BLON Fat Girl Review – A BL-03 Dupe for a Fraction of the Cost

First Impressions

The BLON Fat Girl comes in a simple white cardboard box packaging with the product name and a simple graphic of the earphones on the front. It looked ordinary.

Out of the box, I thought that the earphones and the cable look sleek. At $9, they had a premium feel with an all-black shiny finish.

When I listened to them for the first time, the elephant in the room was how close it got to sounding like the BLON BL-03.

It may be because it has been a while since I’ve listened to the BL-03 but there’s a certain BLON sound that you can immediately pick up on, and that was present on the Fat Girl. 

It sounded more forward than the BL-03 and did this weird thing with the bass where it still goes deep but doesn’t exhibit any kind of bleed on the mids. 

The midrange had a good presence and sounded more forward. It was like the Fat Girl had a refreshing clarity to it. The treble had good extension but sounded a little too sharpened at times. 

All in all, it was a pleasant experience considering I was listening to a $9.00 set, which was insane.

Build Quality

The build on the BLON Fat Girl is quite decent for its price. It doesn’t feel cheap at all. 

It’s made of rigid plastic and has half of its cable as speaker wire and the other half as cloth. It’s one of the lighter options I like to go with when I go on walks. Sadly, there’s no chin slider, which would’ve been a plus. 

The version that comes with a mic was said to be of good quality but I can’t vouch for that because I got the one without the mic. All in all, the Fat Girl’s build is commensurate with its price. 

Fit and Comfort

The BLON Fat Girl is generally comfortable but I’ve found its nozzle to be shorter than the regular nozzle that most in-ears come with. I wish it was a little longer even by just a bit because I like being able to insert it deeply. 

There’s minimal wearing irritation as long as you don’t force them inside your ears for a better fit. I’ve been using Spinfit 100’s and they give me a decent seal. 

Overall, the Fat Girl isn’t the most comfortable because of the shorter nozzle but in terms of general comfort, it’s still pretty good. 

Sound Quality

The BLON Fat Girl is tuned to have a warm V-shaped signature, very much like the BL-03. 

If you look closely at its graph, it seems that BLON used the BL-03 as a reference in tuning the Fat Girl. The differences are micro tweaks in two of the regions with the treble having the most deviations. 

The sub-bass is rolled off a bit and makes the bass sound leaner. It also lessens bleed which may be heavy for some users that have tried the BL-03.  

The lower midrange is lowered ever so slightly but doesn’t result in the midrange sounding extremely recessed. It still retains a good presence comparable to the BL-03’s midrange. 

The treble is where BLON made the Fat Girl distinct. The upper midrange has double horns with peaks on 2 and 5kHZ. There’s a little bit of over-sharpening on some songs and it may be due to these two peaks. 

Generally speaking, the upper midrange doesn’t exhibit any sibilance. It has high energy without bordering on being piercing. On the air region, there are double horns again, peaks at 8 and 10kHz with a bump near 20kHZ. 

These boosted regions contribute to a splashy transient response and detail retrieval. 

As for other technicalities, staging, and imaging are decent but nothing phenomenal and driver speeds seem to be rather good.

It’s like a mini BL-03 that decided it wanted a different tuning path and chose a tuning that has high energy and is slightly clearer sounding. It’s honestly amazing at its price point.

Bass 

The sub-bass is pulled back by at least 2db compared to the BL-03’s graph. 

This may not seem like a lot on paper but sonically, it is. It’s the difference between a deep bass head-approved sub-bass and one that’s not. 

The sub-bass has good depth but doesn’t reach the level the BL-03 does. It does maintain the spirit of the sub-bass and presents less bleed to the midrange, which might suit more people – or not. The sub-bass has good speed and slam dynamics. 

The bass is leaner by all means but it sounds just like the BL-03, which is confusing enough in itself to describe. If you love the BL-03 but want a cleaner bass profile but the same house sound, then the BLON Fat Girl is right up your alley. 

Midrange

The clarity of the BLON Fat Girl’s midrange seems to make it sound more forward but with testing and comparing, it’s almost identical to the BL-03’s presence. 

This may be attributed to the leaner bass, and when listening, a lot of the context sonically can make you confuse certain improved aspects as defaults rather than a combination of contexts. In simple terms, the midrange isn’t more forward, but the extra clarity makes it seem so. 

The level of energy in the lower midrange is still engaging despite the graph indicating that it’s more recessed than the BL-03. Peaks in the higher midrange, on the other hand, are boosted strategically to provide more energy to the high end. 

It’s more of a smooth hill rather than a precision boost and that’s why I think sibilance never really pokes its head out. 

Overall, I’ve found this midrange to be very robust and enjoyable and retains BLON’s warm signature sound. 

Treble

The treble on the BLON Fat Girl is very energetic and has a lot of splash. This is due to the good extension even past the 10kHz mark. 

I find myself wanting more airiness since its direct reference is the BL-03. It’s clear that BLON wanted a familiar but distinct sound with the Fat Girl and went with more energy and splashiness on the treble rather than more air. 

The transient response performs well with crispy cymbal and snare hits while displaying good timbral characteristics. 

It might not be good for longer listening sessions because the treble can be quite fatiguing with all its energy but if this is what you’re looking for, then never mind what I just said.

Conclusion

The BLON Fat Girl is a continuation of the brand’s series of hit IEMs and one at a very alluring price point. 

A lot of people say that the Fat Girl is decent or ‘ok’ but I don’t get how they can disregard the fact that it’s a tweaked BLON BL-03 from its graph.

It’s essentially a non-detachable BL-03 with more focus on clarity and energy while retaining the good warmth and tonality that the BL-03 is known for. 

If you want to experience the BLON house sound without spending more than $10, I’d recommend getting the BLON Fat Girl. 

With a deep but clean bass response, clear and energetic midrange, and splashy detailed treble, it can handle just about any use case from playing games, watching movies and films, or the default which is listening to music. 

The level of cohesion and likeness that the BLON Fat Girl achieves at its price is something to be commended.

This adds to the thought that as we progress with IEMs each year, the level of accessibility to a lot of people continues to lower – which is a great thing.

This post was last updated on 2024-12-10 / Some images from Amazon Product API & some links may be affiliate links which may earn us a commission from purchases.