Full disclosure: Divinus sent me samples of the Ostia for testing in exchange for my honest review. I am not affiliated to the company, and the opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

South Korea is renowned for many things in the modern technology world, but dedicated audio products aren’t high on that list. You could argue that’s not exactly true, given South Korean giants like Samsung and LG have entire product lines dedicated to audio, but to be fair those aren’t the first products you think of when it comes to those world-famous brands.

So, when a small South Korean-based startup called Divinus got in touch to tell me about a new true wireless (TWS) IEM called Ostia, which they created with their own custom-designed, professionally-tuned dynamic driver, my curiosity was piqued. When they told me the price ($60), I was intrigued. And by the time I ripped open the yellow DHL packets a few weeks later, I was positively impressed.


In the box

Ostia ships in a small, shrink-wrapped box emblazoned with the product name and likeness on the front. A pull tag on the side exposes a nifty tray that slides open to reveal the storage case and two small boxes, one with a short USB charging cable, the other with spare silicone tips.

Divinus sent me two extra items with my Ostia sample: a pack of TWS foam tips (sold separately for $9), and a pack of six tiny stick-on ‘sound filters’ (sold separately for $5). I’ll cover the add-ons in more detail later, but suffice it to say, I’m not sure if Ostia actually ships with both add-ons included or if you have to buy them separately. It would make sense to have them included – especially the sound filters – but again, more on that later.

Also included is a miniature user guide that wasn’t particularly helpful when it came time to setting up and pairing the IEMs with my phone and MacBook, but does provide a handy reference for what you can do with the touch button controls once you get them working.


First impressions

Physically, the Ostia case and earpieces are very compact, much more so than my recently acquired Sony WF-1000XM4 TWS IEMs, for example. Both the case and earpieces are made from a matte black plastic material that feels quite smooth and sturdy to the touch, and definitely doesn’t betray the ultra-budget price point.

The case is very portable, measuring about five centimetres across, and seems robust enough to take some punishment inside a bag or pocket. I’d recommend keeping the peel-off protector on the case lid if you want to keep it scratch-free, or buy a small pouch for it on the go.

The earpieces themselves are very light, and interestingly both are identical in shape, with only a faint L and R printed on each to differentiate them. This means they can be put back in the case on either side and still charge correctly, though this could also confuse matters when you put them back in your ears.

Comfort isn’t really an issue, and I got a good fit with the default medium silicone eartips pre-installed on the earpieces. Because of their rather oval shape and small dimensions the earpieces are designed to be worn parallel to the ear rather than pointing downwards, as with many other IEMs that ‘fill’ the ear cavity. The tips aren’t the softest I’ve used, and sit flush with the nozzle, so be careful not to press them in too hard or you might end up doing some damage to your inner ear.

I did have one frustrating issue that I’d be remiss not to mention: the initial pairing process. On removing the earpieces, the small LED indicator flashes red and white to show that pairing mode is active, and indeed I did see a flurry of possible devices appear on my phone’s Bluetooth options screen. Initially I had to guess which of the random code-named devices were the Ostias, but eventually OSTIA appeared as an option, and selecting it paired an earpiece. But only one. A few tries at resetting the pairings only succeeded in one or the other earpiece playing through, until I discovered that, once paired, both earpieces needed to be placed back in the case, with the lid closed, and only when removed again would they register as a TWS pair.

Once I learned the ‘trick’ it was easy enough to get the earpieces back into pairing mode, and pair them with various other phones and devices. Ostia don’t support multipoint connections (nor did I expect them to given their price), so keep in mind you’ll need to physically pair them to a device if they’re currently paired to another. Once paired, a reassuring female voice announces ‘connected’ and ‘TWS connected’, letting you know you’re good to go.


Battery life and other features

Divinus claims a battery life of five hours for the earpieces, and a total of 20 hours including the case (which holds three full charges). There’s no fast-charging feature that’s now common with many TWS IEMs, so you’ll need to allow two hours for a full charge from empty, but if like me you place the IEMs back in the case after every use and don’t use them for hours on end, you’ll likely never run out of charge in regular use.

A nifty feature that I didn’t think I’d see in a TWS product at this price point is wireless charging. Simply drop the case onto a wireless charging pad, and the four charging LED lights on the front of the case light up to show that it’s charging (and also to display how much charge remains).

Another feature I find quite handy for the price is an IPX 7 rating, meaning you can comfortably use the Ostia for sweaty workouts, and even in the rain if you have to. The website FAQ cautions against using them in heavy rain or during a shower, though in all likelihood they’ll be fine even then. If you need a lightweight IEM for a heavyweight workout and the standard IPX4 rating of most high-end IEMs won’t do, Ostia should definitely be on your list. They also won’t cost a bomb to replace should they get lost or stolen at the gym.

There’s not much else by way of features here: no noise cancelling, no app, no high-res Bluetooth, no sensors to pause the music, not even volume control. But the buttons on each earpiece are large and responsive, and you can get all the basics done – play, pause, answer calls, skip tracks and invoke the digital assistant on your phone, all by touch. Once paired (yes, about that…), Ostia are basically plug and play, and fairly intuitive too – assuming you’ve used TWS IEMs before, and their most impressive feature is not so much what they do, but how they sound.


Sound impressions

Before I get to the crux of this review, a word on wireless sound quality if I may. If you know me, you’ll know I’m not a huge fan of Bluetooth sound, at least not for serious, critical listening. Or at least that was the case before higher-end Bluetooth protocols like AptX-HD, LDAC and UAT started appearing in mainstream devices. I’m also not a fan of compressed music, and since ALL Bluetooth music is inherently compressed, something has to give.

Thankfully, modern Bluetooth codecs are advanced enough to support fairly high-bitrate compressed music (320kbit MP3 and 256kbit AAC), and since Ostia supports AAC on both Android and iPhone, you can expect very passable source quality, at the very least. Just make sure your device supports AAC, because you don’t want to be stuck using plain vanilla SBC Bluetooth for anything other than background listening.

With all that said, I initially found Ostia’s sound to be quite balanced, with a slight (mid)bass emphasis, smooth mids (with some upper midrange bumping) and a clear albeit slightly peaky treble that tilted a bit too bright for my liking. Initially I was also underwhelmed with the overall weight of the sound, finding it quite airy, and not in a good way.

That’s when I remembered the small pack of sound filters Divinus included in the box. The Divinus website shows a response curve with and without the filters, suggesting a rather drastic damping of the treble when filtered, so I opted to see if this might change the balance for the better, for my preferences anyway. Lo and behold, it did.

A word of caution though: turns out the filters are little more than thin felt stickers, and if you have fat fingers like mine, are not the easiest to apply. I was a bit like Tom Cruise trying to diffuse a bomb in Mission Impossible, except blindfolded with handcuffs, trying to apply the miniscule filters to the miniscule open nozzles, and I admit to losing at least two in my attempts to slide them on evenly. Before you try this at home, best watch this YouTube video, and use the tools they recommend too!



But I digress…

Tonality

If, like me, you prefer your sound slightly warmer, your bass slightly fuller, and can’t tolerate spritely treble for too long, the sound filters are an essential accessory for Ostia. Even with the sound filters in place, I wasn’t hearing a large amount of sub-bass, but down low the bass was suitably punchy and fairly quick too. Listening to Lorde’s Royals, the intro electronic bass hits were fuller than I probably anticipated them to be, but not as full as I would have liked them to be. Brandi Carlile’s kick drums on The Story were also modestly punchy, but also quite well textured, and didn’t feel too far off from ideal. This is not basshead-level bass by any measure, but it’s enough to satisfy.

Male vocals are fairly neutral, with the midbass bump giving them a little extra volume when called for. Neil Diamond’s chesty delivery in Hello Again, from The Jazz Singer soundtrack, is coarsely emotive, and even the higher-register male vocals on Radical Face’s Welcome Home are rendered realistically.

Pre-sound filters, female vocals were pushed a touch higher than I like them to be, though that’s probably a consequence of some unfiltered treble peaks rather than any midrange abrasiveness. Katie Pruitt’s signature voice was ever so slightly glassy on It’s Always Been You, but warmed right up with the filters in place. Same with Lana Del Rey on some of her Chemtrails Over The Countryclub numbers.

Treble is where the filters seem to have the most effect. The combination of some errant treble peaks – not surprising at this price and from a single dynamic driver – and compressed Bluetooth playback can make for a rather unpleasant treble fiasco. Thankfully Ostia’s treble is actually better than on some more expensive wireless IEMs I’ve tried, even without the filters, but the filters really, really smooth things over without sacrificing too much detail up top.

The string section in Max Richter’s Winter 1, from his recomposed version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, were crisp and sweet, with enough detail to separate the different string sections on stage, but also more one-dimensional than I’m used to hearing them. And the cymbal splashes on Def Leppard’s Love Bites were definitely much more tolerable than they were on first listen, and actually quite enjoyable once the filters were on.

Overall, I’d class Ostia’s tonality as a gentle U, tilted right pre-filters and left post-filters. The latter is definitely my preferred option, but trebleheads and those who prefer their bass more neutral can probably live without the filters for sure.


Technicalities

Divinus made a point of telling me about their custom-designed 6mm dynamic driver, dubbed DV1, which claims to offer ultra-low 0.1% distortion across the audible spectrum. I’m no engineer, but my ears were telling me this was indeed a quality driver I was listening to, without any obvious grit, and a commendably resolving signature.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is a $60 TWS IEM, and for that price there’s a heck of a lot of technology that needs to be packed in to two tiny shells and a case to make them all work. Often it’s a case of good sound being a nice-to-have, but Divinus set out to make sound quality a priority with Ostia, and it shows.

Without getting carried away, Ostia isn’t going to win any technical awards, but at the same time I’ve heard wired IEMs that cost more and sound worse. Stage size, for example, is actually very respectable, with some sounds pushing past the periphery of my ears and hanging just outside my head. It’s not the deepest stage I’ve heard, but it’s not cramped or intimate either.

Imaging is also good, as is instrument and vocal separation. There’s some diffusion going on with vocals – especially on multi-vocal tracks – that maybe don’t get the singers placed dead centre on stage, but aside from that I find the presentation very natural and lifelike, if not quite life-size.

What Ostia lacks, technically, compared to more expensive IEMs, is resolution. That’s not always a bad thing, especially when you want your IEMs to paper over the cracks in poorer recordings, but the flipside is that you’re not going to get the most in-depth and revealing listen with these compared to higher-end offerings. Still, I’m not going to mark them down too heavily because hey, $60, and tonally they’re a very pleasant listen indeed.


Closing thoughts

True wireless IEMs have come a long way from the days where just getting a stereo signal without wires was deemed a miracle in and of itself. Today, some of the best TWS IEMs match their wired price-tier counterparts for sound quality, and beat them hands down for features, portability and convenience. At the same time, Bluetooth technology in both handsets and chipsets is improving, heralding ever better quality for wireless systems as a whole.

While the very best TWS IEMs used to be the preserve of name-brand, big budget companies like Sony, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins and of course the major platform vendors like Samsung and Apple, the technology has matured to the point where smaller companies have the means to create compelling products that can compete on an even footing with the big boys.

Divinus seems to be just such a company, and in Ostia they have a product that ticks a whole bunch of boxes that discerning listeners would want from a set of low-cost, high-value TWS IEMs. They’re well built, nicely packaged, with a rugged waterproof rating and wireless charging. They’re small enough to wear comfortably for hours, and compact enough to carry in a small pocket.

With custom drivers tuned by someone who clearly knows his or her stuff, they present a relaxed tonality that will appeal to those wanting a crisp and clear listen, or alternatively, with the application of some cheap filters, a warmer, smoother listen that suits almost every genre equally.

There’s a reason why Divinus have already sold more than 14,000 units in South Korea alone, so if you’re after a great sounding pair of wireless IEMs for the price of a few coffees with friends, or a set you can confidently give your kids to carry in their bags to school, I’d put Ostia near or at the top of your list.

Thanks to my Head-Fi partner in crime @xenithon for secretly acquiring and then loaning me his Isabellae for the purposes of this review. It’s not an IEM I thought I’d get the pleasure of hearing anytime soon, but now that I have, the pleasure is all mine.

Introduction

Much like the species it was named after, the Oriolus Isabellae is a curiosity in the IEM world. Sporting a uniquely-tuned dynamic driver, the likes of which was considered extinct at one point, the Isabellae is one of several single DD designs currently capturing the imagination of higher-end IEM enthusiasts.

To be fair, the so-called ‘baby’ Bird owes some of its newfound fanfare to its big sister, the now-famous Traillii (a.k.a. The Bird), sharing the same designer, same house brand, and even some familiar tonal cues.

But that’s where the similarities end. Isabellae is very much its own creation, an IEM that targets a very specific type of listener. Whether or not that’s a good thing will depend on the type of music you listen to and how closely the specialised nature of this rather special IEM is aligned to your preferences.

Unboxing and initial impressions

The Isabellae is presented in a simple yet elegant box, complete with a custom slip-on cover depicting what I can only assume to be a pair of Isabela orioles on a leafy tree branch. Inside the two-part box, the distinctive amber-like resin shells of the Isabellae earpieces are set inside a custom foam cutout, with guides leading to a chamber for the included 2-pin, 4.4mm balanced cable and a small selection of silicone stock tips.

There are no cable alternatives, no 3.5mm adapters for single-ended listening, and no carry case, just the basics. Which should come as no surprise given the much-maligned sparsity of packaging and accessories included with Traillii, one of the world’s most expensive IEMs. It’s still not good enough, though, considering many IEMs that cost far less ship with far more, but at least some effort has been made to give Isabellae a classy, albeit minimalist, presentation.


That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality of the earpieces, which in person look and feel much better that they photograph (although I’ve tried my best to impart some sense of this quality with the photos in this review). It turns out what I initially thought to be rather cheap-looking IEMs are actually expertly crafted with a high degree of precision and a very smooth, silky finish that gives Isabellae a polished, premium feel.

The metal grille protecting the internals from wax and other unseemly human deposits sits neatly inside the thick, wide nozzles, each with an indented lip to hold eartips in place (a rarity among all-resin IEMs these days). A brass inlay crowns each earpiece, adorned with the Oriolus logo and what appears to be venting holes for the driver – though that’s my assumption and not a confirmed fact. The shells themselves are translucent (and hollow) and reveal the spartan internals: a single 9.8mm driver made from undisclosed materials.

Despite their wider-than-usual girth, I found the Isabellae earpieces to be very comfortable, even with my smallish ears. The medium-sized custom tips put a bit too much pressure on my canal openings, however, so I switched to my trusty Acoustune AET07s that gave Isabellae an instant comfort upgrade, and quite possibly a small sonic upgrade too.

The comfort factor extends to the included stock cable, which is one of the softest and most ergonomic cables I’ve personally used. In fact, it’s so soft and svelte that I fear for its longevity, and I’d caution very careful handling (a storage case is a must). Still, the cable is really well made, finished off with a stylish splitter and chin slider not dissimilar to the one Sennheiser uses on the new IE 900 cables, but with an even nicer matching pentaconn-style connector.


Sound impressions

Spoiler: Listening Notes

All testing was done with a HiBy R8 DAP set to high gain Turbo at volume 40 – 42 (this little IEM wants lots of power). Cable was stock with a combination of medium silicone and Acoustune AET07 tips. I generally don’t listen to hard rock (or hard anything), metal, Hip Hop, rap, reggae, funk or anything else that requires a certain grade of narcotic to enjoy. Seriously though, all the music referenced in this review is the music I used for testing, and which I’m intimately familiar with. While I didn’t cable roll for this review, I did briefly listen to Isabellae with the @doctorjuggles Cardas Clear cable, though aside from being a sonic and ergonomic upgrade over the stock cable, I didn’t take any specific notes.

Isabellae is first and foremost a mid-centric IEM. Without *****footing around it, the midrange is the star of the show, and more specifically, vocals and some stringed instruments.

Tonally I hear Isabellae to be W shaped with an extended middle section (upper midrange) and smaller lifts in bass (mid-to-upper bass) and treble (mid-to-upper treble). It’s definitely not a V-shaped IEM in that mids, on the whole, are elevated above bass and treble, though lower mids aren’t nearly as dominant as upper mids. A rather thick midbass (or possibly upper bass) bump helps to keep the midrange from coming off as peaky, which it’s not, and also helps tame some of the upper treble peaks I’m hearing, though I can see why some consider Isabellae to lean on the brighter side of neutral with certain types of music.

The intangibles are somewhat harder for me to define. Isabellae is tuned almost purposefully to shunt parts of the FR to the background, to the point where it feels like I’m listening to fragments of a song in some instances. A good analogy would be sitting with the mixer and, while keeping the vocal track elevated, lowering or muting other tracks entirely. This is a theme I’ll explore in more detail below, with specific examples, just in case I come across as crazy. But I swear that’s what I’m hearing. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but a rather unique presentation that I must say I haven’t come across with IEMs before this.


Bass

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, you’ll know that bass, in my opinion, is the foundation of the music I listen to and the IEMs I listen with. Without the right combination of quality, quantity, extension, texture and speed (both attack and decay), whatever else the IEM does…doesn’t really matter, to me.

But there are always exceptions, right? I’m going to be generous here and say that the bass that Isabellae does have is pretty good, sometimes very good with the right music. When the bass does come to play its mainly midbass, and while there is a hint of sub-bass on some tracks, the lower echelons, by and large, just aren’t there. In discussions I’ve had with @xenithon about this, we think this is due more to the very specific tuning of the IEM, rather than any deficiency in the driver.

Kick drums are generally the starting point for my bass tests, and while IEMs can’t be expected to reproduce the visceral in-your-chest feel of a real kick drum a-la full-size speakers, some IEMs can approximate that sensation fairly accurately. Sadly, Isabellae isn’t one of them. Kick drums, on the whole, lack the punch I expect from a good dynamic driver. The kick drum melee in Brandi Carlile’s The Story (1:33) comes across as pillowy and soft. The texture is all there, but the Isabellae isn’t moving enough air to make it palpable. In fact, the Isabellae is almost BA-like in its kick drum presentation here, which may actually suit some people’s penchant for less bass boom and more nuance.

Ironically the Isabellae isn’t always bass shy, quite the opposite in fact. Some stringed bass and electronic basslines, if prominent in the track, actually come across as fairly thick, though never to the point where they obscure any part of the vocals. On Reb Fountain’s Together, where the drums and lower-octave guitar strums in the intro are barely audible compared to the forward vocals, the bassline (0:58) comes out of nowhere and dominates for much of the remainder of the song.

Sub-bass is where Isabellae really struggles (or, if you prefer, chooses not to compete). You could make the argument that midbass is fairly well represented, but as it approaches the sub-bass regions it literally falls off a cliff. Listening to Missincat’s Più Vicino, the intro sequence mixes equal parts electronic midbass and sub-bass, but as I described above, it’s as if someone muted the sub-bass track. The result is an odd presentation that sounds hollowed-out, almost strobe-like in its delivery of bloomy midbass followed by gaps of non-existent sub-bass.

My take on this is that Isabellae’s bass is intentionally and exclusively tuned to support the midrange. To a point, it does this very well, and where midbass is called on to add warmth or girth to a track, it generally shows up just fine (though I still wouldn’t call Isabellae a warm IEM by any measure).

There’s a certain richness to the texture of Babatunde Olatunji’s rhythmic drumming in Stepping, and decent weight to the supporting bass and drums in Ottmar Liebert’s La Luna, but Isabellae’s is a gentle accompaniment rather than one of raw passion, lacking any of the visceral impact that real drums would have in a live environment. It’s a case of heard not felt, so if you’re after the rumble of a subwoofer in EDM and trance tracks, or the steel-fisted punch of a kick or electric drum in modern pop and Hip Hop, this is probably not the right IEM for the job. That said, the subdued bass does play to Isabellae’s strengths, so it’s not all con, as you’ll see below.


Midrange

If you’re the type of person that skips the starers and goes straight for the T-bone, you’ve come to the right part of this review.

A quick glance at Isabellae’s FR graph will tell you all you need to know about its midrange prowess. From a relatively low upper bass base (how’s that for phrasing!), Isabellae quickly accelerates upwards from (somewhat subdued) lower mids to a towering peak somewhere between 2kHz and 3kHz that rises like Everest above everything else in eyeshot. It then only gently descends into lower treble, making the entire presence region very prominent and giving the sound an open, clear and very distinct character, especially in higher-register male and female vocals.

From the very first notes of Rosie Thomas’s Wedding Day, Isabellae shows its hand as an unapologetically vocal-focused IEM. Every nuance of Rosie’s incredibly crisp, emotive voice is brought front and centre, with the accompanying guitars and drums taking a step or two back on the stage. There’s a line in the song where Rosie sings “I’m gonna stop at every bar and flirt with the cowboys in front of their girlfriends”, and I can’t help but feel that’s exactly what Isabellae is doing with its midrange in a room full of treble and bass.

It’s just as well the midrange is so prominent, because treble and bass generally don’t play second fiddle in the mix, so to speak. On a track like Beyries’ Alone, there are some brighter-hitting piano strikes (0:30) and a rather thick bassline (0:50) that sometimes dominate over the vocals with other IEMs, but despite Isabellae’s upper-midbass and upper treble peaks, the vocals continue to rise above and remain distinct throughout.

The same goes for Katie Melua’s Red Balloons, a track who’s prominent midbass bloom would otherwise veil the song were it not for the dominant midrange tuning. As soon as Katie’s vocals come in at 0:22, the bass is put in its place, and all other instruments fade back in support of the vocals.


Despite the upper midrange peak and forward vocals, this is a quality midrange expertly tuned. There’s none of the shout or harshness I normally associate with forward upper mids, and even Katie Pruitt’s cutting pitch on It’s Always Been You didn’t once make me wince, a solid pass on my go-to litmus test for shout.

Vocal clarity isn’t limited to female vocals either, although male vocals aren’t as transcendent as their female counterparts. Perhaps due to its subdued bass emphasis or slightly recessed lower midrange, male vocals aren’t quite as full as I’m used to hearing them, despite remaining clear in the mix. Neil Diamond’s trademark drawl on Hello Again isn’t as chesty as I know it to be, for example, and even Don Henley is a lighter version of himself in the live MTV rendition of Hotel California off the Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over.

That’s not to say male vocals don’t sound natural – they do. But the more I listen to familiar tracks, the more I get the sense that Isabellae’s vocalisation is on the slightly drier, lighter side, and perhaps a touch too dry for my personal preferences. Despite its dryness, Isabellae doesn’t come across as clinical, possibly because this isn’t the world’s most resolving midrange, but the end result is a more relaxed, less abrasive presentation that puts clarity above all else, and does so effortlessly.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, however, and while I find Isabellae quite forgiving with most of the music I’ve listened to so far, some poorly recorded tracks show up flaws that I don’t hear as prominently with other IEMs. That’s probably because Isabellae is opening up and fully exposing the midrange without the masking influence of the bigger bass notes I’m accustomed to, but there’s something in there – possibly in the mid-to-upper treble, come to think of it – that adds a bit of grittiness to the trailing edges of some vocals.

Ocie Elliott’s Slow Tide is a prime example of this, where Jon Middleton’s vocals occasionally trail off with what I can only describe as grain. I suspect this is a factor of both the recording quality and the overall openness of the midrange tuning, as it almost never shows up in other recordings that I’m more familiar with. I only mention it here because, ultimately, I believe this IEM will win a place in your collection on the strength of its midrange, and despite its unquestionable quality, I’d be remiss not to flag its potential shortcomings too.


Treble

Strangely enough, the treble tuning of Isabellae might just be my favourite aspect of its tonality. Because of its wide-open midrange, the treble doesn’t need to be tuned with any extra air or sparkle, which will naturally come through with a lighter touch. And that’s just how the treble is tuned here, with a lighter touch, just how I like it.

While there’s a delicious sharpness to the treble in Nils Lofgren’s masterful guitar plucks in Keith Don’t Go(3:21), it’s never edgy, never harsh, and very lifelike. Isabellae excels with strings, notably guitar strings, and almost every acoustic guitar solo I’ve heard to date is palpably real, with nailed-on timbre and very natural decay.

The treble quality also comes through in Max Richter’s rendition of Vivaldi’s Winter 1, which, in combination with its nicely weighted midbass bump, makes Isabellae an enjoyable companion with stringed classical music. It’s fast enough to keep pace with the frantic violins of this particular piece, at least, and detailed enough that I can make out the different string sections from each other.

What I like most about Isabellae’s treble, though, is its smoothness. This might not be good news for treble heads that want maximum bite from their cymbal splashes and crashes, but the fact that I can get through the entirety of Michael Jackson’s brightly-lit intro to Billie Jean, splashes, crashes and all, makes me a big fan of Isabellae’s laid-back treble tuning. Again, because of the open midrange and overall clarity of the presence region, there’s no need for overt brightness here. There’s plenty of air and sparkle without dialing in the usual lower and mid-treble peaks, for this track at least.

On other tracks, like the Instrumental Trotto by Angels of Venice, the smoothness of the treble combined with its more relaxed nature means the interplay between the brighter mediaeval bells and whistles doesn’t stand out from the darker, fuller drums and harps as much as I know it could. This results in a flatter presentation that, while easy to listen to as background music, also makes it less engaging and dynamic.

Another example of Isabellae’s relaxed sensibilities is Jethro Tull’s The Waking Edge, which has in its instrumental intro some seriously edgy guitar plucks that can bite deep with more strident IEMs but barely rise above dainty with Isabellae.

Where I think Isabellae’s treble isn’t ideal, as I hinted at above, is a pesky peak in the mid-to-upper treble (somewhere between 8kHz and 10kHz) that I suspect lends the trailing edge of certain vocals a grittiness that shouldn’t normally be there. Thankfully it’s not a major concern, and is also far less troublesome than a lower-to-middle treble peak which would introduce sibilance or zing, neither of which Isabellae suffers from in my experience.


Technicalities

This section will be shorter than my usual intangibles deep-dive because I’ve simply not had enough time with Isabellae to really suss out its technical capabilities. That said, I think I have a fairly good handle on what I’m hearing, and by extension what you can expect to hear, and will also attempt to peg its technicalities on the scale compared to the other IEMs I own, below.

Isabellae’s stage is on the intimate side, but I don’t hear it as congested or cramped. The openness of the midrange and lightness of touch lends a very comfortable space to most of the music I’ve listened to. The forwardness of the vocals and upper midrange lift definitely contributes to the feeling of intimacy it creates, but the laid-back tonality also prevents the sound from feeling forced.

It's also not a particularly deep stage, which has a knock-on effect on layering. Yosi Horikawa’s Bubbles are all fairly well represented, but none of the ‘ball drops’ (ahem) reach much past the cone of my ears, and the stage feels quite flat and shallow as a whole. The narrower stage also affects imaging, which I find to be good but not great. I have no issues placing the instruments in Amber Rubarth’s Strive, but the track has the benefit of binaural recording, and it still fails to elicit the of out-of-head experience I’ve heard it to have with other IEMs.

Separation is actually quite good, especially vocal/instrument separation, with vocals – especially female vocals as mentioned several times in this review – always taking centre stage and standing a few steps forward in the mix. On Whitehorse’s Dear Irony, Luke Doucet’s supporting role is fairly distinct from Melissa McClelland’s front-and-centre vocals, and I think this is one instant where the muting of the deep bass notes that I know to exist in this track makes the vocals shine.

If it’s clarity you’re after, Isabellae delivers consistently. But clarity is not quite the same thing as detail. Where Roger Waters’ soulful vocals are crisp and clear in Pink Floyd’s Hey You, the ‘worm effects’ (3:21) don’t have the piercing incisiveness they should. This is likely because of Isabellae’s more relaxed treble delivery, but is also a consequence of its good but not stellar resolving power. A detail monster it’s not, but then this is not what the easygoing Isabellae is all about, and again I don’t think it’s a technical shortcoming of the driver but rather a conscious tuning choice by the Old Man.

Overall, I think Isabellae is a very competent technical performer, comfortably within the expectations of its price bracket. It would be disingenuous to compare it to the technical superiority of Traillii, for example, but in my opinion, it does fall short of the technical ability of IEMs on the other side of the kilobuck divide.


Compared to…

Sometimes the best way to describe what an IEM sounds like is to compare it a known quantity: another IEM. With Isabellae, I didn’t want to just use any random to compare it to, but rather like-for-like single DD IEM. As it happens, I recently rediscovered the joy of single DD IEMs with the Sennheiser IE 900 (you can read my full review here), and while it comes in at twice the price of Isabellae, I think the comparison between these two chalk-and-cheese IEMs will provide a meaningful yardstick for those familiar with Sennheiser’s flagship.

Isabellae differs from the IE 900 in three key areas: bass, midrange and treble. Jokes aside, the tuning and philosophy of the two IEMs couldn’t be more different, even though there are parts to both IEMs I enjoy equally. For starters, the IE 900’s tonality follows a gentle U-shape that, to my ears, is more balanced across the FR spectrum, which is to say that no one aspect dominates the sound over another. Isabellae’s, by contrast, is a midrange-dominated tuning, and even though there’s generally enough bass and treble to fill in on either side, there’s no question where the focus is always going to be.

You need only listen to the first 20 seconds of Lorde’s Royals to hear the deeper-hitting bass and sharper treble notes in the IE 900’s delivery. The IE 900 is fairly linear in its bass response, but emphasises sub-bass over midbass, in contrast to Isabellae’s midbass lift. The IE 900’s treble also peaks earlier and higher, though that’s somewhat mitigated by its resonators that make for a very smooth-sounding treble response. Isabellae’s treble also peaks around mid-treble but much less so relative to its midrange rise, and its treble rolls off much quicker than the IE 900’s too.


But the main point of departure between the two IEMs is the mid-to-upper midrange, where the IE 900’s obvious dip is in stark contrast to Isabellae’s bump. This makes Isabellae’s vocal presentation more intimate and forward compared to the IE 900’s more even (and occasionally slightly distant) placement on the stage. Moreover, the IE 900’s potent bass delivery, among the best of any IEM I’ve heard, helps to fill out both male and female vocals, sounding more organic in the process. With the IE 900, Alanis Morissette’s distinctive voice is wetter and slightly fuller on Univited (from the City of Angels soundtrack), compared to Isabellae’s lighter, airier rendition.

Another point of contrast, literally, is the dynamic nature of the IE 900’s presentation compared to Isabellae’s more laissez faire approach. The build-up to Bjork’s Hunter is punchier and more aggressive on the IE 900 compared to Isabellae’s gentler stroll, and when the crescendo approaches with Bjork exclaiming “…how Scandinavian of me” (1:44) the sheer size of the sound on the IE 900 dominates Isabellae’s smaller scale by comparison. Incidentally the IE 900 also does a better job of layering Bjork’s vocals, which split around the stage and distort into distinctly different variations, which Isabellae renders more homogeneously by comparison.

While it’s clear where my personal preferences lie, this is not to say Isabellae’s approach is without merit. Take any vocal-driven track with supporting strings or synths – Bread’s Guitar Man, for example – and Isabellae’s midrange tuning takes you straight to the heart of the music, albeit less excitedly. On busier tracks where instruments dominate the vocals, such as David Lanz and Paul Speer’s Whispered In Signs, Isabellae keeps the instruments at arm’s length from the vocals, making it easier to follow the lyrics.

This is even more apparent on tracks with deeper bass and female vocals. Billie Eilish’s NDA is a bass lover’s dream with the IE 900, with vocals a mere afterthought, but Isabellae flips this on its head with a pleasing bassline supporting Billie’s crystal-clear and provocatively edgy vocals. If you’re particularly sensitive to warbly subwoofer bass, Isabellae is a safer and likely more enjoyable choice with this type of music.

Ultimately, when it comes to tuning, there’s no right or wrong, just preference. So, technicalities are probably where the IE 900 earns its pricetag jump over Isabellae. Aside from vocal clarity, which is Isabellae’s trademark, the IE 900 is wider, deeper and more resolving, with more precise imaging and separation and more detail across the board. I’ll even say the IE 900’s midrange, while not quite as open, is more refined, showing up fewer artefacts in male and some female vocals.

However, as I’ve mentioned before, Isabellae is no technical slouch, and IE 900 is far from a technical marvel compared to more expensive multi-driver IEMs. Both share similar strengths unique to single DDs, like innate coherency and a cohesiveness that many multi-driver IEMs, even the really expensive ones, often struggle with. They’re also both more tonally ‘correct’ than many IEMs that get it wrong with their tuning balance. While there’s much to be said for their differences, and some will prefer one over the other, they are actually quite complementary as a pair, and together would likely enrich almost any serious IEM collection.


Closing thoughts

To be perfectly honest, I think Isabellae might be the very first mid-centric IEM I’ve ever heard. Since I’ve generally been a bass-first listener most of my life, going back to my teen days, I pretty much discounted anything that didn’t kick like a mule.

But my curiosity was piqued by several glowing reviews of mid-centric IEMs on this and other forums, to the point where I started second guessing myself and wondering if I could be missing something important on my musical journey. As the theory goes, since most of music’s fundamentals, including the human voice, is represented by the midrange, midrange-centric IEMs present those fundamentals more incisively and directly, and enhance the emotional connection between artist and listener.

As it turns out, this wasn’t exactly what I found with Isabellae. Yes, the midrange clarity is impressive, and also immediately noticeable. As soon as I hit play on the very first track, I was met with tastefully forward vocals, and instruments that receded just enough to let me know they were still there without ever encroaching on what was happening in the middle. To be fair, I don’t listen to a fortune of instrumental music, the occasional soundtrack and even less occasional classical piece, so I’m probably not the best person to ask about how this mid-centricness plays out when there aren’t any vocals to lock in. But where vocals are the drawcard, I can hear why Isabellae is regarded as highly as it is by some.

For some reason, however, it didn’t move me like I was expecting it to. I didn’t get that lightning strike of awakening the minute I heard a vocal delivery unencumbered by the rumble of drums, or the unfettered guitar solo that sounded so right that it made everything else I’ve heard before sound wrong. I’ve heard other popular IEMs that eschewed bass for midrange – Campfire Audio’s Andromeda comes to mind – and to this day I’m still wondering why they’re so lauded.

Could it be that I don’t connect emotionally with my music through the midrange – or at least, the midrange alone? Many of my favourite songs are just that because of a certain drum hit or rumble in the bass. A kick drum should sound and feel like a kick drum, failing which the music isn’t being reproduced the way it should, or at least the way I enjoy it most.

More surprisingly perhaps, I wasn’t completely wowed by Isabellae’s drawcard – its midrange. I mentioned earlier in the review that I found its note weight to be on the slightly light side, particularly with male vocals, and female vocals were not quite as full and organic sounding as I like them to be (and what I personally consider to be more natural).


But I suspect my reservations are more about what I expected Isabellae to be rather than what it actually is: an easy listening, inoffensive, gently tuned IEM adept at delivering clear, smooth music with an accurate timbre that makes that music readily accessible and relatively uncomplicated. Whereas many IEMs call you to attention and make the music sound powerful, exciting or both, Isabellae takes you down a different road, where the breeze is gentle, the leaves are scattered across sun-strewn fields, and the music is your literal companion along the way.

So, who is Isabellae for? I can tell you who it’s not for: bassheads and trebleheads. If you have an unsatiable desire for big, lifelike bass and crisp, crunchy treble, this is not your IEM. If you’re into Hip Hop, rap, big cinematic scores or guitar-driven rock, I think there are IEMs more suited to the job. Likewise, if you’re a detail nut and enjoy microscoping into your music, you’re probably not going to get much joy from Isabellae either.

However, if you’re a vocals enthusiast and don’t mind your vocals slightly dry, like a crisp chardonnay, you’ll find plenty to like here. If you want an IEM that gently caresses your eardrums while you’re working, without making you stop every few minutes to jam to the music, Isabellae is great for that. If your idea of a relaxing listen is kicking back on a lounger with a glass of port in a dimly lit room, letting the music lull you into a trance, give Isabellae a try.

For fans of adult contemporary, singer-songwriter, folk, world and light instrumental music, Isabellae is an excellent – and refreshingly affordable – option. It’s also one of the only single dynamic driver IEMs I know of that’s almost purpose-made for this type of listening, without the typical bass weight or treble stridency common to many dynamic drivers in its class.

Isabellae’s is not the most common tuning, to be sure, and I don’t think it’s something that’s going to wow anyone on first listen. But if you know what you like, and find that Isabellae fits your groove, I’m not sure there are many, or any, better options that are going to do what Isabelle does so well.

If you haven’t read my first impressions preview of the new Sennheiser IE 900, feel free to do so here.

Preface

The opinions expressed in this review are just that – subjective opinions, based on my personal music choices, listening preferences, and even my mood on the day. As such you should consider this (and really any) review as just another data point. If you have any questions about my preferences, the music I used, or anything else you’d like to discuss, feel free to leave a comment or PM me directly.

