No mysticism
I will immediately answer a question that is often asked to me - what does the word MyST mean? Frankly, it doesn't mean anything. This is just a word that is easy to pronounce, remember, written in both Cyrillic and Latin, and can also be combined with other words - in particular, with our store mycroft.su. If you like, you can think of this as an acronym for My Sound Tech or Mycroft Sound Teaser.
As often happens, the birth of the MyST brand was not a one-time fact, but an evolutionary process. Everything was born from simple trading with a parallel accumulation of experience and thoughts about how and what could be done better. Or at least in my own way.
Oddly enough, it didn’t all start with audio. The company, on the basis of which production later appeared, was created for the distribution of Hyperdrive photo storage devices. But at some point, a partial change of owners and, as a consequence, interests led to a transition to the audio equipment trade in 2010. Moreover, it was very specific at that time - portable Hi-Fi.
CaseGuru Air CGPods
They appeared as a response to a request from the audience - “do you have an affordable analogue of the classic AirPods?” Get it and sign it - headphones with “legs” (sticking out of the ears, knocking on the earrings) in the “in-ear” format (poor sound insulation). But there are also advantages - both over the AirPods themselves and over other models of the brand. In particular, the charging connector is modern - USB Type-C, the design is more interesting (note the flat “leg”), 11 touch control commands (with AirPods you can’t even adjust the volume), two colors to choose from (black or white).
Directional microphones for Air CGPods are also ordered from the factory where microphones for AirPods are made. The sound quality during calls is excellent. This is perhaps the only advantage of having long “legs” - the microphones are closer to the sound source.
The autonomy of Air CGPods TWS headphones is as much as 24 hours, taking into account the charges in the case - just like the “apples”! Price - 3,500 rubles. In general, a good alternative for CGPods Lite, but in the format of earbuds, not earbuds.
You may like Huawei E5573 review and reviews in 2021
China and the hearing impaired
At that time, this direction was risky. Within the country, few people knew that the portable Hi-Fi market existed, and even abroad the number of companies producing expensive in-ear headphones could be counted on one hand. And almost all of them were engaged in hearing care. An interesting fact: the models for modern music lovers are based on developments intended for the hearing impaired.
In those days, one could not even dream of portable Hi-Fi players. The most advanced ones used Sony, M-Audio, Tascam or Marantz recorders. The average buyer has only heard of Sony or iRiver CD players. The majority of the population talked about in-ear headphones costing more than 500 rubles as an utter heresy.
And at that moment we got into portable audio. I think that thanks to our efforts, the brands HiFiMan, Colorfly, Yuin, Sleek Audio, Kleer, Phonak (headphones) and others have become known to a relatively wide audience in Russia. Large suppliers did not believe that there would be demand for the “Chinese basement” with strange names (like HiFiMan). Nowadays, large companies that collect more or less famous portable brands all over the world, seven years ago laughed at us and thought that the topic would not take off - everyone would use the iPhone and Sennheiser CX 300.
It was difficult to explain to people why Chinese players are so expensive and how they differ from “phones with music.” Many did not allow the idea that the Chinese noname would be better in sound than Western brands, and even cost more than $50. The paradigm shift from complete rejection to recognition (and sometimes even deification) occurred in 5–6 years.
At the beginning of the activity, it became obvious that the Chinese have a strange idea about audio technology. Let’s say that reliability at the initial stage could be “understood and forgiven” - it is difficult to expect that basement China (even if it is made in factories adjacent to iPhone production) will immediately be a model of reliability and style. However - a strange thing - with the constant increase in prices and the increase in the number of models, there was no increase in sound quality. Quite the contrary.
It has become clear that for most Chinese companies, sound in audio equipment is not of significant importance. I won’t say that this problem is exclusively Chinese, but it is especially pronounced among them. Or is it noticeable because the market itself is 90% Chinese.
It’s hard to say why this happened, but I’ll venture a guess. When the first players and headphones were released, the developers were focused on that absolutely unoccupied market of music lovers who needed high-quality sound on the road. An experienced music lover knows that good sound is expensive - and is willing to pay for it.
The first wave of goods went well, and whatever you say, China knows how to work quickly and flexibly adapts to the client, if he pays. Therefore, the requirements of the first buyers were quickly satisfied. And then a “glitch” occurred. Brands became recognizable, the audience expanded, and companies simply did not understand where the opinion of specialized customers was and where the typical requirements of the masses were, when a product was learned through a comparison of hertz and megapixels, even if it was a meat grinder.
The developers thought: since 10 thousand reviews demand “better screen” and only one insists on the sound, then we need to make players with a high-quality screen - and 10,000 of them need to be produced. And with better sound - one piece. Of course, no one tried to make a single copy of the player - instead, they took one from the circulation and “finished it a little” so that in the description it seemed of better quality. The key word here is in the description. Since very often, technically, top-end devices were no different from budget ones, with the exception of packaging and a beautiful case.
