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Yearn for audiophile audio sound but aren't prepared to spend quite that much money? The HIDIZS Mermaid MS2 Earphones and HIDIZS S3 Pro Hi-Res DAC Dongle combine to give you splendid sound - and audiophile looks - at a fraction of the price. Audio enthusiast and tech expert Dave Taylor auditioned the two and found quite a lot to like in this candid review.
Check them out at: https://www.hidizs.net/?aid=davetaylor
DISCOUNT CODES!
DAVE5 5% off for AP80/AP80 pro/(DH80s/80)/MS2/MS4/S9 Pro/MS1/H2 and bundles
DAVE3 3% off for S8/MS1 rainbow/Seeds/H1/BT01
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0:00
Audio file level earbuds and a tiny DAC
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Let's check this out. Dave Taylor here and I'm checking out these
0:15
These, hard to see what's going on here, are the wired, high-dyes, Mermaid MS2
0:23
high-fi earphones. And they are what I consider in-ear monitors. Now, they're a very distinctive design, and their goal is not to be as tiny as possible
0:34
but to give you the best possible sound reproduction, and they succeed remarkably well
0:40
They're also really cool looking. So you have to sort of master how to put them on
0:45
And what I do is I sort of put this around my ear and then put the earbud part in
0:52
and then you do the same for the other one, and it takes a little getting the hang of it
0:58
Once you do, it's pretty darn easy and then you just rotate them ever so slightly
1:03
And they are wired. So you have to plug it into a 3.5 millimeter jack, which means that, let me take them off again
1:12
which means you need a device that has a jack on it
1:17
Or you need to use their hide-eyes S3 Pro high-res DAC dongle
1:24
And this is an elegant little piece of hardware. It's tiny. USBC on one end. There's a USBA adapter. I'll show you that in a minute
1:33
USBC on one end and a tiny little amplifier with a 3.5 millimeter jack
1:39
which means I can take a phone like this, which is my Google Pixel 6 Pro, and it sadly, you can look and look and look
1:49
It does not have a 3.5 millimeter jack, but it does have USBC
1:54
so I can plug this in and now I'm ready to go with the mermaid MS2
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Now, before I do that, let me tell you a little bit about the sound and what's going on here
2:06
So they're built around something called the Knowles 33518 balanced armature chipset
2:12
and they give you really nice sound. There's also a 10.2 millimeter dynamic driver on each one too
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So you get a full, rich sound. sound and in the box it comes with five other sizes. You get a total of six sizes of ear tips. So it's
2:33
really easy to get exactly the fit you want. And it again, it takes a little bit of getting
2:39
the hang of it because the actual earbud can be separated from the wire So you can replace the wire if you need to But that also means you have to figure out how to plug it all in together correctly So when you first get them they be surprised if you like saying hmm this doesn seem to fit quite right
2:59
So take them out, rotate them 180 and plug them in again and try again
3:03
Now, it is a resin body. They are extremely attractive. You can see in this close up when they're in your ear, they're pretty cool looking actually
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There's a really nice color. They have a couple of different color sets you can get
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The body itself is a resin body, and that gives you less issues with vibration and buzzing and stuff
3:27
The cable itself, this is a quad-core braided cable, and like I said, this connection between the wire and the earbud itself
3:39
is a 0.78 millimeter 2-pin plus. and most importantly you can see all of the components are really high quality
3:48
this 3.5 millimeter plug has a really nice wire setup they've done something
3:54
very specific where they split into the two different earbuds so everything's
4:00
pretty rock solid and it's all designed to give you minimal audio loss because
4:06
they're high-res audio certified so you can give them a lot of data and they're going to
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work really well and sound beautiful. Now what I will say is that there is no microphone
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These are audio listening devices. There's no Bluetooth. There's no active noise cancellation
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Put on the right size ear tips though and they get crazy loud. So really when you first
4:32
plug these in and start listening to them, dial your sound way down and much more so when
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you're using their DAC is that it is crazy loud. When I first
4:42
plugged it in. I don't know why, but my computer defaults when it has a USB audio output device
4:48
it defaults to maximum volume, which is actually like dangerously loud. So the first thing I have to
4:54
do is dial that way down before I even put these in my ears. Super important. Now, in terms of
5:01
the sound, they sound really good. There's a nice crisp precision to the sound and there's a nice
5:10
bass. I was listening to some just classic Brazilian samba music. So like Antonio Carlos
5:17
Jebim, stuff like that. And oh man, turn it up, close my eyes. And it was like I was on the beach
5:23
and it was just beautiful. Just a really nice sound, very crisp, a nice sound stage. Everything had a
5:31