Full disclosure: Sennheiser loaned me the IE900 in exchange for my honest review, without fear or favour, or any expectations from me. I am required to return them to Sennheiser once I’ve written my full review, and have already purchased a pair of my own. That’s probably a bit of a spoiler for what’s to follow…


Introduction

Sennheiser is a name synonymous with headphones, some of which – like the famed HD600 / HD650 series and flagship HD800 – have earned their place as benchmarks for high-fidelity in the head-fi world.

The company has dipped its figurative toes into the IEM world too, but never quite attained the same stature in the smaller format of the game as it had with its lauded headphones. That’s not to say it hasn’t been successful, and its flagship IEMs did for a time earn widespread appeal and pioneered notable engineering firsts.

But it’s been a while since the IE 800 (2012) and IE 800S (2017) were flagbearers, superseded by a new generation of multi-driver IEMs from boutique manufacturers in the US, Europe and Asia. Despite releasing a series of new IEMs in recent years, purportedly for the ‘pro’ stage and music mixing market, the company waited until earlier this year to launch its first updated ‘audiophile’ IEM, the consumer-friendly IE 300, before surprising the market with its new flagship IEM, the IE 900.

Incidentally, behind the scenes, Sennheiser sold off its consumer audio division to Swiss-based Sonova, and despite suggestions that Sennheiser’s design teams will continue working with the new owners to develop future products, could the IE 900 possibly be the last original head-fi release from the famous German brand?

Considering how the IE 900 came to be, the legacy it represents, and the fact that the HD800 was the culmination of my personal four-year journey to find the very best headphone for the music I listen to, I immediately signaled my interest in the IE 900 almost as soon as it was announced. To my utter amazement, Sennheiser answered the call, and with the generous help of one of the best industry spokespeople I’ve had the pleasure of working with (thank you, @Evshrug), I had an IE 900 delivered direct from Bavaria to my review desk at the tip of Africa.

The Sennheiser IE 900 is an outlier of sorts in the modern IEM world, particularly at the pointy (read rather expensive) end of the market where only the most enthusiastic (read well-heeled) enthusiasts dare to go.

For one, it sports a single full range (or wide band, as Sennheiser calls it) dynamic driver, instead of the mix-and-match of dynamic, balanced armature, e-stat and other exotic driver combinations common to its competitors. It’s uniquely small, unusual even for a single driver dynamic. And it uses MMCX (rather than the more popular 2-pin connector) for its plastic-sheathed (rather than braided) stock cable.

But as you’ll soon see, all these design decisions have a purpose. While they may initially frustrate some users, who may prefer the contemporary ear-moulded aesthetic or take issue with the inability to ‘roll’ their existing, expensively-acquired collection of third-party cables, once you get to know the IE 900 (and navigate around some of its ‘quirks’), you’ll find yourself rewarded with an IEM that elevates, rather than stymies, the state of the art.



What’s in the box

The IE 900 comes in a compact box adorned by a classy image of the distinctive earpieces on the cover, flanked by the Sennheiser logo and ubiquitous Hi-Res Audio emblem, a must-have accreditation for any self-respecting audiophile in the 21st century. Inside the box you’ll find…another box, this time with no imagery, just a sleek, dark-grey motif, silky smooth finish, and embossed Sennheiser logo, with a velvety pull tab on the side that releases…yet another box with the contents you’re by now desperately trying to get to.

The first thing you see after you’re done playing Russian Dolls is the two glistening silver earpieces, looking ridiculously small in their pre-cut foam enclosure. Another tab lets you lift the foam away, exposing a date-stamped certificate of authenticity with a serial number and handwritten signature of your personal QC checker, a very nice touch befitting a premium product.

Digging deeper you’ll find a smorgasbord of standard-issue accessories, including a stylish gold-brown zippered carry case, three stock cables (one for each of the 3.5mm, 2.5mm and 4.4mm termination types), a selection of silicone and foam eartips (in small, medium and large sizes), a shirt clip for playing crocodiles while listening to music, a Sennheiser-branded cleaning tool for flicking your co-workers with the earwax that accumulates in your tips, and a plush cleaning cloth to offer your co-workers by way of apology when you’re done.

I’ve seen more lavishly presented flagships (Empire Ears comes to mind), and laughably spartan ones too (Oriolus Triallii, anyone?), but on the whole, I’d say the IE 900’s is a very pleasant unboxing experience indeed. You get everything you need in the box, and what you don’t get isn’t too expensive to source elsewhere (more on that later).


Form follows function

A closer examination of the IE 900 earpieces reveals exceptional build quality and precise craftmanship. The IE 900 housing is CNC-milled from a single block of aluminium with a finely ridged ‘fingerprint’ pattern making it both very distinctive and easier to grip. It would have been cool for every set to vary the pattern slightly, like its own unique fingerprint, though that would have no doubt added unnecessary complexity and cost to the process.

The earpieces are shaped in the fold-over style common to on-stage monitors, and even though that’s not their primary purpose, it’s a design that lends itself to a very comfortable, if somewhat intimate, fit. Sennheiser opted for industry standard MMCX connectors for the IE 900, but used slightly recessed earpiece sockets to improve contact longevity at the expense of compatibility with many third-party connectors.

If you’re going to cable roll, make sure to stipulate IE 900-compatible connectors, or risk your new cable not being able to latch on to the earpieces (as was the case with a spare set of MMCX to 2-pin adapters I tried to use unsuccessfully).

Inside the shells, Sennheiser stuck with their tradition of using a single 7mm dynamic driver, made of unspecified materials, extending a lineage that dates back to the original IE 800, and possibly even earlier. While the driver itself has undergone several iterations since then, the standout features of the current implementation is the addition of two important engineering advancements created specifically for the IE 900:

X3R technology – a fancy acronym for the three Helmholtz resonators milled directly into the earphone enclosure, designed to eliminate resonance peaks that can otherwise colour or adversely affect the sound coming from the driver. The resonators work in combination with the specifically shaped nozzle structure to regulate the airwaves generated by the driver and smooth out any errant peaks in the frequency curve.

Acoustic back volume – this small ‘space within a space’ sits behind the driver and supposedly affects the tuning of low-end frequencies, helping better shape and separate them from the midrange and further reduce resonance from the enclosure.

In the lead-up to the IE 900 launch, Sennheiser released a promotional video to highlight these specific features. Check it out below:



I’m no engineer, but to my layman’s ears, one of the standout qualities immediately apparent in the IE 900’s sound delivery is a silky smoothness with an almost complete lack of resonance, particularly in music where shouty vocals or aggressive piano strikes often result in fatiguing peaks with other IEMs (especially those tuned brighter, with strident treble, or over-abundant midbass).

I’ll make more mention of these qualities in the sound impressions part of this review, but as part of my research, I asked the man who led the IE 900 design team, Jermo Köhnke, how the specific function of these tuning technologies impacts real-world performance (in a way that you and I can better understand it). This is what he said:

“The resonator chambers primarily dampen several peaks in the treble range. To me, a peaky treble is most annoying when it makes the headphones lisp and the singers ‘s’ sounds become too sharp to enjoy the music. A second effect can be unnaturally aggressive percussion, but lisping is my litmus test for peaks, which varies from song to song. Sometimes the song itself is mastered too liberally in those frequencies, in these cases a revealing headphone should transport that as well.

The back volume…gives us complete control over the tuning, so we can worry about everything else when developing the earphone housing, the assembly process, etc.. For example if you just overdo it with the mids, the sound becomes closed-in, undynamic and generally unenjoyable for music listening. It gives us a lot of flexibility during development, but it also means outstanding quality control for the end user to get exactly the sound they listened to in a store.”

Whatever the IE 900 is doing or not doing, and regardless of whether or not what it’s doing suits your preferences, the one thing I think we can all agree on is that it’s been precision engineered by a company that knows a thing or two about tuning headphones. Sometimes the smallest innovations make the biggest difference, and this seems to be the case with the IE 900.

For more information on the various components, frequency response, THD and other technical aspects of the IE 900 design, you can download the full spec sheet from Sennheiser here.


Finish, fit and comfort

The IE 900 makes a change from the larger, bulkier, heavier multi-driver IEMs that have dominated the high-end and mainstream market for some time now. It’s a welcome throwback to more compact single-driver designs, and I applaud Sennheiser for sticking to their proven design aesthetic with the IE 900 rather than blindly following current trends.

The aluminium shells are well made, and feel refreshingly cool to the touch. They seem very resilient too, though I still wouldn’t want to drop them, and their fragile internals, from any sort of height.

I generally keep my IEMs permanently attached to their cable and stored inside a hard case or pouch, and the IE 900 is no exception. The included case is protective on the outside and softly lined on the inside, with ample room for the earpieces, cable, extra tips and even an extra cable if you need to carry one around with you. I normally like to prevent my earpieces from clinking against each other, so use a mesh case from Campfire Audio (product link here) for extra protection.

All of this contributes to what I consider to be one of the most comfortable IEMs I’ve had the pleasure of using. Comfort is a non-negotiable for me when it comes to the gear I use for several hours at a time, and the combination of small size, smooth finish and relatively shallow insert makes the IE 900 an easy recommendation in this regard.

That said, the ergonomics of the IE 900 don’t make for a seamless wearing experience for everyone. I’ve heard of several instances from very experienced IEM users I know and trust that have struggled to get a good fit with the IE900. For one, the earpieces are very light, and since they’re attached to the cable using MMCX connectors, they swivel (or helicopter) quite easily. The cable itself, while very smooth and supple, terminates in a memory wire-shaped hook that’s fairly thick, and somewhat bulkier and heavier than the IEMs themselves. If not seated properly, the cable and hook will simply yank them out of your ears with the slightest movement, especially if the tips don’t grip your ears like they should.

There’s an art to properly fitting the IE 900 that, once mastered, makes it quick and easy for me to slip them in every time. Hopefully this will help some of you who are still struggling with fit (with thanks to my wife, the ear model):

1. First, loosely flatten out the earhook, facing the cable entry forward (in front of you and away from your face). Don’t worry about shaping the earhook before inserting the earpiece. It’s going to deform anyway, so rather save your energy.
   
   
2. Grip the earpiece between your thumb, index and middle fingers to prevent it from swiveling around the MMXC connector, then gently insert the tips into your ear canal and corkscrew the earpieces counter clockwise while using your free hand to hook the cable around your ear. Don’t force them in, you just want enough pressure for a good seal. If pushing them in hurts your ears, or they’re going in too easily and not creating a seal, you’re either pushing too hard or the tips you’ve chosen are probably too small. Swap tipsand try again.
   
   
3. While holding the earpiece in place, use your free hand to gently pinch and mould the earhook around the top and back of your ear. Not too tight so that it clamps your ear, but tight enough so that it keeps the earpiece in place, with the rest of the cable falling away weightlessly.
   
   
4. If you’re still finding the earpieces aren’t perfectly seated, push the ‘bottom end’ of each earpiece (the part that goes into your ear) slightly forward (in other words, deeper into the ear). The earpieces will now sit at an angle, but should hold firm, albeit with a slightly deeper fit.

Now that you have the earpieces and cable in a comfortable position, no amount of head movement, jaw movement or light cable tugging should shift them out of place. Feel free to use both your hands to pat yourself on the back for passing the Advanced IE 900 Fitment Course with flying colours.

On cables and eartips

Before we move on to the substantive part of this review, a quick note on cables and eartips. Newcomers to the hobby sometimes get despondent when they crack open their IEMs only to find the cable sucks and the tips don’t fit as well as they should. As an experienced (read battle weary) IEM user, I almost expect to ‘roll’ the cables and tips of a new IEM to see if I can change the sound, fit, or both for the better. In fact, I’m now at the point where it’s rare that I even take the stock tips and cable out the box with most IEMs.

The IE 900 is slightly different in that the tips it comes with are rumoured to have some sonic characteristics important to the sound. According to Jermo, that’s not the case:

“The foam within the ear tips has been implemented solely to protect the transducer from cerumen or other ingresses. Foam is necessary to catch even small particles, but it’s also nearly impossible to prevent foam from building up some acoustic impedance if you compress it. If you look closely, the foam is very large-pored.

If we wanted an acoustic impact, we’d choose a finer, better-defined material. If the IE 900 were a relaxed earphone that might turn dull with a bit of impedance, [and] we would have chosen a different solution. But the IE 900 is a brilliant earphone and a slight change of 1-2 dB in the treble doesn’t change the character to the worse for most people. Long story short, you can use whichever ear tip fits.”

So, there you have it folks, from the man himself. Stop worrying about sonic filters and proprietary tips and tip roll the IE 900 to your heart’s content!

Fortunately, I have a war chest full of third-party tips I can choose from, so when none of the included IE 900 silicone tips sat comfortably in my ears, I was able to quickly find an alternative that fit better and (as I would later discover) sound better too. Do note that the stock tips have a clever two-slot system that allows you to position the tips further forward or back on the nozzle, for a deeper or shallower fit, and that you lose this feature by switching out to third-party tips without these slots.

As for the cable, I happen to quite like the stock cable, and the fact that you get a 4.4mm-terminated cable in the box is a big plus. Yes, the included cable is microphonic when you’re fiddling and fitting the IEMs in your ears (for the uninitiated, microphonics are the loud scraping sounds you hear when the cable rubs up against your sweater or skin as it dangles from your ears).

Thankfully this is not an issue once the earpieces are seated and I’m sitting down to listen, and if I get up to walk with the IEMs, the chin slider mostly prevents any errant sounds from the cable too. But, if you’re super sensitive about cable microphonics, get ready to roll.

I’ll compare various tips and the effect they have on the sound of the IE 900 later on in the review, but I’m glad to say the IE 900 may be one of the first IEMs I’m unlikely to cable roll for the foreseeable future.

Sound impressions

In my first impressions preview I went on a musical journey of discovery with the IE 900. Now that I’ve had a few solid weeks listening to it almost daily, I have a much firmer handle on what I’m hearing and will hopefully be able to describe it without resorting to images of rainbows and unicorns.

All listening was done with the stock cable and Acoustune AET07 tips, using a HiBy R8 DAP in high gain Turbo mode at a volume setting between 36 and 44/100. I’ve also included some notes on different tips and source matching.

Tonality

The IE 900 is a very balanced sounding IEM. There’s nothing in its tuning that jumps out and screams for attention at the expense of everything else. In this regard it’s not a wow tuning like you’d find with some specialist IEMs. Instead, the more I listen, the more I’m asking: ‘wow, why aren’t more IEMs tuned this way?’.

While it’s difficult to gauge how fatiguing (or not) an IEM will be after a few quick sessions, on the whole I found the IE 900 to have a fatigue-free, natural sound over the time I’ve used it. Tonally at least, I’m struggling to think of anything about the IE 900’s tuning that will fatigue even the most sensitive listener. It may not be to everyone’s preference in terms of aggression or in-your-face energy, for example, but fatiguing it simply is not.

I’ve seen the IE 900’s tuning described as V-shaped, but I don’t think that’s right. This is not an IEM that pushes excessive bass and treble energy and leaves the mids to dangle in the middle. I’m hearing a much more uniform U-shaped tuning, with a slightly lifted but otherwise linear bass, a very natural midrange that is neither too forward or too recessed, and treble with plenty of sparkle and air up top that pushes close to – but generally doesn’t cross – the brightness threshold to my ears.

All three strike a very cohesive – and importantly for a single-driver IEM – coherent balance. If there’s something prominent in the mix, you’ll hear it as prominent with the IE 900. If vocals are pushed back by the artist, they’ll stay pushed back. What you’ll get in return for this ‘hands-off’ tuning approach is exceptional quality, from the lowest sub-bass rumble to the tiniest flutter of high-frequency air. Like I said earlier, this is not a specialist IEM, it’s the consummate all-rounder.

One of the ‘tuning tricks’ the IE 900 seems to employ very successfully is a dip in the upper mids and lower treble (the so-called presence region) that lends a more relaxed tonality to the sound. It’s probably not so much a trick as it is a tuning choice, and is likely what gave me the initial impression of a laid-back listen. While I’ve since discovered the IE 900 is very capable of oomph when it’s called for, this laid-back quality is very much part of its DNA, and also what makes it so appealing to me personally (I’m not a fan of overtly aggressive transducers in any format).



Bass. The baseline measure of quality for any IEM, for me, is its bass response. With only one exception (Oriolus Traillii) I’m yet to hear any IEM that delivers perfectly natural sounding bass without dynamic drivers, and among the dynamic driver IEMs I’ve heard and own, the IE 900 is very close to the best. By ‘best’ I don’t necessarily mean fastest (it’s very fast for a dynamic driver though), or biggest (it’s plenty big, but there are bigger bass cannons out there).

By best I mean the IE 900’s bass is a delicious feast for any true bass lover. I find it very balanced between sub-bass and midbass, with a very deep sub-bass extension and healthy but not overdone midbass lift that adds just enough kick and punch.

Regardless of what’s playing, the bass seems to occupy a space just behind or just around other instruments and vocals, and as such remains distinct yet infused from and with the rest of the track. It’s a presentation that I’ve rarely heard with other IEMs, so I asked Jermo about it and he told me it has less to do with tuning than I assumed:

“It has not as much to do with tuning or design… for the most part, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants here. Producing the lowest distortion sound consistently and matching channels precisely in a single transducer gives you much of the more natural impression of space.”

I’m yet to find an example where the IE 900’s bass lets me down. Not one. From synth drums to real drums, bass guitar and classical bass, woofer rumble and kick drum kick. This is a masterful bass presentation that’s impeccably tuned. There’s zero midbass bleed, and even when the bass goes big, it somehow manages to occupy a space behind or around the vocals and supporting instruments without the usual cost to microdetails.




Midrange. While the IE 900’s bass is almost faultless, it also never pulls my attention away from the fundamentals of the music in the midrange. This speaks not only to the balance the IE 900 strikes with its tuning, but also to the natural voicing of the IEM.

The IE 900’s midrange is firmly in the Goldilocks zone for me: just wet and full enough (especially in the lower midrange), not too dry or thin, a very natural presentation in and of itself. It has an organic quality that makes me believe what I’m hearing, particularly with vocals, but also with physical instruments like guitars and piano. Male vocals reach deep with just the right amount of texture, and female vocals have a sweetness to them that I particularly enjoy without ever being too shouty (two things I definitely do not enjoy).

Listening to the IE 900 sometimes makes me feel like the recording disappears and the artist comes to life, sitting in the same room and singing directly to me. In fact, the IE 900 pulls off this disappearing act better than any other IEM I’ve heard (a mantle previously held by the 64 Audio U12t), and I attribute this mostly to the quality of its midrange.

When I think of midrange, I think of vocals, and since I primarily listen to female vocal-driven music, this is where most of my focus has been for this review. The IE 900 is a very human IEM, in that it renders both female and male vocals with an organic timbre that’s essentially lifelike. It’s something I keep coming back to but also something I feel needs to be emphasised, because so many IEMs that go for the spectacular fall short when it comes to lifelike vocals.

The IE 900 is like a warm blanket in this regard, not that its midrange tone is particularly warm – though it is warm in the sense that it sounds alive and full – but in the way it’s just instantly comfortable and relaxing at the same time, at least with the music I listen to.

And yes, I know that the fundamentals of most instruments also fall into the midrange bracket, but I’m far less attuned to ‘issues’ with instrumental midrange as I am to vocal delivery. That said, I’ve been very impressed by the realism (there’s that word again) of real instruments with the IE 900, though I’m probably not the right person to ask about instrumental accuracy, timbre and such.




Treble. Treble is probably the bottom rung on my list of tonal priorities. I only really notice the treble if it’s problematic (zingy and sibilant), or rolled off too soon (dull and lifeless). I’m fairly treble sensitive, so harsh treble that calls too much attention to itself is an instant fail, but I’m not as sensitive as I thought I was to a brighter tonality, as long as the treble is inoffensive.

The IE 900’s treble is fairly smooth and inoffensive, but not quite as relaxed as say a 64 Audio Nio or Legend X. Its treble tuning is such that the lower treble is fairly relaxed but the mid-to-upper treble can, on occasion, be strident, calling more attention to itself than I’d normally like. Some instruments, like cymbal crashes, can therefore seem more pronounced than they should be, at least compared to other instruments in a track, but this also lends itself to a liveliness and sparkle with most music.

According to Jermo, this is by design: “the treble of the IE 900 is at the upper end of what I consider pleasant and fatigue-free. We spent most of the development time dampening the upper frequencies to the level they are now and had several discussions about whether we need to go further.

The most common feedback I get now is if there is a way to increase the treble again. So in the end we have a common goal at the audiophile team: distortion-free and natural listening experience. On the journey to that goal, we have to make some compromises, i.e. If we want to have a strong response beyond 10 kHz, we may also have to increase the critical area of 5-10kHz slightly more than we’d wish for.”

I can probably count on one hand the number of tracks that irked me to the point of distraction over the past few weeks of listening almost exclusively to the IE 900. But yes, if I have to be critical, they’re there to be found. Whether it’s the faintly metallic tone in a small number of upper harmonic female vocals, or the peakiness of a wayward cymbal or misplaced piano strike, the IE 900’s treble, unlike its bass and to a lesser extent midrange, can be fallible with certain types of music.

A very (and I stress very) small number of female vocal recordings have also come close to sibilance, hitting a treble peak that can be uncomfortable for some, so if you’re fairly sensitive to this, an audition is probably a good idea before buying.

If I have to mark the IE 900 down on anything when it comes to tonality, its occasionally over-exuberant treble would be it. But then I’m actively seeking out issues for the sake of this review. Overall it’s still what I consider to be a very good treble response, given the single driver design that doesn’t have the benefit of multiple dedicated BA or e-stat treble drivers.




Technicalities

The IE 900 is a solid technical performer that doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of multi-kilobuck, multi-driver IEMs at the very top of the tree (with pricetags to match). But, what it might ‘lack’ in technical excellence, it more than makes up for in one very important and often overlooked ‘measure’: musicality.

This is not an analytical microscope of an IEM I’d use to dissect the music, like Fourté , or a detail monster like Odin or Traillii. Instead, the IE 900 gives a good account of itself on every technical metric, even surpassing some far more expensive IEMs in some areas (as you’ll see below), but it’s less an IEM I’d pick on technical merit and more an IEM I’d pick for musical enjoyment.

Soundstage and imaging. Of all the technicalities us audiophiles typically like to compare, soundstage is my personal barometer in an IEM. While some people struggle to hear any ‘stage’ at all with IEMs, for me the very best IEMs are able to break down the typical in-my-head stage and trick my brain into believing the sound is much bigger than it actually is.

Some IEMs, like Fourté and Traillii, have earned a reputation for a particularly wide sound, with the tiniest of details easily audible at the extremities of the stage. While the IE 900’s stage doesn’t quite reach out as wide as those two, it’s still wider than what I’d call average, and much wider than what I’d call intimate. It also has fairly good depth and height for IEM stage (more depth than height), and with some music borders on holographic, with sounds being projected all around my head.

Closely related to stage, imaging defines how accurately (or not) an IEM positions different sounds on the stage relative to each other. For me, this is one of the real strengths of the IE 900, and part of what makes it sound so effortlessly lifelike in my opinion.

Another attribute of the IE 900’s stage is what I call ‘room feel’. Listening to the IE 900 is akin to listening to music with loudspeakers in a room. While you can’t really compare the sound of an IEM, even a great IEM, to speakers, the IE 900 is one of the few high-end IEMs I’ve heard (alongside Fourté and Legend X) that gives me a room feel sensation with some of my favourite music.

I think the best way I can describe the IE 900 soundstage and imaging characteristics is lifelike and natural, and if those words are already familiar to you, that’s because these are also the defining characteristics of the IE 900 for me.


Separation and layering. I never thought a single-driver IEM like the IE 900 would stand a chance against multi-driver IEMs when it comes to separation and layering of vocals and instruments, and technically speaking I was right. I don’t think the IE 900 has the same space and air between instruments and vocals as Fourté, for example, and is a rung or two below the Trailli when it comes to layering the different sounds in a track (but then again, most IEMs are a rung or two below Traillii in this regard).

That said, the IE 900 does not sound congested, even on busier tracks, and there’s more than enough air between and around instruments and vocals so they don’t trip over each other. I’ve already covered this aspect in some detail above, but vocals are particularly well separated from instruments, and the IE 900 somehow manages to render bass on a separate level to most other sounds while still sounding completely cohesive.


Details and clarity. I’ve already suggested that the IE 900 is not a detail monster like some of the better-known high-end multi-driver IEMs with their fancy e-stats and whatnot, but that’s not to say the IE 900 doesn’t do detail. It actually sits comfortably at the upper end of the detail scale for me, but unlike some IEMs that shove detail in your face for fun, the IE 900’s details are there to be enjoyed at leisure.

Overall clarity is also in the upper echelons, with vocal clarity particularly impressive. Even though I suffer from moderate hearing loss, and sometimes struggle to make out certain softly spoken words in a loud environment, I’m hearing vocals much more clearly with the IE 900 than I do with many other IEMs, even IEMs that supposedly have unnaturally elevated mids (which the IE 900 does not).


I didn’t expect the IE 900 to compete technically with some of the top dogs on the market, so I wasn’t prepared when I heard it doing just that. Listening to the IE 900 for the first time, and now even weeks later, I’m still struggling to comprehend just how it manages to pull off some of the things it does with its seemingly simple yet deceptively complex design. While it may not win every race from a purely technical perspective, it’s so far ahead musically than mostly everything else I’ve heard, price irrespective, that I question how much this actually matters.

Still, if you’re someone that favours technical performance above all else, I don’t think the IE 900 will let you down, even though I don’t consider it an IEM best suited to the analytical listener.



Select comparisons

Unfortunately I can’t compare the IE 900 to any IEMs in its price bracket and the only other single dynamic driver IEM I own is BLON’s BL-03, which costs less than the IE 900’s spare tips. My ‘other’ IEM is the legendary Empire Ears Legend X, and while I hear many similarities between the two, the Legend X has seven drivers and costs $1000 more than the IE 900, so it’s not exactly a level playing field.

Also, while I no longer own it, I did manage to briefly compare the IE 900 to 64 Audio’s Tia Fourté side-by-side, but at almost three times the price of the IE 900, it’s in a different category of IEM altogether. That said, if anyone owns or has heard any of these IEMs, the following notes could be useful.

BLON BL-03. Say what you like about one of the most hyped IEMs in the history of hyped IEMs, but when it comes to the BLON BL-03 (BLON for short), the hype is real. This has to be one of the best tuned IEMs for my personal preferences, with a spacious, punchy and tonally even sound that shames some kilobuck IEMs I’ve compared it to (I’m looking at you, Andromeda).

Compared to the IE 900, the tonality of the BLON doesn’t deviate too far from what I consider ideal. Both are U-shaped to my ears. There’s some sub-bass rolloff with more midbass energy in the BLON, but I still find the bass very clean and with just the right amount of oomph, though not nearly as clean or textured as the Sennheiser’s. The midrange of the two is similarly close, with the BLON exhibiting a little more upper mid energy, but not much, and both pull back in the presence region just enough to create a greater sense of space and prevent female vocals from getting shouty. The IE 900’s mids are significantly better defined and detailed however, while the BLON is prone to some smearing with less-than-ideal recordings. The two also share a similar treble trajectory, though the BLON is a touch more peaky and rolls off sooner, while the IE 900 can be more intense.

Where the IE 900 pulls away, in a big way, is technically, leaving the BLON to huff and puff while it sails through in every category. Both share a fairly large stage, relatively speaking, but the IE 900 is easily more expansive, wider, deeper and better defined, while the BLON is just naturally comfortable. The IE 900 images better, separates better, and its detail retrieval isn’t really fair by comparison. All that said, the BLON is still no slouch, and what it lacks in absolute technicalities it makes up for with a warm, smooth, full and easy listening sound, and is the only IEM I find even more comfortable than the IE 900 for all-day listens.

Empire Ears Legend X. Of all the IEMs I’ve owned and loved, none have matched my personal preferences more than Legend X. Widely considered to have the best bass in the business, the Legend X is actually a very balanced IEM, with an organic tonality ideal for just about any genre of music, and technicalities that sit firmly in TOTL flagship territory.

Compared to the IE 900, the Legend X – like the BLON – is not too dissimilar tonally. I hear the Legend X’s tuning as distinctly U-shaped rather than the more commonly suggested bass-dominated L-shaped curve. The Legend X definitely has more bass energy than the IE 900, but only if the track calls for it. It’s definitely more extended into the sub-bass region, with a healthy but linear midbass elevation that only gets back down to IE 900 levels around the 400Hz mark.

The IE 900’s midrange is slightly flatter and more balanced with its bass and treble, but the Legend X’s isn’t far behind. Where the Legend X improves on the IE 900’s midrange, in my opinion, is detail, being able to bring out slightly more subtle nuances without being too forward. It’s also wetter and more organic compared to the IE 900, but always clear and, to my ears anyway, never recessed. The Legend X doesn’t have quite the same treble energy as the IE 900 so makes for a smoother, slightly warmer listen overall, but still manages to outdo the IE 900 when it comes to treble detail.

Technically the Legend X improves on the IE 900 in every metric, from stage width to imaging, separation and detail. This is probably the part that surprises most people on first listen, combining an understated power and organic tonality with world-class technicalities and a balanced tuning, especially with the right (neutral) pairing and right (wide bore) tips. It may not have quite as much air or shine up top to satisfy the true treble heads, but then neither does the IE 900, and that’s just fine by me.

64 Audio Tia Fourté. This IEM probably needs no introduction, other than to say it’s one of the best and also one of the most polarising IEMs I know. With an eye-watering price of $3600 (which buys you a junk cable and a very average accessory selection), Fourté remains a technical marvel almost five years since it was first released.

Compared to the IE 900 – and BLON, and Legend X – Fourté couldn’t be more different. It has a bright-leaning U-shaped tuning that favours treble energy and clarity over midrange fluidity or bass impact. Until I heard the IE 900, Fourté was my ‘reference bass’ benchmark, with a full, impactful (when required) bass response that gives it an immensity of sound akin to full-size floorstanding speakers, though it never quite satisfied my big bass cravings. It’s not the fastest bass, but is so detailed and textured it’s almost palpable. That the IE 900 was able to match and exceed Fourté’s bass in both quality and quantity was the biggest surprise for me on hearing them together for the first time. The IE 900 also does a better job at projecting the bass coherently across and around the music, whereas Fourte’s bass is somewhat separate from the other frequencies.

Midrange is where the IE 900 eclipses the Fourté to my ears. I’m one of the few (and fortunate) to hear Fourté as fairly natural, but even I won’t pretend it’s anywhere near as natural or realistic as the IE 900, especially when it comes to vocals. The Fourté’s vocals are airy, lofty, slightly dry, and typically float around its massive stage projection, whereas the IE 900 is more grounded, lifelike, with a dead centre stereo image (when called for). A sharp dip at around 800Hz makes some male vocals slightly hollow with Fourté , and female vocals can sometimes err on the brighter side of comfortable, although the latter is more recording dependent than a flaw in Fourté’s tuning. Treble is where the two IEMs differ the most, with Fourté using its unrivalled treble extension to infuse the sound with air and detail, and doing so exceptionally well. The IE 900’s treble is still fairly energetic by comparison, but not quite as smooth or refined as Fourte’s.

Technicalities is where Fourté really flexes its muscles (and justifies its price tag). It has one of the widest, most holographic stages of any IEM ever made, combined with clinically precise imaging, masterful separation, and more detail than the human ear could possibly resolve. This isn’t always to Fourté ’s advantage, however. The IE 900 is far more forgiving of poor recordings, for example, and is also more consistently musical. The IE 900 is also more natural as a result of its slightly narrower stage, and to me sounds more lifelike too.



Odds and ends

The IE 900 is fairly source agnostic, which is to say it’s going to sound great from just about any source. While I normally only use it with HiBy’s flagship R8 DAP, with its detailed, balanced, and slightly warm-of-neutral reference tuning, I enjoy the IE 900 just as much from my LG V30+ smartphone (with its drier, brighter Sabre DAC delivery), and even, on occasion, with EarMen’s Sparrow (review here) and TR-Amp DAC/amps (review here).

Interestingly I find the IE 900 to be both easy to drive and very power hungry at the same time. With a 16-ohm impedance and a sensitivity of 123 dB (at 1 kHz and 1 Vrms), it should be very easy to drive, yet requires the longest turn of the volume dial of all my IEMs to get it to my comfortable listening volume. To me that suggests the IE 900 is scalable, and will probably take well to even more powerful desktop amplification, though I have no such amplification on hand to verify my suspicions. I can say for certain it’s not sensitive to the point of exhibiting any hiss whatsoever with the HiBy R8, even on full power, and the R8 is prone to hissing with overly sensitive IEMs.

Eartips, on the other hand, can and do affect the sound profile of the IE 900. As mentioned earlier in the review, the included tips are not required to filter the sound of the IE 900 or tame its treble in any way, so whatever you may have read to the contrary is incorrect. Out the box I didn’t like the fit or sound of the stock silicone eartips, and since I don’t enjoy using foamies, didn’t even try the stock foam tips for size. But I did try several different tips with the IE 900, each with its own quirks and qualities, so thought it might be useful to include some of my findings below.

Acoustune AET07 – this is my preferred tip for the IE 900, which I hear as clear and exceptionally detailed (especially in the midrange), with a powerful, almost visceral bass response that travels through the stiffer stem and tickles my ears across the super soft umbrella-like silicone. It also gives me the widest, deepest stage of all the tips I’ve paired with the IE 900. The 07 can be quite revealing though, so poorly recorded brighter tracks may have you reaching for one of the warmer tips below.

JVC Spiral Dot – this is easily the most comfortable tip, with its soft, pillow-like silicone and pliable stem. The IE 900’s nozzle lip (which really should be standard issue on all IEMs) ensures the tips don’t slip off in my ears like they do with most other IEMs, and there’s enough of a gap between the IEM nozzle and tip opening for the ‘dots’ to do their sonic magic – i.e. soften and shape the treble and accentuate the bass decay. Compared to the Acoustunes, Spiral Dots do indeed soften the sound, making vocals slightly more ethereal and ‘distant’, but also smoothening the treble peaks while retaining most of the bass impact. If you’re finding the IE 900’s treble a bit spiky for your liking, try on some Spiral Dot tips.

Sedna EarFit/Light Short – closer to the Acoustune sound but with more contrast between bass and treble, the Sednas are a great choice with the IE 900, if you find them comfortable. The harder silicone of the Sednas makes them more noticeable over longer listening sessions (and not in a good way), and while I still find them comfortable with the IE 900 compared to other IEMs I’ve used them with, the combination of harder sound and harder fit compared to the Acoustunes makes them only third best for me.

Spinfit CP500 – I got these tips more out of curiosity than anything else, since I’ve never really gelled with Spinfits for some reason. These are longer than the other three tips above, and even though they’re made of soft silicone and have the trademark Spinfit bend when inserted, I still find them less comfortable to wear for longer sessions. Sound-wise they have a softer bass response than the three tips above, but also a more balanced tuning, so if you think the IE 900 is too dynamic and powerful for your liking, the CP500 might tame them for you – assuming you manage to keep their very wide stems seated on the earpieces and not in your ears.



Closing thoughts

I still remember when, in my early days in the hobby, Sennheiser’s IE 800 – with its black ceramic shell and twin-turbine aesthetics – was an aspirational IEM for me. When I finally got to hear it for myself, I was won over by its warm, full sound, ample bass and great staging, but left disappointed by its permanently attached, jangly, single ended-only cable and less than ideal, bottom-ended fit.

The IE 900, if it is to be the IE 800/S successor, is a major and worthwhile upgrade in every way. From styling to build quality, sound quality and accessories, it takes pride of place as not only the best IEM Sennheiser has ever made, but in my opinion, the best headphone Sennheiser has ever made, bar none. It even eclipses the HD800 which, for me, is the pinnacle of dynamic driver headphone design.

Whether or not Sennheiser will continue raising the bar in headphone design under new ownership remains to be seen. What we do know is that, in the IE 900, they have created a flagship worthy of the brand, and worthy of the heritage. A single dynamic driver design that’s both effortlessly musical and technically excellent, without ever sacrificing the former for the latter like so many other flagships (and even some of their own headphones) tend to do.

Like any IEM, the IE 900 is not without its flaws. The flipside of its easy going tonality is a treble that pushes too close to overexuberant for my personal liking, though it’s only ever crossed that line once or twice with the music I regularly listen to. Other nit-picks I could point to would be the occasionally microphonic cable, odd tip selection, uncommon MMCX connector design, and occasionally unconventional fit.

