Life as a music lover in an audiophile community that strives for the perfect flat frequency response curve from all types of headphones is tough. If you move to the best wireless headphones, suddenly the community starts preaching about how lost you are and how you’re not listening to music as you should. Two passionate engineers in India decided to challenge the norm and create wireless headphones with incredible bass response and the best wireless connectivity for maximum convenience. The result lives up to the Sonic Lamb brand and feels like you’re walking around with an invisible eight-inch bass tube strapped to your head.
Sonic Lamp
The Sonic Lamb are the emerging brand’s first headphones, promising a concert-like listening experience with a dual-driver configuration designed to deliver punchy, audible bass, but at a mid-high price. These over-ear headphones offer the best wireless codecs, backed by solid battery life too.
- Immersive sound with powerful low frequency response
- Discreet design with hidden LED indicator
- Carrying bag and detachable microphone included
- Supports high-definition audio codecs.
- There are expected to be multiple missing points and ANC at the price.
- Heavy body with unconventional over-ear ear cushions
- Soft buttons with unconventional placement
- Microphone doesn’t work well with video conferencing tools
Price, availability and specifications
You pay for exclusivity.
The Sonic Lamb are the company’s first and only over-ear headphones to retail for $276, but the first 1,000 units are being sold at a discounted price of $240. That’s a pretty steep price for standard wireless headphones, especially when you can buy well-respected traditional models like the Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2 or Sony’s flagship WH-1000XM5 headphones with class-leading features for around $350.
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These headphones already have RoHS, FCC, UKCA, and EU CE certifications and will be available on Amazon US later this year. For now, the brand offers international shipping.
What I like about Sonic Lamb
Bass for days
From the moment you open the box, which uses paper and other sustainable materials, you’ll know you’re holding a premium pair of headphones in your hands. The headphones come with a brown hardshell carrying case with a grip handle and a mesh pocket inside for the charging cable and detachable microphone. The headphones use soft-touch plastic, with the faux leather only visible on the earcups as the headband cushion uses a soft polymer material. The length is adjusted on soft sliders, and they look and feel incredibly luxurious.
Although the accompanying documentation is more textual than visual, the Sonic Lamb headphones feature easy-to-use volume controls and a multi-function power/play/pause button. The discreet status LED and two built-in microphones are also well hidden from the untrained eye. Once you put these headphones on, you’ll find a mode dial beneath the right earcup, offering four-step adjustment of the pulse driver’s engagement in your listening experience.
The sound is what sets these headphones apart, and starting with the speaker turned off in listening mode, audio and voice tracks like California hotel The Eagles benefit from a traditional 40mm V-shaped dynamic driver response with clear highs and mids. I noticed that the high frequency representation struggled at higher volumes, but it got very loud at 60%. The earcups ensure that sound leakage is minimal as well. The sound stage sounds crowded, and the separation of elements isn’t amazing, but the stereo separation is a saving grace. However, the headphones sound quite normal with the impulse driver turned off.
Turn the dial to Feel mode, which awakens the pulse drivers, and you’ll immediately notice a slightly echo-like bass response that lifts the low end in tracks like Makeba Written by Jane W Heat waves Produced by Glass Animals. That’s because the driver transmits physical impulses to your skull through the ear cushions while also moving air like a traditional subwoofer.
Sonic Lamb calls the next step Immersion Mode, and this is the most I can suggest for bass playback as it delivers an amazing woody sound and serious immersion for movies, hip-hop, reggae, and metal. I enjoyed this more than anything else. disastrous By Trivium, Hi mom Produced by the Black Eyed Peas, and featuring classic songs like DRE still or one day Produced by UGK. The amplified low notes in this mode swing excessively, but retain a slight amount of clarity and do not overwhelm other frequencies, thanks to the dual driver configuration.
The ultimate Beast mode allows the speaker to operate without restriction, making the earbuds vibrate with a distinct vibrancy. Sonic Lamb recommends this mode for gaming, but I found the closed-back design to be detrimental to the very powerful low-end resonance. In short, the Sonic Lamb delivers the advertised “in-ear” experience unlike any other earbud I’ve used. I’m sorry I can’t hear something as good as this one because it really takes the bar up a notch.
What I don’t like about Sonic Lamb
Traditional key features are missing.
Leaving these headphones would have me reverting to the popular bass-first Kbear Rosefinch IEMs, but there are a few weaknesses I didn’t expect at this price. Features like active noise cancellation, ear detection, and multipoint Bluetooth are noticeably absent from the spec sheet. I also found the documentation to be more textual than visual, which can be a challenge when you want to get started quickly.
Thankfully, the buttons feel familiar once you get used to their odd placement on top of the earcup, with the center button being longer than the others. These buttons lack tactility, but you don’t hear clicks on your head either. Instead, you have to rely on a variety of beeps and chimes for feedback on the recorded input. I was particularly annoyed that the volume control is assigned to the buttons while the modes are toggled on the dial, especially considering that users frequently adjust the volume after deciding on the listening mode for the next few tracks. Furthermore, these earphones don’t alert the user when the listening mode changes.
Initial setup is easier with the companion app, which tells you important information like battery level and active listening mode. However, the app doesn’t offer much beyond a mode demo with tracks, an equalizer, and a well-hidden LED toggle switch. An iOS app isn’t available at the time of writing, nor is a feature called Ear Print, which customizes the sound signature to suit your ears. However, you might find the mid-bass to be punchy, especially if you’ve only used headphones before.
The minimal tilt of the earcup and the passive isolation from the ear cups need improvement. However, the design is an awkward and uncomfortable mix of on-ear and over-ear shapes to maximize contact, which helps with bass perception. I also found the headphones to be uncomfortably heavy after a few hours of use, with pain concentrated where the middle of the headband rests.
Support for wired use is a big plus, but it’s disappointing that the onboard DAC prevents the microphone from working in wired mode, leaving me longing for a traditional aux-based connection.
Should you buy Sonic Lamb?
Set priorities before making a decision.
After a few weeks of using the headphones, it became clear that the Sonic Lamb is not aimed at the discerning audiophile, but rather at the bass enthusiast looking for comfort and durability. The tweak that increases the low-frequency response independently of the dynamic driver behavior is undoubtedly a great feature that is unmatched by any other headphone. However, this comes at the expense of the mainstream features you would expect at this price, such as active noise cancellation, multi-point connectivity, and worry-free wired use.
However, if you want to listen to bookshelf speakers on your daily commute and at the gym, the Sonic Lamb speakers are still unbeatable. You can enjoy high-fidelity audio on the go with great battery life, and the $240 introductory price seems like a bargain for a unique experience.
Sonic Lamp
If you’re a metal or hip-hop fan and want a combination of private listening, bookshelf speaker quality, and lossless playback support, the Sonic Lamb is the way to go. Other than that, it’s just a unique listening experience that’s not for everyone.
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