Hi I received my package from flipkart and straight out of the box, the Sound Magic ES-18 were an amazing VFM product. Following are my initial impressions :
Listening Time : 1 hour
Bass : Fairly decent. Earphones went deep and produced clean defined bass. Tried some classic rock songs, eg: Neil Young and the bass was sufficient. Then shifted to a Skrillex song for testing the thump factor and guess what these earphones produce exciting bass. So no issues with the LOWs department.
Mids : Now here is where these earphones clinch the deal. Brilliant Mids. Vocals shone like bright stars in a pitch black sky. In tracks like A Case of You - Joni Mitchell, I was dumbstruck. The moment I used to remember that I had to pay Rs. 560 for these earphones, I used to have the WTF moments. The Mids reproduction was unbelievable. I have a Philips SHE 9800 earphones, but those stand nowhere in front of these if you talk about the Mids. For all Mid-heads, you must give these earphones a try. Mind you, even at very low volumes, the vocals were quite prominent.
Treble : These earphones straight out of the box were shrill in their trebles. I confirmed the same by shifting my sources and yet found the same observations. In some trebly parts of some songs, It made me flinch by the bite these earphones gave me and out of reflex, I had to lower the volume. I am sure that these require some burn-in and the trebles with smoothen out a lil.
Build Quality : Since these are being sold at around Rs. 550, It would be too much to ask to get amazing build quality considering sound magic have tried to make them sound as good as earphones which cost 3-4 times the price. Indeed, they do feel a lil plasticky and you tend to feel a crude earpiece kind of brushing your ear canal. But it is not that painful either. The wire quality is pretty decent.
Overall Verdict : It is a must try budget earphones.