All that said, the IE 900 is one of the only high-end IEMs that’s truly engaged me from the very first listen, not with the spectacular, but rather with its balanced, natural, lifelike and completely non-fatiguing presentation of the music I love. It’s an IEM that, more than most I’ve heard before, removes the artificiality of the recording chain and connects me directly to the music. I’m in the room with the singer, on stage with the band, in the studio with the mixer. I’m hearing real drums and real guitars and real voices in an utterly realistic space, and not for a minute is my attention drawn away from the experience.

Put it in your ears, hit play, and you quickly forget you’re listening to an IEM. It’s a human experience that has less to do with technology and more to do with the people behind it:

“I couldn’t devise an acoustic target that makes off-the-shelf transducers sound good enough that they practically disappear. It’s 90% the transducer technology and all the developers and engineers working for decades to make this performance possible.

The [real] stars for the IE 900 in particular are Grit Bonin, the acoustic engineer who implemented my target and requirements into the product, and Heinz Epping and Maike Faulhaber, who made world-class simulation efforts to optimise the last bit [of performance] of the transducer. Finally, André Michaelis, who initially headed the development of our 7mm transducer 16 years ago, and also convinced upper management to make a ten-digit investment to build the most advanced transducer assembly line in the world.”

The IE 900 is now the first IEM I reach for when I want to relax, want to connect, or want to explore new music for the first time, knowing I’ll be hearing it like it’s meant to be heard. It’s my miniature musical marvel, and comes with my highest possible recommendation.

The HEDDphone was tested and reviewed at the premises of newly-launched South African online Head-Fi company, Lumous Audio. I was not incentivised to write this review, and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.


Introduction

I’ve been wandering around the cavernous headphone rabbit hole for more than four years now, experiencing many of the fascinating creations it has to offer, to the point where there’s little that genuinely surprises me now when I listen to it.

That changed recently when I finally got to hear for myself one of the most talked about headphones in recent history, the HEDDphone. Simply named after its founding company, Berlin-based Heinz Electrodynamic Design (HEDD), the HEDDphone is the world’s first headphone to feature a full-range AMT (Air Motion Transformer) driver, an audio transducer technology invented by Oskar Heil and perfected by German physicist Klaus Heinz (yes, the self-same Heinz in HEDD).

Without getting into details that are probably better covered elsewhere, AMT technology is not new, and in fact has been used in speakers and some headphones for years. Until the HEDDphone, however, AMT was primarily used for tweeter designs, popularised by the famous ribbon tweeters in Adam Audio studio monitors.

As a tweeter technology, AMT’s claim to fame is speed and precision. Made from an ultra-thin mylar ribbon and suspended between two dipole magnets, the drivers have a surface area up to 80% larger yet significantly lighter than traditional dynamic driver speaker designs, and so can move air much quicker when activated by an electrical signal.

HEDD uses what it calls VVT (Variable Velocity Transform) technology to vary the depth and geometry of the driver, thus expanding the narrower frequency range of AMT tweeters to produce full range (10Hz – 40kHz) sound.

For every clever technology, however, there’s always a downside. In the case of HEDD’s full-range drivers, the downside is size – and weight. Each driver is hand-assembled and placed into a protective box made of (what appears to be) stainless steel, not only to protect the sensitive diaphragm, but also allow for the correct sizing needed to produce the desired sound quality in headphone format.

The driver canisters are then suspended inside the solidly-built leather-padded metal shell of the HEDDphone, resulting in what has to be one of the largest and heaviest headphones on the market today. It’s worth watching this video to get a good idea of what the process entails (trust me, it’s fascinating).


This is not a headphone for sissies; a few gym sessions and some serious neck muscle toning is strongly advised prior to tackling this beast. Jokes aside, the HEDDphone has actually been very cleverly designed to balance most of the weight strategically around head and shoulders. The thickly-padded headband is kinked right in the middle, preventing the painful hotspots typically associated with heavier headphones like Audeze’s LCD series (although that problem has since been alleviated with Audeze’s new suspension strap design).

A suspension strap would actually be a useful add-on to the HEDDphone, and I’ve already seen photos of users retrofitting their own straps to help lighten the load. Most of the weight, however, is literally cushioned by the giant pads that not only serve to soften the clamp of the headphone against your face, but also distance your ears from the gravitational pull of the giant magnets inside each of the cups (that last part about the magnet isn’t strictly true of course, but it was fun to write anyway).

Truth be told, I had a harder time wearing an unsuspended LCD-3, and even a Focal Elear, than I did with the HEDDphone. Make no mistake, this is not a portable headphone, and I wouldn’t even suggest walking around with it. But lying back in a comfortable recliner, you’ll soon forget you’re wearing helmet-sized headgear, and just get on with the business of loving your music.

I’ll link to other reviews at the end of this article that dive deeper into the packaging and unboxing experience, in case any of that interests you. If, like me, you’re more interested in what the HEDDphone can do, and how it compares to other headphones in and around its not-unsubstantial price point, read on.


Sound impressions

Let me not keep you in suspense through the next thousand words of flowery sound descriptions: simply put, the HEDDphone is the single best headphone experience I’ve had in all my time using, testing and reviewing headphones. It conveys music in such a powerful, immediate yet delicate and refined way, that it’s as close to a full-size high-end speaker setup I’ve heard without using actual speakers.

I tested the HEDDphone using a wide variety of tracks from my playlist, from my staple female singer-songwrites, to modern and classic pop, jazz, classical, EDM, and some light rock. If you want impressions of what it sounds like with heavier stuff than, say, Def Leppard, I’m the wrong guy to ask, but I can only assume that its mastery over just about everything else I threw at it bodes well for a clean sweep of genres.

Tonally the HEDDphone is all about clarity. The first thing I noticed is how crystal clear every nuance of sound seemed to be, emanating from an ink black background and an almost infinitely deep stage. This is probably unsurprising given that AMT drivers are best known for their ultracrisp treble quality, but even so, the clarity, air and sheer detail delivery was surprising.

As a big fan of the HD800 I’ve heard my fair share of bright-leaning treble, but here was something different. It had brightness, yes, but it was brightness without hardness, so the details, while there, were never forced on me.

Listening to Gheorghe Zamfir’s The Lonely Shepherd, I could almost hear the air moving up from his lungs into the panpipes. The subtle guitars in left channel were so clear, so perfectly separated from the pipes, I could almost see them being plucked. Delicate sounds were being played on different layers and levels, an impossible feat without impeccable lower and upper treble control and definition.

The HEDDphone’s treble response was also my first clue that, great as it can be, it very much depends on proper amplification. Whereas the piano in the intro to Daft Punk’s Within was very tight, it was also brighter and thinner in tone before I switched over from a built-in headphone amplifier to a dedicated high-powered amp. Only then did this track go from clinical and edgy to a more refined presentation.

The same can be said of HEDDphone’s bass response. Whereas I initially felt the bass was slightly lacking on some of my tracks – the kick drums in Brandi Carlile’s masterful The Story didn’t have quite the kick I know them to have – I later discovered that amplification quality is crucial if you expect the HEDDphone to perform at its peak.

Once properly amped, the bass hits hard and true, and although I wouldn’t rec the HEDDphone to bassheads, there was more than enough quantity for this reformed basshead, and the quality was nothing short of sublime. I was even greeted with impressive sub bass rumble in the intro to Dirk Elhert’s Elements, and the kick drums to Def Leppard’s Love Bites had a punch I could feel in my cheeks, not something I’ve heard too often with open-back headphones.

Compared to Meze’s Empyrean, a hybrid planar flagship headphone that retails for a solid $1000 more than the HEDDphone, the bass is more linear, digging deeper into the sub bass without any bloating in the midbass. It’s perhaps not quite as aggressive and sustained as the brilliant bass response of Audeze’s LCD-3, but is tighter and more detailed, and notably faster to my ears.

Both Empyrean and LCD-3 tend to favour a warmer tonality, the Empyrean even more so with its bloomy midbass that veils over the fundamentals of the midrange, and while the HEDDphone isn’t strictly neutral, it’s definitely closer to a reference bass tuning than its more coloured compatriots.

Speaking of midrange, this was perhaps the star of the show for me as far as tonality is concerned. Almost every other headphone I listened to alongside the HEDDphone emphasised one or other frequency over the others, to the point of distraction. The Empyrean’s midbass and slightly rolled treble, the LCD-3’s dominant sub-bass and smoothed over upper registers, and the HD800’s aggressive treble and rolled off bass come to mind.

With the HEDDphone I didn’t feel it compromised in any one area, and whereas the midrange of the three other headphones was almost an afterthought, on the HEDDphone it was front and centre, neither recessed or too forward, and perfectly balanced with the extremities.

Vocals and instrument fundamentals were particularly natural and lifelike, not quite organic – as that would suggest a warmer tilt – but far from thin or analytical. Imogen Heap’s vocals in the spritely track Between Sheets are sweet, clean, sibilance free and ultra-realistic. I could hear every inflection in her voice, while the sense of stage and separation from the instruments allowed me to almost walk around the song (yet also sit back and take it all in).

Holly Throsby’s sweet vocals in What Do You Say played off perfectly with Mark Kozelek’s warm, reassuring baritone on the same track, resulting in an incredibly palpable presentation that felt as if there was nothing between the singers and my ears. Switching pace, the vocal trance of Fragma’s You Are Alive was smooth and absolutely sibilant free, nicely separated from the effects dancing around the vocals, with echoes and reverbs creating a massive sense of space.


Technically the HEDDphone is easily at flagship level, and I’ll go as far as say this is a new standard for headphones in this price range. Neither the LCD-3, at around the same price point, or the Empyrean costing significantly more, can compete with the HEDDphone for sheer technical acuity. The only headphone I’ve heard that goes toe-to-toe technically is the HD800, although I much prefer the HEDDphone’s tonality to the HD800 (sans SDR and EQ).

Stage in a headphone is a controversial topic, especially compared to live sound and speakers, but the HEDDphone presents one of the biggest stages I’ve heard in a headphone to date. It’s not quite as wide as the HD800, but significantly deeper and taller, and gives a better sense of size to the music.

Made in Heights’ Hors D’Oeuvre is a track I often use to test space, and indeed I heard sounds appearing out of a jet-black background that gave this track a natural sense of space, with endless decays. Lily Kershaw’s Always and Forever was more spacious yet also more cohesive than I’d heard it before, with minutae details floating around the 3D space created by the HEDDphone.

This track also exemplifies the inch-perfect imaging this headphone is capable of, so when Lily’s vocals split into three at the two-minute mark, I could almost see where each ‘voice’ was standing in the space relative to the centre image.

But of all the technical highlights, detail retrieval has to be the most impressive trait of this headphone. Every single subtle sound can be heard exactly where it’s been placed in the mix, and throughout my audition I never stopped delighting at how the details seemed to appear so vividly, as if from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.


Considerations

Be warned, all this quality doesn’t come cheap, and doesn’t come easy. I already mentioned how heavy the monstrous frame of the HEDDphone can feel on your head, and this bears repeating. You’ll want a quiet, comfortable, well supported place to rest your body and head before embarking on a proper listening session.

You’ll also need power – and plenty of it – to drive the HEDDphone to its full potential. Voltage isn’t really an issue, and it’s not difficult to get the HEDDphone to loud enough volume levels. But without enough juice, enough current, you’re going to hear a steep dropoff in dynamic range, and wonder where all the sub bass has suddenly disappeared.

This is not a headphone you’re going to be happy connecting to a basic portable source – definitely not a phone, and not a midrange DAP either. You’ll want something with muscle, like a HiBy R8 or iBasso DX300, or better yet a powerful portable amp like Cayin’s C9, if you’re even thinking of taking this headphone off the desktop.

As for desktop power, only when I had the HEDDphone connected to an Eddie Current Black Widow did I get a proper understanding of what this headphone can do, technically and tonally (and if anyone knows the story of this rare and unique solid state amp you’ll know how special it sounds). That’s not to say you have to splash the same money on amping the HEDDphone as the headphone itself, but doing so will give you a far better return on your investment.


Closing thoughts

Listening to HEDDphone was a wild ride for me, especially since I’ve switched my listening almost entirely away from full size desktop headphones to IEMs. It was a reacquaintance of sorts with the type of sound that set me on my head-fi journey more than four years ago, and in many ways, is a reaffirmation of just how incredibly rewarding the sound of a truly great headphone can be.

For all its wizardry and world-first technology, the HEDDphone at its core is all about recreating music exactly as it was recorded, with very little in the way of ‘gear’ in the way. It’s not a headphone that sets out to colour the music, or to wow you with unconventional staging, gratuitous bass or scalpel-like detail. It hits the highest possible level of fidelity almost from the off, and then maintains it throughout your listen, track after track.

Even though I consider the HEDDphone to be close to a so-called ‘reference’ tuning, it still maintains a sense of musicality that’s fun to listen to and is about as far from dry or clinical as you can get in this hobby. Yes, it asks for some skin (or rather, muscle) in return, and demands as much power as your wallet can muster, but it will reward you handsomely if you give it what it wants.

In closing, I’ll leave you with this: the HEDDphone is a headphone for the headphone connoisseur. It sacrifices some of the comfort of an Empyrean, the brute strength of an LCD-3, and the clinical precision of an HD800 to create a sound as close as possible to life itself. It gives you everything without forcing anything, and in doing so, allows you to lose yourself in the music in the best possible way.

Without question the HEDDphone gets my highest recommendation, and represents the best value of any high-end headphone I have personally has the pleasure of hearing.

The HEDDphone is available in South Africa from Lumous Audio. More information available here.


Further reading

This review didn’t cover several aspects that some of you may be interested in, like packaging, accessories and comparisons to different headphones. Feel free to peruse some of the other excellent reviews of this headphone available online, including:

• Headfonics
• Headfonia
• Headphones.com
• Headphone Check

There’s something about Chicago-based, European-made company EarMen that breaks the ice even before you’ve heard their expertly tuned audio products. Perhaps it’s the tongue-in-cheek naming (I mean, Donald DAC and TR-Amp, classic!).

But beyond marketing smarts, the products themselves are designed to break the mold of tried-and-tested designs, especially at their price points, and the burgundy-red TR-Amp is no different. The portable DAC/amp market is a crowded one, and there are literally dozens of options for every wallet. But very few originate outside China, or have the high-end audio heritage of EarMen’s sister company Auris.

The TR-Amp is not my first experience with EarMen. I was first introduced to the brand with the remarkably miniscule-yet-powerful Sparrow, followed by the similarly miniscule-yet-capable Eagle. So, I probably should have guessed there’d be more to the TR-Amp than meets the eye.

For starters, I’m a firm believer in the benefits of an end-to-end balanced audio chain, be it for portable applications or full-blown desktop systems. The balanced-vs-single ended debate is beyond the scope of this review, but suffice it to say I’ve rarely used a single ended system that I felt couldn’t benefit from some balanced goodness.

But strike me down and call me Wally, the TR-Amp eschews any type of balanced output…and I don’t really care, such was the clarity and immensity and power of sound I heard at first listen. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a closer look at what the whole package has to offer.


What you get

Like its EarMen siblings, the TR-Amp ships in a nondescript solid black box with a simple line diagram of the TR-Amp on the front and a detailed schematic of the product and its technical features on the back. This way you can see exactly what you’re getting before you even open the box, and you’re getting quite a lot:

• A high-end mobile DAC in the ESS Sabre ES9038-QM2
• TPA6120 current-feedback AB amplifier with 2-channel 300mW output at 32 ohms and 128dB dynamic range
• Super low ESR tantal capacitors, high grade power-supply components and four-layer golden plated PCB technology for ultra-low-noise playback
• XMOS USB decoding
• Support for 32-bit 384kHz PCM and native DSD256/DXD playback
• Full MQA hardware support
• A 3700maH battery for up to 10-hours of portable use (with separate data/power USB-C inputs)
• Pre-amp support with coax line-out and a pre-out toggle switch
• 3.5mm portable and 6.3mm full-size headphone outputs

These specs are all par for the course for this level of portable DAC/amp, but at least there are no glaring omissions (other than balanced output). More important is how EarMen have taken the basic ingredients and integrated them into something more than the sum of the parts.

Lifting the lid, you’re greeted with your first look at the TR-Amp itself, its silky red shell set into a firm foam cutout. The TR-Amp is reassuringly solid, yet fairly compact. A closer inspection shows expert machining, no hard edges, and all-metal parts in its 129mm x 66mm x 30mm 240-gram CNC aluminium frame. Four rubber feet suggest the device is best used flat on a desk, but also serves to protect your phone or DAP when used in a portable stack.


Speaking of which, EarMen provides a branded elastic strap to hold a phone or DAP in place, along with a nicely made USB-A to C cable. For some reason they don’t supply a shorter USB-C to C or C-to-Lightning cable for mobile use, which is an oversight for a product that’ll likely be used as often with a smartphone as it is with a laptop or PC (most of which sport USB-C outputs nowadays anyway).

Other than a quickstart guide and warranty card, the only other accessory is a mesh-lined pouch for safely carrying the TR-Amp in your pocket or bag. It’s not exactly a smorgasbord of accessories, but other than the extra cables which would have been genuinely useful, you get everything you need in the box. And, like all other EarMen products that are made in Europe, you get a full two-year manufacturers warranty.


How it sounds

I was going to spend some time to describe how to best use the TR-Amp, but really all you need to do is hook it up to a device with a modern OS and voila, it’s recognised as an external audio device. This was the case with each of the Android, iOS and MacOS devices I tested it with. If you use a Windows machine, Windows 10 should have native drivers built-in, otherwise you can download the necessary Windows drivers here.

My own testing was mainly done with an LG V30+ Smartphone using UAPP as the client. Plugging the TR-Amp into the phone (using the USB-C to C cable supplied with the Sparrow) and turning the device on (using the physical volume dial) immediately registers a playback device in UAPP, with nothing else left to do but connect a headphone or IEM and press play.

Before I dive into the sound impressions, a quick note. Depending on how you hear them, sources can have very little or quite a significant impact on the sound of your IEMs, but fundamentally what you’re hearing will be mostly determined by your IEMs (I’m using IEMs as a blanket term here since I don’t own any headphones). I definitely hear a difference between sources, and quality is not always improved with price. It really comes down to your own listening preferences.

With all that said, the TR-Amp is a remarkable performer at any price, especially if you’re using it as part of a portable system like I am and aren’t trying to drive high-impedance, low sensitivity headphones. The first thing that struck me was the sheer size and space of the sound. It was like walking your audio from a quiet room into a vast recording studio, complete with an ink-black, sound-dampened background, instruments and vocals seemingly appearing from nowhere.


Compared to the sound coming straight from the V30+, which in itself is a very good performer for a smartphone (complete with a Sabre Quad DAC), the TR-Amp adds a much larger sense of space – both width and depth – to whatever you’re playing. Details are more easily apparent, and instruments are better separated from each other and the vocals. The difference isn’t subtle either. Make no mistake, this is a big jump up in sound quality, whether you’re using $50 or $1500 IEMs.

Tonally, I’m hearing the TR-Amp as brighter overall. If your IEMs are prone to a thicker, more midbass-coloured sound, I think the TR-Amp would make a good complement, lifting the veil typically imposed by the midbass blanket and pulling out finer details from the mix. Conversely, if you’re already using a bright-leaning IEM with excellent clarity and detail retrieval, the TR-Amp might tip it a touch too bright for some.

For example, playing smooth live Jazz by Norah Jones using a BLON BL-03 with its warmer-leaning, more organic sound, the TR-Amp clears the cobwebs, so to speak, and presents a crisper, slightly cooler sound overall, maxing out the technical capabilities of the BLON and giving the performance a realistic sense of stage.

Switching to the 64 Audio Tia Fourte, on the other hand, straddles the line between class-leading resolution and soundstage and overly-bright inflection, further magnifying any and all imperfections in the recording (in the case of Norah Jones’ …’Til We Meet Again Live, there aren’t many, so it sounds sublime).


I’m hearing plenty of detail in the deep bass notes of Lana Del Rey’s It’s Dark But Just A Game, from her chart topping Chemtrails Over The Countryclub LP. The TR-Amp seems to get a solid grip on the dynamic drivers of my IEMs, helping them eek out detail and texture in abundance from the sub-bass, without pushing the midbass any further forward than it should be. It’s definitely not a thick bass presentation, and won’t necessarily emphasise bass impact if your IEM is lacking in that department.

Midrange is where I find the TR-Amp is really doing the business. There’s a ton of detail and separation happening here that I’m not even hearing with the flagship $1900 R8 DAP, although it’s less a case of detail retrieval as it is an emphasis and clinical separation of some specific notes.

Sticking with Lana and another breakout track from Chemtrails, Yosemite, there’s are some stick hits that sit well within the upper midrange spectrum that are almost surgically extracted from the mix by the TR-Amp. The same sounds are set further back in the mix with any of the other sources I used to compare it with. They’re still there, just not emphasised quite as much. Whether or not this is the ‘correct’ presentation is moot – it’s what you prefer to hear that matters, and I’m really liking what the TR-Amp does with this track.

The flipside – and there’s usually a flipside – is that the trailing edges of female vocals can sound a touch glassy on occasion, and vocals as a whole are thinner and less organic compared to a more natural sounding source like the R8.

There’s not so much a treble glare (not atypical for Sabre DACs) as a treble shine with the TR-Amp, which serves the dual purpose of highlighting detail and revealing flaws. While the TR-Amp won’t add sibilance if it’s already absent from your IEMs (Missy Higgins’ Shark Fin Blues is a great test track for sibilance), but if your IEMs or recordings are sibilance-prone you might want to tweak the volume down a touch.


Other than that, treble is very well extended, and while it’s not the last word in resolution, I’m not left wanting for detail. More importantly there’s very little harshness I can detect. Across the FR, the TR-Amp presents a super-clean sound that’s almost entirely devoid of signal noise other than what’s in the recording itself.

How it pairs

To be honest, I wouldn’t be buying a portable DAC/amp of any description to drive hard-to-drive headphones. I mean, you could – and the TR-Amp has far more power in reserve than its meagre spec numbers suggest – but larger headphones really do benefit from Class A amplification and brick-sized power supplies. There’s just no escaping the laws of physics.

For a single-ended amp, and a diminutive one at that, the TR-Amp has so much power in reserve, I struggled to get past 10 o’clock on the dial with any of my IEMS – even with the power-hungry woofers of the Empire Ears Legend X. Not only that, it displayed tremendous deft, controlling the drivers like a maestro expertly conducting a 100-piece orchestra without breaking a sweat.

This, for me, was the biggest surprise of the lot. I’m so used to connecting all my gear with balanced cables to make the most of an IEMs capability, that the effortlessness of the TR-Amp’s drive was seriously eye opening. If I had to nitpick, I did hear some static noise come through when turning the volume dial with nothing playing, but this is a minor quibble and doesn’t affect the sound in any way when actual music is playing.

As such, my rec for a perfect pairing is easy or moderate sensitivity IEMs (and headphones). I’m not sure if the power on tap would overwhelm ultra-sensitive IEMs like Campfire’s Andromeda, as I tend to avoid them for that very reason, but worst-case scenario, an ifi IEMatch should sort out any noise issues. With all three IEMs at my disposal, there was zero hissing, even at max volume with the amp engaged, always a sign of a well-designed amplification circuit.


What I think

If the EarMen Sparrow is a high-water mark as far as ultra-portable DAC/amp sound quality is concerned, the TR-Amp sets a new bar for portable/transportable DAC/amps. It may not be as powerful, flashy or well-known as ifi’s iDSD series, or as plentiful as the various Chi-Fi variants from the likes of FiiO, but for $249 it’s easily the best value portable I’ve heard that’s equally at home on the desk and on the go.

Like its siblings, the craftsmanship is first class, and there’s quite obviously a very experienced ear that’s tuned it. With a Sabre DAC at its core, the sound may not be to everyone’s taste, at least not if you like your sound warm, thick and gooey. A tube-like sound it’s not. But if you favour precision, detail and transparency with plenty of space for your music to live in, the TR-Amp should definitely make the shortlist.

If EarMen someday manage to build a TR-Amp that takes this package and adds a well-implemented balanced circuit for more demanding headphones and a few extra cables for convenience at a reasonable price, it could set a new benchmark for budget-conscious desktop replacement portable sources. As it stands, the TR-Amp isn’t too far off that mark.

Bravado (bra-va-doh) – noun – a bold manner or a show of boldness intended to impress or intimidate.

Empire Ears does nothing by halves, and that also goes for the naming convention of their IEMs. The Bravado MkII (which I’m going to call B2 for brevity) is everything the name suggests it is. That’s not giving anything away, though if reviews aren’t really your thing, you can just take the title at face value and be done with it.

B2 is my second bite at the Empire Ears cherry, so to speak, the legendary Legend X being the first. And here’s another spoiler: despite the similarities in name, shell shape and bass emphasis, the two are nothing alike.

I’ve also seen the B2 labelled as an ‘entry-level’ IEM, and I suppose in the context of the Empire Ears line-up it is. But that’s like saying an Audi A3 is an entry-level car. Make no mistake, B2 is a luxury IEM. I’ll be comparing it to a real entry-level IEM (BLON BL-03) and a real flagship IEM (Legend X) in the course of this review, but that’s purely semantics. Entry-level high-end IEM would be a more appropriate moniker, so keep that in mind as you’re reading this.


Let’s get started

For anyone unfamiliar with Empire Ears, the company founded and personally managed by a genius IEM designer and all-round good guy called Jack Vang, I’ll refer you to any number of articles on the company (Google ‘Empire Ears’ and you’ll see what I mean). Their website is also a good place to start.

Likewise I’m not going to spend too much time labouring over the design and specs of the B2 itself, because again, several comprehensive reviews have already covered that ground better than I could, or care to do (the best of which is Alex Twister’s review here).

But I should mention some basics that make B2 a rather unique IEM on its own, especially at its relatively affordable price-point for a high-end IEM.

Firstly, the packaging and accessories are similar to those you’ll get with any other Empire Ears IEM, which is to say top shelf. The presentation box is sturdy, compact and cleverly segmented, with a magnetic latch lid for the inner compartment and a pull-out drawer for the case and ear tips. You can almost smell the care and attention to detail in the construction and printing, always a good sign for a product that’s been lovingly made.

Second, the accessories themselves are not just throwaway add-ons that even high-end IEMs are often bundled with. You get genuine Final Audio E-Type silicone ear tips (all sizes), a genuine Effect Audio Ares II cable with custom labels and splitter, and Empire’s custom all-aluminium Pandora carry case, made from what feels like a solid block of chiselled metal.

Third, the IEMs themselves are made from a high-quality resin polymer and high-gloss lacquer finish, complete with what Empire calls the ‘Deep Field’ faceplate unique to B2. I’ve seen and used $6,000 IEMs that don’t look or feel this impressive, so rest assured you’re not being short-changed when it comes to build quality for your sub-$800 outlay.


It’s not all sun and roses, however, and if there’s one issue I have with B2 (in its universal form anyway – a custom version has just been announced at the time of writing) it’s the size of the damn thing. For some reason Empire Ears decided to launch B2 in the US (along with the other MkII variants) using the larger shell first seen in the flagship Odin. Compared to the Legend X (a 7-driver IEM), the 4-driver B2 is thicker, wider, taller, and has a notably longer nozzle that only allows for a deep insert fit.

It’s a strange decision considering the Asian versions of the MkII IEMs are all made with Legend-sized shells. The first time I put B2 in my ears I immediately knew fit would be an issue. Now, fit is a very personal thing, and I admittedly have smaller ears (with smaller canal openings) than what your average American lumberjack must have, because the smallest (SS) E-Type tips just about managed to sneak into my canal and felt somewhat comfortable, while my regular (MS size Sedna and Spiral Dot) tips put intense pressure on my canal opening and made the shells dangle awkwardly from my ears.

That’s all I’ll say about the fit, given many people won’t have any issues with it and considering how well the Odin was received, but it’s something to note if you found Odin too bulky or deep fitting. I likely wouldn’t have said anything if I had the original Asian version for review, but I can only write about what’s in front of me.


Let’s move on

If you’ve read this far, you already know that Empire’s most affordable luxury IEM is built as well as its flagships and comes with the same premium set of accessories. It may or may not fit as well as some of the others, but chances are it will, so all good there.

By most accounts, B2 bears little resemblance to the first iteration of its namesake. For one thing the driver configuration is completely different, with a pair of brand new premium electrostatic drivers joining the new Weapon IX+ (9+) subwoofer to reinforce B2’s formidable sonic firepower. In fact B2 has twice the number of drivers, but is only marginally more expensive – that’s what I call an upgrade.

The overall tuning also seems to be slightly different (if I’m reading Crin’s graphs correctly), taking on more midrange, upper midrange and mid-treble energy than the original, in line with what seems to be Empire Ears’ tuning shift towards higher-energy, higher-clarity sound. It’s not a change I’m entirely fond of (as you’ll gather from the sound impressions below), but at the same time I can understand the popularity of this type of tuning, and it’s not disagreeable with the right type of music.

Speaking of tuning, what you’ll hear can and will be influenced by the tips you choose. B2 is the first IEM I’ve used – ever – that makes sense to me with the E-Type tips. Not only are they very comfortable (even though I object to the deep fit), they attenuate the mids and treble to the point where any harshness in those frequencies is mostly mitigated. Using Sedna or Spiral Dot tips, for example, exposes the brighter (and shall we say less refined) upper frequencies, making some tracks sound rougher around the edges than they should. So my tip with B2 is to stick with the stock tips (and repeat that last sentence ten times just for fun).

As per usual with Empire Ears you get a smorgasbord of modern tech with your IEMs, and B2 is no different. From the 6-way synX crossover to resonance-resistive A.R.C. coating and Empire’s proprietary EIVEC e-stat transformer, nothing has been left on the cutting room floor to get the price down.

But sound quality is ultimately where the rubber meets the road. I’ll dive into more detailed sound impressions below, but if you want a TL;DR, B2 has a very fun, rather forward, somewhat steep U-shaped tuning, with bass (that’s BASS) and treble taking centre stage. Vocals are not recessed enough for me to label B2 a typical V-shaped IEM, and depending on the mix you might even hear it as a W on occasion. Make no mistake, B2 is every bit as bold as the name suggests, so if you’re after a laid-back, deckchair type of sound, you might want to look elsewhere.


Let’s dive in

At first listen, B2 is all about bass. Knowing the Legend X as well as I do now, nothing quite compares to Empire’s subwoofer-like dynamic driver, and B2 has the latest version of the Weapon IX doing bass duty. Of course having the most powerful woofer in IEM-land doesn’t automatically make an IEM a bass canon, but it seems that’s exactly how Jack’s designed the B2.

Out the box the bass is loose and rather flabby, but it quickly tightens up with some extended burn-in (something I’d recommend for any dynamic driver IEM). After a few days of constant playback, the flabbiness is gone, and what remains is a sleek, muscular bass response that unashamedly dominates any track with even a hint of a bassline. It’s a deeper, and I daresay meatier bass tuning than even the legendary Legend, but as I’ll discuss below, it doesn’t have nearly the same level of finesse or control.

Still, I hear the bass to be very fast – especially for a dynamic driver – and very well textured. The intro drums in Toto’s anthemic Africa are thicker and warmer than I’m used to with this track, but also very dynamic and bold, while the bassline that comes in at 2:38 in Yosi Horikawa’s electronic masterpiece, Bubbles, is deep, thick and warm, albeit with a hint of midrange bleed.

Compared to the bass, midrange is slightly dipped, notably the lower midrange where some male vocals and lower harmonic fundamentals are a little muted. That quickly changes as the mids slope upward towards an elevated upper midrange that gives female vocals and upper frequency harmonics much more zing and verve, with the danger of some vocals becoming shouty when poorly recorded.

In Lana Del Rey’s masterful Dark But Just A Game (off her latest LP Chemtrails Over The Country Club), the usually sultry vocals have a slight edge to them, not sibilant per se but ever so slightly glassy, and I suspect the elevated 5kHz and 8kHz peaks have something to do with that.

Interestingly in Chainsmokers’ radio mix of Closer, Halsey’s vocals are slightly more recessed than the lead male vocals, and also in relation to the instruments, except for the upper registers which are sharper and edgier and touching on shouty at 3:29. B2 definitely shows more zing with this track, which should appeal to those who like their modern pop more in-your-face than chillaxed.

Treble, while more elevated than the mids, is done very well, with a fair amount of detail and no real harshness, not that I heard anyway. Also like the mids, it’s not the last word in detail, nor is it particularly articulate, but is nonetheless fairly smooth and nicely extended.

In Heart’s Under The Sky, off their 80s superhit LP Brigade, most of the instruments lean to the slightly thinner, slightly brighter end of the FR, especially guitars, in what’s already a bright-leaning track. Staying with instruments but of a completely different kind and completely different pace, Max Richter’s interpretation of Vivaldi’s Winter 1 is telling in how precise B2’s treble energy can be (in the strings). It’s incredibly fast too, although the bass hits with a slightly bloated weight that masks some of the energy from the strings.

My treble impressions are coloured, excuse the expression, by my personal preference for a smoother treble presentation. I don’t mind elevated treble, but B2’s treble is, on occasion, slightly jarring. I’m not quite sure where this edginess comes from, and I might well be confusing upper-mid forwardness with excessive treble energy, but there’s a zing to the treble not unlike the one I heard with Trio, for anyone familiar with that otherwise excellent IEM. Definitely not a showstopper, but something to keep in mind.

Overall, I hear B2’s tonality as mostly natural, but with a harder edge around female vocals and some instruments. It’s quite a high-contrast sound, not compressed but one that emphasizes contrasts in the music. The upper midrange lift gives it a fair amount of clarity, so you’re not getting a thick, droll sound despite the elevated bass and midbass, and the e-stats take care of the sparkle and air that’s often missing from lesser IEMs in this price range.


What sets B2 apart from higher-end high-end IEMs is not so much tonality, but technicalities. That’s not to say it fails technically, far from it. Stage is decently wide, but I hear more depth than width, and it’s not what I’d call holographic. Resolution is very good, but details are more macro than micro, and a detail monster it certainly is not. Nor is it particularly clinical or precise; imaging and instrument separation are both good, sometimes very good, but not something I’d list in the honors roll.

Listening to Bubbles, stage depth is actually quite impressive, but it’s not an extremely wide presentation – which this track has in spades with the right IEM. Imaging is good, with easy-to-place effects, and I’m not struggling to tell the various ‘ball’ effects and synths apart.

Switching lanes, Heidi Talbot’s catchy folk tune Cathedrals shows up B2’s lack of absolute resolution. This is a simple track, with a simple melody, yet richly nuanced and layered, with a massive, dynamic bassline and heart-wrenching vocals. Detail is down a few notches here, and the vocals are notably more recessed (except for the sharper upper registers). Vocals are also edgier, and not quite as sweet as I know them to be.

Overall, there’s not much to say about B2’s technical acuity other than it’s very competent and pretty much at the level I expect it to be given the combination of quality drivers, tuning and placement in the lineup. Which is to say, it’s better than what I’d expect from many IEMs in this price range, and certainly better than what I’ve heard for less money, but it’s not going to challenge the kilobucks at this year’s technical excellence awards.

Let’s compare

I don’t have any other IEMs in the $500 - $800 price range to compare it to, so my entry-level daily driver (the BLON BL-03) and TOTL kilobuck (the Legend X) will have to suffice. Of course this isn’t a fair comparison, but it should still give us a good yardstick on how B2 sounds compared to known quantities, especially if you’re familiar with said IEMs.

Starting with the BLON, I keep it as a daily driver for one reason and one reason only: it has almost pitch-perfect tonality for my preferences. I’m not even going to mention technicalities here; B2 easily eclipses the BLON in every technical metric except, oddly enough, stage width, which for me is part of the BLON’s magic formula.

Neutral with bass boost is a generic description of the BLON’s tonality, but that’s exactly what it is. Comparatively speaking, B2 is slightly warmer, punchier, edgier and more dynamic. BLON is more easygoing, with an articulate bass response that’s more sub-bass than midbass focused, with even and natural mids, and a relaxed treble that’s never sibilant or harsh.

Strange as it sounds saying it, BLON is far closer to the Legend X in its tonality than B2. In fact I’d sooner call the BLON a baby Legend X than I would the B2. I’m not sure what the B2 is a ‘baby’ of, but it’s not the Legend X.

Compared to the Legend X, B2 is bolder, more bashful, less nuanced, less balanced. It can get rather aggressive at times, whereas the Legend is almost always measured and very composed in its delivery. Subtle is not something B2 does well, whereas for all its power Legend X is equally adept at rendering music with a featherlight touch.

The biggest difference with Legend X, though, is technicalities. While the B2 is, technically speaking, a very capable IEM in its own right (as it should be given its price point and heritage), it can’t really compare with the technical acuity of its older and far more accomplished sibling.

Nor does it need to, frankly. In my opinion these are two quite different IEMs designed with different audiences in mind, and can actually be complementary in a collection if you’re into both types of signatures.


