The Zero 2 didn't impress me immediately. Coming from regular consumer audio, my first reaction was honestly “where's the bass?” It didn't have that obvious thump I was used to.
Then I played James Blake – Limit to Your Love. That ridiculously deep sub-bass was clearly there. That's when I realised the Zero 2 wasn't bassless — its bass just wasn't constantly bloated or pushed forward.
But bass isn't why I ended up loving it.
The real revelation was separation and detail. Harris Jayaraj's Mudhal Kanave (Majunu) sounded unexpectedly airy, with instruments occupying their own space. Then A.R. Rahman's Nenjinile (Uyire) exposed tiny bells, percussion and background textures I'd heard countless times but never really noticed.
A.R. Rahman's Sangamam pushed it even further. Sowkkiyama and Muthalmurai sounded ridiculously clean and separated — vocals, veena, percussion and other instruments remained individually easy to follow even as the arrangements became busy. Tanam Kiravani was basically earporn on these.
The imaging isn't enormous or artificially wide, but with good recordings there's a convincing sense of where sounds are and how far away they are. Live recordings made this especially obvious. Remember Shakti's Saturday Night in Bombay actually felt like listening to musicians occupying a stage rather than instruments simply being panned left and right.
Modern electronic production can be equally fun. A.R. Rahman's Ladio (I) has a dense electronic arrangement but still gives its individual sounds room to breathe, while Marian Hill showed me how effective the opposite approach can be — sparse production, deep bass and tiny sounds appearing out of otherwise empty space.
The downside is that the Zero 2 also exposes mediocre production. I tried the DC soundtrack in 24-bit/48 kHz lossless, expecting a major improvement over Spotify. Apart from moments in Hangova, Thaalam Trip and Echoes of DC, much of it still sounded narrow. Lossless can't create space that isn't in the mix.
That's probably the biggest thing the Zero 2 taught me: recording, arrangement and mixing matter far more than a file simply saying “24-bit.”
It's not perfect. The stage could be larger, I'd occasionally like more physical bass impact, and the stock tips feel somewhat plasticky. But they're comfortable and seal well, and the different stock tip designs actually provide some useful room to experiment with the presentation.
Compared with something consumer-oriented like my OnePlus Z2 ANC, I lose ANC, wireless convenience and some exaggerated bass thump. That's about as much comparison as it needs — they're completely different products.
For the price, what impresses me most isn't that the Zero 2 makes everything sound amazing.
It makes great recordings sound great — and makes it painfully obvious when they aren't.