This has been a really hard iem to review! I will admit that I went into it already fascinated by the technology of the new Aful Magic One…this is an iem from the company that has pretty much made its name, and practically overnight, with it’s technical innovations that allow hybrid iems to reach full potential and a more coherent sound signature through the use of sophisticated crossovers and physical tuning tubes in a 3D printed housing…first in the Performer 5 with a dynamic driver and 4 BAs, and then in the Performer 8 with a dynamic driver and 7 BAs distributed across the sound spectrum, and an even more complex set of tuning tubes. And now we find that, apparently, all the time they were developing those sophisticated, ground breaking hybrids, they were working, in some back room or obscure corner of the lab, on a completely different solution for producing a coherent sound signature. If the problem is balancing and blending different drivers and types of drivers into a unified sound, one solution, obviously, is to only use a single driver. There are lots of single dynamic driver iems, from entry level to kilobuck, and some of them are very well respected. So that’s been done. What about a single BA? Nope, no one has done that yet, at least not in a way that satisfies music lovers, and the problems are so huge that it seems totally unlikely. So of course Aful, being Aful, had to give it a try. According to a document they are circulating to reviewers and interested audiophiles, they spent 3 years redesigning your standard BA, improving its physical structure, to allow it to faithfully reproduce all of the frequencies that make up our music, and then, just because they could, having already developed the tuning tube technology for their hybrids, they designed a back side acoustic chamber and long tube resonance structure and coiled it up so that it would fit inside an average sized iem housing, to reinforce the bass to something close to what a dynamic driver produces. Still they were not happy with the treble extension of their new BA, so they developed what amounts to a analog signal processing array, which they call SE Math, to extend the treble performance of the Magic One. Really fascinating stuff…cutting edge…fun if you are into that kind of thing, and I suspect more music lovers are, than are not.

So then, give it smaller than average, transparent, semi-custom shell, that shows off that single BA, and an eye-catching minimalistic, frost patterns on ice faceplate, package it with a very nice cable (your choice of 3.5 single ended or 4.4 balanced) the same metal hockey puck case as the Performer 5, and a decent selection of eartips, box it up in a nice box, and price it at $140, and see how it goes. I always wonder how these pricing decisions are made.

My first difficulty in reviewing the Magic One was that my first unit was defective. Out of the box it sounded terrible…like listening to the neighbors’ cheap kitchen countertop radio through an open window across the yard. And then it would suddenly improve…and then it would go back to thin and awful. And then it would seem to work again. After a few days of that I took advantage of HifiGo’s Amazon store to request a replacement. To their credit, I had my replacement, no questions asked, within two days. And it was a whole different iem…well obviously it looked the same…had the same excellent accessories, but it sounded completely different.

Then too, I had a lot of trouble with eartip selection. The two styles included, both narrow bore, likely intended to reinforce the bass even more, caused the iem to interact strongly with the pulse in my ear (or head) to reinforce the sound of my own heartbeat…so I had the sound an ultrasound makes to represent the heartbeat of an unborn infant in my ears constantly, even without music playing, and running behind the music while I listened. I went through what I thought was every eartip in my collection, from Spinfits and Spiral Dots, to K7s, to Danu S&S, and even those green and grey ones from Penon, as well as a lot of unnamed eartips that came with other iems. Some reduced the pulse sound but none eliminated it. Finally, only a few days ago, I tried the medium sized TRI Clarions which I ordered for my particularly difficult to fit Penon Fan2s. The Fan2s are an iem that sound best when deep in the ear, but with a shell shape that makes that difficult with all but a very few tips. What a difference the TRI Clarions made to the Magic Ones! The pulse sound was greatly reduced though I lost no bass, in fact the bass became more defined and refined, while the top end really opened up, improving both the sense of space and precision of instrument placement, making the Magic Ones sound considerably different. Now this may be something to do with my ears and my ears alone, or the placement of the arteries near my ear, but that pulse sound certainly inspired me to work harder at tip selection than I normally do. For me at least, the key was getting the inner side of the shell right back against the wall of the concha, and the tips inserted as deeply as they would go, while still maintaining a good seal. I have said right along that your ear canal is as much a part of the transducer as the drivers and shell, and that it needs tuning too…especially the right insertion depth…to realize the best performance from any iem. Some iems are more forgiving…tips and insertion depth make a difference, but not a big one…and some, like the Magic One, the insertion depth and shell fit make an almost unbelievable difference in the sound of the iem. After seeing what the Tri Clarions did for the sound of the Magic Ones I tried the Danu S&S one more time. They also cut down on the pulse noise and provide the same improvement in sound on the Magic Ones. Wide bore tips then!