Let’s wrap

So where does all this leave us? I’m still finding my way around Empire’s design and tuning philosophy, and in B2 I now have a very different, contrasting experience to the one I had with the Legend X.

It’s no secret I prefer the Legend X – in fact it’s not even close – but given the $1400 price difference and years of fine tuning and refinement that went into the Legend’s design, that’s not really surprising.

Despite the differences between the two, there are some crucial similarities. The package, build quality and accessories are second to none. Seriously, Empire Ears is right at the top of the tree when it comes to making you feel special about an IEM purchase, and the personal service and communication I’ve had with @Jack Vang and @JoshWatkins from halfway across the world has been my best experience in audio thus far.

From a functional perspective, both IEMs sport Weapon IX drivers, so both are equally hard to drive. Whereas the BLON is easily driven by the powerful HiBy R8 in low gain mode sans Turbo, I’m regularly setting the R8 in high-gain Turbo mode using the 4.4mm balanced output for both Empire Ears IEMs.

Sure you can drive B2 from a phone, but you’re not going to get maximum sound quality or control without a decent amp. It also scales nicely with better sources, and although I don’t see the point of driving IEMs with desktop amps, I’ve heard from many users who have done this successfully.

B2 is made with same care, using the same DNA, as all of Jack’s creations. It has an accessible, modern music-friendly sound, and even if I don’t personally think it’s squarely in my lane when it comes to tuning preference or comfort, the margin of difference is small enough for me to recommend it unreservedly.

If you’re looking to take the next step up from a cheap(er) Chi-Fi clone that’s been expertly crafted, want a warmer take on neutral that also satisfies your inner basshead, or want an IEM that isn’t afraid to let loose with some seriously dynamic, speedy sound, you’ll find it in this newly-revised but altogether new take on the ‘Bravado’ sound.

Introduction

I’ve been thinking about how to best write this review for a while, ever since I first experienced HiBy’s new flagship DAP towards the end of last year.

Since then, every other major Chinese DAP manufacturer has been playing catch-up with HiBy, and today the market for high-end ($1000-plus) portable music players is already getting crowded.

Marketing 101 stipulates that, given a crowded market, the success of a premium product is directly related to how different it is, what unique features it offers, or even what it looks like, so that the relatively small pool of potential buyers sits up and takes notice, singles it out from the crowd, so to speak.

While the R8 does have some distinguishing features that make it different to the others, its biggest differentiator – a 4G sim card, the first such feature in a DAP of any description – isn’t actually a feature at all, given its not available outside China and a small handful of Asian countries.

Of the features that do count, for western users anyway, at the time of its launch it was the first high-end DAP to incorporate the double-whammy of a relatively modern processor/system-on-chip (Snapdragon 660) with a relatively modern Android platform (version 9), making it the fastest and most up-to-date Android DAP on the market.

But perhaps I’m looking at it the wrong way, and it’s not just one feature that makes the R8 different to the others. Rather, it’s the combination of features that make it, in my opinion, the most complete flagship DAP available today.


A premium package

Given its launch price of $1899 (for the non-4G, all-aluminium, 64GB ‘western’ version), the R8 more than doubles the cost of HiBy’s previous flagship DAP, the R6 Pro. This puts it firmly in the upper price bracket of the DAP market, with only the likes of Lotoo, Sony, Luxury Precision and Astell & Kern offering higher-priced models, a list which includes exactly none of HiBy’s traditional mainstream Chinese competitors.

Of course, this pricing suggests the R8 has a seriously ramped-up spec, which it does (see the next section for a breakdown of the tech specs), but more importantly, HiBy made every effort to position the R8 as a premiumpackage. This is not just another player update, but rather the foundation of a high-end portable audio system.

Most modern DAPs, especially expensive DAPs like the R8, are well presented in quality packaging. Some come with multi-layered carboard boxes, others with wood cases and leather accessory holders. Most come with decent leather protective cases and even screen protectors.

The R8 is a step-up from all that. Inside the sizeable but otherwise nondescript black box is a well-made, genuine leather, classically-styled briefcase, complete with belt buckles and carry handle. That’s right, briefcase. Why would you want a briefcase for a portable music player you’re just going to slip in your pocket or throw in your backpack for the train ride to work? Because you’re not going to do that with the R8, or at least, HiBy is using design cues to suggest that’s not what the R8 is all about.


Opening the case reveals the player inside a custom cutout tray. Alongside the player, an aluminium placard with ‘HiBy R8’ etched into it tells you what you just bought, in case you didn’t know. The only other visible accessory is a pull tab on the pre-applied screen protector on the R8 itself (a very nice touch, often missed by companies wanting to cut costs). Turn the player over and you’ll find a second pre-applied screen protector on the glass-backed casing, even though the casing is made of Corning Gorilla Glass and should be fairly impervious to damage anyway. I do wish the screen protectors were glass and not film, but that’s a minor gripe.

Lifting the top tray (using tabs on either side of the tray) reveals a second tray with a similar player cutout, only this time instead of the player it houses a genuine leather case for the R8. If you were one of the first 100 buyers, you’ll be greeted with an exclusive limited edition Dignis case (which, judging by Dignis case prices for other premium players, is valued at around $200). If you buy an R8 today the case will be HiBy’s own original leather case, with a different design, colour and finish, but still attractive and well-made.

Alongside the case, two circular cutouts hold the R8’s connector cables: a high-quality HiBy-branded USB-C to USB-C cable for charging and data transfer, and a HiBy-branded USB-C to coaxial digital cable for connecting the R8 to an external DAC.


But wait, there’s more. HiBy included a third tray (in a separate box), which features covered cutouts to hold spare tips, connectors or loose IEMs, four small cutouts for extra MicroSD cards, and two more round cutouts (similar to the cable cutouts) to hold two sets of IEMs attached to their cables.

In other words, this briefcase is not just a fancy presentation gimmick, but rather a premium storage and carry case for your (possibly entire) portable audio system.

A premium player

At first glance, the R8 exudes quality. Made from a solid block of CNC-milled aluminium, it is not small or light, measuring 143 x 81 x 20mm and weighing in at a pocket-busting 466g with the Dignis case. That’s significantly bulkier and heavier than the stainless steel R6 Pro, which itself was quite a hefty, albeit more pocketable DAP.

I therefore wouldn’t call the R8 easily portable, although strictly speaking it’s still portable rather than transportable. It’s not a desktop-replacement DAP (like iBasso’s DX220 MAX or Sony gargantuan DMP-Z1), but given its size and power, can very easily do double-duty as one.

The design of the DAP itself is a departure from HiBy’s previously rounded aesthetic, being more angular and aggressive (or ‘masculine’ as HiBy calls it). That said it’s not nearly as angular or sharp-edged as Astell & Kern’s obtusely-shaped DAPs, and its slightly rounded edges mean it can be used comfortably without a case.

This is not a random design choice, and is grounded in how the R8 functions ergonomically. For example. The four push-buttons on the right side of the player (power on/off, previous track, play/pause, and next track) use the angled sides of the player to prevent you from accidentally clicking them while making it easy to find and click them by feel.

Between the buttons, a slot-like LED shows the various states of the player, whether it’s charging, or which bitrate it’s playing (the LED can be turned off in settings if you prefer not to use it). HiBy has also moved away from push buttons for volume, using a Lotoo-like knurled alumimium volume dial on the top of the player, protected from accidental activation by the angled edges of the player. The volume dial isn’t very sensitive, and takes a touch or two to activate, which I believe is a design choice. I like it, but some may prefer a more sensitive dial.

On the left side of the player, a single sim-tray opens up to reveal a MicroSD slot, which is hidden away when the player is in its case. I personally prefer the sim-tray design, especially since I hardly ever swap out my SD card (more on how I use and manage my music library with the R8 later). The bottom of the player is where you’ll find all the active ports: two headphone ports (3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced), two dedicated line-out ports (SE and balanced), and a USB-C 3.1 slot for charging, data transfer and external DAC use.

The back of the player, despite being glass covered, is also its heat diffuser, and can get fairly warm when playing music, video, streaming, or driving power-thirsty headphones. That said, the R8 doesn’t get uncomfortably warm, even when charging, and both leather case designs (Dignis and HiBy) include an alumimium heat shield that allows for good ventilation and heat dispersion when the player is used screen-up, as it normally would be.

Which leaves the entire front face of the player as the screen, an outstanding 5.5”, 1080P IPS retina touchscreen at that. No, it’s not going to compete with the ultra-punchy OLED screens used in modern high-end smartphones, but it’s a very impressive screen befitting a premium DAP, with good contrast, excellent touch sensitivity, natural and accurate colours at all viewing angles, and an almost edge-to-edge display that’s easily visible in bright light and daylight.


If the exterior of the R8 is heftily-impressive, what’s on the inside is even more so. The spec sheet of the R8 includes:

• Dual AKM AK4497EQ DACs with support for native DSD512 and 32bit / 768kHz PCM
• Snapdragon 660 octa core 14nm LPP process SoC with CPU frequency up to 2.2GHz
• HiBy OS, a highly-customised version of Android 9 (Pie) complete with built-in Google Play Store support, Direct Transport Architecture (that allows for native hi-res playback), and 16X native MQA rendering support
• Qualcomm 8x Kryo 260, Adreno 512 GPU, 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM and up to 2TB SD storage
• Custom high-density 38Wh ATL 10,000mA battery for up to 13 hours playback with QC 4.0 support
• Four independent power supply circuits for digital, DAC, preamp and amplification
• Up to 1088mW output power into 32ohms from the balanced headphone port
• Turbo mode for even more driving power (up to 16W) for over-ear and less-sensitive IEMs
• Four ELNA SILMIC II audio capacitors and exclusive HiBy-designed OP02 opamps
• 10 tantalum gold-plated capacitors, 18 high ripple-suppression-ratio LDO regulators, and 35 Panasonic Hi-Polymer POSCAPs (I have no idea what all this means but it sounds impressive)
• Dual 45.1584MHz and 49.152MHz oscillators with femtosecond precision, controlled by a dedicated, custom FPGA chip
• 2.4/5GHz dual band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, two-way Bluetooth (transmit and receive), including HiBy’s own UAT protocol, LDAC and AptX HD

Without getting too technical about the already technical spec list above, it’s fair to say that, even at a glance, the R8 packs a seriously premium array of high-end components (including the largest battery of any modern DAP) which sets it apart from budget players that primarily use off-the-shelf parts to keep costs low. That doesn’t automatically mean it will sound or perform as well as it should on paper, but at least you know you’re not just buying a packet of chips in cuisine clothing.

A premium experience

Package, specs and smoking good looks (in the eye of this beholder) aside, this is the part of the review where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I’ve broken down the in-depth analysis of the R8 into four sections: speed, software, sound quality and stability.

Depending on your own preferences, these criteria may be more or less important relative to each other, but to me, they are all equally important when it comes to creating a complete experience in a flagship DAP. No single feature is the only important factor, not for me, and not when you’re paying this much for a premium product.

A great sounding player can still deliver a poor experience if the UI or software is too slow or laggy, for example, or the software might lack certain features that you need, or the combination of software and hardware might be unstable under certain circumstances. So let’s take a closer look at each of these aspects in turn, and see how the R8 stacks up in real-world use.

Speed

When it was first announced, the headline feature of HiBy’s new flagship was the newer (relatively speaking) Snapdragon SoC, which promised to make the R8 the fastest Android DAP on the market. That promise materialised when, on its release, the R8 was indeed shown to be faster than any other Android DAP, and not by a small margin either.

There are a few ways to measure an Android device’s real world performance, one of which is AnTuTu Benchmark – a free tool you can download and run on your own device from the Google Play Store (or sideload from APKPure if your device lacks Play Store functionality).

My R8’s AnTuTu score of 188140, using the latest version of the software, can be seen in the screenshot below. To put this score in context, the R8 remains the fastest Android DAP on the market, based on the AnTuTu scores of its three closest flagship competitors (taken from published reviews, not my own measurements):

• iBasso’s DX300, with its similarly-specked SoC and 2GB more RAM, is almost a dead heat at 177936;
• FiiO’s M15, with its older Exynos SoC and even older Android 7.1 platform at 108448; and
• Shanling’s M8, which is actually newer than the R8 but sports a lethargic (by modern standards) Snapdragon 430 SoC running Android 7 at 74651.

To put these scores in context, however, the R8 is only moderately faster than my LG V30+ smartphone, which on the one hand means that it’s the first DAP I’ve used that’s finally caught up to the speed of a modern smartphone, but on the other, my idea of a modern smartphone is a 2017 LG.

That said, the R8 is still the fastest Android DAP today, which is an important consideration if you’re buying a DAP that is already behind the curve in terms of the latest Android hardware and software platforms. FiiO’s M15, for example, was the standard bearer for Android DAPs less than six months ago, yet is already showing its age, while HiBy’s new R6 2020 DAP matches the R8 in speed and software specs yet costs $1000 less, suggesting the R8’s platform is already the minimum you should expect from a modern flagship.

When it comes to speed, CPU and graphics are only one part of the equation. If you’re thinking of doing anything with your Android DAP that involves networking or the Internet, you’ll also need fast, stable Wi-Fi support.

The R8 is equipped with a dedicated dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna. Comparing the Wi-Fi performance of my LG phone I found very little difference with the R8 – if anything, the R8 even edged out the phone when it had line of sight to my wireless mesh nodes.

I can’t say for sure how the R8 compares to the other flagships in terms of Wi-Fi speed, but this is a big step up from the previous HiBy flagship, the R6 Pro, and the combination of fast 5GHz Wi-Fi and its class-leading SoC makes the R8 every bit as capable a streamer as a modern smartphone.

Software

At this point the review is going to digress away from most of the other mainstream reviews. Instead of treading the same ground and describing the standard software configuration, apps and options out the box, I’m going to instead jump to how I’ve configured the R8 for my own use case.

This is important for two reasons: the basic configuration, while fully featured, is just that – basic. You get an optimised and customised (but otherwise intact) Android 9, all the Google Play Store and Services pre-installed (no need to sideload anything from APKs or stand on your head to register the Play Store correctly), vanilla applications (like a basic file manager, photo manager, web browser and clock), and HiBy’s own music player and media manager, HiBy Music.

The second reason is that none of these maximise the power and potential of the R8 as an open, optimised Android DAP, at least not by my definition of maximise. For example, the first thing I did on booting up the R8 for the first time was jump into settings and disable the apps I don’t need, including (shock-horror) HiBy Music. It’s not that HiBy Music is bad software, far from it, but in my experience to really make the most of the functionality of this (or any other open Android) DAP, you should install a more advanced third-party playback application, of which my pick would be USB Audio Player Pro (more on this later).

So that’s why this review is going to be a little different. I’m not going to run through the various screens and settings options for you – there are plenty of other, excellent reviews that already cover these, and I’ll reference these at the end of this review. Instead, I’ll walk you through how I’ve set up the R8, how I use various apps for everything from wireless file management to remote streaming, and even how I’ve totally changed the look and feel of the R8 to better suit my preferences.

OS and UI tweaks

Let’s start with look and feel, because otherwise you’re going to stare at my screenshots and wonder why your R8 looks so different to mine. One of the benefits of using a DAP with open Android is that you can change how you interface with it using a launcher application. My launcher of choice is Nova Launcher, available as either a free or premium (Prime) version.

Nova gives me complete control of the R8’s interface, from the apps and widgets that appear on the home screen, to the way notifications appear on the lock screen, and even how I group and arrange the apps on the player. Once installed, every single interface element is controlled from the Nova Settings app. I won’t go into great detail here, other than to say your choices are almost limitless. From the shape, size and colour of icons (I use an excellent third-party icon pack called Lines to get the minimalist look I wanted) to the app drawer, launch bar, folders and other UI elements, it’s now all under your control.

One thing I will mention here is gestures. The R8 already comes with that most useful of modern Android features, Tap to Wake, which as the name suggests allows you to double tap the screen to wake it from sleep. Ever since I first used this feature on the FiiO M11 I was hooked, and will never buy another smart device, Android or otherwise, that doesn’t have it. Strangely the R8 doesn’t include the reverse feature, Tap to Sleep, but fear not: a few clicks in Nova’s gestures options and Tap to Sleep is yours.


File management

The R8 is essentially an Android computer with fairly advanced hardware, so why not use it like you would any computer and manage you incoming and outgoing files direct from the DAP. While a basic file manager is included with the R8, you’ll really want a more advanced app if you want to take full advantage of the R8’s capabilities. My rec for a full-featured file management app is Solid Explorer, which among other things, allows me to manage my entire music library wirelessly over my home network.

Ever since installing Solid Explorer, I no longer need to remove the SD card or attach the USB cable for file transfer. Everything I need to copy to or from my music server or network can be done wirelessly from the R8. Solid Explorer gives me SMB access to my desktop Macs, workgroup access to Windows PCs, and remote access to NAS, FTP and Cloud storage, including Dropbox and other services. All of it can be done securely, and even encrypted, just as you would from any other computer.

Instead of describing how I use Solid Explorer, I’ve included a short video below that shows me accessing my main music library on a Mac mini server and copying a number of music directories to the R8’s SD card.

With fast 5Ghz Wi-Fi support and gigabit wireless mesh network at home, copying files to and from the R8 is much faster than doing so the old USB 2.0 way, and almost as fast as connecting the R8 directly with USB 3.1. I can also access and play music files remotely from Solid Explorer, but for that I use the remote playback capabilities of UAPP instead (see the ‘Music management and playback’ section below).



Streaming

Most people choose Android DAPs for their streaming capabilities, and the R8 is one of the very best in this regard. Not only does it support the highest level of hardware MQA decoding (16x) for Tidal users, it also supports bitperfect playback from hi-res streaming platforms like Qobuz and Amazon HD.

As a native Android player with built-in Play Store support, you have access to any of the major streaming apps out the box, including Tidal (which I personally use), Qobuz, Amazon HD, Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music, among others. If any of these apps support offline playback on Android, you’ll be able to use that feature with the R8, and even choose where to store your offline files (internal storage or SD card).

One of the benefits of using a fairly modern Android version with a fast SoC is evident from how quickly the latest streaming apps load and run on the R8, as I’ve illustrated in the video below. Tidal is not the world’s fastest app, but the experience is as smooth as seamless as it is on my smartphone, which is to say excellent. Searches are instant, and scrolling through large playlists is lag-free.

I can’t stress enough how big a difference a smooth interface makes to the overall experience. This was always a potential bottleneck with older, smaller DAPs, with their lower-resolution screens and underpowered SoCs. That’s no longer the case with the R8.



Music management and playback

I mentioned earlier that I use USB Audio Player Pro as my music management and playback app of choice. Not only is the app worth every cent, you can also use it across all your open Android devices, as long as they support Google Play.

Without going into great detail, I’ve listed the main the reasons I prefer UAPP to any other music app below:

• It supports bitperfect, native Hi-Res playback, bypassing Android’s limited audio layer and interfacing directly with the DACs in the R8.
• It supports native DSD playback on the R8, unlike some players that convert DSD to PCM.
• It’s is a very mature, very responsive and very stable application, with a clean, uncluttered, modern interface (including nifty features like background colours that match the cover art of the playing album), lock screen controls (including ambient display notifications on the R8), and refined English-accurate menu and navigation structure.
• It features superb media management, including automatic updates to the main library when adding or removing music files, metadata editing, extensive album art support regardless of file type, and finely-tuned sorting capabilities, including Album Artist that many OEM music apps still seem to lack.
• It’s fast, very fast. Everything from loading your library to playback to scrolling and database updates is superbly optimized on the R8.
• It’s versatile. UAPP integrates Tidal (with full 16x MQA support), Qobuz and YouTube Music, giving you access to your favourite streaming service with its native playback engine. It also features advanced playback controls and effects, including optional ToneBoosters professional PEQ, Crossfeed and Morphit plugins.
• It’s scalable. UAPP supports playback using external DACs, which turns the R8 into a high-end digital source for your desktop system, but also supports built-in DLNA and network music playback support, so you can access any of your local shares (including Plex libraries) directly from the UAPP interface.

Suffice it to say, UAPP helps me make the most of the R8’s audio hardware and networking features and turns it into a fully-fledged music playback and management system second-to-none. Since I also use UAPP on my smartphone, the experience is consistent regardless of which device I use to listen to music.

Other software and applications

While I have other applications installed on the R8 that can be used for music playback (including Tidal and Plex), I generally don’t venture too far away from UAPP for most of my listening. The R8 is also a very capable multimedia player, and even has auto screen rotation functionality should you want to watch movies and TV shows using Plex or YouTube the natural way.

Aside from UAPP, Plex is the only other app that requires Google Play Store support, which is why Play Store is essential to my DAP use case. While Plex isn’t perfect (I mainly use it at home for TV and movie playback), it does have one invaluable music feature: remote support. Basically, this means that when using the Plex app on the R8, I can access my entire 3TB+ music library wherever I am in the world.

Unfortunately, the Plex app doesn’t take advantage of HiBy’s DTA for bitperfect playback, downsampling all my hi-res FLACs and DSDs to 44.1 PCM, but that still beats not having access to my music library wherever I go. I do get full hi-res and DSD support, though, when I access my Plex library at home using UAPP’s built-in DLNA browser, as the video below illustrates.



Other than the main apps, the software features I use most on the R8 are built-in to HiBy OS (HiBy’s name for its optimised Android 9 platform). These include:

• MSEB: HiBy’s homebrewed take on an intelligent EQ, which on the R8 is available as a system-wide EQ for any music playback applications, including streaming apps. Developed by @Joe Bloggs, MSEB makes it easy to tweak the music to your liking with intuitive sliders that affect everything from overall temperature to bass texture, note thickness, vocals and sibilance, without requiring a PhD in EQ theory.
• Instant screenshots: pressing the power button once brings up a menu with one-click screenshot control, making it easy for me to take screenshots for this review.
• 180-degree screen rotation: a new feature included with the latest firmware, this is more useful than you’d think, especially if you want to pocket the R8 and have the headphone ports facing up rather than down. One click from the quick access menu and you can flip the R8 for the road.

While it technically can do much more software-wise, from Telegram and Discord chatting to online shopping and even fitness tracking, I use the R8 exclusively as the premium music player it was designed to be, but with all the supporting services and remote access capabilities I can only get from a fast, connected Android device.

Sound quality

If you jumped straight to this section from the intro, I encourage you to go back and read everything that came before if you really want to get a feel for what the R8 can really do. If all you care about is sound quality, you might be buying features with the R8 you’ll never need or use.

That said, the R8 wouldn’t be getting my rec if I didn’t think it lived up to its primary purpose as a premium music player, so I’ll get right to the point. If you want flagship-level sound quality in a portable platform, the R8 delivers.

Once again, unlike mainstream reviews, I’m not going to directly compare the R8 with other flagship players. I’ll make some reference to other DAPs I’ve personally used or owned, but I don’t have any with me to check like-for-like playback qualities. For that I refer you to some excellent reviews below, the best and most comprehensive of which is Alex’s (@twister6) industry-benchmark review, complete with detailed comparisons to other DAPs.

An important note at this juncture

While I’ve become a lot more appreciative of the role a high-end source like the R8 plays in the sound quality chain, describing the sound of a source is like describing the colour of water. What you’re hearing is first, foremost and mainly determined by whatever you have plugged in to the DAP, not as much the DAP itself.

Just like water reflects the colour of the sky, so any good DAP should primarily reflect the sound of your IEMs (or headphones). Yes, it will influence what you hear, depending on how well the DAC and amp have been implemented, but in my opinion, just like crystal clear water, a great DAP gives your IEMs the best possible foundation – clean power, low distortion and low noise – and lets them do what they do best while getting out of the way.

I used a variety of IEMs with the R8 over the past two months, ranging from the entry-level BLON BL-03 to ultra-high-end IEMs from 64 Audio and Empire Ears. If you’re after a DAP that’s more coloured or tuned to emphasize certain qualities in your IEMs, the R8 might not be the best choice for you. With that in mind, the R8 does have its own sonic characteristics, both tonally and technically, that are consistent across the IEMs I used, so let’s take a closer look.


Tonality

The R8 is about as close to a reference source as I’ve heard, but thankfully not in a flat, analytical way. By reference I mean that the R8 adds very little to the character of the IEMs you use with it, but what it does add is done in a very subtle, refined and transparent way.

For example, there’s definitely some extra meat on the bass, more so sub bass, which – if it’s present in the music and within your IEM’s capability – gives a little extra kick, a touch more rumble, and a very natural decay. There’s no extra boost that I can detect in the midbass, maybe the slightest hint of warmth when paired with more neutral IEMs, but no more than that.

The midrange is rendered precisely and very clearly, not any fuller or thinner than you’d expect from your IEMs. Listening to how the R8 renders vocals and instruments that centre on the midrange reminds me of how I heard my IEMs with another flagship reference DAP, the Lotoo Paw Gold Touch. I think it’s how transparent and clear the vocals and supporting instruments come across, especially with IEMs that I know to be very transparent themselves.

Treble is where the R8 gives a nod to HiBy’s ‘house sound’, which has been advanced and improved here. HiBy’s approach has always been to render music with a more natural, ‘musical’ tonality, and that’s most apparent in the R8’s treble which, while being more detailed and extended than it was with the R6 Pro, for example, is still more relaxed than the typical clinical, overemphasized treble that some high-end DAPs go for in their singular pursuit of detail.

Another thing I’ve picked up in my time with the R8 is that it’s not a pushy DAP. By that I mean it’s not going to stamp its character all over the music, for better or worse. If anything, it actually has a fairly relaxed tonality. It can be dynamic with the right IEMs, but it’s not going to bring the alcoholic punch to the party on its own.

That said, neither is it bland. I find the R8 delivers music with great authority, with excellent control. Where IEM’s like 64 Audio’s Nio or Empire Ears’ Legend X might be prone to losing control of their uber-powerful bass drivers with some lesser DAPs (or even quality warmer-tuned DAPs), the R8 controls them with a firm but deft grip. Not once have I heard the bass on either IEM as too loose or flabby or thick with the R8, nor the treble too nonchalant.

Technicalities

Where the R8 presents a bigger departure from the R6 Pro (and all the other midrange DAPs I’ve heard to date) is its technical ability. At first listen the word that came to mind most often was refined.

The R8 delivers whatever it’s playing at a very high technical level, but not in a jarring, wow-factor way. You’ll hear music with a wider, deeper stage, for example, especially compared to less capable DAPs, but it’s not done in an unnatural way, and if your IEMs are inherently intimate, then intimate they’ll stay. On wonderfully spacious IEMs like 64 Audio’s Tia Fourte, the stage is as magically wide as you’d expect, with the R8 easily capable of rendering the full depth, height and layers in the music.

While the tonality is slightly north of neutral, and natural rather than analytical, the R8 makes the most of its quality internal components to squeeze tremendous detail from almost every IEM I’ve used with it. Even the ‘lowly’ BLON scales up nicely.

It doesn’t fake detail, nor does it warm up the sound too much to smooth it over (despite the dual AK4497 DACs’ reputation for their smoother character). Make no mistake, the R8’s sound is silky smooth, but not at the expense of resolution.

If you have an IEM that revels in minutae microdetails, then that’s what you’ll hear. If you use a thicker, meatier IEM, the R8 won’t stand in your way or dilute its impact in any way. But unlike some DAPs, it won’t add this character on its own, nor artificially boost what’s not already there – it’s up to your IEMs to do most of the work.

Noise and power

One of the criticisms I’ve heard levelled at the R8 (and the R6 variants before it) was a tendency to push the noise floor just a touch too high, especially with very sensitive IEMs. While I have my own feelings about the merits – or lack thereof – of super-sensitive IEMs like Campfire Audio’s Andromeda and Solaris, I can honestly say the R8’s noise floor is the ‘blackest’ I’ve heard with the IEMs I’ve used with it (and with previous DAPs).

No question, the R8 is a very powerful DAP. With more the 1 Watt of power at 32 ohms out of the 4.4mm balanced output (which translates to significantly more wattage at the 3-, 6-, 10- and 14-ohm sensitivity of my IEMs), there is far more headroom than anyone would actually need for IEM use. But in my experience, it’s very clean power, even in Turbo mode (which was designed for full size headphones, but somehow makes my IEMs sound better too).

If you’re into numbers and measurements, the R8’s absolute noise floor is lower in both single-ended and balanced modes compared the R6 Pro, despite having more power on tap. One caveat to this: there are many who I know and trust that have keener hearing than mine who can sniff out even the faintest hiss from IEMs than I ever could, so don’t take my word as gospel. But even they would agree that using the R8 single-ended without Turbo all but eliminates any hiss, even with pointlessly oversensitive IEMs (there, I said it).

Pair-ups

In case I haven’t made my point clearly enough above, the R8 is an ideal match for just about any IEM (and probably most full-size headphones too). But that’s not to say it’ll be ideal for your IEMs.

If you’re looking for a DAP to counterbalance one or other characteristics – for example, if you have a very bright-leaning IEM and want a DAP that would naturally tone down its brightness (with a slightly rolled or thicker treble response), the R8 isn’t that DAP. Likewise, if you have an IEM that’s a bit too bass light for your liking and want a DAP to fill in the missing octaves down low, there are probably better options than the R8.

That said, if you’re looking for a DAP with a very linear, transparent but still natural sound, that’s the R8. It will effortlessly elevate any IEM to its full sonic potential without changing anything about it, making the most of what it already has without embellishing. IEMs that scale well with a better DAC or amplification will definitely benefit from what the R8 has to offer in both departments.

To illustrate the point, here are some examples from my personal experience:

64 Audio Tia Fourte – this is 64 Audio’s current flagship hybrid IEM, and is renowned for its resolving power, wide stage, microscope-like detail retrieval and precision imaging. It’s also a fairly bright-leaning IEM, albeit being balanced overall, and the R8 doesn’t mask any of these traits. Play a poorly recorded track or something that’s mastered too thin or bright, and you’ll get the unforgivingly harsh sound you’d expect with the Fourte. But play a reference recording and the R8 gives Fourte every nuance of the recording. You’ll literally hear everything the Fourte is capable of, and nothing that it’s not.

Empire Ears Legend X – probably the best bass you’ll ever hear with an IEM, if you consider big, bold, natural, resolving, textured and infinitely deep bass as ‘the best’. But Legend X is so much more than bass; it’s a highly technical, refined and natural IEM in its own right, across the spectrum, and the R8 plays it like a master conductor. If you’re looking for a wild basshead experience with the Legends, you’re probably not going to find it with the R8. It’s far too polished and disciplined to let the bass run loose. Nor will you hear any treble spikes the Legend X is said to have with some sources. I haven’t heard the Legends with another DAP, and frankly, I don’t need to.

64 Audio Tia Trio – this is the ‘wild child’ of the 64 Audio lineup. It has a bashful energy to it that makes Fourte blush. It’s a party animal, and while some would want to control its base instincts, the R8 is happy to let them loose. Still, the smoother, more relaxed nature of the R8 gives the Trio exceptional range with well-recorded music, while its bass response with high-energy EDM is palpably visceral. Excellent synergy here, if the Trio is your cup of tea.

BLON BL-03 – it’s not going to win any technical awards, I know, but the BLON has one of the very best tonalities of any IEM I’ve used, $3600 Fourte included. It’s such a warm, organic, balanced tuning that makes almost any track from any genre sound superb. It’s also far more forgiving than any of the flagship IEMs in my collection, probably a combination of its smoother tuning and lower resolving power, but connected to the R8, it sounds so much better than its cost of entry suggests. Pair it with a balanced cable and it even scales up superbly, to a point of course.

Stability

In the frantic rush to get new products to market, this is the one aspect of modern DAPs that I feel is too often overlooked by many, not least by otherwise experienced audiophiles. What’s the point of having a super-fast, feature-laden, superb sounding flagship DAP if it constantly glitches, the software is incomplete or limited, it fails to charge properly, or doesn’t give you the seamless experience you should demand at this level?

This is where stability comes into play. I appreciate that, as a niche product in a niche market, most DAPs are going to be compromised in one way or another. Even the R8, with its fairly modern architecture, still lags behind mass-produced modern smartphones with the latest processors and upgradable Android operating systems.

But none of this is an excuse for releasing an ‘unfinished’ device. If anything, using slightly older SoCs and more mature operating systems should add up to even better stability, but in my experience, that’s not the case. Even HiBy has had its fair share of disappointing issues with previous DAPs, the R6 Pro’s notorious EMI issues being one example, the original R6’s oddly high output impedance another.

Though neither of these are strictly stability issues, both impacted user experience. That’s how I personally define stability – the lack of anomalies or issues that negatively impact the user experience. In that regard, touch wood, the R8 is by far the most stable DAP I’ve used to date. Everything seems to work as intended, from the very first bootup. Apps install and work flawlessly, basic features like gapless playback and bitperfect support are there from the start, streaming services function as expected, and I’m yet to encounter a spelling mistake or grammatical error in the display of a song title or interface element.

As polished and refined as it sounds, so the R8 appears to be very stable. That said, I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that some units do have stability issues. I’ve personally seen an R8 with a corrupted display, requiring a full system reset to fix it. I’ve heard of another that reboots sporadically, one with backlight bleed, and one that drained its battery overnight. None of these issues are unique to the R8, and HiBy (and its resellers) are on the ball when it comes to technical support.

My own R8, thankfully, has never been anything but stable. If I had to nitpick, HiBy forgot to grammar-check its English firmware update notifications, but I only noticed that because of how jarring they are compared to the overall polish of the rest of the UI.

I don’t for a minute excuse any of the issues above as one-offs, but at the same time don’t accept that this is just the nature of living on the bleeding edge. In any other premium product category, basic quality control issues would never be tolerated as much as they are in this hobby, and as users we have a collective responsibility to hold DAP makers to a much higher standard.

As long as HiBy continues to be responsive to issues that do arise, and the R8 continues to be an impressively resilient device, I’ll continue to recommend it for its stability as much as I do for any of its other qualities.


Verdict and closing thoughts

With the HiBy R8, it feels as if the flagship Android DAP has finally come of age. Some will argue that summit-fi DAPs like Astell & Kern’s SP2000 have been delivering a premium Android-like experience and top-shelf sound at the highest level (and price bracket) for longer, but even they can’t offer the fully open, virtually limitless Android 9 experience of the R8. In fact, only one other current flagship DAP I know of supports open Android 9, iBasso’s DX300.

Not only has the software caught up to modern smartphones (more or less), now the hardware has too (more or less). The R8 (and DX300, to be fair) don’t quite scale up to the latest smartphone platforms, but because their system software is slimmed down and optimised, their real-world performance should be very close to that of phones with nimbler hardware. What is certain is that no other flagship DAP, not even the SP2000, comes close to the processing power of the R8 and DX300.

You could argue neither the software or hardware are really important, and sound quality is the only criteria a DAP should be judged on, to which I’ll say you’re either wasting your money on an Android DAP, or seriously compromising on the experience (and benefits) a true flagship DAP should deliver.

If sound is your only barometer but you still want the benefits of a modern Android system, save your money and buy a high-end portable DAC/amp that uses your phone as a source. If Android isn’t important at all, there are some excellent non-Android flagships that are equally fast and full-featured, like Lotoo’s superb PAW Gold Touch.

The R8, for me, transcends every other Android flagship DAP in delivering the most complete package of them all, including:

• Premium hardware and build quality, inside and out
• The fastest Android hardware platform in a DAP
• The most modern open Android system in a DAP
• The latest wireless connectivity, from high-speed, dual-band WiFi to Bluetooth 5.0 and all major hi-res and low latency codecs, including HiBy’s 1200kbps UAT
• The largest battery of any current DAP
• Built-in hardware sensors for screen rotation, tap to wake and tap to sleep
• A colour-accurate 1080P retina display
• Flagship-worthy sound quality, from tonality to technicalities
• Generous, premium packaging, storage and protection accessories
• A stable software experience with frequent and responsive firmware updates
• A reference-grade tuning that doesn’t impose on the sound of your high-end IEMs

Does it have any shortcomings? Certainly. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect’ device, especially in such as fast-evolving product category. Quality control has been questioned by some, and there’s no question HiBy could have pushed the envelope even further with its included accessories or storage options for the asking price.

That said, the R8 puts a marker in the ground for where flagship DAPs should be in 2021. Some might prefer the sound profile of other DAPs, but that’s as true for the lofty SP2000 as it is for any number of mid-fi or lower-end DAPs. None of those DAPs, truth be told, hold a candle to the R8’s combination of versatility, functionality, power, sound quality and stability.

Going forward I expect newer DAPs to overcome some of the R8’s limitations and exceed its capabilities, at even lower price points. That’s the nature of the beast. But for now, the R8 presents the most compelling example I’ve seen of the complete flagship DAP, an example that many others – including HiBy – will no doubt follow in the months and years to come.