nice detail to it Really a lot to like about these And the price will blow you away It really shocking how inexpensive these are But I want to talk about the price at the very end because I also want to talk about this and this little unit here like I said is the hide S3 Pro
5:51
high-res DAC dongle and it supports DSD and 8X MQA or Master Quality Assured
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so you can use it with things like title or high buy music or QBuzz which is
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what I was listening to. Apple Music Losless supports this too. It is also high
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res certified and it actually has a tiny little indicator light on it. So you
6:18
can see and get a little visual feedback. You can see here in this inset that red is
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44.1 to 48 kilohertz, which is pretty typical audio. Blue is the next level up. That's
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88 to 384 kilohertz. And if you're getting pink, you are MQ
6:36
level, you get in the best possible sound you can. It pairs incredibly well with the mermaids so you can leave the whole thing all plugged in together, ready to roll
6:46
How easy is that, right? PCM up to 32 bits, 384 kilohertz
6:53
It uses the ESS 92 8, um, let me get that right
6:59
The ESS 9281c Pro DAC chip. And one downside is there are actually multiple versions of firmware you can drop onto this
7:11
There's no buttons, there's no controls of any sort. This is a solid state device
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But there are three options for firmware you can drop onto it that give you treble heavy, balanced, which is the default, or base heavy
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But you can only do that on a PC. Since I didn't have a PC handy, I wasn't able to try out the different firmware
7:32
so I just stuck with balanced, which probably is the best choice anyway
7:37
But that's what you have. And like I said, in the box, let me just open this up
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And all their packaging and everything is really terrific. I mean, this company is like deep in the overachiever category
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But in the box is also a USBC to USBA adapter. So if you don't have USBC and you don't have 3.5 millimeter
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then this DAC will. still work for you. You're just going to have to use the adapter. Not really a crisis as things go
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And I also want to point out that the mermaid MS2 comes with this beautiful carrying case
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It's leather and super convenient. It looks like it's something where you're like, you know
8:19
are about to propose to someone. And you're like, darling, look at my ring. And they're like
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those are earbuds But they still might say yes So you never know So what we need to talk about is we need to talk about the price I will say again before I get to the price that these are just incredibly nice sounding
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This whole setup just sounds really good. I have like $1,000 earbuds
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I have $600 DACs. And this has comparable sound at a fraction of the price
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What is that price? Well, before I get to the price, I'm going to ask if you could subscribe to my channel
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a click or a tap on that subscribe button and we're connected. Really appreciate that
9:01
Cool. Now, these are the Hideyes Mermaid MS2 high-fi earphones in black, red, blue, the color I have, green or purple
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and their 99-99 currently discounted down to $89 at hideyes.net, $89.9. I think they could have said 289 or 389, and I would have still thought those were
9:26
good price. So at 89 bucks, these are ridiculously affordable and they just not only look really cool
9:33
but boy, they sound fantastic. Then we have this. This is the Hideyes S3 Pro high-res DAC
9:40
dongle. It is tiny. It looks tiny. It's like an incredibly powerful amplifier tucked into this
9:47
tiny little unit. And it most importantly gives you basically a 3.5 millimeter adapter and amplifier
9:55
for a vast variety of devices. Now, all of this is compatible with really anything, any hardware you want to plug it into
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This will work with Mac or iPhones or iPads or Windows or Android
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If you're going to use it with an iPhone, you're going to need to get a lightning adapter for the USBC
10:15
They don't include that. Otherwise, you've got everything you need. And so, again, for something like this Google Pixel, I just plug it into USBC and I'm ready to rock and roll
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with Spotify, with title, with Cubas, whatever it is. I'm ready to go with great sounding audio
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And this device comes in black or silver. This is the silver color
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And it's 69 bucks at hideyes.net. I mean, this whole setup really could easily be 499 or something
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And you'd still be happy with the sound quality you got. But the fact that it's under $200 is ridiculous
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Definitely worth checking out. I'm going to get back to my music. So I'll have to catch you in my next video