TLDR: I’m going to start this review by admitting my bias upfront; after I demoed the new Oriolus Monachaa for a couple of weeks, I decided to and did purchase them, so let’s get that out of the way…yes, I love them!

I was lucky to get a chance to demo the new Oriolus bird, the Monachaa, a 4xDD, thanks to the WaterCooler tour, thanks @Rockwell75 for arranging this! I was pretty excited to get a try at this, even though I hadn’t been blown away by it at CanJam Socal 2023 where I think it was launched (I wonder if that set had been fully burned in-this set needs it). I’ll skip over its unboxing which is covered by others and unremarkable, but does come with a nice small VanNuys case that could hold a couple of iems along with a Van Nuys iem protector.



Monachaa is beautifully crafted with recessed 2-pin connectors and on the medium-large size for iems, but it is very light and I found fit to be excellent for hours on end. The shell is a beautiful deep blue/purple color with gold fleck accents on the faceplate. The nozzles are short and stubby, and tip selection is crucial here. Due to the short nozzles, I decided to try the Coreir brass tips which not only fit well with shorter nozzles, but also give the playback a little extra sonic finish depending on the iem. I also found that this iem would push my limits of upper-end energy, with prominent, sparkly, detailed treble, but the heavy sub bass with milder, but beautiful punchy mid-bass, to still offer extremely airy vocals and treble. I hear a neutral to warm U shape with vocals forward. All without any lean or thin quality to the notes, but fans of heavy mid-bass may not feel there’s enough. I also liked the Render Foams, Divinus Velvets, Eletech Baroques and Penon Liqueur tips, all of which further emphasized bass and smoothed treble.


Of particular note and excitement is the shear scope of the staging – Monachaa’s stage is spherical, wide, tall and holographic, often feeling as though it fully surrounds your head. This is one of the best soundstages from an iem that I’ve heard – exceeded only barely by its brother-from-another-mother, the 3xDD CFA Trifecta, though that’s such a different thing it’s hardly comparable. However, in order to really hear this excellence, Monachaa requires a pretty powerful source (dongle users beware).

The included stock PWA/Oriolus-branded cable was actually great and doesn’t require a change, but since I had a PWA First Times on hand (which was immediately a large sonic upgrade from the stock), I decided to switch that out for most of my listening (until something went wrong with that cable and back to PWA it went for repair). In the meantime, I also found excellent synergy with a drjuggles/Khanyayo copper/graphene cable, while also liking the EA Code 23 and 24 (Code 24c would probably look awesome on Monachaa); all are great at bringing out Monachaa’s incredible deep bass while also smoothing some of the high treble. Tips and cables can do a lot for Monachaa, so it’s best to try what you’ve got to dial in the right sound for you.

Ultimately, my favorite pairing was with the PWA FT, a great cable for Monachaa. It gives Monachaa a nicely balanced U shape with excellent technical quality, elevated sub-bass, clear mildly recessed mids, and extended, sparkly treble with lots of detail, though that detail is across the FR, it’s not limited to the highs; even bass guitar plucks are sharp and identifiable. While not a total resolution monster, it’s not lacking for details, it’s just more musical than analytical; a tuning that is very addictive where positioning of instruments is excellent across the magnificent soundstage. What a great way to get into the Oriolus club! This set really is awesome with pretty much everything in my library (primarily rock across the ages and genres) and particularly nice with vocals, but truly a real all-arounder rather than specialist. I do not usually gravitate to tunings that have such intense treble energy, but this one hits me square between the ears.


The coherence is also stunning as if it were a massive, single DD, not four(!) – it’s really remarkable! What this does is present beautiful timbre, great transient speed with amazing mids and, of course, an incredibly effective, solid DD bass foundation. Maybe not surprisingly, Oriolus knows how to tune DDs to great effect! This tuning I think would be very wide appeal, with just about nothing to complain about unless you’re a big mid-bass lover. This is certainly not basshead, but its bass is no slouch with incredible quality and just the right quantity, and maybe is the star of the show having amazing quality, speed, tightness and timbre, second only to the open and hypnotic mids and upper mids.

Monachaa played beautifully through the warm and powerful Shanling M9 plus and my L&P P6Pro, though the P6Pro needed to be in high gain with volume levels going very high. I recently added an iBasso PB5 Osprey amp to the chain with P6Pro, and this combination is my favorite. But make no mistake, you need to feed Monachaa a lot of power for it to really shine. Through something like my desktop Hifiman EF400, the power and r2r playback are perfect for Monachaa.


The comparison that has really intrigued me is with the Penon Quattro, the other 4xDD on the market that is 1/5th the price at under $400. Well, they are completely different, Quattro being a mid-bass monster where Monachaa is clearly not. Other big differences to my ears: Quattro bass slightly veils the FR leading to a perception of less air especially in darker passages of music, Monachaa bass has better quality if less quantity; Quattro is more bass-focused generally with a darker tuning though it has excellent treble IMHO. Monachaa has a more accessible tuning with excellently crafted bass, leading to a more balanced, all-arounder set. I love both and do happily own both – they are very different but each provides a huge amount of pleasure with my library. Each are addictive (if you like them, obviously) and easy listens for many hours. Quattro is bit more of a pounder and Monachaa a bit more of a thumper. Quattro sounds more like an Xe6 where Monachaa is more like an Rn6. All of this DD goodness is such a gift to us audionuts, we are lucky to have such options from $400 to $2000 (come on!).


Oriolus tuning is legendary – I did try Trailli at CanJam Socal, for all of 2 minutes, but knew immediately why it has touched so many hearts. I was blown away by Trailli in the 2 minutes I listened to it. I cannot now exactly remember that sound, but I wish I could, because I do love the Monachaa tuning as well. Instruments sound so authentic, vocals are strong but not overpowering an otherwise very wide, deep and tall soundstage with holographic effect with good recordings. Listening to dense rock like Pearl Jam reveals what those 2 or 3 different guitars are doing with the bass and drums, all positionally cued exactly where they should be – and I’ve been to enough Pearl Jam shows to know, trust me!

So, in my opinion, this IEM wins based on its spectacular tuning, I guess something which for Oriolus is not that surprising. But here, they’ve done it with 4 DDs, no BAs, ESTs, etc., just DDs. Most single DD lovers know that a DD can do just about everything well, and bass spectacularly. Oriolus did a great job putting these 4 different DD drivers to work – nothing gets sacrificed on the low, mid or high end of the FR with this design. Okay, it’s Oriolus we’re talking about here, so expecting a good tuning from them is, well, expected. And they deliver one here for sure. I think this might possibly be my favorite sub $3000 iem at the moment.