And what’s sad: the new devices that later came out and bore the imprint of High End - both in positioning in advertising and in price - never really moved towards sound. All updates remained a development of the “better screen” theme.
By the way, you are mistaken if you think that the introduction of balanced amplifiers is a branch in the direction of sound. It's the classic "more equals better." There was one amplifier, but now there are two. Like megapixels in phones that are better than mirrors because they have higher resolution.
This behavior of companies appeared almost immediately, but at first it was weakly expressed. The market was not yet saturated - and the models lived for several years. In addition, many newcomers appeared who could not immediately release something “cool and modern”, so they did without rhinestones and beautiful packaging. Until now, almost all Chinese manufacturers have the best models - the very first ones. Thus, the HM801 became a legend among HiFiMan.
By the way, HiFiMan HM603 earned much more reputation points and fan base than all subsequent players combined. After the release of AP100, Hidizs did not make a single model that would be noticed by music lovers. Colorfly, of course, produces very specific players, but so far the most sensational is the C4Pro.
iBasso DX50/90 were famous for their optimal sizes, good quality and firmware. Cayin N6 is still the best that Cayin has produced. And if you remember Lotoo Paw Gold, which is still among the leaders regardless of price, then there seems to be nothing to add.
In my opinion, none of the released players came close to their older brothers. And not just in terms of price-quality ratio - they didn’t even try to catch up with them at least in sound without regard to the price tag. There are exceptions, of course. The same QLS makes products in an extremely meaningful way. Not often, but aptly. It is not easy to compete in the market with such an opponent - we monitor their players and recommend them to our customers. But alas, these are isolated cases, and they do not change the overall picture.
CaseGuru CGPods Kids
Our rating of CGPods headphones continues with a new product from the case guru - CGPods Kids. These are the first truly children's headphones in Russia (and there are almost no analogues in the world). Moreover, they are for children not only because they are smaller than usual and stand out in bright colors, but also because they are produced according to WHO recommendations. The CGPods Kids wireless headphones are strictly limited to a maximum volume of 85 decibels. There is no need to be afraid that your children will damage their hearing, and you won’t even notice.
CGPods Kids are the ideal size for children aged three and up. The maximum age is not limited, since the headband expands and fits heads up to 58 cm in circumference. And 56-58 cm are already “adult” sizes. But, of course, headphones are optimal for children under 12-14 years old. They are light (only 132 grams - even smartphones are heavier!), They have medium-sized ear pads. Covering the ear pads and headband is made of delicate eco-leather, hypoallergenic plastic, pleasant to the touch (soft touch). The headphones are foldable, making them easy to take with you.
CGPods Kids headphones work for up to 36 hours on a single charge - enough for the longest trip. And if you suddenly forget to charge, then using a cable with a 3.5 mm “tip” you can turn the headphones into wired ones and continue to use them. The same AUX cable will allow you to connect two pairs of CGPods Kids to each other for joint listening. Killer feature if you have two children!
You can control playback using physical buttons on one of the ear pads. And since the headphones are equipped with a microphone and work as a headset, you can also use the keys to accept or reject calls.
The cost of CGPods Kids is 2,690 rubles. It should be noted that the line also includes headphones for teenagers - CGPods Cat. They also protect your hearing, stand out for their unusual design with cat ears (reviews prove that teenagers are delighted with CGPods Cat), support for microSD memory cards and LED backlighting. The price is almost the same - 2,790 rubles.
We
Actually, this “backdrop” became one of the reasons for the birth of our brand. I have an engineering education and have “access to brains and hands” (a legacy of dating through the notorious Baumanka). In general, the saying “if you want it done well, do it yourself” turned out to be relevant.
And we did. Fortunately, at that moment there was not much competition - the market was just being born. For some time we tried to combine distribution and production, but at a certain point we realized that we could not perform both functions at the same time. China increased the number of product items at a monstrous speed and, at the same time, increased the price tag just as significantly. We no longer had the finances or the desire to purchase complete lines, since most of the new products did not satisfy us in terms of sound quality and reliability.
Therefore, when large distributors suddenly woke up and made an offer to our Chinese partners that they could not refuse, we were not particularly upset. In the end, it would be more useful to use the freed up resources for our own production and development of new products. That's when our exciting journey into the world of producing our own audio equipment began.
Almost everyone who is familiar with the brand and communicates in our groups on social networks or on the player.ru forum associates MyST exclusively with me personally. I will note, however, that I am “one of” the founders of the company, store, production and, concurrently, the main ideologist of the brand, around which all work is now concentrated. Still, I think it’s right to conduct a conversation not from one person, but from the whole team.
First of all, this is my business development partner, Maxim Nikitin. He appears less often in public, but participates in the work no less than I do, although he does it “in the shadows.”