Recommended reviews (for DAP comparisons and other pairings)

Twister6 – HiBy R8 – Turbo Charged! (the standard for portable audio reviews)
Headfonics – HiBy R8 Review
Headfonia – HiBy R8 Review

Hot on the heels of its class-leading mobile DAC/amp dongle, the Sparrow, Chicago-based EarMen has made audiophile audio on the go even more accessible with the Eagle.

Housed in the same glass-encased metal shell as its bigger brother, the Eagle is a step-down in terms of features and connectivity options, but not that much in terms of sound quality.

Coming in at around half the cost of the Sparrow, that’s probably to be expected, but has it cut too many corners to appeal to more serious listeners looking for a cheaper, simpler alternative?


In the box

The Eagle comes in a similar-sized box to Sparrow, which is to say a very neat black cover with an image of the Eagle on the front, specs and details on the back, and security seals to certify this as a genuine product. Inside you’ll find the tiny Eagle sandwiched between two foam sheets, alongside a single USB-A female to USB-C male cable (more on this later).

On closer inspection the Eagle is made from the same materials as the Sparrow, giving it a shiny, premium feel despite the miniscule size. One side houses a single 3.5mm headphone connector (compared to the Sparrow’s 3.5mm single ended and 2.5mm balanced outputs). Also, unlike the Sparrow, EarMen have for some reason opted to do away with the USB-C connector on the Eagle itself, replacing it with a fixed USB-A male connector.

This is a strange design choice, considering how the whole world and its dog is moving towards USB-C as the de-facto interface standard, and, given this is primarily a mobile device, would need a fairly bulky adapter cable to connect to mobile devices. Thankfully EarMen include a high-end USB-A to C cable in the box, but as expected it’s far larger than the USB-C to C cable that comes with the Sparrow. Sorry iPhone users, you’ll have to source your own cable or use an Apple OTG adapter.

The USB-A connector does make the Eagle more convenient for connecting to a PCs front USB ports, but how many people will actually use the Eagle this way is questionable.

Connector foibles aside, the Eagle is still small enough to carry anywhere, and it would have been nice for EarMen to include a carry case for this purpose. I made the same point in the Sparrow review – if $20 earphones can ship with a carry case, so can $100+ dongles. But I digress, this is a high-quality device, that works first time with any device I plug it into, so it really comes down to how it sounds.

Sound impressions

If you’ve read my Sparrow review, you’ll know I gave high praise to its balanced sound quality, and while the single ended quality was still very good, balanced was clearly better. With no balanced out on the Eagle, I was worried this would mean a corresponding drop in sound quality. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

Equipped with a new-generation ESS Sabre ES9281 DAC generating up to 62mW of power at 32 ohms with less than 0.002% distortion, the Eagle is no slouch when it comes to audiophile-friendly specs. According to EarMen:

Super LOW ESR tantal capacitors, high grade components in power-supply design and four layer gold-plated PCB technology from the PC and smart phone industry, EarMen Eagle reduces the noise to minimum.

While not reaching the same sonic heights as the Sparrow in full flight, the Eagle presents a beautifully balanced soundscape that’s neither harsh nor bright, fairly neutral, and very detailed. It easily powers all my IEMs without any issues, but I wouldn’t go plugging any hard-to-drive full size headphones with any expectation other than disappointment. This is a mobile-only device, as far as I can tell, and while it will technically drive larger gear, there are far better solutions for that.


I’m not going to break down the sound character of the Eagle based on the usual bass/mids/treble delineations, because as far as I can tell, the Eagle will do very little to change the sound character of whichever IEM you plug into it. It’s very transparent, which is a good thing, and while it generously delivers smoothness and detail, that’s because it’s made well and tuned well, with quality parts, not because it’s shaping the sound in a particular way.

The big question for most users, I would think, is if the Eagle makes sense when most modern smartphones already have fairly decent audio output, and many even come with their own headphone-friendly dongles?

For me, that depends on what type of person you are, and how seriously you take your music. Without the MQA decoding capability of the Sparrow, the Eagle won’t help you when it comes to Tidal’s MQA unfolding. But it will ensure your lossless and hi-res music files (including those from Tidal) play back at the highest-possible resolution. It will also give you the peace of mind that you’re using a recognised, high-quality DAC and amp, which can only benefit the sound, especially if you’ve invested good money in a high-quality wired earphone.

Closing thoughts

EarMen hit a home run with the Sparrow – a true, high-performance, high-spec device for the modern mobile audiophile. But at $200, the Sparrow is not a cheap solution for many, and so with the Eagle, EarMen have been able to deliver much of what the Sparrow offers in the same compact format for casual enthusiasts who don’t want to spend above the odds for their audio enjoyment.

In a market dominated by cheap throwaway dongles on the one side and more niche products that carry bigger pricetags for their name more than their features, the EarMen Eagle will satisfy the vast majority of people who want trusted, reputable sound quality from a well-respected company using high-quality parts for a very fair price.

If that sounds like you, it’s a solid recommendation from me.

This is an abridged review. The full review can be found here.

The EarMen Sparrow does not do wireless. It’s also smaller than most other ‘proper’ dongles (unless you consider Apple’s or Samsung’s headphone adapters proper dongles). So what makes this tiny device so enticing to make you pick it over the many other options available at or around its $199 price point?


What you get

The Sparrow houses a new all-in-one flagship SoC from ESS, the SABRE ES9281PRO, the first combination DAC/amp chip to offer built-in hardware MQA decoding. Made from high-quality parts, including a gold-plated PCB, the DAC section supports all PCM formats up to 32/384kHz and DSD128 (including DoP 128 for Mac), and the amp delivers up to 4.0 vRMS of voltage from its 2.5mm balanced headphone output.

The face of the Sparrow features a LED indicator light that illuminates an EarMen logo in different colours based on its active mode: white when powered, green when receiving a USB audio signal, and magenta when decoding an MQA stream. It connects to your smartphone or laptop through a USB-C port on one end (EarMen supplies both a USB-C to C and USB-C to A cable in the box, but alas not a USB to Lightning cable for iPhones), and to wired headphones via single-ended 3.5mm and balanced 2.5mm ports on the other.


Sound quality

The story of the Sparrow, at least when it comes to sound quality and power, is a story of two outputs: single-ended and balanced.

Single-ended

Does the Sparrow, by virtue of its audio smarts, make your headphones sound better than a device that already has a built-in headphone jack?

The short answer is yes. Playing a well-recorded and multi-layered track like Brandi Carlile’s ‘The Story’ through my phone has always been a good experience. The LG’s superpower is its SABRE DAC, and I chose it specifically for this feature. But plugging the same IEMs into the Sparrow yields an even better one: Brandi’s vocals are notably more distinct, better separated from the melee of instruments around her, and the sense of space is better defined too.

Switching tracks (and genres), the classic ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles is a staple demo track for most audiophiles because of how well it’s been recorded, and to hear it from the Sparrow takes an already pleasant experience on the phone (and even directly through the MacBook) to new heights. The version I like to use was recorded live and features on the Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over album, and from the very start of the track, as the noise of the crowd fades in and the guitars start to play, you’re treated to what I can only describe in layman’s terms as really excellent sound.


Balanced

If using the Sparrow single-ended is an improvement, using it balanced is a revelation. I can pick up the basic character of an audio chain from the opening chords of BEYRIES ‘Alone’, a simple vocal set against sparse instrumentation that on really good gear feels like Amélie Beyries is sitting right next you, singing in your ear. With the Sparrow connected balanced to a pair of 64 Audio IEMs, I could almost feel her holding my hand, a tear slowly parsing her cheek.

Where the quality gap was easily more obvious in the single-ended sessions, switching to balanced really blurred the lines between what I’d become accustomed to from my higher-end gear, and what I was hearing from the Sparrow. This was especially true with more complex music, like the busier passages in Daft Punk’s ‘Giorgio By Moroder’ and the collision effects in ‘Contact’ from the same, sublime Random Access Memories album, where the sound was more even, more controlled, less congested and better defined using the balanced output.

Often I’ve said I hear a wider stage and better separation of instruments with balanced headphones, no matter the source, which is not always obvious and always seems to be up for debate on the popular audio gear forums. Listening to the Sparrow, this point at least is not up for debate.


Other thoughts

By and large, the EarMen Sparrow has a very natural, neutral tuning that prioritises details but not at the expense of musicality. The sound can best be described as transparent, giving vocals and instruments just enough body so they don’t sound thin, without unnecessarily colouring the sound. It’s a fairly linear response, not too bright or too warm, with no unsightly peaks or troughs to worry the measurebators.

I’ve already established the Sparrow’s advantages when used balanced, so I’ll only add here that if you find the sound too intimate single-ended, it really opens up in all directions with a good balanced headphone. Not to mention, balanced is significantly more powerful, which brings me to one possible quibble: volume.

This is more a warning than a design flaw, but because the Sparrow doesn’t have its own volume control, I suggest you turn down the volume on your connected device before hitting play. Let’s just say I failed to do so first time, and have never in my life yanked earphones out of my ears so quickly. I can still hear the ringing…


Closing thoughts

That I’m finding a similar emotional connection to my music with a $200 dongle as I would be with a high-powered DAP is testament to how well this little bird can sing. While I won’t go as far as to say the Sparrow renders higher-end music players redundant, it definitely skews the value proposition downward, far further down than I anticipated was possible.

Is it the right device for you? That depends. Do you use wired headphones but don’t want or need a dedicated music player? Are you a Tidal subscriber with a playlist full of hi-res MQA tracks? Do you regularly use your laptop or tablet to play music? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Sparrow is a shoe-in. In fact, if you are someone who prioritises sound quality above all else and want to take it with you wherever you go, the Sparrow should be near or at top of your list.

UTWS1: has FiiO made the world’s best true wireless IEMs?

64Audio are not renown for their wireless products, in fact I don’t think they make any wireless products at all.

Except thanks to Chinese audio giant FiiO, they now do. And by plugging my very-much-wired 64Audio U12t IEMs into FiiO’s new UTWS1 Bluetooth adapter, I may have found the world’s very best true wireless IEMs.

Ok, so the headline was (only slightly) misleading, and this review isn’t really about IEMs. Except it is, but not just my IEMs – any IEM. The beauty of the FiiO UTWS1 is that it works with just about any IEM with an MMCX or 2-pin connector, which means just about every IEM ever made.

But can this little wireless wonder really ditch the cable and keep the sound quality of a wired connection?



In the box

The FiiO UTWS1 is shipped in a small, unassuming square box, inside of which you’ll find the twin earpiece receivers inside a patterned zip-up carry case. Included in the case is a twin-headed micro USB cable, used to charge both earpieces simultaneously.



It’s a shame FiiO couldn’t figure out how to design a rechargeable case for the UTWS1, but then this is no ordinary true wireless device, and a case would have had to account for different sizes and shapes of IEMs.

The case supplied, and the earpieces themselves, are very well made, as you’d expect from any product bearing the FiiO logo. Each earpiece contains an elongated cylinder that fits behind the ear and houses the ‘smarts’ of the Bluetooth DAC and amplifier, along with a pushbutton and microphone.

A short, curved rubbery cable extends from each cylinder, designed to ergonomically fit around each ear. The cables are marked with red and blue rings around the MMCX connector version to denote right and left respectively, but oddly not on the 2-pin version.

They may seem a bit bulky at first, but the earpieces are very light, and the cable sits flush. Once in place the earpieces disappear behind the ear, and don’t cause any discomfort even after hours of continuous use.

Since I only have the 2-pin version, I can’t vouch for the quality of the MMCX connectors, but FiiO’s build quality track record is a good one. Overall, this is an impressive package, for what it is.






Features and functions

With Qualcomm’s QCC3030 Bluetooth 5.0 chip inside each earpiece, the FiiO UTWS1 supports Qualcomm’s ‘CD-quality’ AptX codec, along with standard AAC and SBC. I consider it a missed opportunity not to include support for AptX-HD and LDAC, though doing so would likely have resulted in significantly higher power consumption and licensing fees.

As an aside, this codec limitation isn’t unique to FiiO, but rather a marker on where we are with true wireless technology. Even Sony’s own true wireless IEMs don’t support LDAC – in fact they don’t even support AptX. That said, Bluetooth codecs are just one variable in the sound quality equation.

The UTWS1 works like most other true wireless systems in that each earpiece functions independently, but ‘syncs’ with the other earpiece when both are active, hence the ‘true wireless’ designation. The entire system works using low-powered and very efficient Bluetooth transmission, so despite the name, there’s no Wi-Fi involved.


Since they work independently, you can use the UTWS1 earpieces like you would any other single receiver walk-and-talk earpiece, the microphone and push button giving you call answer functionality when connected to a smartphone. Or sync them up for the full stereo experience, even with calls.

While not strictly part of this review, I tested the call quality while connected to my phone, and found it to be excellent, perhaps a factor of the noise cancelling features of the Qualcomm chip. The incoming call also paused and resumed the music I was playing, which is handy.

Pairing the earpieces was as simple as holding down the button on an earpiece for five seconds until the small LED light starts flashing red and blue, at which time it should appear on your device’s available Bluetooth list. Once paired with your phone or DAP, power up the other earpiece and it will automatically ask to be paired with your device. Once that’s done, both earpieces will be paired and ready to play.

The button on each earpiece is programmed to perform numerous functions: click once on the left and right to lower and raise the volume, twice on the right to pause/play the music, hold down the left for two seconds for previous track and right for next track, and hold down for three seconds to power off. For some reason I couldn’t answer a call by using the button on either side, nor pause/play the music by double-clicking the right earpiece, so perhaps these features aren’t universal and depend on your source device.

Lastly, should you want to take your listening outdoors, the earpieces have a nano coating that supposedly protects them from splashes and sweat, which makes them great for taking along for a run or to the gym. Forgive me for not putting this to the test with the U12t, though!




Sound quality

Let’s face it, there’s no substitute for wired sound quality. Bluetooth has come a long way since it was invented to transmit low bandwidth MP3 files, but even with the latest ‘hi-res’ Bluetooth codecs, there’s still a perceptible loss of quality with resolving IEMs, and they don’t come much more resolving than the 64Audio U12t.

But there’s a catch. You’re not always going to want to use your high-performance IEMs for Bluetooth music for this exact reason. The compression that’s only mildly apparent with lesser gear is suddenly blatantly obvious. Even if you’re getting anywhere near the maximum bitrate of AptX, that’s still well short of the bitrate of a CD-quality lossless flac file, let alone hi-res.

Throw in poorly recorded or mastered music and the cumulative result is a pale shade of what your IEMs are capable of. This is no fault of the UTWS1. In fact, with the right IEMs, it blows away just about any other true wireless IEMs available today. It’s purely a limitation of the Bluetooth protocol, combined with the far weaker amplifiers used as a necessity for wireless convenience.

That said, I found the sound quality of the UTWS1 surprisingly impressive. Being careful to select well-mastered music, I missed my cable far less than I thought I would, especially since I was able to untether myself from my phone and DAP and walk around the house without a worry.

If I have to be critical, it was immediately apparent how the smooth, pristine vocals in Lily Kershaw’s sublime “Unrequited Night” started to sound slightly wobbly in parts, and the electronic drums didn’t hit quite as hard or with as much texture on Lorde’s “Royals”. Switching to classic rock, Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” left me wishing the vocals sounded fuller and the guitars had more crunch, and the violins weren’t nearly as precise on Max Richer’s “Winter 1”.

Again, this is no real fault of the UTWS1. For a true wireless system, it performed well above what I expected. “Well obviously,” I hear you saying. You can’t compare a $2,000 IEM to your typical $200 or $300 true wireless set. Except with the UTWS1 you can do just that. If you already own high-performance IEMs, the UTWS1 will turn them into high-performance true wireless IEMs for the sum total of $45.



Closing thoughts

FiiO isn’t the first company to come up with a universal true wireless solution for third-party IEMs, but the UTWS1 is by far the most polished, capable and practical device I’ve seen on the market to date.

From the clever packaging to the well-made, lightweight, comfortable earpieces, the UTWS1 appears to be seamlessly compatible with almost any IEM, with just the right balance of features and functions to make it more than a one-trick wireless pony. It may not tick all the boxes when it comes to Bluetooth codecs, and FiiO warns against using super-sensitive IEMs that might pick up some noise from its powerful receivers, but with the right combination of earpiece, you can get a lot of utility for not a lot of money.

True to form, FiiO have delivered when it comes to bang-for-buck with a product that doesn’t look out of place alongside high-end IEMs, phones and DAPs. You’ll be paying significantly more for a ready-made set of true wireless IEMs without any guarantee of better quality, especially if you already own a pair IEMs you know and love.

Full disclosure: I was sent a sample of the iFi iPurifier 3 by way of @iFi audio and my local supplier, the ever excellent Francois at AudioExchange, in exchange for my honest opinion and review. This is the first in a series of reviews and articles on audio noise and related gear.

If you're sending audio from your computer to DAC using USB, chances are your sound isn't as clean as it could be.

Now in its third revision, the aptly-named iFi iPurifier 3 is a small device designed to sit between your digital music source (typically a PC or Mac), and your DAC, taking the signal from your source’s USB output, processing it, reconstructing an all-new ‘clean’ signal, and sending the clean signal to your DAC’s USB input.

All of this is done in real-time, needing no power source other than the power supplied by the USB cable.

Sounds simple enough, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want something that cleans a noisy signal and makes your music sound better for little more than $100? Of course, nothing is that simple, so read onto find out if they hype and the money is worth spending.



If there’s one thing audio enthusiasts debate more than most things, it’s noise.

Just the mention of audio ‘noise’ draws a line in the sand between so-called objectivists – for whom anything that can’t be measured doesn’t exist, and subjectivists – for whom quality is all in the hearing, so if it sounds good, it is good, measurements be damned.

To complicate things further, noise can mean different things when it comes to audio. Distortion, hum, hiss, clicks and pops are among the more common definitions, and are also the easiest to hear and measure.

Then there’s the other kind of noise, the less tangible noise that you can only ‘hear’ by subjective listening. Noise in this case potentially makes music sound more congested, compressed, less open, less refined – take your pick. Whether or not ‘noise’ is actually the cause of these perceptible but difficult-to-quantify differences is another debate entirely.

A primer on audio noise

By way of background, I was firmly in the ‘bits are bits’ camp when it came to talk of ‘noisy’ USB signals. Like many I believed that if you’re sending a digital signal from point A to point B, it either gets there, or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t you’ll hear it. Which is to say, you’ll either hear nothing, or a jumbled, incoherent mess.

But over time, I’ve learned there’s far more than meets the eye – or ear, as it were – when it comes to audio over USB.

For one thing, the physical USB cable is prone to picking up ‘noise’ from various sources, like your PCs power supply, case or other internals. Much like an antenna, it can also pick up radio interference (from WiFi routers, cellphones and other transmitters) which, if the cable is poorly shielded, can cause all types of havoc with sensitive audio equipment. If this noise makes its way inside your DAC, it can result in your DAC getting a less-than-optimal signal to process. Hence the term ‘noisy signal’.

How that will actually affect what you end up hearing through your audio system varies greatly, depending on the different parts of the chain. You may have a particularly ‘noisy’ PC, or a crappy power supply, or your DAC may not have the ‘smarts’ to filter out any incoming noise. It could also be that your cable is poorly made, inadequately or incorrectly shielded, or too long.

It’s also important to differentiate USB signal noise from other types of audio of noise, like a ground loop (which causes an audible hum and is a rather simple fix). I’m talking about the noise that gets carried by your USB cable and, if unchecked, gets mixed in with the signal your DAC is left to convert into music. The noise that, even if you can’t hear it, is still there.

The bottom line is this: if you’re connecting your audio source to your DAC using USB, you need some form of signal ‘cleaner’. Even though it’s difficult to quantify the amount and type of noise coming down the line, so to speak, what’s indisputable is that noise is there, and without treatment, your DAC simply isn’t getting the cleanest possible signal.

Build and fit

This is where devices like the iPurifier come in, and as far as noise cleaning devices go, the iPurifier 3 is one of the better ones, certainly for the money.

For one, it’s expertly made, as is typically the case with iFi devices. After all, this is a company that has its heritage in parent company AMR, one of the most prominent manufacturers of high-end audio equipment in the UK.

Housed in a smoothly painted metal shell that measures less than 70mm in length, the iPurifier 3 is reassuringly solid. iFi claims they’ve used some ‘high-end’ components inside too, including OS-CON capacitors and Vishay MELF resistors, and who am I to doubt them?

Two small LED indicator lights on top of the shell indicate power supply and signal reception, while either end of the shell houses the USB 3.0 B-type female input and USB 2.0 B-type male output respectively (the iPurifier 3 is also available with an A-type male output).






You also get an assortment of A-to-B, B-to-B and a few other types of short adapter cables, and a user guide and warranty card should you need to figure out what goes where, or what to do if something goes wrong.

Most DACs will have either B-type (common) or A-type (less common) USB female inputs. Connect the USB cable from your PC to the iPurifier, plug the iPurifier’s male connector into your DAC and you’re good to go (and don’t stress if you don’t have a B-type USB 3.0 cable; the iPurifier is backward-compatible with standard USB 2.0 ‘printer’ cables too).

Once connected, the power and signal LEDs should light up. If they don’t, it’s typically one of two things: your cable, or the connection to your DAC. I had an issue with one of my ‘audiophile’ USB cables (a QED Graphite USB cable), possibly because the thickness and weight of the cable itself made the rather gangly iPurifier unbalanced.



Using a shorter, lighter cable resolved the issue, but also exposed a design flaw: for all its solidity, the iPurifier is quite bulky, and the fit can be too loose with some DACs. In my case, with the iPurifier in place, it’s impossible to push my DAC all the way back on its shelf, which backs onto a wall, and the connection isn’t as tight as it should be.

Fit issues aside, once I got the iPurifer to light up, it stayed lit, and proper testing could begin.

Performance in practice

According to iFi, the iPurifier 3 has a hattrick of features that work together to create a perfectly pure USB signal: Reclock, Regenerate and Rebalance.

In layman’s terms, this means any timing errors, jitter and other impurities in the signal are removed, and a new, clean signal is generated and sent to the DAC. Rebalancing is supposed to reduce distortion from DC power offset, which, combined with iFi’s claimed 100x active noise cancellation tech, should leave the new signal without any hint of USB power-related noise.

I first compared the sound with and without the iPurifier in place. I then compared the iPurifier with two other devices used to ‘clean’ a USB signal: the $300 Ideon 3R Renaissance, and the $400 Matrix X-Spdif 2. The comparisons weren’t like for like given the price differences and the different technology used, but I figured the end result (audio quality) is all that matters, so I wanted to see what the much cheaper and simpler iPurifier was capable of.

Let’s get straight to the point: it’s very capable. By that I mean compared to the audio quality I’m hearing with my Mac mini connected directly to the DAC by USB, plugging in the iPurifier 3 into the chain immediately makes an audible, and beneficial, difference to the sound quality.

Specifically, I’m hearing a more spacious presentation with most of the tracks I was using, better separation between instruments (and between instruments and vocals), and a perceivably ‘darker’ noise floor, akin to closing the door and windows in an already quiet room.

Even though I use an Audio-gd R-28 as my DAC and amp, which features an FPGA processor that does its own cleaning and jitter reduction on the incoming signal, it’s still possible to hear the difference the iPurifier makes when in use, especially compared to listening with an unfiltered signal.

For example, what I sometimes hear as ‘ringing’ around the edge of female vocals is all but eliminated by the iPurifier. Norah Jones’s otherwise superb ‘Come Away With Me’ DSD is a case in point, where her vocals on some tracks sound a touch too shiny, is more focused and refined with the iPurifier.

Since the iPurifier not only re-clocks and regenerates the signal but also uses active noise cancellation on the incoming USB power line, I can’t be sure which part of the cleaning process has the biggest impact on the signal, but I can say for sure that whatever it’s doing, music sounds perceptibly better.

How does the performance of the iPurifier compare to the other two devices? The degree of spaciousness and ‘noise’ reduction was just about on par, perhaps a hair less, than with the Ideon. The Ideon has the added benefit of injecting ‘clean’ power from its own power supply, so if you have a particularly dirty power source, this could be an advantage in your system.

The Matrix can also use its own power source, but like the iPurifier works just fine in bus-powered mode. It not only galvanically isolates the incoming USB power source but also cleans and regenerates the signal before switching to a completely different output signal, in my case, I2S. Sonically the Matrix is a step up in terms of background noise, with everything sounding slightly less congested and finer details becoming more easily apparent. But again I stress the differences are small.

I’d say both the Ideon and Matrix do a better job, but at three times the price they are certainly not three times better; as always, the law of diminishing returns applies. The Matrix has other benefits aside from a cleaner signal – like being able to split the incoming USB signal across multiple DACs using different outputs – so its value isn’t limited to sound quality alone.



Closing thoughts

For a fair price, the iFi iPurifer 3 gets you a lower noise floor, more space, less ringing and more clarity in your music, and even if the differences are very slight (depending on your chain), they’re still there. It won’t affect all types of noise (like power ground loops), but it will reduce most other types of noise - including USB power noise - and do so without needing a separate, bulky external power supply or additional cables.

Depending on your setup, the fit can be an issue, and the weight of the shell can unbalance lighter DACs, so keep this in mind when you first try it, and be ready to swap in different cables or use the various adapters that come in the box to make it work for you.

While not quite as effective as a more robust solution like a DDC, the iPurifier 3 is more practical, especially when used with portable DACs. It’s also a third of the price and almost at the same level of performance as other similar solutions on the market.

The iFi iPurifier 3 is available in South Africa from AudioExchange for approximately R2,600, or direct from Amazon and Amazon UK for $129 and £129 respectively.

Full disclosure: I received an IMR R2 Aten in exchange for my fair and honest opinion, with no expectation of a favourable review. The views expressed are my own, based on my personal sound preferences and taste in music, which may well vary from your own.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. It appears that IMR’s Bob James isn’t insane, because at the third time of asking, he’s created one of the best looking, best sounding dynamic driver IEMs I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

Based on an evolved version of the original R1 and R1 Zenith (reviewed here) ‘hybrid’ beryllium and piezo ceramic driver, the new R2 Aten tweaks the design of both earpiece and driver to deliver a consistently excellent performance with almost any genre of music.

It comes as no small relief, too, because the hype surrounding the first two IMR IEMs was, to my ears anyway, overdone. The Zenith, while occasionally hitting the mark, was frequently too harsh in the highs, too boomy in the bass, or too meek if you tried to switch up its filters to correct the obvious ‘errors’. With a refined two-filter system (a bottom filter for bass tuning and a top ‘nozzle’ for treble), the Aten not only gives you more options for adjusting the sound to your liking, but – as you’ll soon read – delivers a far more consistent sound with a much smaller selection of filters than you actually get.

What’s in the bag?

Before we get to the sound, though, let’s look at the overall package, because that’s changed too – and for the better. The Aten comes housed in a large canvas-type hard shell zip-up case, with the different accessories and earpieces securely wedged into custom foam cut-outs.

Along with the earpieces you get a large selection of silicone and foam eartips, so you’re almost guaranteed a good fit out the box (although I always recommend buying aftermarket tips anyway). Like the Zenith, the Aten comes with two cables – one terminated with an angled 3.5mm single-ended connector, the other 2.5mm TRRS – an absolute must at this price point. Unlike the Zenith, however, both cables have been given a major upgrade, with custom-made single crystal braided copper and conveniently shaped arches around the ears, and are of much higher quality than the thin, rubbery cables that were included with the R1 and Zenith.

The new filter system means two sets of aluminium filter holders are now included as standard, instead of just the one with the Zenith. Whereas I felt that the Zenith left me wanting a little more in terms of package quality for the price, the Aten does not. Perhaps the inclusion of a smaller case to house just the earpieces and cables would be welcome, but the larger case is small enough to be portable.


Fit and comfort

There was always something a little odd about the shape of the Zenith that made them just a bit too unwieldly when worn. Though the steampunk look was ‘cool’, the Zenith’s twistable knob (used to open or close the port behind the drivers) meant the overall look was not only bizarre, but made it all but impossible to use them lying on your side or under a beanie or hat that covered your ears.

The Aten, in comparison, eschews the twisting knob and cover for a stainless-steel mesh grille that not only looks more appealing, but also takes away the nagging desire to constantly open and close the port to find the ‘perfect’ sound. Surrounded by a yellow gold frame, the Aten is more Bumblebee than Mad Max, and in a good way too. It’s immediately more modern and stylish, looks far less conspicuous when worn, and even though not the smallest fit-wise, I can comfortably lie down with them and almost forget they’re there.

Some of the sharper edges of the Zenith earpieces have also been smoothed over, and the slightly longer nozzle (a result of the new two-part filter system) means it’s easier to get a good seal without jamming the earpieces into your skull. Along with the round-the-ear cable guides that make a big difference to the ease of fit, I’d say the consistent improvements make for a much better experience than simply the sum of the new parts.

Sound impressions

I suggest you read my Zenith review, because much of what I’m about to say about the Aten’s sound uses that review as context. As such, my impressions here won’t be as exhaustive, simply because they don’t need to be.

That the Aten is a better sounding IEM than the Zenith was obvious to me even before the mandatory 140-hour burn-in period was done (and if you don’t believe in burn-in, the way the Aten’s sound evolves in that first week of listening might just change your mind). Even with the default black-on-black default filter and nozzle combination, gone was the bombastic bass of the Zenith and cavernous ‘gap’ between the bass mountain and midrange valleys, replaced by an equally powerful but far more nuanced presentation that seemed to fill out the entire frequency landscape without any notable dips or spikes.

I spent a good while going through the different filter combinations – as you probably should as well – so what I’m about to say might seem strange, but hear me out. Don’t stray too far from the default. Yes, it seems to be Bob’s way of doing things to give users as much choice as possible when it comes to fine-tuning his IEMs, but invariably he’s tuned them with a signature in mind that, in my experience, doesn’t stray too far from how he ships them configured.

For example, while previous reviewers of the Zenith (and more recently the Aten) have tended to pick the red or purple/pink filters for bass, I feel that not only is the amount of bass with the black filter not excessive, but is also of higher quality than the other options. Likewise, all the new treble nozzles bar blue use dampening to attenuate both the highs and mids, and as Bob himself suggested, using the blue nozzle – which lets the sound through unaltered – also presents the Aten in its purest form.

So, try the different options (and wonder, like I did, why anyone would voluntarily use the oddly-tuned gold filters), but I guarantee you that spending some time with the original black/black or black/blue combinations will ultimately win you over because they maximise the strengths of the design.


Bass
Let’s not pull any punches: the Aten, like its older cousins, is a bass monster. I’d expect nothing less from a 14mm dynamic driver sat a few millimeters from my eardrums. But unlike the Zenith or R1 before it, the Aten’s revised driver shows more control, texture and nuance to the bass, something you’ll instantly pick up on when listening to bass-laden electronica from Daft Punk or bass-infused live instruments.

The glorious bassline that kicks in at the 20s mark of Daft Punk’s ‘Doin’ It Right’ can rattle your jaw if you’re not careful. The sub bass rumble is palpable, and the mid bass punch is equally intoxicating, but neither overwhelm the robotic effects or human vocals. This speaks to the control the Aten exhibits while wielding such a potent weapon, elevating it above much cheaper implementations of dynamic driver bass typical of budget mid-fi IEMs that seem to be flooding the market.

That the subtle midrange and treble details aren’t obscured in the face of its explosive bass delivery is a sign that Bob has learned from both his previous attempts and knew exactly what needed to be done to get the balance just right. This is not boomy Beats bass, demonstrating very natural attack and decay that makes it feel more lifelike than forced. Listen to Diana Krall’s ‘Temptation’ and you’ll hear all the texture and nuance of the double bass without any overt colouration.

Of course, by that I don’t mean that the Aten is a ‘balanced’ IEM, but its mild V-shaped tuning with my preferred filter combinations is both rich and rewarding, neither overdone like the thick, bloomy sound of the FiiO FA7, or bizarrely wonky like the Zenith (regardless of filter choice).

Be warned: if you’re one of those ‘audiophiles’ that only want to hear – rather than feel – their bass, or believe that bass, like butter, is only good for you in very small doses, give the Aten a wide berth. Yes, you can switch filters and nozzles to the point where the Aten’s balls – er, bass – are all but neutered, but seriously, why would you do that?

Mids
Normally where bass is as big as it is with the Aten, something has to give, and often that something is the mids. But you only need to hear Rosie Thomas’s exquisite vocals to the sound of guitar strings and harpsicords of ‘Why Waste More Time’ to know that the Aten is only a distant relation to its predecessor in this regard.

Whereas I felt the Zenith butchered large sections of the midrange in its presentation, the Aten somehow keeps the mids intact. Both the lower and upper midrange are represented in their totality here, perhaps not with as much resolution as you’d hear from a hybrid balanced armature IEM like the FiiO FH7, but with more than enough detail to satisfy all but die-heard detail obsessives.

Male vocals are sublime with the Aten. David Elias’s heartfelt rendition of ‘Vision of Her’ is full of subtle emotion, as is Chris Jones’s impeccably arranged version of Alan Taylor’s ‘The Tennessee Waltz’. Going even lower in the octave register, the presentation of ‘These Bones’ by the Fairfield Four is an absolute revelation on the Aten, the mix of upper bass and lower midrange deliciously satisfying.

Female vocalists make up the vast majority of my music library, and the Aten holds its nerve as the notes start to hit higher. Holly Throsby almost whispering to the tune of ‘An Evening Stroll’ sounds as soft and sublime as I can only imagine her to be, Brandi Carlile is utterly believable in her emotive telling of ‘The Story’, and Angel Olsen is absolutely mesmerising in her rendition of ‘Chance’ off her recently-released ‘All Mirrors’ album.

As a side note, the recording quality on All Mirrors is questionable, and if there’s one ‘criticism’ I can level at the Aten (especially with the no-holds-barred black/blue filter combination) is that it won’t do anything to hide recording flaws. More on this when I talk about the highs, where recording flaws can be deadly.

Highs
Using a piezo ceramic tweeter in an IEM is a brave choice, and one that I felt caused more problems than it solved with the Zenith. While the Aten goes some way to controlling the spiky tendencies of the driver, you’ll really want to be careful with the music you choose (and the filters and tips you use to play it).

As mentioned earlier, the blue treble nozzle won’t hold back the good, or the bad. Poor recordings are often fraught with nasty peaks, sibilance, splashy highs, grain. You’ll hear all of that, in high resolution, if it’s there to be heard. Jethro Tull’s ‘Budapest’ (like several other tracks on their masterpiece ‘Crest of a Knave’ album) can err on the bright side if you let the tweeters run loose, so using foam tips instead of Spiral Dots does make listening to this album less wincing.

Naturally, if you love your treble and can’t get enough of the highs, use any wide bore silicone tip and the blue nozzles and let it rip. The Aten is both more resolving and more refined than the Zenith, which can be a double-edged sword when it comes to treble, especially when the recording runs particularly hot. I’ve heard more pleasant interpretations of Adiemus’s ‘Tintinnabulum’, for example, but a track like this would have been downright painful to listen to on the Zenith.

Not being a heavy rock or metal fan I’m not one to tell you how well the Aten renders the relentless screech of electric guitars amid screaming vocals, but I’ll take an educated guess and suggest that if you enjoy a good ear bleed, the Aten won’t disappoint.

Seriously though, while I fully admit that I prefer my treble a touch more withdrawn, any issues I might have with how the Aten presents the highs is down to my choice of music and my refusal to continually swap out tips and filters with every other track change. This goes back to my point that you’re more likely to pick a filter combination and stick with it, and in doing so, that’s how I’ve used and reviewed the Aten.

Soundstage and other stuff
I keep comparing the Aten to the Zenith, but there’s a reason for that: the improvements I’m hearing are almost a mirror of the issues I had with the Zenith. Soundstage (or, more accurately, headstage) is another one I had on the list.

Where the Zenith presented a fairly wide stage for an IEM, it was also flat as a pancake, which made a mess of complex tracks by bringing too many instruments too far forward in the mix. Likewise, sparse recordings – especially binaural tracks like Meiko’s ‘Playing Favorites’ – have a great sense of depth and direction with the Aten.

The Aten keeps the width while adding a good amount of depth and height, giving instruments more room to breathe and introducing subtle layering that was sorely lacking in the Zenith. The deeper stage also helps with imaging and separation, and while the Aten isn’t exactly holographic as some of the best (and far more expensive) multi-driver IEMs, it’s excellent in its own right.

Pink Floyd’s intricate intro to ‘Time’ and David Chesky’s binaurally-recorded ambiance of Amber Rubarth’s ‘Strive’ off ‘Sessions from the 17thWard’ are both presented in a fairly realistic space that’s as deep and wide as you can hope for without spending the price of a small car on an IEM.

The Aten also sports a more natural and realistic timbre compared to its predecessor. The strings throughout Max Richter’s recomposed take on Vivadi’s ‘Four Seasons’, for example, are no longer thin and glass-like, but fuller, more present, and less grating.

