AIMA AM-889 – Review

AIMA AM-889

| 10 mm Driver |

? AIMA has manufactured a fair amount of earphones and headphones and the AIMA AM-889 is one them. Despite we had never heard about this brand we will give a chance to this ultra budget earphones and run them through our tests. The AIMA AM-889 are made of plastic but on the rear part of their housings they have a metallic disc, on the hands the plastics used to construct them feel extremely cheap. The cable is rounded, feels fragile and not much tangle-free.

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Accessories & Packaging

The earphones come in a very simple plastic and cardboard package with no accessories.

^2_/10

Bass & Sub Bass

Having a fairly sized dynamic driver (10 mm) the AIMA could offer some bass but instead they have no sub-bass at all, there is some mid-bass coming from them but the quality is plain horrible. With an EQ mid-bass gets boosted and sub-bass just constantly distorts. Amplifying them with a Fiio E12 and using a custom basshead EQ the AIMA AM-889 managed a surprising 49% of Fiio’s maximum power and out of nowhere they radically changed their performance. Mid-bass got very punchy being even capable of generating a mild basshead impact on the level of the JVC Gumy Plus HA-FX5 and even above the Philips SHE3581. Do not get too excited, sub-bass was still terribly bad farty-feeling.

^2.5_/10

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Mids & Vocals

Mids are very recessed, boxy right out of the box, thin but not harsh. Using an EQ they are still not harsh but sound super boxy and tinny.

^2.5_/10

Highs & Treble

The highs of the AIMA are very recessed but some brightness and detail can be perceived. There are some piercing highs but not too strong and some marginal sibilance. After equalizing the AM-889 got much brighter with no improvement in detail and definition and became very sibilant and piercing.

^4_/10

Sound Leak

The sound that leaks out of these earphones is terrible, everybody will hear what you are listening to even on highly noisy environments.

^3_/10

Sound Isolation

Sound isolation is another topic where the AIMA AM-889 fail shamefully, you will have to use extremely high volumes to even try to block a bit of noise.

^3_/10

Comfort

So far, the AIMA were pretty lousy but the thin plastics and super light housings offer them a pretty good comfort.

^7.75_/10

Response to Equalization

The AIMA’s starting point regarding sound quality is way too bad to even have a chance of being rescued or repaired by any type of EQ. Highs loose control and sound too sibilant and piercing, mids and vocals become tinny and extremely boxy, bass is the only frequency that shows a mild profit from a custom EQ empowering some of its mid-bass but sub-bass is unrepairable.

^2.5_/10

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Scores

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Photos

AIMA AM-889

3.4

SCORE

3.4/10