Penon Voltage If you ask Penon fans which of the classic Penons catalog of IEMs represents their house sound. That would be the former flagship IEM, the Penon Volts. I did a review for that IEM here circa 10/2020. It was using a 10mm dynamic for bass, 2X Sonion BAs for mids, 4XSonion ESTs for highs. In hindsight I do believe this was the IEM that brought Penon into the limelight on the threads of headfi. Truth is Penon has always brought their best efforts when it comes to designing IEMs and even though the Volt has been out since 10/2020. We have...

ISN T-OCC T-OCC is the newest creation from our friends at Penon/ISN. This one in particular is interesting for several reasons. It is using 3 types of copper based materials and while that alone is nothing exotic or new to the market. There seems to be specific reasons why they chose the materials they have for this product. The material descriptor for the cable is 3 different copper based cables with 3 different diameters. Unlike most companies that use a whole sale product to make a cable. Each element was chosen to bring a specific type of...

Lavricables Master Silver 22AWG IEM cables. Lavricables was founded in Latvia in 2012, for folks that don't know who Lavricables are these guys are serious sound engineers/ sound geeks that deal with pure silver cables, interconnects, RCA cables, speaker wires, USB cables, XLR, all manor of audio cables, IEM and headphone cables to name a few. But with one distinct difference from most other companies. They use their higher grade of pure silver for just about all of it. You can check out their award winning history and their website here. If you...

Simgot DEW4X The Dac/amp dongle has seen a big surge in variety ever since folks have been tethered permanently to using our phones on a daily basis, it makes a lot of sense to amplify and qualify the sound we are using on the go. Folks that dip their toes in audiophilia or just want better quality sound from their phones, using a little dac/amp aka sound card that easily mitages the low quality and or weak sounding onboard sound we get from our phones and our computers makes a whole bunch of sense. Simgot DEW4X is yet another smaller form dac/amp...

TSMR-FEAT is the newest IEM from Tansio MIrai that brings something new and unexpected from the group. What you guys have to understand is that these guys are not really known for their bass driven sound. Nope if there is one trait for the group that stands out. That would be how they tune for trebles more so than the low end. Tansio Mirais sound tuning has traditionally been about the trebles and all the sound aspects that audiophiles enjoy with a full bored treble end. However they have always had good to excellent bass for their IEMs as well. The...

NiceHCK Himalaya It has been a while since I dove into the HCK waters. Jim and crew at NiceHCK have been at it during the Pandemic and today we see the culmination of numerous IEM designs that now sees a new flagship. The Himalaya is a type of name given to a flagship level IEM and that is what I am hearing from their newest creation utilizing the tried-and-true single 10mm CNT dual layered dynamic. Himalaya uses an all metal, titanium alloy housing with a very plain all metal sandblasted surface. Nothing about them catches the eye and screams...

Simgot EA500LM I remember when I was approached by Fia Lam of Simgot to do a review of the Simgot EA500. I was thinking OK yet another single dynamic IEM. Hey why not, so I agreed to give it a good listen and write up my thoughts in the form of a review for the EA500. Little did I know that Simgot was on a roll with their line up of IEMs. Then soon followed the release of their EA1000. OK now we are heading into the higher end sound segment and now we have a new EA500 revision in the EA500LM. The LM boasts some new addition to its make up in that it...

Penon Renata. ( pic shown with Penon Quattro ) The Renata has been a cable Penon has been working on for a while. It seems the manufacturing process for this cable is more complicated than just sourcing the cable material and calling it good. Recent newer cable trends for Penon have them diving into the alloy arena for cable material and I associate the alloy version of the tried and true copper material a bit different than your garden variety copper. Let me explain. The reason why I have come to this conclusion is because if you look at their...

Tansio Mirai-X Tansio Mirai has been making hand crafted premium IEMs for 10 years. How we know that is because they just released an IEM apply titled the 10th anniversary or simply TSMR-X . Any IEM that titles a product with an anniversary edition in theory should bring the best efforts from said manufacturer regardless of who it is. I mean you don’t call it the 10th anniversary for no reason right? This is basically that company telling you. This is one of their finest efforts to date. It is my firm belief that if you have been making...

( This was my entire early impression of the Penon Quattro. Will be turning into a full review. You can tell it was an early sample due to the cable not being all blue as it is now. The cable that is shown here is actually the same cable as the all new blue cable that comes with the Quattro shown here.) You can now purchase the Quattro on Penon web site as of today. Penon naming scheme for IEMs and cables just makes a whole lot of sense and while there is an extra t tacked in for a bit of wordplay on the QUATTRO. You all get why these new 4DD IEMs...