All in all, the Aten is not one or two steps but several giant leaps steps ahead of Bob’s previous IMR incantations, and while I understand the sentimental appeal of those IEMs to users who took a chance on Bob, his new company, and his earlier experimental designs, the Aten makes them all redundant.


Closing thoughts

In the same way that an artist’s concept sketches and first attempts at a finished painting take on their own personality and are collectible in their own right, they only have value because of the finished work.

The Aten, in its totality, is IMR’s finished work. From a generous package that upgrades several key components, a better looking and fitting earpiece design, an improved filter and nozzle system, and an across-the-board improvement in every aspect of its sound, this is the IEM Bob set out to make from the very first sketch. He’s taken this driver, now in its third iteration, as far as it can go, and love it or hate it, I believe this is about as good as it’s going to get.

Not only is the Aten a great IEM, it’s also a great value, fully justifying its $500 retail price (though you can get it cheaper as a B-stock from IMR or as a sale item on Drop from time to time). That it’s not a mass-produced product (only 300 units were made, not all of which have been sold at last check), only adds to its appeal.

Some will make a song and dance about issues that are totally unrelated to Bob’s current work or products, and I won’t harp on that here (you can Google it if spurious gossip is your thing). My own impressions of IMR and the man behind it are nothing but positive. Despite the fact that I felt the Zenith fell well short of the hype – and said as much in my review – Bob didn’t take my criticism personally, and instead invited me to try the Aten.

What I found is a boutique IEM that holds its own against much higher priced competitors. The IMR R2 Aten is very much the real deal – a perfect example of what can be achieved if you take a good idea and keep making it better and better until it finally reaches its true potential.

PS. One more thing. The Aten isn’t quite the end of the road for this design. Coming soon is a hybrid that combines the best of the Aten's dynamic driver with a crossover-less planar driver said to infuse the subtlety and microdetails that only a planar driver can produce. Called Rah, it’s another limited run product that’s all but sold out, and I’m hoping against hope that I’ll get a chance to review the next chapter in IMR’s sonic journey. Stay tuned!

An extended review with more images and information is also featured in the Headonist.

I was fortunate enough to be included in the Rai Penta World Tour, and special thanks goes to @MezeTeam and @Andykong for sending them my way. If I'm not mistaken, this is probably the first time a Rai Penta has been seen in South Africa, and I'm honoured to be the first to experience it here. Other than asking for impressions to be posted to Head-Fi, there were no demands or expectations made of me, and the views expressed below are entirely my own.


As a designer and photographer, if I was to sum up my first impressions of the Rai Penta, Meze’s new flagship IEM, it would be very much along the lines of 'incredible attention to detail and aesthetics, with sound – good as it is – almost secondary'.

The stars of the show are the fit, finish and polish. The Rai Penta is a sumptuous universal IEM, and I hardly think a custom version would make it any more so. In fact, I’d probably pick the Penta before I pick a CIEM, probably because they wouldn’t be able to make a CIEM using the silky soft metal shell and finish that they have here. Everything from the packaging to the design, build quality, and ergonomics is both premium and impressive, with meticulous attention paid to the smallest details – down to the perfect one-click fit of the mmcx connectors to the earpieces.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with how they sound. On the contrary, they sound fantastic. I’ll get to the sound in more detail later in this review, but right off the bat, what sold me on the Penta was less what I was hearing and more what I was feeling – or more specifically not feeling, which in the case of most IEMs, is at least some degree of discomfort.

But I digress. Let’s take this from the top.

A not-quite-premium package

In today’s hotly-contested mobile audio market, a flagship IEM brings with it at least some burden of expectation, even if that flagship is priced significantly lower than other so-called TOTL products.

Aside from the jewel-like earpieces, included in the box is a generous selection of eartips – both silicone and foam, a uniquely designed hand-stitched leather case, a silver-plated single-ended copper cable, a cleaning tool, and some adapters for connecting the cable to larger amps and airplane armrests.

You could argue that less is more, and what you get is actually more than enough for what you need to use and enjoy your Pentas. But the lack of a balanced cable in the box is a glaring omission and frankly a missed opportunity, given the fact that most Penta owners will likely be using them with above-average DAPs or amps that, more than likely, have balanced output as an option. For the record I made the same point about the lack of a balanced cable in my review of FiiO’s FH7 (linked here), so it’s even more surprising I have to do so again for a product costing more than twice as much.


Before you start thinking it’s only my bugbear, at the start of the tour several users specifically requested that 2.5mm and 4.4mm balanced cables be included with the package, and Meze were kind enough to provide both. That at least one of these so-called ‘upgrade cables’ aren’t included with a $1,100 IEM is therefore a questionable decision, one I suspect was made more for profit than for audio-related reasons.

I recall a similar issue being raised about the lack of a balanced cable as part of the flagship Empyrean package, an oversight that I believe has now been rectified. With any luck, Meze will see fit to at least give users the option of including a balanced cable as part of future Penta sales, or offer them at a discount to Penta users.

Fit for a king

Cable gripes aside, once you actually see, hold, touch and feel the Rai Penta in your hand, all other thoughts are banished. These really are the most beautifully made IEMs I’ve seen, bar none. They feel more like polished gems in the hand, anodised as they are in a deep blue hue with a slight glimmer, looking every bit the part as precious metal ornaments.

The earpieces are surprisingly smaller than I expected, but it’s this lack of bulk that also makes them so incredibly comfortable. Until now I’ve been raving about the comfort of FiiO’s smoothly polished metal IEMs, and considered the FH7 to be the most comfortable IEM I’d worn. Not anymore; the Penta quite easily takes the comfort crown, and not by a small distance.

The ultra-shallow nozzle barely enters the ear canal, relying on the size and width of the eartip to provide a proper seal. This is perhaps the only Achilles’ Heel for many, because much like the FiiO FH7 and FH5 before it, a shallow fit isn’t ideal for everyone. Personally, the Penta fit my ears like a glove, and the seal, while important, is not nearly as important as it is for the two FiiOs in terms of its effect on the sound.

Both the stock cable and upgrade cables (I only opened the 2.5mm version, assuming the 4.4mm cable is the same) are made of a braided and sheathed material that’s light, flexible, tangle free and mostly free of microphonics. The audio connectors are made with rhodium composite for extra rigidity, and the mmcx connectors are gold-plated and perfectly angled.


Unlike the anodized earpieces, the nozzles are a matte stainless steel finish that looks like it can take serious abuse without any problems. Each nozzle is indented to prevent the eartip from slipping off during use, a nice touch that’s missing from some other, more expensive IEMs I’ve used before.

Surprisingly the three rather large sound bored on the nozzles are exposed and unprotected, and despite the inclusion of a cleaning tool, I think it’s just asking for trouble. That said, tips slide on easily, and longer tips with smaller openings should at least partly protect against errant wax deposits and other debris clogging up your precious Pentas. If, like me, your go-to tips are wide-bore JVC Spiral Dots, I suggest you exercise maximum caution and clean, clean, clean after every listen.


Sound impressions

I said at the start that the sound of the Pentas was secondary to its build and fit, and I was only half joking. So impressive is the design that you’re almost willing to forgive some flaws in the sound.

Luckily you won’t have to be too forgiving, because the Rai Penta are a damn fine sounding pair of IEMs by any measure. They’re not immediately impressive – as in, you’re not going to put them on and say “wow, these are incredible!” – unless you’re switching from EarPods or some cheap Chi-Fi wannabes.

It won’t come as any surprise, then, to hear me describe the sound profile as ‘comfortable’. It’s about as laid back and easy-going as I’ve heard in a pair of IEMs, but done in a way that still manages to engage you with the music. Veiled the Penta is not; the sound is finely balanced, fairly even and very natural, but also very safe.

With four custom-made balanced armature drivers for the mids, highs and super highs, and a 10mm dynamic driver for the lows, the Penta manages to be highly resolving and solid at the same time. They're easy to drive, with an impedance of 20 ohms preventing unwanted hiss from more powerful DAPs, and also quite sensitive at 110dB SPL/1mW. There's some interesting technology built-in to the shells, most notably a pressure equalisation system that acts like a super vent to smooth out the response of the compactly-packed drivers (though not to be mistaken for ear de-pressurisation systems like Apex and ADEL).

Other than one or two peaks (mostly in the upper midrange), you won’t find anything jarring about the Penta. In fact, you could play almost any genre and the Penta will turn it into ever-so-pleasant background music. It’s a laid back, luxurious listen in stark contrast to the V-shaped tunings so popular in today’s mainstream.

To get a better appreciation of what the Penta can do, I fed it with a selection of my go-to test tracks, but also broadened it out to include new material, so pleasant – and sometimes peculiar – was the listen. I have a massive digital library of more than 4,000 lossless albums, and having the Penta around the house gave me the chance to discover numerous tracks I was hearing for the first time.

All testing was done after a 50-hour burn-in period (mandatory for most dynamic driver and hybrid IEMs), using a FiiO M11 DAP, Spiral Dot tips and the 2.5mm balanced upgrade cable – having confirmed for myself how much better the Rai sounded balanced. The song list included, but wasn’t limited to, the likes of Lana Del Rey, Brandi Carlile, Beyries, Jethro Tull, Morcheeba, Feist, Sarah Blasko, Heart, Def Leppard, Foo Fighters and Tool.

Bass

The Penta is definitely warmer than true neutral, with a broad mid-bass lift that dominates the lower end but never, ever spills over to the mids. The bass isn’t overdone, with excellent texture and a decent kick where required, but I found sub-bass to be lacking compared to the mid- and upper-bass, and rolled off quite steeply (or at least masked by the mid-bass lift).

Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ is packed full of tracks to stretch your system’s bass muscles, and on the whole the Penta presented it with aplomb. The slight mid-bass emphasis gave the sound a warm and inviting foundation, with the epic ‘Giorgio by Moroder’ rendered with a lush and full palate.

While it certainly packs a punch, the Penta isn’t quite the complete package when it comes to bass. Despite technical specs claiming a range as low as 4Hz, I found larger cinematic tracks where sub-bass plays a critical part in the mix to be somewhat lacking in drive and emotion. Audiomachine’s ‘Ashes of Time’, for example, lacked the necessary cohesion from the distinct lack of sub-bass, as was the case with numerous other movie-inspired soundtrack themes.

That said, the cleanliness, texture and resolution of the Penta’s bass was always excellent. Jazz and vocal performances were, on the whole, very much on point, with accurate timbre and a natural, almost effortless presentation. The sheer realism conveyed in the basslines of Ingrid Michaelson’s ‘The Way I Am’, and the lower-register guitar plucks of Heidi Talbot’s ‘If You Stay’ was exceptionally satisfying.

Bass was also distortion free to my ears and always controlled, setting the tone for what I came to appreciate as I became more and more familiar with the Penta’s sound.


Mids

While the mids are reasonably detailed and almost perfectly articulated, vocals are where the Penta both shines and frustrates in equal measure.

One of the very first notes I made included the line: “some of the most natural sounding vocals I’ve ever heard, on any headphone.” A week of listening later and I stand by that statement, with the addendum: “depending on the track.”

Whereas the lower mids are fairly even, the upper mids seem to be raised quite a bit, to the point where vocals are quite forward and occasionally shouty. The dip in the lower mids also gives some vocals a thinner feel.

In The Lumineers’ ‘Salt & The Sea’ from their new album ‘III’, Wesley Schultz’s striking vocals can sound a bit strained as he hits the upper registers. Conversely the vocals in Alphaville’s 80s anthem ‘Forever Young’ sounded unusually flat and constricted. The same tracks were radiant on the two other IEMs I’ve been using alongside the Penta, the FH7 and IMR’s R2 Aten.

Peaks aside, the tendency for vocals to be quite forward can also be a good thing. For example, it lifts Giovanni Giorgio’s monologue in ‘Giorgio by Moroder’, and his voice sounds rich and resolving against the background din of the crowd. There are other examples too, and on the whole, I’d say the Penta’s midrange is balanced with a good sense of separation and clarity throughout.


Highs

I like my highs slightly tapered, so the fact that the Penta rolls off its highs just in time to avoid any harshness sits very well with me. Again, this is all part of the safe tuning I spoke of. You couldn’t get the Penta to sound sibilant even if you essed into the microphone and played it back yourself.

It’s not as if the Penta is just smoothing out the details either, because there are plenty of details up top. Brighter tracks like Owl City’s ‘The Saltwater Room’ aren’t suddenly dull; instead the listen is just smoother, less in-your-face but still very textured where it needs to be. Likewise, the high-hat splashes in Def Leppard’s ‘Love Bites’ that trip up so many IEMs and headphones alike are unimposing here.

From what I understand, part of Antonio Meze’ design philosophy with the Penta was hours of listening comfort, and that extends from the fit to the sound. The Penta is utterly unfatiguing, and the treble tuning is one of the main reasons. I had it on for three hours the other day and at one point forgot they were on (and that music was playing!). Somehow there’s just enough sparkle to keep things lively, and enough crunch for electric guitars, but if you’re after a brighter and more energetic listening experience, I’d say look elsewhere.


Imaging, stage and separation

Natural is an overused word in this review, but alas I’m using it again to describe the Penta’s stage. Generous in width, height and depth for an IEM, but not overly so, the Penta just sounds ‘correct’, as if you’re in the same room as the singer or band. Instruments can sometimes trick you into thinking they’re being played further away than they are, but in truth most tracks are still ‘inside your head’ more than out.

There’s nothing amiss about imaging either, but separation is what really sets the Penta apart, pun fully intended. Whereas many IEMs in this price range (and certainly below it) somewhat diffuse the placement of instruments and vocals in the stage, especially on ore complex tracks, the Penta renders spaces between instruments ink black. This isn’t always ideal, especially where instrument blending is mastered into a track for effect, but the Penta excels with well mastered instrumental and classical tracks.

Closing thoughts

If the 99 Classics announced Meze to the world, and the Empyrean cemented the company as a head-fi leader, the Rai Penta is a bold and beautiful statement of intent in the fast-paced, highly competitive world of mobile audio. Meze’s previous attempts at an IEM were, at best, very basic, but the Penta raises the bar almost, if not fully, to the top of the field.

Three years in the making, the extent of R&D that must have gone into building the Penta is impressive. The build quality, shape and silky feel of the earpieces, so compact, light and cool to the touch on your skin, is above and beyond anything I’ve seen on the market. And while the sound may be safe and, for some, unexciting, it has a very refined, very polished persona that fits in well with the overall aesthetic.

Think recliner chairs, beachside hammocks, and lazy Sundays. Slip them on and there’s nothing between you and your music, warm and inviting, delightfully easy on the ear. You can nitpick about missing cables and shouty recordings, a distinct lack of sub bass and highs that are never quite high enough for some, but none of that matters once you sit back, relax and lose yourself in the sound.

Unlike the FH7 or Aten, and other excellent IEMs that compete with the Penta on features and quality at a much lower price, the bar is that much higher when the price tag pushes north of a grand. At this level you need to be better than good to get a sale, and the Rai Penta is very, very good.

Whether or not that’s enough to convince you is ultimately up to you and your pocket, your taste and your style. If you enjoy extreme sports like bungee jumping or rock climbing, they may not be for you. But you if you like poised, composed, refined pursuits – like figure-skating or gymnastics – then the Penta is worth a closer look.

The FH7 is FiiO’s new flagship in-ear monitor, combining the best of the various technologies we’ve seen in their previous IEMs with a new filter system that lets you tweak the final sound to your preference.

At $495 the FH7 is also FiiO’s most expensive IEM – twice the price of the FH5. But unlike most flagships that exhibit only incremental improvements over their predecessors, the FH7’s performance not only justifies its price, it represents even better value for money on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

Frankly, the combination of FiiO’s M11 and FH7 is close enough to the quality of my (significantly more expensive) desktop head-fi system – with the added convenience of portability and isolation – that I find myself using it more and more, and the desktop rig less and less.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes the FH7, in my opinion, the most complete and compelling IEM that FiiO has released to date.

The whole shebang

The FH7 takes the FH5’s already generous package and impressively crams even more into the box.

Set into custom foam cut-outs, the familiar wave-like CNC-machined aluminium earpieces are presented like jewelry, attached to the eight-core LC-3.5C silver-plated copper cable – a separately released upgrade option for the FH5 which now comes standard with the FH7.

Below the IEMs you’ll find a smaller foam block dotted with a large selection of ear tips, including a triple set of SpinFit tips, medium-sized double-flange tips, and the same vocal, balanced, bass and foam tips first seen with the FH5 and FA7.


Also included in the box is a new faux-leather flip case that replaces the Pelican-like case of the FH5 and FA7 – a refined finishing touch for a premium IEM like the FH7. While not waterproof or shockproof, the new case is much larger, lined with soft material to protect the earpieces from scratches, and includes a mesh pouch for extra tips or other accessories.

The small material pouch is still there, which fits neatly inside the leatherette case should you want extra protection. The bundle also includes a convenient shirt clip and cleaning brush. I keep the earpieces zipped up in the soft pouch with the still-attached cable folded loose inside the larger case. That way the earpieces are protected from the cable and its metal splitter and connector, and also from any other accessories I sometimes put inside the box.

If I had to nitpick, I’m not convinced that the new cable is actually better than the four-core LC-3.5B cable that accompanied the FH5. In fact, I’ve already swapped out the stock FH7 cable for the balanced version of the FH5 cable (LC-2.5B). I also think the lack of a stock balanced cable is an unfortunate oversight and missed opportunity for an IEM at this price point, in particular given that it’s been designed with FiiO’s range of mid- to high-end DAPs in mind, all of which feature balanced outputs. Add to that the fact that the FH7 clearly sounds better balanced, and it’s a curious omission indeed.


Built to fit

I’ve always been partial to all-metal IEMs. While some modern plastics – the FA7’s injection-moulded shells comes to mind – are indeed very good, metal simply feels more premium and is also cooler to the touch.

The FH7’s shells are larger than the FH5’s. The hand-polished finish and understated rose-gold rim exudes quality. The wave patterns give them a streamlined appearance, though I worry that any rough handling will chip the fine anodized finish. If you’re prone to throwing your IEMs unprotected into a bag or pocket, I’d caution against doing that with the FH7.

Like other FiiOs, the FH7 uses the MMCX connector and an over-the-ear design to make the earpieces easier to fit and comfortable to wear for long stretches. Switching cables is not always easy with MMCX as the connectors tend to be a very tight fit, and the FH7 is no different. It takes some effort to hold the connector at just the right angle and disconnect with a significant amount of force. Only time will tell if the FH7’s connectors are strong enough to hold up to repeated cable swaps.

Missing cable issues aside, the quality of all the components that make up the FH7 package is unquestionably top-tier – likely every bit as good, or better, than those included with kilobuck IEMs.


Tweak and tune

The most significant addition to the FH7’s design is the new filter system, made up of a series of three anodized and colour-coded filters that screw in (very smoothly I must say) to the end of the metal nozzle of each earpiece. I’ll discuss the specifics of the filters and how they work to affect the sound later in this review, but for now it’s enough to say that the addition of filters is a boon to what is already a feature-packed product.

One of the less-noted but equally important benefits of the new filters is the additional 1mm or so of length they add to the FH7’s nozzle. This is not insignificant; the biggest criticism by far of the FH5 was its ultra-shallow fit which, combined with a thicker-than-usual nozzle girth, made it difficult for many to get a good seal, even with larger ear tips. And without a good seal, the sound quality of any IEM degrades considerably.

The extra length and slightly narrower nozzle of the FH7 almost completely correct this issue while retaining much of the noteworthy comfort of the FH5. I say ‘almost’ because the FH7 is still unmistakably a shallow-insert design compared to many other IEMs that tend to reach deeper into the ear canal. I find the FH7 is both more comfortable and more compatible with various ear tips than the FH5, and as such I find it far easier to get a good seal, and is for me the most comfortable IEM I’ve worn to date.

That comfort does vary with your choice of ear tips, however. As with the FH5, I find that JVC’s Spiral Dot tips are both the most comfortable and best sounding choice for the FH7. The longer nozzle of the FH7 does have one drawback with the Spiral Dots, which are themselves a very shallow design – they sit too far back. Spiral Dots use a series of indented dots (hence the name) to smooth out the sound waves coming through the IEM nozzle, but with the FH7, only one row of dots is left exposed.

The solution I found is one that was pioneered by some FH5 users that wanted a deeper insertion – a small rubber O-ring that acts as a spacer. You’ll want an O-ring of about 5.5mm inside diameter and 0.5mm to 0.8mm thickness, and if like me you struggle to source some locally, they’re widely available on Amazon and other online retailers.

With the spacer in place, the Spiral Dot tips have ample breathing room for the ‘dots’ to do their thing. The extra distance between the front of the tip and the nozzle grille also reduces the chance of ear wax finding its way into the sound ports.


Sound impressions

If you prefer foam to silicone tips, I recommend you try Dekoni Audio Bulletz, which I find more comfortable and better sounding than the more popular (and more expensive) Comply tips. You may also find a suitable pairing with one of the many tips FiiO includes with the FH7 – all of which are excellent quality, though none of which quite matched the quality and comfort of Spiral Dots.

Building on the design cues and clever bass porting first seen in the FH5, the FH7 combines a larger (13.6mm) beryllium coated dynamic driver with four custom Knowles balanced armatures, and an improved acoustic design to deliver a sound more refined and resolving than all of FiiO’s previous IEMs.

Rated at 16-ohm impedance with a sensitivity of 111 dB/mW, the FH7 is easy enough to drive, but mostly immune to hum or hiss when used with a powerful amp or DAP. Paired with the M11, I could hear no audible hiss even in high-gain and the volume maxed out. With an extremely powerful desktop amp you may start hearing faint hiss at high volume levels. Should that be the case, a simple tweak like the addition of an ifi IEMatch in the chain reduces noise floor back to inaudible levels.

Coming from a warmer, bassier IEM like the FH5, my first impression of the FH7’s sound profile was closer to neutral, bordering on bright. You wouldn’t think so, given the increased size and better materials of the FH7’s dynamic driver, but FiiO has obviously opted for a more ‘reference’ sound, sacrificing some of the FH5’s heft and dynamics for extra speed and control. The addition of a ‘super tweeter’ ultra-high frequency BA driver has also added more resolution to the mix, notably improving the clarity and detail retrieval of predecessors. This does come at the possible cost of some high-frequency stridency, as we’ll discover later.

Interestingly, FiiO’s new filter system lets you dial in (or out) the amount of high-frequency information by blocking (red filter), partially blocking (black filter) or leaving open (green filter) the sound path from the super-tweeter, which is placed front and centre of the nozzle opening. In other words, the filters don’t directly affect the low or mid frequencies at all; rather, they attenuate the highs and in so doing give the other frequencies more or less emphasis in the mix.

The filter system mostly works well, although the changes it makes are subtle compared to a more involved filter system that found in IMR’s Zenith or new Aten IEMs. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on your sound preferences. The filters alone won’t suddenly turn the neutral-tuned FH7 into a warm and dark IEM, even with the red (bass) filter in place; nor will it do much to the placement of the mids. Many users actually prefer the fully open green filter, which maximises the FH7’s excellent treble extension and air. The filters are thus useful in tweaking nuances of sound, but less so in terms of changing the overall character of the IEM.

To get a better understanding of how the FH7’s sound in real-world conditions, I ran them through a long set of test tracks and albums over the course of the past month. All of these tests were done with the M11 using a balanced cable, Spiral Dot tips, and lossless FLAC files (both standard and high-res).


Bass

You’d think with a substantially larger dynamic driver (13.6mm in the FH7 vs 10mm in the FH5) that the FH7 would be a bass monster. Well it is, in a way, but not in the way you’d think. The bass has actually been tuned downin quantity compared to the FH5, as a quick glance at the frequency graphs of both IEMs demonstrates. But what the graphs don’t tell you is how much more detailed, extended, and textured the bass has become. What the FH7 lacks in sheer scale, it more than compensates for in speed and resolve.

Like the FH5, the FH7 won’t add bass where there is none in the track. When called for, the FH7 delivers bass that is tight, punchy and lightning-fast, with a natural decay that lingers just long enough for you to feel it. It won’t rattle your jaw, but it will tickle your ears, and for a more refined and less fatiguing listen, that’s just about perfect to my ears.

If it’s chest-pounding bass you’re after, there are probably better IEMs out there for you. This is audiophile-grade bass that gives strings their weight and drums their texture without overpowering the mix in any way, but also not shying away from it.

Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ is one of my go-to bass-laden albums. With some IEMs – especially those tuned with a steep V – the bass can become a bit too loose, but the FH7 has it tamed like a housecat. The steady bassline that comes in at the 20-second mark on the foot-tapping track ‘Doin’ It Right’ has just enough palpable weight to lay a solid foundation without taking anything away from the higher frequencies (which are actually the emphasis of the track).

But don’t mistake this tight-fist control for meekness. Lorde’s ‘Royals’ lets you know in seconds if your IEMs can deliver a good dollop of bass when required, and the FH7 delivers with aplomb.

All that said, the bass is very well balanced. It underpins the music, sets the pace, then gets out of the way. The gorgeous bass notes in the intro to Ingrid Michaelson’s ‘The Way I Am’ are full of rich, weighty texture, but as soon as the vocals begin, the bass takes a back seat, falling back respectfully into the mix. With hardly any mid bass bleed, the FH7 gives the midrange a clear, crisp stage on which to shine, and that is perhaps its most impressive quality.

Mids

This was one area where I really wanted the FH7 to improve over the FH5, and fortunately, I was not disappointed. Whereas the FH5 has an annoying upper midrange peak that could make female vocals a little forward and ultimately piercing, the FH7 pulls the mids back a few notches while adding a not-insignificant amount of additional detail. As a result, both male and female vocal are rendered beautifully, without any errant dips or peaks.

Having said that, the FH7’s overall brighter signature also extends to the mids, and while vocals and instruments that fall into the midrange band are full of nuance, they can also sound a touch cold, depending on the recording. I don’t want to call them thin, because that’s not what I’m hearing, but the mids certainly aren’t as full bodied as they are with some warmer, more mid-centric IEMs like Meze’s Rai Penta, for example. This is less a case of weight and more a case of character – picture a ‘drier’ Brut Champagne, rather than a ‘wetter’ Rose Champagne.

When I listen to Norah Jones sing ‘Come Away With Me’, I’m not getting the same buttery, smoky vocal presentation I’m used to, but rather a more neutral, airier, more intricate performance.

Recently though I’ve been finding some (but not all) higher pitched female vocals aren’t sounding quite as smooth as I’d like them to. The problem is I’m not sure if this is an issue with any of the midrange drivers or the ultra-high BA drivers, though I suspect the latter. I mention it here because I’m only hearing this subtle ‘ghosting’ on a small sample of female vocals, of which the recordings are pristine and sound perfect with other gear (almost every track on Norah Jones’s ‘Come Away With Me’ is a case in point). It’s something that requires more attention, but nine times out of ten won’t be an issue for most listeners.

Highs

Even if some of the treble drivers are indeed responsible for the vocal artefacts mentioned above, the FH7’s overall treble presentation is very much on point. FiiO clearly went to town with the treble on this IEM, making it immediately more extended and sparkling than the FH5’s slightly rolled treble.

I’m normally quite treble sensitive, easily irritated by peaky highs, but the FH7’s brighter character doesn’t make them harsh in the least. If anything, the treble is among the smoothest I’ve heard in an IEM. So many IEMs shoot for extended treble in the hope of adding extra detail – and fail miserably. The FH7 just about pulls it off, perhaps not as well as a class-leading treble-centric IEM like the Andromeda, but close enough to make the price difference between the two academic.

When listening to brighter recordings, like def Leppard’s ‘Hysteria’, I often find myself turning the volume down to avoid some of the high hats and cymbal splashes, and as far as possible avoid the sibilance in the vocals. With the FH7 I find myself turning the volume up, so painless are the highs. The FH7 seems to have a firm grip on the highs to the point where they never overpower the mix, even though they might dominate the track.

This is a good thing, especially if you like energy (and even some grit) in your electric guitars. Joe Satriani’s masterful ‘Always With Me, Always With You’ is expertly rendered here, reaching the highest highs without ever making me wince. Timbre is excellent too, with the guitars sounding full and realistic. Sting instruments are likewise a joy to listen to with the FH7’s, and Max Richter’s recomposed version of Vivaldi’s ‘Winter 1’ from ‘The Four Seasons’ is both engaging and utterly believable. The detail in the strings on that track is actually astonishing, as is the way the FH7 is able to balance the highs of the strings with the lows of the bass, and everything in-between.

I’m still undecided about giving the FH7’s treble full voice by using the green filter or, as I’m doing now, keeping it slightly in check with the red. I’m still leaning towards the latter, mostly because I’m generally a fan of warmer over brighter, and with a transparent source like the M11, the FH7’s need a bit of help not to tip the scales. Switching to a pure copper cable is also something I’ve considered doing, given copper’s reputation for a warmer sound balance, and I’ll report back here should that experiment prove successful.


Imaging, stage and separation

Whereas the FH5 is one of the most open sounding IEMs I’ve heard, the FH7 is even more so. It presents a natural, spacious stage, with ample ability to fool your brain into thinking some sounds are coming from way outside the space between your ears. It’s definitely not the widest stage I’ve heard, nor the deepest, but it won’t leave you wanting in either axis.

More complex tracks, like the crescendo to Daft Punk’s ‘Giorgio by Moroder’, are deftly handled, not quite as well as some higher end IEMs known for their spacious separation and control, like 64Audio’s U12t, but at less than 25 per cent the cost, that’s not too surprising. The FH7 is far closer in its presentation and separation to the likes of Andromeda and Solaris, even though the far more expensive Campfires probably have the edge in overall balance and resolution, but again, given the gulf in price, the slight compromise is well worth it, and astounding to think how capable the FH7 is at its price point relative to these more expensive IEMs.

Stereo imaging is always precise, notably using Pink Floyd’s supremely-mastered version of ‘Time’ from the ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ as a reference. The ping, tick and chime of every clock is rendered precisely in its own space, and the nimble balance the FH7 displays across the frequency range lets you follow each clock as if you’re in the room with them. Anyone who knows this track also knows how it can trip up even some very good full-size headphones that cost more than the FH7, so to hear it performed so capably in an IEM is impressive to say the least.


Closing thoughts

The FiiO FH7 is the culmination of a steady evolution of the company’s in-ear monitors, and sets a new bar for features and quality in its price bracket. It follows the success of FiiO’s two previous IEMs, the hybrid FH5 and all-BA FA7, but kicks up the performance of both by several notches.

While the overall sound is balanced, bordering on neutral, the FH7 still knows how to deliver visceral bass when required, sublime (albeit dry) mids, and smoothly extended treble with plenty of air. It presents a clear, direct, surprisingly detailed and very refined sound, with a punch that packs a wallop. The versatility makes it equally at home with modern pop and rock as it is with vocal jazz and classical orchestras.

I suspect there may be something amiss somewhere between the mids and highs that adds a high-frequency shadow to some female vocals, but that could also be a factor of source, tip choice, cable or even my own hearing. That I don’t hear it with other IEMs, however, suggests the FH7 is not quite as silky as it could be.

Minor sonic quibbles aside, FiiO has once again upped the bar on value when it comes to their higher-end products, pricing them in and among mid-tiered competitors with features and quality that belie their cost. The FH7 is no different, and I can honestly say that if you enjoy the sound signature, you’ll struggle to find another IEM that can do what the FH7 can do, is built as well, and ships with so many quality accessories for the same price.

Full disclosure: I received an IMR R1 Zenith in exchange for my fair and honest opinion, with no expectation of a favourable review. The views expressed are my own, based on my personal sound preferences and taste in music, which may well vary from your own.

Introduction

I’ll admit this much: I’d never heard of IMR Acoustics, or its founder and owner Bob James, prior to reading about the R1 Zenith while asking Google to find me wide-soundstage IEMs.

The Zenith is, in fact, a revised and refined version of IMR’s debut effort, the R1. It shares its predecessor’s ability to switch between closed and semi-open modes with a unique rotating backplate, and retains the R1’s swappable screw-in filters that can, quite significantly, change the tone of the IEM itself.

Again, from what I’ve read (I’ve never seen or heard the R1 myself), the original R1 was a rather rough-around-the-edges first attempt that, while impressing with a large and rather odd dynamic driver made of a combination of piezo-ceramic and beryllium, was far from refined.

So what is the Zenith, what does it do differently, and is it worth taking a chance on this intriguing IEM from the one-man show that is IMR Acoustics?



Packaging and first impressions

The R1 Zenith takes the original R1 driver, improves on it, and houses it in a far more polished, well-made aluminum alloy shell that, if nothing else, looks every bit like the $500 product that it is.

Shipped in an understated matte black box that doesn’t exactly scream “luxury”, the Zenith’s packaging is as utilitarian looking as the IEM itself. Inside the box you’ll find a full-length block of dense foam with two small cutouts holding the earpieces. Two more layers of smaller foam blocks hold the eartips (a decent selection of multi-sized silicone, double flange and foam tips are included as standard), and a third block holds the array of swappable metal filters and a 3.5mm to 6.3mm adapter plug.

You also get a small, square carry case inside of which you’ll find two cables, one terminated with a gold-plated 3.5mm single-ended L-shaped plug, the other a 2.5mm L-shaped balanced plug. At this price you should expect to get a balanced cable as part of the package, so it’s good to see one included.



The cables have a rubberised sheathing that feels smooth and not too springy, although they are quite thin compared to the typically braided, teflon-sheathed cables most IEMs ship with today. Both cables are a dark grey colour - which fits in with the overall Zenith aesthetic - and seem to be well made, even though I’m personally not a fan of the two-pin connector (I’ve always found MMCX connectors to be sturdier). At least the connector plugs on the earpieces are both notched and recessed, which should prevent any accidental bending of the pins, and the cable material resists twisting or knotting.

Last but not least, a small calling card explains the differences in sound between the various filters, which I’ll cover in more detail below, and a basic user manual warns you about hearing loss and proper use of IEMs – a nice touch that I don’t often see with other products.

Overall the package in on par for a mid-tier IEM, if somewhat basic and visually understated. The earpieces are well made and beautifully machined, and the mechanism that opens and closes the backplate is fluid and smooth. The filters also look to be made of the same high quality aluminium, and are precisely machined like the earpieces they connect to (if a little sharp to the touch).

Feel and fit

Unless you’re buying a custom IEM, universal IEMs like the Zenith can be hit-or-miss, depending on the shape of your pinnae and ear canal. The Zenith, for me, takes the middle ground in terms of comfort, as in not uncomfortable but not glove-like like either. The tuning filters form the ‘nozzle’ and sit deeper in the ear than I’d like (being fairly wide as well), but not deep enough to really irritate, and any discomfort can be alleviated with the proper tip.

The shape of the housing is small enough to sit comfortably on my ears, although the protruding backplate screw means I can’t lie on my side with them, or wear beanies for that matter. They also look slightly awkward when worn, so expect to get puzzled looks and the occasional chuckle when walking around with Zeniths in your ears.

Since tips – like IEMs – are extremely user-specific, you’ll just have to experiment to find what works best for you. ‘Tip rolling’ with most IEMs is an absolute must, not only to get the best possible fit and seal, but also to change (or preserve) the sound, and the Zenith is no exception. Nothing changes the sound of an IEM more than the tips used, so keep that in mind when you’re reading my sound impressions.

As with most IEMs, I found the Dekoni Bulletz (my own, not included with the Zenith) to be the most comfortable tips with the best seal. My favourite tips, the JVC Spiral Dots, didn’t work as well with the Zenith as they do with other IEMs I’ve owned or tested, either in fit or sound, which is a shame really. The default tips that ship with the Zenith are decent enough, though not the same quality as the two I mentioned above.



Sound

Unlike most other IEMs, the R1 Zenith defies a simple description of its sound, but I’ll give it a try: big, bold and brash. Except big, bold and brash only applies to the Zenith with two, maybe three of the tuning filters. The other filters change the tuning completely, and in my opinion, change the very nature of the Zenith (and not always positively).

I don’t normally believe in burn-in for IEMs, but let the Zeniths warm up on some test tarcks for a couple of days before giving them a serious listen. I tried different filter combinations, eventually choosing the black filter not only because it’s the default (and presumably the one Bob used to tune the Zenith), but because I think it brings out the positives of the Zenith’s sound. As such, all the impressions below are based on the black filter, which is described as having “maximum attack with powerful impactful bass, rich mids and controlled highs”.

The other four offer more than mere variations on a theme; some make the Zenith sound like a totally different IEM. For example, the pink filter is supposed to drop the bass a touch without affecting mids or highs (although it does because of the balance shift); the blue filter is said to be “beautifully balanced across the range, natural and airy” (or, in my experience, quite dull and somewhat shrill); the orange filter rolls off the highs, and the less said about the copper filter the better.



