let's find out...

UNBOXING

Excuse the audio store that sold this to me for damaging the box.

The crappy "mic included" and poorly designed KZ logo returns.

Things are fairly uneventful on the other side though...

The back side gives us some basic specifications and some contact information.

I'm not super impressed with this packaging, it's the standard affair that KZ has always gone with ever since their conception: a small white carboard box with a slide out mechanism to reveal the IEMs. But hey, if it cuts down on some costs and gives me a lower pricetag than so be it. Besides, it's the IEMs that you'll be wearing not the box :))

Opening the box, you will see the ZS10 displayed without it's wires, attached to a black piece of plastic.

ACCESSORIES

The ZS10's accessories, or the lack of it.

As usual, you get 3 pairs of KZ's special eartips in small, medium and large sizes for fine tuning your ear's fit with the IEMs, a warranty card written mostly in Chinese and a user guide written in English that is pretty much a carbon copy of all the manuals that came in yesteryear's ZS6 and so on. Again, I find this assortment of extras still very lacking and would have liked to see a carrying pouch included, no matter how cheap and useless it will probably be.

What is different however, is the cable that KZ bundles with the IEMs this time, here's some close up shots:

The new bronze color looks pretty nice, though a bit out of place when paired with the ZS10.

This new cable is in my opinion, much higher quality than the plastic abomination KZ included last year, it now uses the curved 2 pin connector parts instead of the old straight one and now has a much better earhook that is no longer stiff and uncomfortable (thank god for that). The wire itself has been beefed up also, being thicker than even the silver upgrade cable that KZ sells for 10 bucks.

Overall, props to KZ for a welcomed improvement that will no doubt make buyers happy when they don't have to fear for their cable breaking in less than a week after it's purchase. Make no mistake, this cable is still pretty trashy and once again having a cheap feeling to it, sadly.

The mic is as fragile and shoddy as before, but atleast it's there.

The one button mic, as stated, is pretty bad. It can probably help you take calls when on the road and control your music, but that's pretty much it. But expect to repeat yourself when talking to the mic as this thing records pretty muddy and quiet sound.

The jack and termination is straight up ripped from the ZS5 and ZS6 cable, but they're good so it's fine.

The jack part is nothing new, being gold plated and feels pretty sturdy but ultimately pretty mediocre overall.

The new cable KZ gives you is nice, and for those who are strapped on cash and can only afford the ZS10 without anything else, then you should be satisfied with the cable. But if you have money to spare, buy yourself a custom cable to fully ultilize the KZ ZS10's sound and get a nice bump in sound quality and durability; as for this thing? Keep it in the box for one of your rainy days when your main cable breaks, it will serve as a nice holdover while you get your primary gear fixed or replaced.

APPEARANCE

The KZ ZS10, in the flesh.

They look really nice, don't they? I too was surprised when I actually saw these IEMs for the first time. The KZ marketing department really screwed up when the made the original renders becuase they made these IEMs look much worse than they actually are. In real life howerver, they are pretty shiny and have this cool transparency afforded by the plastic, giving you a peak of all the circuitry running inside making up the sound.

The red faceplate strikes an interesting contrast with the blue body.

At first, I thought the red faceplate board thingy that KZ used would look ugly when used with the blue shell, but no, they actually look pretty nice as the red is subdued and blends in quite well with the whole package. With that said, I don't understand why KZ didn't make a red shell to go with the red faceplate, what a missed opportunity.

Edit: A red version of the KZ ZS10 actually does exist and can be found for a similar price as the other versions.

From the looks of the insides and the circuitry, there's probably a crossover in the ZS10 - something many of KZ's fans have asked for as they find that KZ always messes up the tuning in previous models without the crossover. This will probably satisfy some angry fanboys but it's effect on the ZS10's performance remains to be seen.

Fit and comfort wise, I find that the shell of the ZS10 is much bigger than the ZS6, akin to the shell of the KZ ZST or the Shozy Hibiki, with many curves to try and conform to the ears. Despite the more ergonomic design, they are bigger in size than the ZS6 which will be a turn off for buyers with smaller ears; they also don't go deep in your ears as easy as the ZS6. After some time however, your ears will get used to the way the ZS10 fits and it definitely feel more friendly to your skin than the ZS6's sharp aluminum edges. Both the ZS6 and ZS10 are not the best for going to sleep with, but if I had to pick, it would be the ZS10 all day every day.

All right, let's cut the chit chat and get to the important part: the sound.