Simgot LC7 Simgot has been a company on a mission. Their newer IEMs just resonates with the headfi community and has garnered a following that has put them on the Map. I can tell they care about their products as the workmanship shows in each product they make. I knew they made IEMs but I had no idea they also created a cable to match up with their IEMs called the LC7. This high purity OFC cable plated in silver comes at a price tag around $70 and at this price range one would expect a more refined IEM cable. I will get into what makes the LC7 a...

ARES S X CADMUS Christmas edition 2023 Those crazy Christmas Elves have been working up their magic to come up with something unique for the Holiday season. While the signature series have been popular for Effect Audio. It wasn’t till now we see, for a very limited time, a unique marriage of their Ares S and Cadmus cores in the ARESSxCADMUS Christmas 2023 edition. Though it deserves its own name cuz who wants to refer to these as what they are, a combination of the ARESS and CADMUS. ARCAD? ARECADMUS? ARCADxMUS? Ok so there is no real way of...

Simgot EA1000 Simgot is an IEM manufacturer that has surprised a lot of folks with their IEM designs, especially noticed more recently with some outstanding offerings. While the established norms for similar designed IEMs, referring to Dunu and Moondrop continue to bring out IEMs with their version of single dynamic IEMs. Simgot has quietly garnered some serious buzz for their IEMs. For me what put them on the map was their fantastic EA500. To this day it is arguably one of the best dynamic IEMs in its price class. Another very notable budget...

Night Oblivion Butastur The Butastur was a joint project between a well known friend to the community, American Spirit and an experienced Chinese IEM designer Jinny Tan of Night Oblivion. I first heard of the project from the man himself on the Discovery thread and unlike the myriads of reviewer sanctioned slightly tweaked tunings of the colab IEM the Night Oblivian Butastur seemed to be a well thought out well designed new IEM with a new brand name. I hope these guys continue to make more IEMs as the goal of this offering is to bring to the...

Penon ASOS 8cores, 25 strands per core, silver plated single crystal copper & alloy copper. PVC wire sheath W Carbon fiber accents for plugs and accessories. A sound chain is described as the elements connected to your ear speaker that influence how we hear from said ear speaker. Be it the source, the amp, the cable, the tips carefully chosen to get the best seal in the ear for the best sound. If you skimp on one aspect of what is on your sound chain. It might be the difference of why some love a sound and some don’t. In our hobby, everything...

Eros S 1st anniversary Hybrid cables by sheer description means at its base cores are using two types of materials. The Eros S is a well-reviewed true hybrid cable utiling UPOCC copper litz and UPOCC silver litz materials interweaved in 8 cores. To be specific 26AWG in 8 cores. The new 1st anniversary edition ditches the stock gray sleeving of the original and goes for a fresher looking, shiny black with gold accents. This carries over to the brushed/polished aluminum and carbon fiber accents that makes the 1st Anniversary version stand out. I own...

Simgot EW200 Today's budget sets have gotten good. So good they mimic some of the best tuned dynamic IEMs from just a few years ago. Competition for the best sound for your hard earned money has ramped up so much that we get sets that are pushing the envelope at all price levels. The EW200 is simply put one of the best IEMs I have heard at the meager price Simgot is asking for a set. Being an IEM reviewer. It surprises me to no end that these $40 IEMs can easily compete with some of the better $100 level IEMs in sound quality especially if you're...

Penon Turbo! An early look into Penons next IEM. All BA sets are a part of the IEM scene and has been for a very long time. There is a reason why some of the highest regarded IEMs are BA based, with the base performance of their sound using premium BAs. Today’s all BA sets in the mid fi range have several aspects in common. Highly technical, meaning you're going to get those bits of auditory information in the form of higher levels of detail that some of the other types of drivers can struggle at. The physical size of the small moving iron AKA...

Fiio K9 It's no secret that Fiio has been “ upping their game” with so much competition that promises a lot with modern day sources. Fiios latest DAC/AMP is not exactly the highest end DAC/AMP they make. That title belongs to the Fiio K9 pro ESS. However inquiring minds want to know. When looking at the spec sheet for the latest K9. It is strikingly similar to the K9 pro minus a bit of power. The K9 pro uses two flagship ES9038pro DACs, the new K9 uses two ES9068AS. Both use THX AAA 788+ for amplification and QCC5124 for bluetooth. Uses the same...

FiiO M15S I am going to start this review with a bit of a background of what I do and why I choose the gear I use for reviewing IEMs. Most folks know who I am and the community I belong to at headfi.org. I started one of the most popular threads on headfi.org simply called the Discovery thread. You can read the over 5K worth of pages here. This single thread has got the patrons of the thread including yours truly to “discover” what is new and fresh in the industry and while the subjects of the thread are mostly IEM based. We pretty much banter about...