Flare Audio - R2PRO Titanium Grade 5 with Small, Medium and Large TX200 Comply Tips, Standard Black Cable

I think these earphones merit a review, so I guess it's time to break my Amazon duck and post my impressions.As they say in the UK, these are a bit Marmite, as it goes. If you cast around the Web you'll see that some folk love them to pieces, but others not so much. At one extreme you have comparisons to TOTL units costing north of $1k; and at the other, complaints about a dull and lifeless sound and issues with the (very thin) cable.Me? I'm happy to say that I love them. I'll try to tell you why.The R2PROs arrived in a small box, with a case, a soft bag and three pairs of Comply tips in different sizes. Opening the box, my first thought is was that these things are freaking tiny. They look more like electrical components off a 70's circuit board than complete units. No matter. I plug them into my Meridian Explorer DAC, shove them in my ears, and have a listen. My two first thoughts were (a) "gosh, the R2s are quiet"; and (b) "holy cow! Who ate all the treble?" But then I had to make supper for the kids so I removed the R2s and generally got on with my life.Next morning, I tried them on the bus to work, using an AK120 DAP as my source, and things were very different. Maybe I got the fit right. I was hearing a balanced, fluid and articulate sound that was very nice indeed. That day was not one of my most productive - I spent most of it simply enjoying the music the Flares were pouring into my brain.The sound I hear is very articulate, very supple, very melodic. Vocals,particularly female vocals, sound relatively large in the mix, so I guess the mids are dominant; but the whole frequency spectrum seems to be there, from top to bottom. These 'phones give you not just the percussive strike at the start of a note from a plucked string, but the resonance and harmonics that follow; both the slam of a drum beat and its texture. What these earphones really excel at is the precise locating of separate voices and instruments around your head, with plenty of air around each. This effect is more pronounced on high definition tracks, and really quite remarkable with binaural recordings. Overall, they remind me (though not so much in their sound signature) of better Sennheiser 'phones in their effortless reproduction of detail while preserving the lilt of the music.Most of the music I listened to for the first week or so was at the softer end of things, mostly roots and acoustic. Which posed the question, can these earphones rock? I'm happy to report that they can. Hearing them chow down on the guitars and drums on Machine Heads' Unto The Locust album was a thing of some joy. Jimmy Page is on record as liking these earphones; hearing his guitar playing through them, rising through the climax of Stairway To Heaven, so he bleedin' should. I used them to listen to The Wrens' Meadowland - to my ears, one of the most intensely musical albums there is - and found the strum and timbre of the guitars, the roiling bass, the pace of the drums... OK, so I cranked up the volume and played the album five times in row. In this regard, the Flares remind me a little of British audio electronics like Rega and Meridian. They're quick, light on their feet, musical and coherent, but they bite and kick like a mule on steroids when they need to.Nothing rigorous, but I did a little comparative listening. I compared these to my Dunu 2000j earphones. The Dunus clearly have more bass and treble, but lack the subtlety and detail retrieval of the Flares (and the Dunus were my favorite 'phones). Switching my source to the Cowon Plenue D was interesting. Like the Flares, the Plenue is very clean and neutral in its presentation. The combination of the two was wonderful: clean, transparent and very musical. However, on the bus I had to use the Cowon's Jet Effect equalizer to block out the ambient noise. (Touching on the equalizer, can I recommend the combination of the Flares' pin sharp locating ability, the Cowon's Canyon Reverb effect and the virtuoso banjos and fiddles of Alison Krauss and Union station? The combined effect is, err, remarkable.) I tried different tips and tip sizes, but the M sized Comply tips were by far the best for me.The Flares are relatively insensitive. My DAPs seem to cope OK, albeit with the volume a few notches higher; but they benefit from external amplification. I tried driving the R2s with my Musical Fidelity M1 SDAC headphone amp. The effect was interesting again - the Flares actually sounded a little more ragged (which is curious, the SDAC to me usually sounds very refined, but it may have been the source coming through), but the bass blossomed beautifully and the sense of scale opened up greatly. I could see why some reviewers are likening the sound of the R2PRO to full-size cans.A couple of specific points. The manufacturer makes a big deal about them being non-fatiguing to listen to. Certainly, I found them very easy to listen to for hours on end; and I have noticed that the range of acceptable volumes I can use to listen to them is much wider than for my other earphones. Distortion free indeed. The cable is thin and a little fiddly. I guess if it was much thicker, it would unbalance the look of the product, but it does make me wonder about durability. However, replacement cable and driver sets are available, from Amazon UK, at a reasonable price, and apparently the changeover is pretty simple.So, the big question: are these worth the MRSP? Well, I got lucky - I got these at almost a 50% discount from an Amazon Sale. At the price I got them, they are a real steal. But at the not cheap MRSP? Hmm.I think they are worth the price. They are an easy step or more up from my Sure SE535s, which retail at $500+ (though tbh those 'phones are overpriced in today's market - they just aren't as agile as the newer competition). I don't want to compare headphones and earphones, because they sound too different to me, but I will say that I can listen to the amplified Flares happily at home while taking it easy just like I would with my full-sized headphones costing more than $500. That is not something I would do with any of my other earphones, love them though I do when I'm on the move.YMMV. For many reviewers, the value of the R2PROs was overwhelmed by the tremendous value for money proposition offered by their much cheaper siblings, the R2A. And the cable.... What I'll do for myself is order a replacement set of cable and driver; in the way of such things, that should ensure I never need them. Or maybe even buy the R2A as a spare. They do say they have a different sound signature, and they do come in a really cool orange.....