To be honest, for the first few hours of listening with the ZS10, I was hugely dissapointed of it's performance. The piercing highs that were too much for some on the ZS6 has indeed been fixed, but it was tuned down too much - the highs were now lifeless and dull, no longer having the sparkle and clarity the ZS6 had. The bass, despite being advertised as having an increase actually saw a deduction in quantity and power from the ZS6 (most likely because of the ZS10 having only 1 dynamic driver as opposed to the ZS6's two), it now feels really weak and lacks the viscosity that made the ZS6 so endearing to me. Mids were somewhat improved, making female vocals a bit more relaxed and "feminine" for lack of a better word, whilst male vocals became somewhat unnatural and overly bright.

I'd almost want to throw these ZS10 away for this trash sound that was nowhere near as good as it's predecessor, but i calmed down, gave it about 12 hours of burn in just listening to music and it clearly did some good to the sound.

I don't know if the burn in helped the IEMs became better or was it just my brain getting used to the sound, but it actually got better! I also EQ'ed it with a healthy bump in the bass frequencies, a 3db dip in the 1khz region and boosted the high frequencies to get it to sound more like the ZS6 to ease me into the ZS10's sound. I still had some doubts in my mind about the ZS10's sound, despite its quality somehow rapidly improving, than i played this:

SOUND

Porter Robinson & Madeon - Shelter

This was when it clicked for me, when every bit of doubt I had essentially faded away. Of all the IEMs I have heard before, never has one been able to actually make Shelter sound good, especially the drop where everything just melts into a cacophony of crashing cymbals and vocal chops. The KZ ZS10 expertly handles this, seperating and micromanaging any sounds coming through. Though I had listened to this song for many times with lots of different gear, this was by far its best rendition yet. It was also here that i had notice the ZS10's ability to recover more detail than the ZS6, revealing many things I have never heard in alot of songs which I had originally thought to have been explored to the fullest.

"The KZ ZS10 expertly handles this, seperating and micromanaging any sounds coming through."

Dirty Audio - Gorilla Glue

To see if the ZS10's bass can redeem itself, I listened to Dirty Audio's Gorilla Glue and boy oh boy was I amazed. Yes the bass is still nowhere as powerful or encompassing as the ZS6 but it hits just right, not going overboard, but just right. The drop once again shows the ZS10's better detail retrieval, as what was once a mess to my ears are now clearly seperated and having a level of seperation that to me was unseen from before. With bass for days. And with all that loud audio blasting in your ears, I'm glad that the ZS10 leaks no where as much sound as it's predecessor, as the ZS6 has given me quite alot of spiteful stares in public due to the amount of noise it makes.

"The drop once again shows the ZS10's better detail retrieval, as what was once a mess to my ears are now clearly seperated and having a level of seperation that to me was unseen from before. With bass for days."

IZECOLD - Close ft. Molly Ann

Tackling future house, the KZ ZS10 proves itself to be quite capable in terms of presenting highs and mids. It can easily make Molly Ann's voice sweet and tasteful, removing a bit of the overprocessed feeling that future house tracks often have, making the feel of her voice much more organic and life-like. Of course, it is no slouch when the drops hit either; when the future house synths kick up and set the song ablaze, the KZ ZS10 gladly obliges and shows that it has the clarity that people who buy the ZS6 crave yet also being able to not sound piercing, shedding the "treble cannon" name that many have lovingly (or spitefully) given to models that came before it.

"The KZ ZS10 gladly obliges and shows that it has the clarity that people who buy the ZS6 crave yet also being able to not sound piercing."

CONCLUSION

In the end, my thoughts on the KZ ZS10 are as follow:

"The ZS10 is not without it's faults, having a slightly narrower soundstage than the ZS6, and it needs some burn in as well as EQing to sound good but when it does, it sounds much better than anything you've heard before, with incredible seperation and detail retreival. Though it's hard for me to tell users of the ZS6 to upgrade, as they might find the sound of these IEMs to be quite muddy and lifeless (which it totally isn't by the way), it's just that KZ's mixing for this one has been quite different and I think first time buyers would much more appreciate this piece than returning consumers."

KZ ZS10

I know that this review has had alot of comparisons to the KZ ZS6, but frankly, all my other IEMs are pretty much inferior to the ZS6, so something better than ZS6 will most likely be more favourable than those other IEMs. But hey, maybe next time I'll have a comparison section, we'll see about that. This is Lumerion, signing out.