As a source I used the 2.5mm balanced cable and a FiiO M11 DAP, which has power to spare to drive the harder-to-drive-than-usual Zenith, and a neutral but musical sound that works well with most IEMs. My songlist included, but wasn’t limited to:

· Crush by Meiko (Playing Favorites)
· Shark Fin Blues by Missy Higgins (Oz)
· Cathedrals by Heidi Talbot (In Love + Light)
· Hello Again by Neil Diamond (The Jazz Singer)
· The Waking Edge by Jethro Tull (Crest of a Knave)
· Viices by Made in Heights (Made in Heights)
· The Saltwater Room by Owl City (Ocean Eyes)
· Doin’ It right by Daft Punk (Random Access Memories)
· Winter 1 by Max Richter (Recomposed by Max Richter)
· Four Minutes by Roger Waters (Radio K.A.O.S)
· The Tide Is Turning by Roger Waters (Radio K.A.O.S)
· Bijou by Queen (Innuendo)
· The Story by Brandi Carlile (The Story)
· My Immortal (Band Version) by Evanescence (My Immortal)
· Love Bites by Def Leppard (Hysteria)
· Hey You by Pink Floyd (The Wall)

Bass

The standout spec of the Zenith is its massive 14mm dynamic driver, made from a combination of piezo-ceramic and beryllium metal. This is the first time I’ve seen ceramic drivers in an IEM, since ceramic is notoriously difficult to control and is thus usually limited to higher-end desktop speakers driven by very powerful amps. You could say Bob took a real gamble with this driver, but it’s paid off in at least one aspect: bass.

Not only does the Zenith deliver the biggest, most bombastic bass response I’ve heard in an IEM, it’s even bigger than most headphones, basshead cans included. The bass isn’t just big, it’s also fairly detailed, has decent speed for a large dynamic driver (thanks to the Beryllium diaphragm), and extends lower than a villain’s basement, delivering jaw-shaking rumble when called upon (and sometimes even when not). So big is the bass that when anything tries to get in the way of the lows on a track, it gets squashed.

There’s a part in Heidi Talbot’s soaring hymn ‘Cathedrals’ (0:50) that showcases just how big Zenith’s bass can be. Yes, it overwhelms the mids, almost floods the vocals, but it’s absolutely delicious, especially if you’re a bass addict. Similarly, at the 2:00 mark of Missy Higgins’s ‘Shark Fin Blues’, the sudden rumble takes the song to another level, putting you in a big wide cavern with Missy while the walls and ceiling shake all around you.

The Zenith is made for big bass and bass-driven tracks, and while I’m not a huge EDM fan, fans of ‘the drop’ will never feel short changed here. More nuanced electronica, like almost any track on Daft Punk’s glorious ‘Random Access Memories’, is highly rewarding as well, as is drum and guitar driven rock like Def Leppard.

Playing ‘Love Bites’ off Def Leppard’s ‘Hysteria’, the impact and visceral punch of the drums in the intro is palpable, almost better than I’ve ever heard (or felt) from full-size speakers. I’d go as far as to say these are among the best Def Leppard IEMs I’ve heard, purely for their bass impact, something that can’t be said for some of the better-known IEMs on the market (I’m looking at you, Andromeda).

Pink Floyd fan? If so then you’ll know how easy it is to get the Floyd to sound good, given the impeccable mastering on their albums, but how difficult it is to make them sound great. I wouldn’t say the Zenith aces Floyd, but it renders the drums on The Wall’s ‘Hey You’ so realistically, they’re worth a listen just to hear them on that track.

If there’s bass in your track, the Zenith will brandish it bigger and bolder than you’ve probably heard it before. If it gets too much, you can always switch to the pink filter to turn it down a notch, or open up the backplate to diffuse the sound slightly and widen the stage. If you’re really not much of a bass fan I’d give the blue filter a try, but be warned – all that magic I spoke of above will be gone, and you’ll be left with a poor imitation of what this unique driver is capable of.

On the other hand, if you like what you hear and want more of the same, don’t be tempted by the ‘maximum bass’ copper filter. To my ears it makes the Zenith sound thick and one-toned, with bass overwhelming just about every other frequency. It’s not even a case of ‘too much of a good thing’, it’s just too much.



Mids

The Zenith’s midrange is a complete mystery to me. I get that with bass as big and aggressive as it has, something’s got to give. But where I’d normally just say the bass bleeds all over the mids and call it a day, with the Zenith it’s not so simple.

Meiko’s ‘Playing Favorites’ album, released by Chesky Records and recorded in Chesky’s iconic single-microphone binaural style, is a perfect example of what I mean. On the track ‘Crush’ (a brilliant cover of the original, by the way), Meiko’s impressive vocal range doesn’t seem to be altogether there. I know how that sounds, but believe me there’s no other way to describe it. It’s as if part of her lower octaves just aren’t being conveyed (and yes, I did try this with a few different IEMs, and only the Zenith made her sound as ‘odd’ as she does here).

Compounding the ‘problem’ is that the instruments on either side of the room are brought far too forward into the mix, and given the Zenith’s flat soundstage (more on this later), they sound oddly separate from the vocals. This track – and album in general – is possibly an anomaly, especially since it’s recorded differently to many others. But it did highlight for me the fact that the Zenith’s mids are doing something strange.

The Zenith’s mids can be at the same time very fluid and engaging, and at others grainy and slightly jarring. In Neil Diamond’s tear-jerking rendition of ‘Hello Again’, his gravelly voice is almost perfectly rendered, alongside a clear and realistic piano. But switch to Queen’s ‘Bijou’ and the glare in Freddy’s usually pristine voice is too bright to the point of being distracting. I’d call it ‘shouty’ but it’s not shouty in the way that I know shouty can be. The vocals aren’t thrust at you all at once – parts of the vocal are a bit recessed, while others, like the edges of higher notes, are too forward, almost shrill. Recessed and forward vocals in the same track? Better believe it!

When they’re good, the mids, on the whole, are very good. They’re not the last word in resolution, even for dynamic drivers, but they’re not dull and flat either. Pianos and guitars are vivid, if sometimes sharp. Timbre is better than decent, and vocals are generally clear, but can also be thin, especially on poorer recordings. Depending on your music, you’ll either hear the Zenith as euphonic and engaging, or come away from listening sessions slightly fatigued.



Highs

I’ve read some reviews calling the Zenith ‘bright’, and I get why, but ‘bright’ isn’t necessarily bad. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve heard great extended treble before (FiiO’s FH7 and Campfire Audio’s Andromeda are good examples), so I know the difference between good ‘bright’ and blowtorch ‘bright’, and the Zenith can, at times, be the latter. Somewhere along the treble graph there’s a peak or two that will leave your ears waving a white flag.

This is not the treble you want for Mozart or Vivaldi. Listening to Max Richter’s re-imagining of Vivaldi’s ‘Winter 1’, the strings are sharp and shiny, but unnaturally so, with very little texture or decay. The booming bass at 1:28 is expected but stands out in its richness compared to the brittle presentation of the strings. Overall the Zenith lacks the cohesion, subtlety and depth to accurately convey the sonic complexity of this piece, and I’d wager most similar pieces of classical music, at least with the black filter.

However, with the right tips (foamies mainly), the worst of the Zenith’s treble rashness can be mitigated. The orange filter will also roll off some of the highs for you. But the best antidote to crazy treble is not listening to music with crazy treble, or music that’s so poorly recorded you have to wonder why anyone would want to put their name to it. The Zenith will do little to hide the flaws in a track, often magnifying them, so bring on the sibilance if you dare, because you’ll hear it in astonishing detail.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh (excuse the pun). The Zenith, especially with the black filter, makes no excuses for being a balls-to-the-wall IEM. Everything it does is unapologetically bold, so it’s probably naïve of me to expect the treble to be any different. Metalheads and those that love guitar-driven hard rock will likely rejoice with all the screeching going on. There’s a lid for every pot, as they say.



The other stuff

I mentioned earlier that I found the Zenith while searching for an IEM with a wide soundstage (being the HD800 addict that I am), and in this regard the Zenith doesn’t disappoint. As a ‘semi’ open IEM it does well in adding air to most tracks, although it still has the typical ‘in-your-head’ sound of most IEMs. Stage width is impressive, with some sound emanating well beyond your ears, but what it has in width it lacks in depth. I’d compare the Zenith’s stage to an oblong pancake – wide at the extremes, but almost paper thin.

Owl City’s ‘The Saltwater Room’ is sweet, melodic electronica pop, with both male and female vocals and range of instruments and effects. It has a wide and lush presentation that, with great headphones, you can almost walk around and explore. Unfortunately, the stage of the Zenith is shallow, and all you have for relief is the above average width. That means many of the effects crowd the middle of the stage and overwhelm the vocals, and are themselves overwhelmed by the instruments that are almost always pushed forward louder than the vocals. This track needs subtlety in its delivery and the Zenith is anything but subtle.

On most tracks imaging is decent, and instrument separation is fair (unless there are too many instruments playing at the same time). On spartan tracks like Made in Heights’s ‘Viices’, instruments and effects lend themselves to the Zenith’s clean and punchy presentation, and the vocals, not crowded by instruments, are distinct and sweet. If this is your type of music, the Zenith has plenty to offer.

Brandi Carlile’s ‘The Story’ is another great example of what the Zenith does very well. Brandi has such a complex, textured voice that it takes great control to render it properly. Zenith almost gets there…and then the drums hit at 0:53 and the guitars at 0:58 and you forget about Brandi and just lose yourself in the melee. That can be good or bad, depending on how you like your alt-country-folksy-rocky music. I’ll give it this, Zenith renders The Story with bags of emotion. It’s all in-your-face and extreme, but your feet will be tapping and your ears will be ringing and you’ll know you’ve been listening to a seriously potent IEM.



Closing thoughts

Breaking the Zenith’s sound into small, digestible descriptions is almost impossible. Give me five songs and five filters, and I’ll give you a dozen different impressions. That means the Zenith is always likely to do something right, some of the time, and I found plenty to enjoy with it while flicking through my music library.

This is a headbanger’s perfect IEM. It looks like something forged on a Mad Max movie set, with rubbery, snake-like cables and muted colouring adding to its steampunk allure. It’s not an IEM I would choose to kick back on the sofa and relax with a glass of wine, but give me a reckless road race and I’ll pop these babies in for maximum adrenaline.

For the asking price the Zenith isn’t cheap, and although the package is decent and the quality of materials and workmanship top-notch, the value really depends on what you want from your IEMs, and what music you’re planning to use them with. I wouldn’t want the Zenith as my only IEM, because even with its array of filters and tip options, there’s no neutral in its gearbox. Even the flattest (blue) filter is not as linear or refined when compared to multi-driver IEMs that have better resolution and finesse.

If you love your bass, and I mean really loveyour bass, the Zenith is well worth the investment, if only to hear what two miniature metal and ceramic drivers are actually capable of. It outdoes my HD800 (easily) and Auteur with the sheer size of its bass, and while the quality is nowhere near that of the desktop headphones, the quantity and control is nothing short of impressive.

It’s a pity the same can’t be said for the mids and treble, which canbe good – excellent in fact – but too often err on the wrong side of strident. However, if you’re not particularly sensitive to glare in your upper mids, and enjoy the occasional grating guitar, this may not be factor.

The Zenith is only the second of IMR’s fledgling lineup, and as such is a very commendable effort in a market generally dominated by safe, inoffensive IEMs. While not perfect, it’s clearly a step up from the debut R1, and has already found a loyal and passionate following among head-fi enthusiasts, and for good reason. It’s better suited to some genres – like trance, EDM, hip-hop, rock – but that’s not to say you won’t find it enjoyable with other genres too. What it lacks in finesse and refinement it certainly makes up in heart.

One thing’s for sure, once you’ve heard a Zenith you’ll know all about it!

Up next for IMR is a fully-open IEM called the R2 Aten, with an even bigger driver and a choice of five bass filters and six treble nozzles. Expect it to be a real sonic medusa, and I wish Bob the best as he continues to swim against the tide in search of his perfect sound. If I’m fortunate enough to get a pair, I’ll be sure to come back here and tell you all about it.

Full disclosure: Dekoni sent me the complete set of Elite HD800 pads to test and review on my own system with my own pair of HD800 headphones, without fear, favour or any expectation for preferential treatment or specific outcomes. The views and notes below are my own, and entirely reflect my own hearing, taste in music and sonic preferences in sharing them here.

It took me many years to warm up to the genius that is the Sennheiser HD800. Coming from unashamedly ‘basshead’ roots, the HD800 always seemed to me to be an over-hyped, overpriced headphone that appealed to audiophile ‘snobs’, with their hoity-toity classical and jazz-inspired playlists.

And yet with the years the HD800 just seemed to hold its own as a headphone that many aspired to emulate but only ended up poorly imitating. Even Sennheiser’s own HD800S, supposedly designed to address the few shortcomings of the original – namely a ‘nasty’ 6kHz spike and strident treble – split enthusiasts down the middle, with the likes of Innerfidelity’s Tyll Herstens boldly declaring the HD800S failed to measure up to its older brother in some key areas (bass distortion and muddled mids, for instance).

For everything the HD800 (and HD800S) had going for it, it somehow also spawned a sub-industry of modifications for beginners and enthusiasts alike (one of which, the SuperDupont Resonator or SDR mod, I wholeheartedly recommend as an essential upgrade). But, until recently, there was nothing that suggested the very interface between the HD800 and your head – the pads – needed tweaking.

Considering how ‘pad rolling’ is part and parcel of modern-day head-fi, you’d think this a little strange, until you realise that the HD800 is so sophisticated in its simplicity that even the smallest change can make a massive difference to how it sounds, and that most changes take the sound too far away from the HD800 ‘sweet spot’, the very sound that makes it so special and so preferable to so many.

Dekoni Elite – a pad rolling panacea

Dekoni Audio has built a well-deserved reputation for making high-quality replacement pads for some of the world’s most popular headphones. I reviewed their pads for Focal’s Elear here, and found them to markedly improve on both the sound quality and build quality of the original pads. That said, the Elear absolutely needs a pad change to sound its best; the HD800, as I’ve grown to appreciate, does not.

Not only is the HD800 one of the most ergonomically comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn, the pads strike an almost ideal balance between comfort and sound quality. The HD800 does what it does not only because of its massive dynamic drivers, expertly engineered cups, and optimised mix of materials, it’s about the sum of its parts. Change one, and the risk is you change everything else.

That goes for the pads too. There’s a reason Alex Grell chose the size, shape, thickness and materials for his pads. And yet in designing their range of Elite pads for the HD800, Dekoni unapologetically broke all the rules by changing not only the material but also the shape, thickness and construction of the original pads. Would it be one change too many, or have they somehow found a solution where no-one else had previously thought of looking?


Dekoni’s Elite series of pads almost always includes four different versions, and the HD800 family is no different. I received one each of their Elite Sheepskin, Elite Fenestrated Sheepskin, Elite Velour and Elite Hybrid pads in sturdy, well-constructed boxes. Each pad type is identical bar the construction materials, which, like all other previous Dekoni pads, are made from high-quality heat activated memory foam inners and real leather or plush velour outers. Along with the pads, Dekoni supplies a small plastic tool for removing the original pads, and a printed set of instructions showing how to mount (and unmount) the Dekoni pads onto the headphones.

Removing the original (OEM) pads is simple, made even simpler with the Dekoni tool. A few careful plucks, and the pads pop off from the cups with ease, exposing the original perforated Sennheiser dust covers in each cup. At this point I advise you remove the original dust covers, because the Dekoni pads have their own built-in, non-detachable covers, and in my listening, I found that two layers of dust covers were not only overkill but also added a thin and unwanted veil to some of the music.

Some have suggested the Sennheiser dust covers are integral to the HD800’s sound signature, and cut away the Dekoni covers instead. Not wanting to mutilate perfectly good pads, I decided to take the easier option, but the brave among you may want to experiment differently.

Installing the Dekoni pads is equally simple; line up the tabs on the back of the Dekoni pads with the indents in the HD800 cups, and carefully work your way around each pad, pushing in along the edge until it ‘clicks’ into place. In less than a minute the changeover was complete and listening could begin.


Before we get into comfort and sound impressions, a quick note on removing the Dekoni pads, because as easy it is to install them, removing them is anything but. If you’re like me and baby your HD800 more than you baby your babies (and for good reason, babies don’t come with paint that chips just by looking at it), then you’ll want to be extra super cautious when removing the Dekoni pads from your babies.

Inserting the tool and getting the first ‘pop’ is easy enough, but unlike the original pads that seem to pop off in one smooth motion, the Dekoni pads pop and then hold fast at every adjacent clamp point. According to the instructions, the trick is to grip the pads after the initial pop and then gently (and by that they mean firmly) twist the pads around and away from the cups without breaking anything in the process.

I believe bomb disposal experts have had less nerve-wracking experiences with far more dangerous equipment, but after some profuse sweating and less-than-profound language, I seem to have perfected the art of Dekoni HD800 pad removal. Still, I only attempted it four times – as many times as I needed to install and listen to each of the different pads for the purpose of this review – and I’m glad to say my beloved HD800 still looks good as new.

Look, feel and touch

The first thing you’ll notice about the fit of all four Dekoni Elite pads is how much thicker they are compared to the original pads. The face of each pad is fat and flat, unlike the round and shallow profile of the originals. Also, unlike the original pads that are filled with a squishy, semi-firm foam, the Dekoni pads are filled with a heat-activated memory foam that’s initially quite stiff and cold to the touch but quickly softens as it’s warmed up and ‘moulds’ to the contours of your face.

The extra size takes a bit of getting used to, both visually and physically. In my case I needed two or three further clicks on the headband to get the pads to sit flush with my ears on my very average-sized head, and while I love the look of the pads, they do make the HD800 seem a little less refined and more aggressive in appearance. Size-wise, take note, because if your head is larger than average and your HD800 headband is already maxed out, then you might find the Dekoni pads are just too tight for comfort. Conversely, if the HD800 has worn too loose on your head until now, the Dekoni pads will grip you like Goodyear tyres on a freshly tarred road.

Speaking of grip, one of the advantages of the HD800, for me, is its relative lack of clamp with the original pads. Due to the thickness and resulting slight change of angle of the cups on my face, the HD800 with Dekoni pads is both tighter and grippier. It’s not uncomfortable, it’s differently comfortable. The Elite Velour and Elite Hybrid pads are the most comfortable of the set, like two warm cushions on the skin, and while the leather pads are supple and smooth to the touch – and the leather is good quality real leather rather than the cheap pleather used on so many other aftermarket pads – they’re slightly harder and cooler, at least initially.


Sound impressions

All the comfort in the world doesn’t make a difference if the sound isn’t up to par, and on the whole, the sound quality of the HD800 with all four Dekoni Elite pads is excellent. It’s also different to stock, no matter what it says on the tin, so how much you love the ‘original’ sound (or in my case the HD800 SDR sound), and how far you’re willing to go for better fit or comfort (if indeed the Dekonis are more comfortable to you), will determine how much more (or less) you like them over the stock pads.

In designing the HD800, Dekoni founder and owner Tal Kocen said the one thing he tried to do was to smooth out the 5kHz (although most measure it as 6kHz) peak and by testing with different baffling materials. He also suggests the ‘openness’ of the HD800 design means that sound changes are far more subtle with a pad swap compared to pad rolling a closed headphone, and that “the biggest difference is that while they don’t necessarily change the frequency response much, they move the drivers away from the ear and create more space within the headphone.”

I took time to listen to each set of pads, taking notes using my tried-and-tested playlist to listen for particular nuances in the sound. Most of the pads were tested using most of the playlist, which includes (but isn’t limited to):

Amber Rubarth– Hold On (from Sessions From the 17thWard)

Heidi Talbot– If You Stay (from Love & Light)

Lana Del Rey– Video Games (from Born To Die)

Norah Jones– Come Away With Me (from Come Away With Me)

Thomas Bergersen– Gift of Life (from Illusions)

Def Leppard– Love Bites (from Hysteria)

Angels of Venice– Trotto (from Angels of Venice)

Jethro Tull– The Waking Edge (from Crest of a Knave)

Lorde– Royals (from Pure Heroine)

Max Richter– Winter 1 (from Recomposed by Max Richter – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons)

My HD800 listening aligns fairly closely with my preferred musical styles, those being acoustic female vocals, female-driven pop, light classical, cinematic scores, female vocal jazz, and soft rock. I listen to other genres as well, but in most cases anything that needs a heavier hand with bass or warmer, more intimate vocals is deferred to my second love, the ZMF Auteur.

It’s safe to say that if your listening tastes closely align with mine, you’ll find a lot to like, and much to love, with the Dekoni Elite pads. To keep it simple, I’ll cover how Dekoni measure and describe their own pads, and then compare what I heard with each of the pads on my own system.

Elite Velour

Dekoni: The biggest difference here is the Elite Velour pad will absorb a little more of the high frequency material and so you see a ~3dB dip between 10kHz and about 14kHz. It seems to take away some of the sparkle but causes the overall warmth to get accentuated a bit. Again, though, we see that 5kHz peak diminished and the high frequency material smoothed out.

My impressions: Easily the warmest of the pads, both in comfort and in sound. The opening sequence of guitar plucks on Heidi Talbot’s ‘If You Stay’ are as crisp and bassy as ever, but also a touch more resonant, with a slightly longer decay. That’s very possibly a factor of the added volume between ear and driver – something which also results in a marked decrease in volume over the stock pads. This applies to all the pads, not just Velour, so be mindful when making your own comparisons.

On that note, all the Dekoni pads will make your HD800 sound softer at the same volume setting, which could trick you into hearing differences in the sound profile that are only there because of the lower volume. Turn the dial up a bit to hear what the pads are really doing to the sound. I didn’t expect the volume drop to be as steep as it was, and to be honest is the change I liked least.

All that said, the change from stock sound, once volume matched, is subtle. With the SDR mod and mild EQ (I use SonarWorks religiously with my HD800 and don’t make any excuses for it), I never have an issue with treble spikes or glare, but the Dekoni Velour pads did take a hint of air away from the upper registers, and expanded the stage ever so slightly. Bass and mids, from what I could tell, were mostly unchanged.


Elite Sheepskin

Dekoni: This one makes the most sonic difference as the Sheepskin material by nature is thicker and less porous than the others. What this means is that the sheepskin does not absorb much of the material that hits it, it just keeps the material moving on through to your ear. The high frequencies don’t get absorbed at all and you maintain more material and ‘air’ to what you’re listening to. This pad is great for a little extra lift in the top end.

My impressions: oddly I found the Elite Sheepskin pads to have the least audible change from the original pads, probably because of all the pads they also had the least pronounced volume drop. It’s also possible that the music I listen to is generally well recorded with few glaring peaks, and I don’t have an extensive classical playlist, so perhaps the ‘strengths’ of this pad were lost on me.

Def Leppard’s cymbal splashes at around the 1:20 mark of ‘Love Bites’ can make or break a headphone for me, and if the extra ‘lift’ of the Sheepskin pads supposedly made this part any more strident, I didn’t hear it. Then again, I do have a particularly odd manifestation of hearing loss (called Cookie Bite, Google it), so it’s possible that the extra bite of the pads was cancelled out by the bite in my hearing, and the pads fit my hearing like a proverbial glove. Also I have a thing for leather pads, so of all the Dekonis, these were easily my favourite.


Elite Fenestrated Sheepskin

Dekoni: The frequency response on this one is almost identical to the Hybrid Pad, that is to say very little difference in the sound signature all the up to about 2kHz. The main difference between the two is comfort, depending on whether you prefer the feel of leather or velour on your skin.

My impressions: the biggest change for me with the Elite Fenestrated Sheepskin pads – which prior to receiving them I thought would be my favourite, given my penchant for the ‘fenestrated leather’ look – was the added airiness in the sound. Dekoni’s Fenestrated pads for the Focal Elear were easily my preferred choice for that headphone, and in hindsight that could be because of how well they balanced the Elear’s heavy-handed bass attack with the other frequencies. In the case of the HD800, I’m not sure the trick works as well, if only because the HD800 is not the world’s most bass-endowed headphone to begin with (which is also why my SonarWorks profile raises the bass level a few notches above neutral).

The heft of the mediaeval drums in Angel of Venice’s ‘Trotto’ was nowhere near as pronounced with these pads as it is with the stock pads, Sheepskin or Velour. Lorde’s ‘Royals’ also didn’t have the same aggressive thump that makes this track my litmus test for bass response. That said, if you prefer your bass leaner and more refined, the sound profile of the Fenestrated pads may be just the ticket. Strange as it seems I’ve heard the HD800 described by some as ‘warm’, especially with the SDR mod, and if you don’t like your sound too steamy, the combination of a bigger stage – even bigger than the stock HD800’s industry standard – and leaner bass will make for an appealing sonic cocktail.

Looks-wise I thought these pads would also be the most impressive, but unlike the Elear equivalent, the holes of the HD800 pads are larger, showing more of the yellow memory foam beneath, and giving the pads a less even appearance than I would have liked.


Elite Hybrid

Dekoni: Much like the Fenestrated Sheep, the Elite Hybrid does little to change the sound profile of the HD800 up to 2kHz. You will also notice a smoother transition out of the ‘conchal bowl’ and a nice arch over the peak while maintaining a little more of the higher 10kHz+ material which adds some air and a hint of sparkle to the sound.

My impressions: The Hybrids, like the Velours, were the most comfortable of the lot, but I have to say I find the combination of materials rather odd looking. This isn’t limited to the HD800 pads – I also found the Focal Hybrids rather odd. They have a ‘stitched together’ look that’s somewhat out of character with the pristinely precise construction of the HD800, but I guess the contrast could also make them oddly appealing to some.

In any case, the sound of the Hybrids tallies closely with Dekoni’s findings, although I did find them reducing the bass more than I’d typically want them to given the low base the HD800 starts you off with. If you do EQ your sound you may want to up the bass a touch along with the volume. The instrumental intro sequence to Jethro Tull’s ‘The Waking Edge’ covers almost the entire frequency spectrum, with some potentially piercing pings and razor-sharp guitar strings, and not once did I wince with the Hybrids on my ears. That a good thing for both my ears and the pads, and if you like the look, want the velour comfort and are happy to live with a slightly less hefty sound, these could be the pads for you.


Closing thoughts

You have to hand it to Dekoni: taking on an absolute classic headphone and tinkering with what many consider to be as close to perfection as you’ll get from a headphone is brave at best, reckless at worst. Fail and not only do you lose a sizeable investment in expensive materials, but your reputation among the Elite – excuse the pun – takes a solid hit.

On the whole, I think Dekoni have pulled it off very smartly indeed. They didn’t pretend to make a ‘better original’, rather going the route of ‘different original’. They put their cards on the table, clearly identifying the issues they wanted their pads to solve, and backing themselves with measurements that show where the differences – beneficial or otherwise – sit on the charts.

For someone like myself, who took a long time to fall in love with the HD800 but when I finally did, fell in love with it wholeheartedly, changing anything about this headphone was never going to be something I did without much trepidation. It took weeks of reading and convincing myself that a ‘serious’ mod like SDR was even fathomable (it turned out to be so easy and also so easily reversible as to seem rather insignificant after the fact), that a pad change was an order of magnitude more intrusive.

But Dekoni clearly did their homework with this set of pads. Even though removing the pads can induce a sudden bout of nausea, once you’ve done it successfully – by actually trusting the instructions – it’s all smooth sailing. Installation wobbles aside, the fact that Dekoni has created a set of pads that are not only better made than the originals but also use more expensive materials without actually being more expensive (not much anyway, and much cheaper if you’ve opted for Velour), makes them outstanding value and well worth a try even if, like me, you’re married to the original look and feel of the HD800.

Do I recommend them? Absolutely. There should be at least one of the set that most people will either find more comfortable, better looking or better sounding than the original pads. Whether or not I go back to using a pair of Dekoni Elite pads with my own HD800 remains to be seen. SDR aside, for now there’s just something about this headphone I never, ever want to change, and probably never will.

When FiiO first teased a new DAP in the lead-up to their ‘Spring Launch’ event in March this year, it seemed as if we were about to witness the world’s first submergible music player with phone functionality and some sort of otherworldly power source.


As it turned out, the DAP in question – the FiiO M11 – wasn’t quite all that, but in a market split between inexpensive barebones music players and a number of increasingly pricey, premium devices, it somehow still managed to be different enough and affordable enough to make many people rethink the meaning of value.

My DAP Journey

This review is intentionally going to be a little different to your run-of-the-mill product review. There are already a few of those on the M11 online, and @audiophilefan's excellently comprehensive review is a great starting point if you’re mainly interested in the nuts-and-bolts. You can also get the official marketing fluff and specs directly from www.fiio.com/M11.

Instead this review is written from a user’s perspective – my perspective – based on my own DAP journey and the decisions that lead me to the M11 after many years of denying the need for a dedicated music player in the first place. If that doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip over this section.

For the last two years I’ve been happily using Cayin’s excellent entry-level N3, the first DAP I bought having previously been mostly satisfied with cheap IEMs and my iPhone. However, like many iPhone users who’ve come around to the sonic benefits of better audio gear and, importantly, better (lossless) audio files, I found my options with Apple’s hardware quite limited. Apple’s insistence on doing away with physical cables was another nail in the iPhone’s coffin, at least as a serious music player, and so I hesitantly dipped my toes into the DAP market.

Fast forward two years, and my immersion in higher-end head-fi started piquing my interest in mobile audio quality, and while the $150 N3 paired with a cheaply delicious pair of $15 Rock Zircon IEMs was a whole lot of goodness for the price, it just wasn’t cutting it when I switched back to my desktop gear.

At about the same time, FiiO was coming out with a new family of DAPs (the M-series), and a new range of advanced multi-BA and hybrid IEMs to match, all priced not too far from what I still considered very good value for a part-time mobile rig. With its balanced output, touch screen, high-res Bluetooth support and customised Android OS, the M9 – at double the original cost of the N3 – looked to be exactly what I wanted from the ‘next step up’ in DAP technology. Paired with the FH5 IEMs, it seemed like an ideal package that, for $500, would give me the quality I wanted without going overboard.

For a short while at least, it was. After all, I mainly used my mobile rig to occasionally listen to music around the house, and for travel (for business and holidays). For everything else I had far better (and far more expensive) desktop gear. But the M9 started to change how I viewed mobile audio. With on board Wi-Fi, suddenly I was potentially able to disconnect from the desktop and listen to my main music library from anywhere. As a Tidal user I was also able to stream lossless music on the go, without having to piggyback off my phone. I found myself using the mobile rig more and more; the quality was there to the point that I didn’t miss my desktop gear as much, and the convenience factor was palpable.

It was almost the perfect setup – almost. For all its potential, the M9 fell disappointingly short in some very important areas. Equipped with an underpowered smartwatch CPU and barely a gigabyte of RAM, the UI was slow if not sluggish, available Android apps were limited to a very short whitelist, and the single-band Wi-Fi was too weak to survive moving more than a room or two away from the router. It was still an excellent standalone player for local music files, but then so was the N3. I wanted – and now needed – more than it gave me.

Which is why I was so excited when I saw that first teaser back in March, and even more so when FiiO finally took the covers off the M11, barely two months after the M9 showed up at my door.


What You Get

If you read through my journey above, thank you. I think it’s important to understand what I was looking for in a DAP, and how those needs changed, because it says a lot about what I personally found valuable and necessary. If you didn’t, that’s fine too. Either way, let’s get straight to the point: the FiiO M11 is probably the most-feature packed DAP you can buy for less than $500 today, and will likely stay that way for what remains of 2019, maybe even longer.

If that sounds like a bold statement, consider the shopping list of hardware features that come standard:

• A pair of AK4493EQ dacs configured in a balanced array along with separate amps for each channel, but also used concurrently to improve single-ended playback.
• A 6-core Samsung Exynos 7872 CPU with 3GB RAM, giving you a previously unseen level of raw performance in a music player.
• A cinematic 5.15-inch bezel-less IPS touchscreen with a movie-friendly 1440x720 display resolution.
• A choice of three headphone outputs, including 2.5mm and 4.4mm balanced options, and a 3.5mm single-ended output that doubles as a digital SPDIF source for external dacs.
• Dual MicroSD sim-type slots with support for next-generation 2TB cards for a total of 4TB of additional storage over and above 32GB of included internal storage.
• Dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi with a larger antenna array for improved range and connection stability – at least compared to smaller DAPs like the M9.

Out of the box, the M11 is both substantial and robust, if a little thick compared to the marvel of modern slimline smartphones. That’s understandable given the bulky digital audio and amplification components stuffed inside, but despite the weight it feels well balanced and reassuringly angular in hand. With glass on both front and rear panels, it’s understandable that FiiO saw fit to fit a clear silicone cover and tempered glass screen protector as standard, though I immediately put mine into a leather-bound sleeve ‘borrowed’ from a portable hard drive to give it more protection against accidental knocks.

Also included and probably worth a mention is the USB-C cable for fast charging, file transfer (unfortunately limited to USB 2.0), and digital audio out, and a 3.5mm to SPDIF adapter. The M11 doubles as a balanced dac for your PC, Mac or phone with 32-bit 384KHz support, or as a digital coax source, but since I won’t be using it for either, I didn’t test this functionality.

On the software front, the M11 sports a highly-customised version of Android 7 Nougat that allows for multitasking and does away with whitelisting to give you access to thousands of potentially useful apps.

Due to licensing issues more to do with Google than FiiO, the M11 is not Google Android-certified and therefore doesn’t have access to the Google Play Store for the full-blown Android experience. On the one hand this limits your choices of apps that are only available on the Google Play Store and require Google Play services to run properly, but on the other it makes for a more streamlined user experience with less clutter and background processes eating up valuable CPU cycles.

Whether or not the lack of Google Play is detrimental to your experience of the M11 largely depends on what you want from a DAP. From a hardware perspective it has all the raw power you’ll need from today’s and future apps, but could be hamstrung if those apps are tethered exclusively to the Play Store.

From my perspective, it effortlessly supports all the current streaming apps – including Tidal with offline functionality – and even more importantly supports apps like Plex and Netflix that allow me to make full use of my personal high-res audio library and gives me access to high-res video streaming from the same device, anywhere in the world.

Couple all that with a doubling of the balanced power output of the M9, and the M11 gives you all of this with some of the meanest audio capabilities ever seen at this price point, not only with IEMs but also with full-size desktop headphones and LDAC-capable Hi-Res Wireless headphones and IEMs as well.

Other software highlights include FiiO Link, which lets you control the M11 with your phone via Bluetooth (or your phone via the M11, though I’m not quite sure why you’d want to do this). FiiO Link only works with the FiiO Music app, and at the time of this writing is only available for Android devices, so again it’s not something I personally tested.

That said, the Cayin N3 had similar functionality, and aside from the initial novelty value, I didn’t see the point of connecting my phone to the DAP when the whole point of the DAP was to untether from the phone.

Ready Player One

With such a vast smorgasbord of features (I just touched on the big ones above), you’d be excused for thinking the M11 is much more than your average music player. Still, there are many people that are interested in a DAP for one reason only – music playback. If you’re one of those people you might want to skim over this next section, or jump straight to the next one, where I’ll specifically talk about sound quality.

One of the first indications of the processing power and software agility of a modern DAP is bootup time. Whereas my first impression of the M9 was somewhat clouded by the laborious (40 second-plus) boot sequence, the M11 is ready to use in less than 10 seconds, from power on to playback. By comparison that’s faster than my iPhone 7, which has a more powerful processor, and vindicates the first reason I switched from the M9 to the M11: to get performance parity with my smartphone.


Before you start using the DAP you get to choose your preferred language (unlike some very expensive DAPs that limit your language choice to the sales region – I’m looking at you Lotoo and Sony). You can then choose whether you want to use the traditional Android button-based navigation bar or a series of smart gestures (I chose the latter), complete with a short interactive tutorial on which gestures do what.

As a side note, whereas the M9 was my first-ever Android device, the M11 is the first I’ve used extensively, to the point where I now miss some of the smart gestures used to navigate around the M11’s UI. No amount of upward swipes on the iPhone will take me to the home screen, and side-swiping my iPhone doesn’t take me back a step – very disappointing!


Once you’re up and running, the M11 gives you an initial selection of three apps (FiiO Music, ES Explorer and Google Chrome) in a dock-like array, with a status bar at the top of the screen and smaller icons for indicators such as volume level, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth status, battery level and the current time.

Depending on your settings, you’ll also have a larger digital clock showing time and date on the main screen. A side-swipe or press of the middle dock icon reveals a second page with the rest of the preloaded apps, which in my case (my M11 was imported directly from China) contained repeats of the dock apps and a few Asian music streaming services.

What you won’t see is the very different array of icons, wallpaper and colourful apps in the screenshots above and below, because almost as soon as I fired up the M11, I began customising it to my liking.

