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Ghostek SoDrop
PROS:
- Fits glasses wearers well
- Comes with hard-shell carrying case
- Bass-heavy (for those who like base-heavy music)
CONS:
- Smaller battery life
- Bass-heavy (for those who DONʼT like base-heavy music)
Ghostek Rapture
PROS:
- Better battery life
- Incremental improvement in sound quality
- Better build quality
CONS:
- Glasses users will be annoyed by on-ear design
What is graphene?
The Ghostek Rapture is one of Ghostekʼs newer headphones. Ghostek actually went all out and decided to use graphene in the headphones. From our understanding, commercial use of graphene is fairly limited. This makes Ghostek on the forefront in that regard.
Graphene is special because your standard speaker has a membrane that vibrates through the use of magnets behind the membrane. With a graphene speaker, the sound is generated using electricity by heating and cooling the graphene. There are no moving parts in a graphene speaker.
This unique feature means the membrane in graphene speakers are going to be easier and more efficient to control which means they are going to sound better and have better battery life.
To help us understand the difference, we paralleled this to cooking over a campfire which requires a lot of physical activity (i.e. adding wood, poking the coals) to cooking on an electric stove. Both methods will generally produce the same results but the electric stove is going to be more efficient.
For the Ghostek Rapture, we can definitely attest to the improved battery life but not on the sounding part. Buf we had to do a triple take on the Ghostek Raptureʼs sound quality because we weren’t used to having options when it comes to sound.
Technical Details
Both the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 and Rapture uses Bluetooth 4.0. This means youʼre constrained to a wireless range of 30ft. This will work well for most work areas but itʼs nowhere near the 100+ft range of Bluetooth 5.0 which can be found on the newest iPhones.
When it comes to battery power, the standby time of the Ghostek Rapture is 1000 hours with talk time of 25 hours and music listening time of 23 hours while the SoDrop 2.0 only has talk time and listening time of 14 hours, standby time of 540 hours.
We think that maybe the graphene is responsible for this large difference in battery power. However it should be noted that the Ghostek Rapture weighs an extra 60-ish gʼs which could be extra weight due to a larger battery.
Throughout our review period, we did noticee that we charge the Ghostek Rapture way less than the SoDrop 2.0ʼs.
The Sound Pressure Level is also slightly higher on the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs. If blowing out your eardrums permanently is your thing, get the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs. The impedance on the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 is lower at 32 Ohms which generally means the sound quality wonʼt be as good.
The Ghostek Rapture also pairs much easier to our devices than the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0. We’re not sure if this is due to improvements in Bluetooth 4.1 vs 4.0 but the constant re-pairing did get annoying with the SoDrop 2.0. Even with the improved pairing, the Rapture doesn’t pair as easily as our Apple AirPods with the W1 Bluetooth chip.
The Ghostek Rapture also comes with ShareMe. However, we were unable to use ShareMe since we didnʼt have a second ShareMe compatible set of headphones. ShareMe is basically a feature that allows you to daisy chain a pair of Bluetooth headphones to a single device. This sounds like a great idea but weʼre not sure how prevalent it will become since Bluetooth 5.0 is said to have the ability to pair multiple headphones to a single device.
Design
The Ghostek Rapture looks more luxurious than the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0. The arms of the Ghostek Rapture are made entirely of metal whereas the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs have a piece of metal glued to plastic. Both sets of headphones easily fold into a smaller package with the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs fitting into a hard case and the Ghostek Rapture going into a leather looking bag.
The biggest difference between the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 and Rapture headphones is the fit of the ear cups. The Ghostek Rapture is an on-ear pair of headphones while the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs are over the ear.
This difference is why we actually would gravitate to the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs over the Ghostek Rapture. We can actually wear the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs for hours at a time without having our glasses hurt our ears. We can only go at most an hour with the Ghostek Rapture.
SOUND QUALITY
Theoretically speaking, Ghostek Rapture should have a better sound quality because of the graphene membrane. All the other Ghostek Rapture reviews out there seem to think so. But we had to work pretty hard to hear the difference out of the box.
For us to test the sound quality, we asked our family members to listen to their favourite songs on a Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 paired with an iPhone 8 Plus and the Ghostek Rapture on the iPhone X. Everybody prefered the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 out of the box.
Their reason for picking Ghostek SoDrop 2.0 was because it sounded fuller over Ghostek Rapture. Our guess is that the sound reverberates better with the over-ear cups than the on-ear cups. The heavier bass on the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs seemed to add to the fullness of the music.
Now to fully appreciate the graphene speakers in the Rapture, we had to take a step back and re-examine how we listened to music. For the most part, we don’t pay much attention to the equalizer settings in our music players. In general, we default to music with heavier beats with the occasional track being an acoustic. The SoDrop 2.0’s are designed for music with heavier beats.
Playing around with the equalizer settings for non-base heavy music re-introduced us to those songs because we were able to hear parts of the song that we couldn’t hear with the SoDrop’s.
At the end of the day, is the Ghostek Rapture worth the extra 30 dollars?
Yes. Because it will refine how you listen music. It will help you appreciate your favourite songs even more. You just need to take the time to play with the equalizer settings.
For example, listening to Smith & Myers sing Nothing Else Matters using the acoustic setting with the Ghostek Rapture is mind-blowing. It sounds like we’re right beside the guitar. The same song doesnʼt sound bad with the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0ʼs but the extra bass takes away from the higher registers of the song.
But this wonʼt matter if all you listen to is bass-heavy music. If thatʼs you, go with the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0.
For us, we would put Ghostek Rapture on the same level in realizing that food taste way better if you use more than just salt and pepper to flavour the food. Figuring out how to use cumin, rosemary, paprika and thyme with our home cooked meals has been awesome.
With that being said, being unable to use Ghostek Rapture for more than an hour at a time is a deal breaker. Going back to spices example, itʼs like getting indigestion every time we use anything other than salt and pepper this is why we still prefer the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0.
If Ghostek would put graphene speakers in the Ghostek SoDrop, weʼd be incredibly happy,
So that’s all we have for our Ghostek Rapture review and comparison against the Ghostek SoDrop 2.0’s. Have any questions? Leave them below! Definitely SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to stay on top of all the new things we are review!
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