For starters. to save your time looking, the foam tips are Comply tx-200 with wax guard.  Comply Foam Earphone Tips - Isolation Plus Tx-200 (Black, 3 Pairs, Medium) Packaging: 5/5I really appreciate the simplicity Flare have gone with in packaging these iems. There's no thick plastic blister pack to tear through or other such nonsense. Upon opening the small, white jewelry box, I was amazed at how darned small these things are. Flare's product photos don't really give a size reference, and the actual product is a little more than half the size I expected. My package included a small drawstring bag with the FLARE logo silkscreened on the front (ideal dice pouch, by the way...), the white jewelry box the iems reside in, and a cushioned zipper pouch with velcro tie strap and the FLARE logo silkscreened in silver. The only trash to be thrown out is the plastic bag the Comply tips came in.Comfort: 4.5/5I don't have any other R2's to compare with, but I think the titanium, being about half the weight of stainless steel, contributes to comfort for extended listening sessions. The comply Isolation Plus tips are quite comfortable indeed, so I don't think it's necessary to invest in Comfort Plus tips, although they might be worth a try if you're listening in a quiet environment.I have mixed feelings about the aluminum(?) y-split housing; the large size makes it easy to attach to yourself for strain relief, but it adds significant weight to the cable. I think the logic here is to wear the cable over your ear and down your back, and the weight keeps the cable resting on your ear like eyeglasses would. Personally, I just hook the y-split into a buttonhole on my shirt and call it done. Aside from the mildly annoying y-split, these headphones are really very comfy indeed.Build quality: 4.5/5I have to ding the cable for being just a simple barebones headphone wire. I'm not asking for a fancy braided sleeving or anything, but the cable seems a bit, well, dainty, compared with the nigh-indestructible titanium housing. The buds themselves are immaculate, and the 3.5mm connector is quite sturdily braced with thick heat shrink tubing that provides rugged durability in a slim diameter that will fit most smart phone cases. The wire kinda sucks, although it doesn't make nearly as much noise as some reviewers would have you think.Also, for what it's worth, it's a bit misleading to say that the cable and driver assembly is replaceable: It's more accurate to say the titanium housing is reusable. Soldering a new wire onto the back of the driver may be something akin to performing neurosurgery, so if you can't pull it off, you'll probably have to buy a whole new cable and driver set if you break your cable. Luckily, you'll never have to replace the titanium housing, which is a pricey piece of machining.Frequency response: 5/5So what do they sound like? The Flare R2 Pro is incredibly well balanced and delivers flat performance across the audible spectrum. Running a few tone generators though it, loudness seems to taper off below 60Hz and above 18kHz, although my ears shouldn't be able to distinguish in those ranges anyway. More importantly, the overall loudness in the spectrum between is remarkably constant, even in the infamously painful 2kHz range. For music, this means tracks with loud "peaky" spikes in the 2k range sound more balanced, and those sharp peaks come off buttery smooth. I think the smoothness is the big payoff of Flare's pressure balanced design, second only to the fact that I can listen at proper volume for much longer without fatiguing my ears.The really satisfying thing about the Flare R2 Pro is the wide, expansive soundstage, impressively comparable to open-backed cans like Grados and Sennheiser HD 550s. Reverb and delay you never noticed before in your favorite tracks become clear. Snares and strings sound that little bit more real, and you get to discover new subtle nuances in songs you've known for years. These iems are equally suitable for use on stage and in the studio as a reference tool and in the living room as a premier listening experience.

Sound quality is ok, but nothing extraordinary. I listen to classic a lot, and it's no better than my old sennheisers that cost a third of the price.Some serious cons:- foam earbuds don't last long before ripping- the cable insulation wore off within a month at the spot where the cable enters the buds- the earphones started crackling after a month of use. Poor build of the cable or whatever. This is my the second cable in 2 monthsOverall, ok sound while it works, but not made to last long. Definitely not worth the prime price, not even a quarter of it.

Tight bass, detailed mids and highs. No flabbiness, just pure sound. The reviews around the Internet are no exaggeration.Two minor points - Comply TX200 earbud tips need to be replaced every 3 months, they will fall apart, so keep a good stock of them. You can buy silicone earbuds but they are not as comfortable as Complys IMO. Also the cables, they do not like rough handling at all. I've been through 2 cables and at £40 a pop their value for money can be questioned if you have to replace them every 6 months.But the sound... it's almost worth it.

Sound quality is out of this world previous iems sennheiser ie8, triple-fi 10, over ears sennheiser hd650, sennheiser momentum. Bests all of them makes them seem like cheap toys these are the real deal. My only worry which many others have voiced is the cable which looks like it belongs on poundland earphones. I have no idea why they did this on an otherwise perfect product. You would have to spend an absolute fortune to get sound close to this. For that I am willing to forgive the cables. i can guarantee that you will not be disappointed far exceeded my expectations.

Great sound but cable is not built to last at all. Had to send off within 3 months of purchase and the cable was replaced fine. Further 3 months later same issue, emailed with no response.

Great sound. Very confortable