Now, finally, with the right tips, I understand the Magic! The bass! Not regular BA bass. This bass is solid…maybe not as solid as a 10, or even an exceptional 8mm dynamic, but so close that when listening to music you would never believe it is BA bass, let alone from a single BA driver. In fact, when listening to most tracks you are not thinking about the driver configuration at all…you can just relax and enjoy the music. Even on truly bass heavy tracks, like Bass Drops from Niead Vasilic, or From a Standstill by Bella Sonus, you are not, honestly, going to be looking for any more bass. True, the bass does not have quite the same physical impact as dynamic driver bass, but, again, that is not something you notice unless you are doing intentional comparisons between iems. While the music is playing the bass is completely satisfying. The sub-bass is there…not, certainly passing train rumbly as on some iems, but nicely textured and detailed, and the mid bass has a strong drive and push…and enough punch to satisfy any but the true bass heads among us. If you don’t believe me, get a Magic One, find the right eartips, and listen to Poem of the Chinese Drum by Hok-man Yim. The drums and other percussion are so enjoyable, so natural sounding, that I, personally, do not need or want many more bass.

Vocals and instruments are smooth and pleasant. Pleasant can be a wishy washy word, but I mean it in the best sense here, with no wishy washy implied. Pleasant with bells on…or, if was writing it, I might write it with stars and an exclamation point, like this *pleasant!*. I might even call the vocals and instruments on the Magic One luminous. Solid bodied but with enough air to make you tingle when Alison Krausse or Diana Krall sings. and to draw out every subtile inflection of folk voices like Clara Dillon or the women from I’m with Her. Male vocals are rich and smooth without being smothery, and still have a bit of rasp when needed. Robert Plant, Geoff Castiluchi, Ave Kaplan, the men from Home Free, or Perly I Lotry, or, again the folk voices captured on Nothing but Green Willow. All clear as a tea colored mountain stream, or rich as dark roast, hand ground, single bean coffee. Both male and female vocals have a nice heft to them…always a *pleasing!* presence. Guitars, pianos, cellos, violins are all rendered faithfully, with good detail, as natural sounding as any iem I have yet heard, and more natural than most, leaving nothing to be desired as you listen, no matter the genera or the track. And the midrange is slightly more forward in the mix, which can be refreshing. This extends from the conversing acoustic guitars on Nothing but Green Willow, to the cellos on Fishman’s Vivaldi concertos, and the violins on Ullen’s reimagined Bach or Keith Garret’s Explosive, the piano of the Brookline Duo’s Vivaldi’s Summer, and even to Erik Tingstadt’s electric guitars. This is a real accomplishment. A silky smooth but still spicy midrange.

Again to really appreciate what the Magic One can do, listen to Adele’s Someone Like You. Such a voice! Or crank up Geoff Castiluchi’s I See Fire.

Treble? Cymbals, high hats, chimes, bells, claps are all there where they belong in the mix, crisp, but again, somehow smooth and *lovely!*. And you can turn the music up as loud as you like. The Magic Ones never become shrill or unpleasant.

Before trying the TRI Clarion and S&S tips I would have said the sense of space provided by the Magic Ones is about average for iems in this price range…not spectacular…but not closed in or disappointing in any way, and instrument placement, again, without comparison to any other iem, is pleasing (without the stars), if not pinpoint sharp. With the wide bore tips and deep insertion, however, everything opens out, and the stage is noticeably wider and deeper…almost as spacious as I have heard. And instrument placement becomes considerably more crisp and sharp. Impressive indeed.

An orchestral piece like De Feldermuse by Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic really brings out everything the Magic One has to offer. If you have the right volume level for the opening bars, then it is spectacular.

And I should say, right here, before I forget it, that the Magic One is not easy to drive. I have to turn it up about 6 clicks on a 60 step volume control, 10 clicks out of a hundred on my desktop dacs, to match the volume of any of my more efficient iems. And it is not just a matter of loudness. The Magic One only really comes alive at higher volumes. The bass gains presence, the treble and the stage open out, and the whole experience just gets more *enjoyable!* It definitely prefers the high gain setting when it is available, no matter what your listening level is. At the same time, you can turn it up louder than you might listen to other iems, since it never shows any signs of harshness for distortion. In my experience I found that adjusting the volume until the bass is satisfying, brings the best sound from the rest of the spectrum, even though it is louder than I might normally listen.

