Kennerton Audio Laguz – A Better Rune

Disclaimer: Kennerton Audio supplied Laguz for the purposes of this review. I paid nothing for it. It go for 110$ USD. You can find out all about them here: Kennerton Audio Laguz.

Specification

Driver Unit: 8 mm
Frequency Response: 20 Hz – 20000 Hz
Sensitivity: 100 dB
Impedance: 16 Ohm
Cord length: 1.2 m

Build and presentation

Though less expensive, Kennerton Audio Laguz is the better rune. Algiz is poorly finished, expensive, and a bastard to fit. Laguz’s horn shape is easier on the ear, it’s price is nicer on the wallet, and because it comes with basically the same accessories: the exact same storage box, ear pieces, and with the same fake leather carrying case as Algiz is something its owners deserve to be smug about.

“You paid what for Algiz? Here’s Laguz. It cost me 110$.”

And, like Algiz, Laguz is the name of a pro-Germanic/Viking rune. According to Wikipedia, it means lake, water, or leek. My parents tell me that I learned to swim when I was six months old. And I love long, green onions. Things are shaping up in Laguz’s favour.

What’s more: 110$ is more in line with my expectations for an earphone with Laguz’s or Algiz’s attendant odours and shoddily put together package.

Much of what I wrote about Algiz applies to Laguz’s box and contents:

It’s fair to say that certain boxes smell like only they can. Master & Dynamic’s MH40 and MH30 jump out of boxes smelling like chemical skunk. Kennerton’s boxes are smaller, and therefore, in a large room, less potent. But where Master & Dynamic’s engineering, styling, branding, and build quality totally redeemed the box, Kennerton just smell.

Algiz is the most expensive earphone in Kennerton’s lineup. It’s a powerful, warm-sounding earphone. But it neither looks, nor feels up to its price. And it’s not built up to post-100$ standards. I’m sure that Kennerton’s Fischer Audio-friendly engineers and designers care. But their Chinese factory doesn’t give a shit. Kennerton would do good to find a better one. 449$ USD and Algiz’s foamy, ribbony, and even carrying case parts, are alternatively yellowed at the edges, or black like someone snubbed out a fag where the earphones go. The carrying case looks suede. It’s as suede as MEelectronics’s cases are. But MEelectronics go for much, much less.

The above aside, Laguz is a nicer earphone. It’s just in a shitty box. I can’t believe that Kennerton actually purchase from such a shitty factory. But whatever nastiness plagued Algiz like SARS plagues Laguz to a lesser degree. The chassis is cleaner, clearer, and better labelled. The cable is a twisted rope of meaningless tangled, cheap, wire, but it terminates in clearly labelled channels and its poor decal paint job, at Laguz’s 110$ price, isn’t as repugnant.

Its box, its carrying case, and its ear pieces are just as crap as Algiz’s. Its ear pieces don’t even sit straight in their niches, and the foamy shunts in which they are packed are embarrassingly imprecise. At least this time, those shunts aren’t plagued as much by discolouration, and burn marks. Still, my unit is poorly glued together, poorly cut, here and there mushed, and it sports a yellowing ribbon. The fuzzy niches shed all over the ear pieces, and don’t even hold them in place.

Ho hum.

Like Algis, Laguz is aluminium, and pretty sturdy. I kind of like its hex key ass, and its skeletal cable stress relief fits the Kennerton logo to a T. But what in the hell? How are you supposed to bend that shirt clip back without breaking a nail or cutting yourself? (See that white stuff near the shirt clip? That’s organic matter. That’s stuff that splintered from my thumb nail as I tried to prise that damn thing back to fit on my shirt.) And still, the Kennerton fascia is half glued on, half canting toward the sky. At any price, no company should accept such shoddy workmanship. A marketing company that has worked hard to make a nice logo and brand concept should fire their factory, which single-handedly is ruining an otherwise experiment.

Fit and sound continue after the jump or click here: