Pros
Excellent for Jazz and Blues
Great vocals
Very big soundstage
Acoustic string instruments sound great
Great price vs performance ratio
Cons
Neutral bass- not for bass heads
EPZ Q5 Pro review
I am an audiophile from sunny South Africa and we are having a very hot and humid summer as I am writing this review. I have reviewed the Q5 before so I really appreciated the opportunity to review the upgraded Q5 Pro. One thing about EPZ and it is echoed in the many groups I frequent is their very good customer service and walking the extra mile attitude of the company. I received the parcel within 21 days without any hiccups. EPZ has sent me the Q5 Pro in return for my honest review so please know that everything I write here is my own opinion. Will the Q5 Pro replace the original Q5 in my collection as my go to for Jazz & Blues? You will have to read further to get the answer to that question.
Unboxing
The Q5 Pro comes packaged in a big rectangular black cardboard box that is wrapped in an orange copper cardboard slide on cover. It looks really beautiful and stylish. When you flip the lid of the black box you are greeted by the sponge housing the Q5 Pro on the left and another box of accessories at the right. Inside the accessories box you will find a really nice pleather type case. Inside the case is a set of silicon ear tips. Also included is a nice little cleaning cloth with the EPZ logo on and which I think is a really nice gesture as you do not get these in a lot of earphone packaging. One thing I have come to love about EPZ as I have reviewed a few of their products is that they never skimp on packaging and the packaging is always premium.
Specs
Driver: 10mm carbon-ceramic composites nano-diaphragm dynamic driver
Impedance: 240@1kHz
Sensitivity: 109dB(±1dB) @1kHz
Frequency: 20-20kHz
Plug type: 3.5mm
Connector type: 0.78mm 2-pin
Cable length: 1.2m
Cable: 6N single-crystal copper cable
Acoustic filters: 7 series aerospace grade aluminum acoustic filters
Acoustic cavities: Harmonic-suppression rear acoustic cavity with metal faceplate
Acoustic structure cavities: Next-generation 3D printing acoustic structure cavities
Air intake and pressure relief: Independent air-intake and pressure-relief balance technology
Connectivity
The Q5 Pro shipped with a 3.5mm termination so obviously it gives you a world of possibilities as to what sources you can connect the Q5 Pro to. I used the Q5 pro with many sources of my own like my Astell & Kern dap, Hiby M300 with various Dac/amps like EPZ TP 20 Pro, TP35 and TP50. It also used it with my LG V30 and V40 phones I use for music only. You can also connect it to any tablet or laptop that has a 3.5mm out.
Look & Build
I don’t know what to call this color but is something between gold and copper and boy does it look good with the black ear shells. The color scheme makes these earphones look really classy and sophisticated. The shells are very light and designed for long listening hours in mind as the comfort and fit is top notch and you do not even notice the Q5 Pro is in your ears. The tips are the normal silicone variety and really nothing to write home about at this price point and if you really have to spoil yourself you can ad a pair of EPZ M100 tips as they are a great ad on and I use them on many earphones I have. I did not like the cable on the original Q5 and I have to say the black cable on the Q5 Pro I do indeed like more than the Q5. The 0.78mm 2 Pin connectors and 3.5mm connector are also this nice gold/copper color and I really like it. The carrying case is the normal black pleather affair you see with many earphones. The Q5 Pro sells for R1299 in South Africa and I am very happy with packaging and build vs the price.
Sound
As I used the previous model the Q5 mostly for Jazz and Blues, I started out after unboxing to plug the Q5 Pro into my trustee Astell & Kern dap and played Send in The Clowns by Svante & Katrine Madsen which is from and album I got from the digital collection of a late audiophile friend who passed on. Let me tell you one thing about the tuner at EPC. He knows how to tune vocals to be just beneath too bright. What stood out immediately was not the instrument separation I liked on the previous model but rather the vocals.
The highs really impressed me and as I said the highs are just beneath too bright and everything so clear and sparkly. These really are your typical Sunday evening relaxing jazz type of earphones. Just make sure the music has lots of vocals.
If you are a midrange lover like me these Q5 Pro will impress you. Midrange is always the most difficult for me to describe in the sense that is not just vocals that reside mostly here but also a lot of parts of prominent instruments and also the body of the song gets it tone from here. For me the midrange on the Q5 Pro really stands out more than the highs. It produces music that is mostly prominent vocals with the utmost accuracy and you can use for all your vocal focused music. Female vocals sounded a bit more forward to me than the males but not one voice that I listened to was thin sounding and sibilance was nonexistent.
The Bass really is very neutral to me. So, if you are a bass head these Q5 Pro is definitely not for you. If a designer designs an earphone for a specific market or genre, I can’t fault the earphone for not having bass. It was tuned that way. I did however get some bass out of it with some cable and ear tips changes.
Curious as always and wanting to subtract the best out of the Q5 Pro I decided to fit EPZ’s own upgrade tips the M100 and see if the M100 could help me ad some warmth to the bass. I also decided to fit Dusk cable from NMD Audio’s De Lux series to see if fitting a $745 cable to a mid to entry level earphone would improve the sound. I can happily report that with this combo the Q5 Pro transformed into a serious contender because all of a sudden there is bass and lots of it. Between the M100 tips and NMD Dusk cable that already wide soundstage gets even wider. So wide that at some stage I thought that a small hole developed in the center stage. I listened to the whole album Audiophile Analog Collection Vol. 2 and when the first notes hit on the first song Lights of Barcelona I was hooked.
The Astell & Kern did not disappoint as always and fed the Q5 Pro with 24bit / 48kHz goodness and the busy Organ notes on J.S Bach Toccata and Fugue slammed with authority and made it seem as if I was sitting in a real-life cathedral. On the album the genres are mainly Jazz, Classical, Blues and Opera and the Q5 Pro in my opinion is made for those genres with M100 tips and balanced cable. The whole presentation just had more authority overall and I can describe the sound as very big, as if you are listening to a wall of sound. If you have ever heard a pair of Magnepan speakers, you will know what I am talking about. So, do yourself a favor if you plan on getting these please order some M100 tips and make sure you order the Q5 Pro in balanced 4.4mm termination.
The soundstage is very impressive at this price range and making out individual instruments where they are in space is easy with the Q5 Pro is easy. I listen especially for soundstage when I listen to classical music and the Q5 Pro really makes the soundstage blow up when listening to big orchestras.
One thing I did pick up is that the Q5 Pro is not very forgiving to badly recorded music. So, if you play something and it is recorded badly it will reflect in what you hearing. CICO (crap in crap out) highly applies with these earphones. I am a big fan of the 70’s with it being the golden era of sound but man the music was well. The album Adelle21 is a perfect example of modern music recorded very well and the pace, rhythm and attack had me moving with the music on rumor has it.
Just another thing regarding the power consumption and what more power does. When I Hooked the Q5 Pro up to a desktop amplifier like the Fosi Audio Sk01 the music sounded a lot more controlled and it as if things come together more tightly.
Conclusion
Does the Q5 Pro replace the original Q5 in my collection? The answer is a very big fat yes. The cable has improved over the original. The soundstage is wider and the highs are a little better tamed than the original. Who should buy it? This is not for first time buyers as the Q5 Pro is very genre specific and will fit better into a multi collection. Audiophiles can feel free to buy this along with the M100 tips for a real great sounding earphone with an awesome price vs performance ratio.