Overall the Magic One seems to be just exactly what Aful was working toward, and what they are advertising. A smooth, rich, highly coherent sound that makes music *enjoyable!* to listen to. Many, I would suspect, will find this iem as enjoyable, and maybe, depending on what you value and what you listen to, more enjoyable than either the Performer 5 or the 8. I certainly do. I respect and admire what both the P5 and the P8 do, but for extended listening sessions, if given the choice, I will listen to the Magic One. And that is saying a lot for a $140 single BA iem. It is maybe less suited to super bass heavy generas, and those who love having their brains tenderized by their music, but other than that, great job on the technical innovation front Aful!

However, the Magic One does not exist in a vacuum. It has to be compared to other iems that have come before it, and to other more conventional designs in its price range. At $140, Aful has priced it to fall near the top of one of the most competitive segments of the iem market…and, in my opinion (which I have shared before, see my $150 end game video) the segment where you currently get the most value, the best sound, the most enjoyment from your music, at a price almost many of us can still feel good about spending on an iem.

I mean, the whole point of magic is to do something impossible. To be really magical, the Magic One has to do more than provide a seemingly impossible amount of bass and a smooth treble from a single BA. More than any technical trick, no matter how impressive, it has to reproduce music in such a *satisfying!* way that it can hold its own, or even stand out, at $140 in a sea of competitive iems.

Is that a magic too far, even for Aful?

Lets take three current, more conventional iems for comparison. We will begin with the Kinera Celest PhoenixCall, since it is closest in price, at $130. The PhoenixCall also has a unusual driver configuration which includes an 8mm dynamic, 2 BAs and 2 micro-planars. Compared, using the same sources and the same tracks, with the Magic One, the PhoenixCall is much edgier, perhaps somewhat more detailed and precise, and maybe somehow a tiny bit more dynamic. It has, as I described it in my review, a little rim of light at the leading edge of every note, like a light saber, but I have also come to appreciate the swoosh of light trailing every note. It is brilliant without being brittle. The bass is physical…you not only hear it…you feel it…every note pulsing your eardrums and resonating in your head. In comparison the Magic One is smooth, considerably more coherent, and less demanding to listen to…guitar and violin strings in particular, have sharper edge and can sound clearer and crisper on some tracks on the PhoenixCall than on the Magic One, but only in direct comparison. Which is better? Only you can say. And I will admit, that I often prefer the slightly smoother version of the Magic One.

So lets move on to something a bit more ordinary, at least in design. The Simgot EM6L Phoenix, is what is becoming, since the Aful Perfermer 5 broke the ground, a pretty standard high performance hybrid design with one dynamic and 4 BAs, priced at $30 less then the Magic One. The Phoenix has some of the smoothness of the Magic One when compared to the PhoenixCall. I described the difference between the Phoenix and the PhoenixCall as the difference between medium roast coffee and light roast coffee. The Phoenix is fuller bodied and richer than the PhoenixCall, but that fullness masks at least some of the finest nuisances and more subtle flavor notes that the lighter roast brings to the palette. Both are very satisfying iems, but the Phoenix might be more suitable for everyday listening…the cup that just satisfies every time. Not too dark not too light…just right. Maybe not the most exciting, but never out of place with any meal, or between meals if it comes to that. When compared to the Magic One with the right tips, at least the right tips for me, the Phoenix still as a more physical bass, but it somehow less textured. And no, the Phoenix is not quite as smooth, and again, not quite as coherent as the Magic One, but it is not far off either. To my ear the Magic One and the Phoenix are both provide a pleasant, satisfying, listening experience, but the Magic One has just a smidgin of extra enjoyment. *pleasant*. Does that justify the extra $30 for the Magic One? Again it is your wallet. Of course, you can order the Magic One with an excellent 4.4mm balanced cable, and, if you want balanced on the Phoenix you have to buy an aftermarket cable, so there goes at least part of your $30 savings.

Finally lets take a look at another single driver iem…the $90 planar magnetic Melody from KiwiEars. The more I listen to the Melody the more I appreciate what KiwiEars has been able to do. Their own brand of magic brings a bass as deep and as loud and almost as impactful as the best dynamic drivers, way louder than many, and maintains the technical abilities of the planar driver in the mids and highs. It does not have a spectacular sense of space, but it equals either the Phoenix or PhoenixCall and is, maybe, sometimes, on some tracks, the equal of the Magic One. And it has the same crisp instrument placement as the PhoenixCall. For $90. True its accessory package is pitiful compared to the Magic One, but should that make a $50 difference? Yes, well, that is something only you, and your ears and your wallet, can answer.

To extend the coffee metaphor, we would have to switch from roasts to include coffee blends. The Melody is not only dark roast, it is a lava blend…intentionally emphasizing the dark flavor notes, while the lighter flavor notes float above. The Simgot EM6L is still your single bean medium roast, rich and balanced, and the PhoenixCall is still a single bean light roast, giving full expression to the more subtle flavor notes that distinguish that particular bean. And that makes the Magic One, in coffee terms, a fine medium roast blend created specifically to bring out the smoothness, to emphasize the interplay of all the flavor notes, light and dark, deep and subtle, into one *satisfying!* taste experience with no harsh edges.

My feeling is that the special effort needed to produce the impressive bass in the Magic One, and especially the SE Math signal processing needed to smooth out the treble, ends up giving the Magic One a slightly processed sound. Not a bad thing. Smooth and coherent is just the top priority. I notice it most when comparing the edges on guitar and violin string notes, or the rasp in a male voice or the cracked glass edge on some female voices when they reach high. Those edges are still there in the Magic One but they do not call attention to themselves as they tend to do in, say, the PhoenixCall. Aful assures me that their SE Math is different and better than conventional digital signal processing. They say that DSP adjusts the digital signal before it reaches the iem, before it is converted to analog, while SE Math adjusts the analog sound of the BA itself by responding to the music signal in real time, allowing for better compensation and a closer reproduction of the actual musical source. I am paraphrasing, but I think that gets the gist of what they told me. Still, processing is processing and it might be expected to leave some kind of a mark, even if the end result is so *pleasing!* to the ear.

The songs I used for primary comparison between these four iems are Across Light and Time by Assia Ahhatt and David Arkenstone for instrumental, and Quattro, the World Drifts In, the duet by Robert Plant and Allison Krusse, from Raise the Roof for vocals.These tracks are exceptionally well recorded and put any iem to a real test.

I should say that the difference in performance between these four iems is very subtle, and at least partly a matter of preference. When I am not switching back and forth, listing to the same track over and over trying to hear the differences, I can be happy listening to any one of them for hours, through a varied playlist, or album by album. If I had to pick just one of them for an extended listening session, or forever, as in the I can only keep one, or as in I can only afford to buy one in the first place, then it would have to be either the Simgot EM6L Phoenix or the Aful Magic One. I can not emphasize enough how important tip selection is to the Magic One. Without the right tips I would say the Magic One is no more than equal in performance to the Simgot, but with the right tips and the right insertion depth, the Magic comes alive, and it is just at least to my ear, slightly more *enjoyable!* to listen to…making it my clear choice at its price point, and, I would also, as I said, for extended or every very day listing, choose it over either the Performer 5 or the Performer 8.

The iem market is intensely, some might say *insanely!*, competitive right now, and seems to get more competitive every day. The sound, the musical enjoyment that used to be only available in iems at the $500 and above price point…well that level of enjoyment is now, in my opinion, readily available at under $150, and even in several iems around the $100 price point. This is good!

But it makes magic harder and harder to pull off. The Magic One is huge technical achievement and Aful deserves all the credit that will undoubtedly come to them…if there are technical innovation awards in the iem world, Aful and the Magic One deserves maybe a couple of them….but as a iem in a competitive market, the Magic One has to stand on its merits as a *pleasant!* sounding, smooth, highly coherent iem, with enough spice to justify the Magic name…I will not say “another” smooth, highly coherent iem, because that particular combination is the “magic” the the Magic One brings…but does it break new ground for musical enjoyment at its price point? My ears say yes, just, but just yes. It is magically *pleasant!*, magically *enjoyable!*. Not, apparently, a magic too far for Aful after all. Worth every penny and maybe more. So, yes, I will have a helping of magic for one, thank you Aful. *Pleasant!* indeed!