Technical Performance
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Aside from its beautiful tonality, the IEM has good resolution, detail retrieval and transparency. It lacks some cohesiveness though, all thanks to its huge mid-bass which contradicts with the rest of the spectrum.
The overall control and separation is not the absolute best in its price bracket as well. However, I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t have good technicalities. But again, the best part about this IEM is its tonality & timbre.
Comparisons
I compared the Shozy Form 1.1 to some sub-100$ IEMs and Shozy BG. Here are my findings below.
iBasso IT01
iBasso IT01
The IT01 is a great IEM for the price and it still keeps its place in our recommended list. They have a similar build quality overall, but the IT01 fits a bit better with a smaller shell.
Sound-wise it is more balanced than the 1.1 since it doesn’t have that midbass dominance. However Shozy pulls ahead in terms of overall tonality which is something that the IT01 lacks in. The IT01 has slightly better resolution and separation to me, with a wider staging performance. The difference is small though.
The bass is bigger with the 1.1 so if you listen to popular types of music, it might suit you better. The IT01 has a more classic tuning which suits better for classical, blues & jazz.
Shozy Hibiki MK2
The Hibiki’s bass is more rounded up with better balance. However its mids is not at the same level with the 1.1, as well as its treble response. So overall the only advantage the Hibiki brings to the table is its wider stage and better bass balance.
Other than that, the Form 1.1 does everything else better. I just wish that the 1.1 had the bass response of the Hibiki MK2.
Shozy Hibiki MK2
KZ AS10
My favorite KZ IEM to date, the ZS10 has a full Balanced Armature setup with 5 drivers. Again, its bass to me is better than the Form 1.1’s boosted bass section with huge mid-bass focus. It performs similarly in terms of mids with a slightly veiled sound compared to 1.1.
Shozy gives better tonality, better treble and better sound-stage. So the only advantage of the AS10 is its balance and coherency, which the 1.1 doesn’t perform well in.
Shozy BG
Whilst the BG lacks some bass quantity, the 1.1 lacks bass balance and coherency. So we have 2 problems because of very different reasons here. The BG performs more naturally with a flatter signature which suits genres like Classical, Vocal Jazz, Instrumental Music and Classic Rock. The 1.1 on the other hand performs more impressive when it comes to popular mainstream music with its bass.
So there’s a huge difference in their own presentations. From the technical standpoint, the BG is simply better in every category except its thin tonality, which is a bit better in Form 1.1. So my advice would be different here if you think about spending three times more for the BG. Choose depending on your favorite music. The BG is not a good choice for EDM for example, so getting it wouldn’t make sense.
Conclusion
Shozy once again have put up an IEM that performs seriously good for the price. However, they decided to go for a big bass in the mid-bass section to appeal general music audience. I did not like this tuning simply because the IEM performs very good in other sections, and the mid-bass distracts you with its overly impressive presence sometimes.
Yet, since its overall performance is better than the Hibiki MK2 for just around $10-15 more, I remove the Hibiki from our Best Universal IEMs page and put the Form 1.1 instead. Apart from its bass, it doesn’t have any obvious weakness in its sound performance. This makes it one of the best choices in the sub-$100 category.
We will soon get the Form 1.4 model as well. Always check out Headfonia for more!