The third key person in the company’s activities was a person whom I was lucky to find through the channels of good old Baumanka. I will not publicly name this person, since he himself wished to remain anonymous. But little fame does not mean little contribution. In fact, the very existence of the brand rests on the gigantic experience of this person, as well as on his scientific and production connections.
You may be wondering, why am I talking about all this? Usually, when talking about a company’s achievements, they try to mention “advanced developments,” “unique technologies,” and the like. Do not hurry. In fact, this is exactly what I am doing - it’s just that to understand all our features, we also need to see the general background of the “canvas” on which the picture is drawn.
Three secrets
Any decisions are never made solely by me or any of my development partners (although the engineer has a fairly large degree of freedom, but this is understandable - without his initiative there will be no product at all). Of course, sometimes one of us has an idea that later becomes key. But!
Let's be honest - as an example, you can, of course, say that “Musk made a rocket,” but we understand that he himself won’t even make the rivets in it. And if she does, it will break on the first flight. That’s why literate people say “SpaceX” and not “Musk”.
So it is in our case: to attribute too much value to a thought simply expressed at the right time, against the backdrop of the gigantic work that then follows it, is not entirely fair and correct. In general, our first super technology is collective intelligence.
Our second feature is our approach to product creation, which is atypical for these times. We live in a world where the description of a product matters more than its actual capabilities. In our production, we proceed from the opposite. Whereas the usual practice is to use “fashionable technologies” (no matter how they affect the final result). We have the opposite priority. We put the result in the technical specification, but what methods we will achieve it with is a second matter.
For example, the creation of isodynamic closed-type headphones - those unique IzoEm. It was necessary to create portable headphones, the resolution of which would be unattainable by any other methods. We understood that this would require cramming a full-fledged broadband isodynamic driver into the IEM case. At that time, no one in the world had this!
As a result, we found a technology - an isodynamic emitter in a closed housing of in-ear headphones, and the result is high resolution. There are still many problems with this product, but there is also great development potential. If we follow through to the end, the concept of high-quality portable sound will move a level or two higher. Nothing that currently exists is even close to the capabilities of iso-plugs.
The third point in our philosophy is optimization. We are a small company, and we do not have the resources to master “new technologies” that are generated every six months. And we are so busy that we cannot afford to deal with the flow of problems that people have. We have to make devices so that they work always and in all conditions. Simple, without dancing with a tambourine when installing a fashionable but not common interface or connector.
If we see that an old, proven, reliable technology as a hammer still meets our requirements, we will prefer to use it. And I must say, it works great. It almost never happens to us that something doesn’t work for the buyer, doesn’t connect, isn’t recognized, etc. Any of our devices, of any year of manufacture, can be taken and connected to almost anything - and with a high degree of probability it will work. The maximum that may be required is some kind of adapter wiring.
It may seem that this approach leads to a loss of quality, since the old is usually worse than the new. But this is a mistaken opinion. Those who think this way forget that technologies do not exist on their own - they always exist exclusively in the context of the task for which they are created. The hammer is also an outdated technology, so what? It is not the technology that is important, but what it gives in the end.
I will immodestly declare that, for example, our combines on the “outdated” 20-bit AD1862 connected to a regular laptop using the “antediluvian” SPDIF are capable of 99.99999% of newfangled devices, no matter what they were assembled on, no matter how and what they were used for connected and no matter how many bits are used for resolution, detail and attack testing.
Honest 18–20 bits will always work better than advertising 24–32 bits. Especially when you consider that “iron” sound, not just 32 bit, even 24 bit, does not exist at all. There are files. And the real performance characteristics in the hardware at the output - God forbid, let them at least grow to 20 bits. Therefore, we consider chasing something new just because it is new, not only unnecessary, but also stupid.
CaseGuru CGPods Pro
Another ear pad headset from CGPods. They also have a folding body and compact size, but are intended for adults. Suitable for music (surround sound, excellent bass pumping), and for cinema, and for online games, and for work calls (record 38 hours of battery life). There is a special switchable MEGA-BASS mode for lovers of low frequencies.
The CGPods Pro wireless headphones have a slot for microSD memory cards, so they are ready to act as a standalone player if you load songs or audiobooks. There is also a switchable RGB backlight.
There are physical keys on the headphones to adjust the volume and switch tracks. And there is a touch area for play/pause and answering calls. The controls are convenient, you get used to it quickly.
The complaint is still the same - an outdated microUSB connector. But the equipment is rich - charging cable, AUX cable, fabric case. All this for 2,990 rubles - affordable, given good ergonomics, perfect assembly and powerful sound.
Well, this concludes the rating of CGPods headphones. Tell us in the comments which model did you like best? Or maybe you have already bought some? We will wait for an update to the line, because Vadim Bokov promised to sell 100,000 CGPods headphones during 2021. Surely you won’t be able to do without new products from CaseGuru.