Without Google Play, there are two ways to load apps onto the M11: sideload them by downloading the .apk files from various sources (direct from FiiO or from apk resource websites like apkpure.com), and by using third-party app stores like Amazon, Aurora and APKPure. With the latest iteration (1.0.4) of the M11 firmware, FiiO have also provided their own app store ‘app’ called FiiO Applications, although for now this is limited to a few streaming services like Tidal and other apps you’re better off sourcing elsewhere.


Speaking of firmware, the M11 makes full use of its Wi-Fi capabilities for ‘over the air’ (OTA) downloads. A popup notification lets you know when a new firmware version is available, and a few clicks gets the download process underway. In my experience this is seamless and relatively fast, although a weak Wi-Fi signal or slow Internet access could stall the upgrade process and make you start from scratch. Best be prepared to leave your M11 in a strong signal area and enjoy some coffee and biscuits in the 20 minutes you have to wait for the update to complete. Annoyingly, the M11 won’t update to the latest firmware in one step, but instead forces you to upgrade to every next version until you’re current. I was three versions behind, so do the math.

But again I digress. The first thing I changed was the launcher. A fellow forum member and M11 user suggested to try Nova Launcher from the Aurora store, and sure enough, it noticeably improved how I was able to configure and use the M11. Not only could I select the layout of icons, I was also able to change the icons of individual apps that weren’t to my liking, and hide apps I couldn’t uninstall but didn’t need (like ES Explorer).


Finding and loading new apps was a simple process, with Tidal, Plex, Netflix, Solid Explorer and TuneIn Radio quickly joining the list of pre-installed apps. I then spent several days finding, testing and discarding numerous music apps, looking for an alternative to FiiO Music (more on that later). Currently Poweramp is the best of the rest, despite some reservations on its ability to make the most of the M11’s advanced audio hardware (again, more on that later).

I’ve always been very big on UI cohesiveness, simplicity and cleanliness, and in my experience, stock Android isn’t quite as polished or consistent as iOS. A few clicks and switches in Nova, and I quickly got the M11 looking and working just the way I wanted.

Sound impressions

The M11 is first and foremost a music player. From the precision-machined volume dial, the play/skip buttons, array of output options, and fatter-than-a-smartphone heft, you’re unlikely going to mistake it for anything else. While it doesn’t ship with a music-only mode like its predecessors (the FiiO X5 Mk III and FiiO X7 Mk II), FiiO Music is your first-choice app.

Not only that, the M11 has very obviously been musically upgraded from its current and previous-generation siblings, both in hardware and software. With a far more powerful processor and more onboard RAM than all the X-series DAPs (including the X7 flagship), FiiO Music is quicker to load, smoother to run, and visibly nimbler. Inserting an mSD card with more than 100 lossless albums (many of them high-res rips), the M11 scanned and populated the FiiO Music library in minutes. I could even switch apps and surf the web or play a trailer in Netflix while this was happening, and it didn’t skip a beat or slow down at any point.

Once loaded, navigating the various categories in FiiO Music – tracks, artists, albums, genres, folders – is almost instantaneous, as is scrolling through long lists of songs. One click, and the chosen track begins to play without pause, clicks or skips.


FiiO Music is a simple, spartan app with a fairly limited menu of configuration options, so aside from a tweak here or there, there’s not much you can do to change how it looks or behaves. That’s a pity really, because as-is the app is sometimes clumsy, often restrictive, all depending on how demanding you are of your music software. For example, the home page of the app is oddly split into three sections, with a gallery-like display of current album tracks up top, a midsection of source choice (local, playlist or DLNA), and a bottom section that lets you toggle between Recently Played, Most Played, and Recently Added tracks.

You can’t swap out one section for another, assign any other category or function to the home page, or change the type of list in the bottom third. What you see is what you get, like it or leave it.

The single biggest advantage of FiiO Music, however, is that for all its quirks, it’s currently the only app that I’m aware of that can bypass the default Android music stack and play high-res music at native bitrates without upsampling. That means that for now, FiiO Music is your best option for getting the best possible sound quality from your high-res music files on the M11.

The good news is that the quality is there in spades. Straight out the box without any ‘burn in’ (if you believe in that pseudoscience), the M11 is immediately more neutral sounding and more resolving than the M9 I used before and the Cayin N3 I used before that. I’m no engineer or expert, so whether that’s because the M11 sports twin dacs and newer generation AK dacs than the AK4490EQ in both my previous DAPs, I can’t really say. It’s likely a sum of its parts – newer dacs, more and better amps, better audio circuit components (if you believe the marketing specs), a more powerful and efficient CPU, more RAM headroom, better power management. Whatever it is, the M11 just plain sounds better, using the same IEMs (the FiiO FH5), than does the M9 or N3.


Better still, the M11 is powerful enough to drive my high-impedance desktop headphones – the 300-ohm Sennheiser HD800 and ZMF Auteur – not only loud enough (90 out of 120 on the volume dial and both headphones are louder than I’d usually listen to them), but also with enough control that I’m not left wanting. Does it drive them as well as $1200 4-watt desktop amp/dac? Of course not, but you wouldn’t expect it to. The HD800 choked on the M9, and I didn’t even bother trying it with the N3.

The point here is that the M11 will comfortably drive lower impedance and more sensitive desktop headphones, of which there are many (including the likes of Focal’s Utopia and Meze’s Empyrean), as well if not better than some similar-spec desktop amps. Remind yourself that this is a $450 do-it-all DAP and you’ll get where I’m going with this. The M11 can, if you want it to, serve as a desktop replacement. I don’t want it to, but the option is there if I ever did.
Want specific examples? Let’s see: Heidi Talbot’s hauntingly beautiful ‘If You Stay’ from her Love + Light album. The opening sequence of guitar riffs tells me everything I need to know about the bass response of my headphones – and by extension how well they’re being driven. That’s followed by the first passages of Heidi almost whispering into the microphone, so close you can hear the nuances in her breathing. Or at least you should, and it shouldn’t sound sticky or sibilant. The detail the M11 pulls out of this sequence, and the control it has over the FH5’s variable bass response (it can sound slow or muddy with the wrong source) is exceptional. Tight and controlled is how I’d describe it, the vocals soft and far less forward than the FH5 is often inclined to render the upper mids.

One reason I really enjoy the FH5 is its ability to project a stage far wider than you’d think possible with IEMs. On some tracks you’d swear you’re wearing open headphones. Angels of Venice’s ‘Trotto’ from their ‘Angels of Venice’ CD is a perfect test for staging width, layering, imaging and separation. The various mediaeval instruments jostle for position across a wide stage, appearing first here, then there, then everywhere at once. The drums, when they hit, should sound and feel deep and textured, and project a sound consistent with their size. The highs of the whistles should be crisp, clear and easily identified in their space. The M11 renders the soundscape of this track perfectly. I don’t hear any sense of soundstage restriction, or rolloff at either end of the spectrum. The bass is big when it needs to be, but never boomy. Again, the word control comes to mind. With only 40 points on the volume dial – a third of its full range – the FH5 is more than loud enough and perfectly clear. The power here is visceral, but the control of that power is what’s most impressive.

I could go on – I have notes on at least a dozen more tracks, including Rosie Thomas’s quirky ‘Why Waste More Time’, Katie Melua’s ‘The Love I’m Frightened Of’, Def Leppard’s ‘Love Bites’, AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’, Lana Del Rey’s ‘Young and Beautiful’, Brandi Carlile’s ‘The Story’, Neil Diamond’s ‘Hello Again’, Allen Toussaint’s ‘St James Infirmary’, Anna Nalick’s ‘Wreck of the Day’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘The Final Cut’ – but we’ll be here all day if I had to review them here.

The takeaway is this: the M11’s sound profile is, for want of a better word, accurate. With a reference headphone like the HD800, everything sounds like I know it should, perhaps missing only the last few percentage points of speed and verve of a far more powerful amp and the smoothness of a NOS R2R dac (my desktop setup of choice). It drives the FH5 IEMs with the power and authority the spec sheet suggests, perhaps with a little less of the ‘fun factor’ I found when using them with the slightly thicker sounding M9, but truer to the reference sound of the tracks (which to me means more neutral). That’s not to say the M11 will turn your fun headphones into reference headphones, but it may sacrifice some thump for finesse, so keep that in mind when pairing.

Is this consistent with FiiO’s ‘house sound’? Honestly, I don’t know, nor can I tell you how it compares to the ‘house sound’ of its competitors like HiBy, Cayin, Cowon and iBasso. But I’d venture that any differences in the sound between the M11 and its peers, some of which cost up to twice as much, is more a difference in the tuning of those players rather than the raw sound quality as an objective measurement.

As a source, is it comparable to a good desktop-grade amp and dac? Of the ones I’ve personally owned – ifi’s Micro iDSD, and Audio-gd’s R2R-11 and NFB-11 – I’d say very much so, albeit with less amping power to drive more demanding headphones like LCDs.

It’s easily better – more refined, resolving and powerful – than the two less advanced DAPs I previously used, as it should be, best demonstrated by how far the same IEMs and headphones scaled upward with the M11. If you’re wondering whether upgrading to the M11 from one of the lower-end FiiOs is worth it purely from a sound quality basis, then yes, it is. Throw in all the other features and functionality, and it’s a no brainer.


The other stuff

The M11 represents good value at the current asking price of $450 (give or take a few bucks depending where in the world you buy it) even if you just bought it to play music with FiiO Music. Except you’d be wasting so much of the M11’s potential if that’s all you bought it for.

That’s because a modern marvel like the M11 is not just a DAP, just like a modern SUV is not just a car. It’ll play your music as beautifully as any DAP at this level and price point should, but what sets it apart from all those other DAPs – and many that cost significantly more – is all the other things it can do.

As a full-featured Android device (minus Google Play, of course), you can almost infinitely tweak how you play your music. Want an app with a slicker, sharper UI, dozens more features, and far better library management than FiiO Music: get Poweramp. Try before you buy for 15 days, or buy it for small change, but either way, it’s what I now use as my daily music software despite the claims by some that playback quality suffers and that it can’t play high-res files at their true bitrate (the second part is fact, at least until Poweramp’s developer releases high-res support for the M11, while the jury is out on the first part).


Or use any number of alternative music players: Neutron (which does reportedly support high-res playback, but the interface leaves much to be desired), Rocket Player, AIMP. The only recognised player you can’t currently use is USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) because it’s only available on the Google Play Store and won’t run without it, nor will its developers cede to the requests of many on this forum to make it available independently.

I use two other music apps alongside Poweramp: Plex and Tidal. Both let me stream my high-res music through the M11, Plex from my local network, Tidal from the cloud. Whether or not the music I’m hearing is downsampled to 16/44.1 as many suggest is par for the course on Android devices, I can’t say. Do I hear a significant difference listening to music with these apps on the M11 compared to my Mac? No, I don’t. Make of that what you will.


Then there’s all the other stuff, the non-music stuff. With no accelerometer or gyroscope, the M11 won’t automatically switch from portrait to landscape mode by rotating it. Play a movie and the display switches to landscape. Stop the movie and the display stays in landscape until you switch apps or gesture back to the home screen. Awkward, but not a train smash. The fact that you can even play movies at an enjoyable resolution on a retina screen with all the benefit of dedicated audio hardware already makes the M11 more useful as a media player than many smartphones. The same goes for games, but I’m not a gamer, so I’ll leave it there.

Multitasking and apps that continue to run in the background is another big plus – especially compared to DAPs like the M9 that tease it but can’t offer it. One of the shortcomings of the M9, for example, was the inability to run a system-wide EQ, so that tweaks made to the sound in one app would carry over to others. Another Aurora Store find – RE EQ – does just that, sounds great, is highly configurable, and works seamlessly in the background, whether I’m listening to music in Tidal or watching a Netflix movie. It’s even configurable per-app.


Then there’s the simple stuff, like web browsing, that is par for the course on a smart device, but not always on a DAP. With the M11, you can do all the surfing you like while your favourite tracks play flawlessly in the background. You can even control playback using the side buttons and volume wheel without leaving the browser.

This review is fast approaching 5,000 words and I haven’t even touched on features like Bluetooth. The M11 can receive and transmit high-res wireless audio using LDAC and HWA (for now it can transmit, with an upcoming firmware update it’ll also receive), one of the only DAPs to offer this functionality at the price. It can also receive Airplay from an iPhone or other Apple devices for true lossless playback, and that’s before we get to its Wi-Fi features that enable full high-res wireless support via UPnP and DLNA.

I feel like I’m saying my thank-yous at a wedding, but let’s not forget fast charging, all-to-DSD upsampling, Wi-Fi file transfer, and QC fast charging. For sure I’ve forgotten something that’s going to be important to someone, so like at a wedding, I’ll just say to the features I haven’t mentioned in this review, you know who you are, and thank you.


Faults? I’ve mentioned a few along the way, but they bear repeating here. FiiO Music is basic at best. The lack of Google Play will irk some. A gyroscope – or at least a software switch for screen orientation would have been useful, especially with such a great screen asking to be swiveled. There are some typos scattered across the UI, though far fewer than those on other Chinese-made daps (at least I don’t feel obliged to rewrite the English language firmware like I did for the Cayin N3). AAC Bluetooth support is conspicuous by its absence, and for no apparent reason either. Some compatibility issues have been reported with the first mSD slot and a small number of cards (if in doubt, use slot 2, but I use both slots with Adata 128GB cards without any issues).

I’m really nitpicking for negatives, but even the ones I’ve mentioned are frivolous at best. Guys, we’re talking about a $450 DAP that can do ALL THAT. This level of quality and feature blowout was frankly inconceivable before the M11, and now that we have the M11, it’s still inconceivable. Goodness knows what treats we’re in for at this price range in the future when the M11 exists today.

TL;DR

The FiiO M11 is the best sounding, best featured DAP you can buy for $500 or less. It is better built, better specked and more powerful than some DAPs costing twice as much or more, and raises more questions than answers for so-called ‘premium’ daps that deliver far less for more money. That said, it’s not a DAP for everyone. It’s thicker and heavier than a large smartphone, and nowhere near as pocketable. It’s based on Android but won’t give you the full Google Play experience. It’ll last all day on a fast charge but not all week like some DAPs. Yet despite the downsides, the M11 is easily, unequivocally, and inarguably the best value DAP on the market today, this year, and for who knows how much longer beyond that. Highly recommended.

Edit: as luck would have it, at around the same time I posted this review, FiiO posted Firmware 1.0.5 for the M11, which adds LDAC receive capabilities, fixes some of the typos I pointed out, improves the boot up animation, and squashed numerous small playback and display bugs. That’s four full firmware updates in the three weeks I’ve had the M11 - and it hasn’t even been officially released in the US and Europe yet (current ETA has been pushed back to early June for some reason - probably because they can’t make enough to meet demand). Hats off to FiiO for the ongoing product support and refinement, and for listening to their customers (though I know a few sour X5iii and X7ii users that may not share the sentiment).

Disclaimer: @DekoniAudio provided me with samples of their Bulletz tips in different sizes in exchange for my honest and unbiased review, with no expectations or conditions as to the outcome of the review, good or bad. Thanks again to Tal Kocen and his team for being so responsive to my questions and supportive in their efforts to get their products in front of a broader audience.



Introduction

My first exposure to Dekoni products was almost as an accidental response to my shock at the poor quality of cough-crazy-cough-expensive pads that shipped with the Focal Elear. My experience and resulting review can be found here: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/de...sheepskin-earpads-for-focal-headphones.23227/

So when I made the jump to higher-end mobile audio, Dekoni was one of the first companies I sought out, if only to see what solutions they discovered to problems I didn’t yet know I had.

As a relative newcomer to the small, brave world of IEM audio, I quickly realized just how many more variables there are to contend with when it comes to finding the ‘sweet spot’ of comfort, looks and sound – at least compared to desktop or over ear headphones.

Bar a pad swap or two, and switching between a finite number of sources, you can fairly quickly get a handle on the headphones that best suit your tastes and sensibilities. Not so with IEMs. For every full-size headphone I’ve auditioned over the years, at least a dozen or more IEMs can fill a very similar sonic niche.

And just when you think you’ve finally got a handle on that ‘one’ IEM to rule them all, you decide to try different tips and everything you think you knew goes out the window!

A quick IEM tip primer

My first inkling to the power of ‘tip rolling’ in general – and Dekoni’s Bulletz in particular – came soon after the purchase of my first ‘proper’ IEM – the recently released @FiiO FH5 hybrid IEM. Since FiiO saw it fit to include a handful of different types of tips, I saw it fit to try them all. Imagine my surprise, then, when each different tip, without fail, presented the same music differently.

As a basic rule, there are two broad types of IEM tips: silicone and foam. Silicone tips, at least the good ones, are made from smooth, pliable silicone that ideally sits cleanly in your ear and creates a relatively solid seal around your ear canal with the outer silicone flap. Foam tips, on the other hand, are usually made from memory foam that conforms to the unique shape of your ear, collapsing as it enters your ear canal and then slowly filling out to create a tight and hopefully comfortable seal.

Most people tend prefer one over the other, and for different reasons. Some find silicone tips less intrusive and therefore more comfortable. Others find them hard to fit and therefore less ideal for long term use. Foam tips, on the other hand, can get warm over time, which could be a plus or a minus depending on how much you enjoy the sensation.

Being porous, foam can also pick up more dirt (and wax) than silicone, and also tends to deteriorate much faster. That said, foam generally creates a better seal than silicone, and is therefore better at isolating outside noise and improving sound quality at lower volumes.

Bring on the Bulletz

Like me, Dekoni appears to be a relative newcomer to IEMs. When it comes to foam, Comply is the name more often than not associated with quality tips. In fact, my only previous experience with foam tips were the numerous sets of Complys I bought to use with my Chi-Fi IEMs, the surprisingly capable Rock Zircon.

For all their isolating qualities, I mostly tended to switch back to silicone tips in place of the Complys. I found the memory foam to lose its ‘memory’ too soon, and the tips themselves to lose their shape too quickly for the asking price. Moreover, all the Comply tips I tried tended to warm up the sound of the IEMs – which could be a good thing, if that’s your thing, but too much of a good thing when your IEMs are already warm and fuzzy to begin with.



As soon as I opened and examined my first pair of Bulletz, I knew things were going to be different. For starters, the memory foam was far less compressible than the Complys, but also softer and smoother to the touch. Instead of squeezing them to a pulp and inserting them in my ears, I could just push them in, and let them find their shape on their own. This makes Bulletz both quicker to fit and more comfortable from the start.

The other difference between the Bulletz and Complys was the relative change – or lack thereof – of warmth. No, not warmth as in sound, but warmth as in warmth. The Bulletz didn’t get as hot as quickly as the Complys, and while they did warm up over time, they never got uncomfortable as a result. On hotter days I didn’t even bother with the Complys, but the Bulletz were more than tolerable.

All about the sound

The most important quality of the Bulletz, regardless of how well they fit, was their impact on sound quality. Which is to say, they had little, if any, impact on the sound quality at all.

Cast your eyes back a few paragraphs and you may recall my shock and horror at the degree of difference a tiny ear tip can make to the sound quality of a great IEM. When I first heard my IEMs with the Bulletz, I had to check that I put them on properly – which is not as easy as it sounds with the notoriously wide bores of the FH5.

The sound was – well – as I’d expected it. No real twists and turns in the FR curve. Just straight up W-shaped and delightful as the FH5 is meant to be. Bass was there (and then some), mids were forward but not strident, and treble was as sparkly as the morning dew. Could these really be the first foam tips that didn’t cast their very own and very prominent veil of warmth – in more ways than one? Seems so.

For me, the litmus test for IEMs has always been how good they sound in the noisiest environments, and they don't come much noisier than the back of a plane. I've been using active noise cancelling headphones for most of my adult life, but ever since discovering the isolating power of foam tips, I've ditched the ANC cans in favour of much more portable and less obtrusive in-ears.

Prior to the Bulletz, Complys were the only real choice for ANC-like noise isolation, but that came with some compromises, as described above. I'm glad to report that not only do the Bulletz isolate every bit as well as Comply, they do so without any of their competitors' downsides. Just make sure you choose the right size tip. Too small and you'll hear every whine of the engine - and the baby in Aisle 32.



Closing shots

Much like how their Elite Sheepskin pads ‘fixed’ the Elear, Dekoni’s Bulletz have now fixed my previously skewed perception of foam tips for IEMs. Not only are they made from a foam material unlike most that I’ve seen on the market – less destructive and much softer to the touch – they’re also (according to Dekoni) washable too. That means you can actually use them for longer periods without turning them into little oval earwax candles.

If I have to be critical, the first pair of tips I tried were accidently squashed and distorted by the clamp of the IEM’s storage box, and for some reason didn’t regain their normal shape afterwards. None of the other Bulletz had this problem, so hopefully it was a once-off. And speaking of storage boxes, I was a little disappointed that the Bulletz didn’t ship with some sort of box or pouch. Even a plastic packet would have sufficed, but instead, once released from their blister pack, it’s up to you to find a place to keep the spares. Minus half a star for that.

Minor quibbles aside, I’ll leave you with this: if you’re looking for foam tips that fit like a glove and don’t change the quality of the sound from your expensive IEMs, bite the bullet and get yourself some Dekoni Bulletz. They come in two bore sizes (Gemini – small, and Mercury – larger), and three fit sizes (S, M and L), so there’s always going to be a tip combination with your name on it.



Comply might be the bigger name, but Dekoni is quickly making a big name for themselves in the small, brave world of IEM audio.

I was first introduced to Dekoni Audio products when the fabric earpads on my newly-acquired Focal Elear fell apart. Little did I know at the time that replacement earpads made from genuine sheepskin leather could not only make the headphones sound better than the original pads, but also cost half the asking price of new Focal pads.

In fact, the Dekoni pads impressed me so much that I was surprised to find they weren’t featured in the Head-Fi showcase (fixed that), and that they hadn’t been reviewed before (fixed that too).

Then this happened: the pads that I considered the finest ever made for a headphone – the premium brown leather lambskin pads of my Audeze LCD-3 – were accidentally nicked and torn when I set them down on my desk, much to my shock and dismay. After all, how could such a quality pair of pads that were still in as-new condition be so easily damaged?

Not one to panic, I coolly remembered a recent announcement from Dekoni on their new range of Elite pads for the LCD series, and rushed online to find out more. A few weeks later, my previous favourite pads were replaced by my new favourite pads – the Dekoni Elite Sheepskin for LCD – and my LCD-3 has never sounded or looked better.

Full disclosure: Dekoni sent me two pairs of their new LCD pads – Elite Sheepskin and Elite Fenestrated Sheepskin – in exchange for my objective and unbiased review, with no guarantees or demands of any sort on my findings. The views expressed below are entirely my own, and were not influenced in any way by Dekoni or other interested parties.

Unboxing and first impressions

Having already bought my first pair of Dekoni earpads, I knew what to expect when the new LCD pads arrived: a set of well-crafted, tastefully decorated and labelled glossy boxes, complete with a magnetic latch and ample room inside to house two pads without damaging them in transit.

Compared to how Massdrop shipped me a pair of Elex pads – in a flimsy plastic packet stuffed inside a cardboard envelope without any markings, branding or (more importantly) protection – Dekoni’s approach is a step above, and most welcome. Not quite an Apple-esque experience, but as close as you can get for a set of replacement headphone pads.



Removing the enclosed pads, I was immediately struck by how soft they were. Coming from a pair of ultra-soft lambskin pads on the LCD-3, the Dekoni’s sheepskin is perhaps not quite as soft to the touch, but certainly softer than some other lambskin pads I’ve used (including ZMF’s Ori, Auteur and Eikon pads), while still appearing appreciably thicker and therefore stronger.

Compared to the original LCD pads, the Dekoni pads are notably thicker on the rear side of the angled exterior, by a good half centimetre or so. The memory foam appears to have been cut in multiple layers, with the divide between layers visible through the leather, but you wouldn’t know it unless you look at it closely in the right light. This doesn’t affect performance or appearance, but it’s something I picked up so worth a mention here. The foam itself is firmer than the non-memory foam used in the original LCD pads, so compresses less and retains its shape more when worn (more on this later).

Installation and comfort

Audeze weren’t too smart when designing their headphone pads. Given the superb quality and materials used, the complete absence of a removable mechanism for the pads – be it a lip for the pads to wrap over, or holes for disc to slip into – the LCD pads are crudely glued onto the metallic headphone cups.

This means that removing the pads also destroys the pads – or at least, it destroyed my pads. The glue is so strong that the entire top layer of prized lambskin leather on the back of the pads came right off as I slowly and carefully pulled and removed the original pads from the headphones. Not only that, but a layer of leather was left behind on the cups! I would include a photo of what they looked like after all was said and done, but it’s probably too distressing for a PG-rated site like this one and is strictly against Head-Fi’s zero tolerance for gratuitous violence.

So, before you rush out to buy a set of replacement pads for your LCD headphones, just know that it’s a one-way trip. Once they come off, they stay off, unless you’re willing to stick them back with foam exposed to the elements.

Despite the trauma of the pad removal, once removed, the new pads were a pleasure to install. Each Dekoni pad comes with a pre-installed ring of 3M translucent double-sided film, and all you need to do is carefully lift off the paper backing, align the pads correctly, and carefully press them down against the cups (I suggest you watch thisYouTube video to learn how to properly remove and install LCD pads). 30 seconds is all it took to fit the new pads.



Of course I’m jumping the gun a bit here; having received two different sets of pads, I didn’t want to ruin them by permanently installing and then removing one to test the other, so before deciding on which of the two pads I’d ultimately use for my own headphones, I used removable double-sided tape on the three sets of pads (the two Dekonis and the original pads) to easily switch between them and test for fit, comfort and sound.

Speaking of comfort, the solid Elite sheepskin pads felt the most familiar, coming from a similarly solid pair of lambskin pads. It definitely isn’t as soft as the original pads, but that’s likely more a factor of the firmer foam Dekoni uses. The leather itself is supple and soft, but smoother and less creased than the Audeze lambskin, most likely due to lack of any wear on the Dekonis.

Both the sheepskin and fenestrated sheepskin pads were cool on the skin, although the fenestrated pads remained cool after a lengthy listen while the sheepskin pads became and remained warmer. Being leather I expect both will get warm on warmer days, but the fenestrated pads will likely breathe better and remain cooler for longer. The heat-activated memory foam of the Dekonis will also get warmer than the foam in the original Audeze pads, so if you live in a hot and humid environment you might want to keep a facecloth handy for the occasional wipe down.

Fortunately, being leather, with proper care and maintenance these pads should last many years, unlike Focal’s material pads that disintegrate a little too quickly when exposed to heat and moisture.



One other note worth making: the thicker pads and firmer foam could spell trouble for those of us with larger heads. I never considered the LCD-3 to have a particularly strong clamp, probably because the pillow-soft pads completely enveloped and collapsed around my ears, cushioning any effect of the headphone’s hefty weight. With the Dekoni pads, you may initially feel the stronger clamp, especially if using the new Audeze suspension strap.

I have a relatively large head, but even so the clamp wasn’t uncomfortable, just noticeable. Luckily, I still had several rungs of extension left on the headband yokes, so increasing the yokes one click loosened the clamp closer to what I was used to with the stock pads. Also, as the foam gets ‘activated’ by heat from your face, the pads will conform and distort, making them more comfortable for extended listens. With extended use the leather will likely soften further, transforming the Dekoni pads into the comforting cushions I know and love.

Sound impressions

I imagine some of you may have skipped to this section first, so let me get straight to the point before diving deeper into specific examples of how the LCD-3 sounds with the Dekoni pads: the Deskonis DO change the sound of the LCD, very slightly and positively in the case of the sheepskin pads, more obviously in the case of the fenestrated pads.

To my ears, the fenestrated pads changed the LCD’s rich, deep and layered sound a touch too much for my liking, but that’s not to say the changes were all negative. In my notes below, you can decide for yourself if you think these changes would better suit you, or if you’d rather keep to the tried and tested sound of the original pads and the Dekoni alternatives.

The first thing I noticed about the Dekoni pads was their thickness, and how the memory foam was firmer than the foam in the stock pads. Putting aside the effects of fenestration for now, this meant both Dekoni pads hold your ears further away from the drivers. This theoretically can impact the sound of the headphones, although in truth the extra distance is not substantial enough for a major shift in frequency response. What it does do is widen and deepen the soundstage ever so slightly, most notably with the solid sheepskin pads. I suspect the fenestrated pads filter the sound in ways that also affect soundstage, widening it ever so slightly.

Paul Simon’s ‘Boy in the Bubble’ from his masterpiece album Graceland shows off the LCD-3’s deeper stage with the Elite sheepskin pads, whereas the fenestrated pads sacrifice a bit of depth for more air but also more width and an overall more diffuse sound compared to the heft of the solid pads.

The LCD-3 is often lauded for its fast, clean, deeply extended and perfectly weighted bass, and the Dekoni sheepskin pads further reinforce that impression. Lorde’s ‘Royals’, my go-to test track for upfront bass impact, hits deep and hard with the original stock pads, and even more so with the solid Dekoni pads. It’s as if the room size has increased, and the impact of the drum reverbs hang in the air a little longer than before. Interestingly the fenestrated pads don’t lose much bass impact with this track, although Lorde’s vocals do come across slightly brighter than both the original and solid pads, and also a smidge thinner if I were to be critical.

That added thickness from the solid Dekoni pads doesn’t come at the cost of the natural air and sparkle that I really enjoy with Audeze’s revised (post-2016) LCD-3 Fazor drivers. I certainly wouldn’t want the sound to be any thicker, although fans of the pre-fazor warm-and-gooey LCDs might beg to differ. In fact, I appreciate the extra heft, the slightly longer decay, and the truer tones of bass notes.

Made In Heights’ eclectic electronica in her ‘Wildflowers’ track sounds bigger and bolder with the solid Dekoni pads, with less glare and more focus on her sugar sweet vocals, while the fenestrated pads render the track with a softer sheen, excellent separation and a touch more emphasis in the upper mids.

Voices are better placed in the mix with the solid pads, while the fenestrated pads even out the FR, injecting more air into the midrange and treble than the stock and solid pads. If you prefer your LCDs a touch brighter and cooler, the Dekoni fenestrated pads might just be the subtle tweak you’ve been looking for.

Closing thoughts

Dekoni have hit another huge home run with their family of Elite LCD pads. Not only are they well presented, beautifully made from premium materials, exceptionally comfortable and easy to install, they also give you the option of keeping intact the LCD’s already superb sonics, or tweaking them slightly to taste.

While removing the stock pads can be traumatic for some, this isn’t Dekoni’s doing, and with luck Audeze will rethink their pad installation design for future LCD revisions. That aside, Dekoni’s pads offer a viable – and in my opinion preferable – alternative to Audeze’s already excellent pads, and significantly better value at around half the price of original pads.

Just keep in mind comfort issue and clamp force, but if you have a normal noggin, that won’t be an issue. Also keep in mind how the fenestrated pads change the LCD sound, and whether or not that’s to your liking. If you’re undecided, my suggestion would be to buy both, and soft-install each of them to hear the difference before deciding for yourself. In my case it didn’t take long to decide on the solid Elite sheepskin pads for my personal use.

Unlike the Focal Elear, for which I consider a pad swap mandatory, the reasons to swap pads on an Audeze LCD are less compelling. However, when the time comes, I wouldn’t hesitate to go with Dekoni, safe in the knowledge I’m getting an even better product for less money – something Dekoni is getting an admirable reputation for these days.

It’s not often that one gets to meet a real celebrity; someone whose fame cuts right across cultures and households. In the real world, names like George Clooney and Julia Roberts come to mind. In the head-fi world, few are more famous than Utopia.

Focal’s flagship dynamic headphone has only existed for about two years, and yet ask most headphone devotees to name the headphone that sits right at the top of the tree and many, if not most, would say Utopia. That’s partly a consequence of the hype train that rolled into town when the French audio maker unveiled the double-whammy of its high-end dynamics, the ‘mainsteam’ Elear and flagship Utopia, and partly because of Utopia’s eye watering price tag of $4,000 at a time when most statement headphones were still selling for half that, or less.

Fast forward to today, and the Utopia is still the headphone I associate with the exclusive ‘summit-fi’ tier of head-fi audio equipment that only a select few enthusiasts can afford, let alone experience. As an enthusiast myself, I could never have imagined my climb up to the higher echelons of this devastatingly expensive but supremely enjoyable hobby would be so swift, and yet the headphone gear I now use and consider my ‘endgame’ is probably sat at Camp 2 or 3 compared to Utopia’s Everest summit.

The Utopia in person

As an Elear owner I am intimately familiar with Focal’s headphone design and ergonomics, so seeing the Utopia for the first time was pleasantly unsurprising. I’ve read reams of reviews and participated in many discussions with Utopia users, but there was still a feeling of privilege handling and opening the large display-style box the Utopia was housed in. Not dissimilar to the Elear’s box, it was black and bulky, but finished with a matte black skin and red trim that imparted an understated sense of prestige.

The Utopia itself was, as expected, very Elear-like, though it felt slightly lighter in the hand. The leather finish of the headband and earpads is uber-soft, clearly made of a much finer grade of leather than the excellent Dekoni Elite sheepskin pads I use with my Elear. The memory foam is also much softer, though not as soft to the touch as the suede-like Elex pads I use as an Elear alternative (more on that later). The Utopia’s carbon fibre yokes have enough flex to sit the cups comfortably on your ears, but unlike the Elear the yokes and headband don’t creak when twisted.

The latter isn’t an issue for me personally - there’s no creaking when the Elear is worn - but it does show the extra level of detail and build quality that went into the Utopia’s design, despite the similarities of look and feel with the Elear, that bestow it with its flagship status.

On the head, the softness of the Utopia’s leather translated to added comfort, and despite not having a suspension strap (an oversight in heavier headphone designs), the headband didn’t immediately leave any hotspots on top of my usually sensitive scalp. It doesn’t exactly ‘disappear’ when worn, but it also doesn’t feel like you’re wearing a motorbike helmet, a-la the Audeze LCD-3.

First impressions

I’ve been anticipating Geoff’s visit all week, and so diligently prepared a list of test tracks I was hoping to hear through Utopia, running the gamut of my musical preferences from girl with guitar to male crooners, modern pop, classic rock and electronica.

First up was Heidi Talbot’s intimately beautiful ‘If You Stay’ (watch here) from her Love+Light album, a track I’ve listened to countless times with almost every headphone I’ve owned and auditioned. Heidi’s innocently sensual voice and breathless delivery lend the song an ethereal quality that can sound edgy with the wrong headphone and compressed when the source is too digital. There was never any risk of that happening with Audio-gd’s exemplary R-28 all-in-one ladder dac and headphone amplifier, and even though the Utopia was using the amp’s single-ended output (I unfortunately did not have balanced Utopia cables to experiment with), the analog-like qualities of the source were immediately apparent.

‘If You Stay’ starts off with a series of lower register guitar plucks that should, ideally, reverberate and resonate around your head, and give the simple intro a sense of palpable weight and warmth. That’s exactly how Utopia delivered it, with every nuance of the guitar clearly and crisply articulated. Heidi’s opening verse was perfectly separated from the instruments that continue to play around her, and I could immediately get a sense of both depth and intimacy, as if she were sitting in the same room, singing her song to me.

Having said that, the Elex is no slouch, and so having ‘calibrated my brain’ by first playing the track through the Elex, I was left a little underwhelmed when the Utopia hardly deviated from what I’d just heard, minutes before. In a blind test I would be hard pressed to tell which headphone was which, other than the obviously cooler Utopia pads around my ears.

Similarities aside, the reason I keep going back to this expertly-mastered track is because good gear will almost always render it correctly, and any deviation is a solid strike against. So far, so good, but the first view from the summit was one I’d already seen before. Also, you may have noticed I used Elex to describe the Elear above, because having switched to Elex pads, that’s exactly what the Elear becomes. Since the Elex has a very similar FR graph to Utopia - and is often described as a ‘baby Utopia’ - I wanted to compare apples with apples, rather than use the more strident, dynamic and punchy Elear.

Change of pace

Strident, dynamic and punchy was exactly what I was looking for from the second test track, AC/DC’s seminal ‘Thunderstuck’ (watch here). Again a gorgeously mastered track, with good gear you should be able to get a real sense of stage width and space as the iconic guitar riff slowly builds up and around you, followed by the ‘kick’ of the kick drums - even before Brian Johnson’s unique delivery is heard over the backing vocals. Being treble sensitive, I use this track to test for glare in the higher notes of the screeching guitars, and as a bass aficionado, I want to feel the drums in the mix, not just hear them. This isn’t always an easy trick to pull off with headphones, but the really good ones will find just the right balance, even at higher volumes, without causing fatigue.

The three most obvious qualities immediately apparent in Utopia’s presentation of the track was its remarkably clean highs, superb instrument separation and ink black background. The sound appeared ‘out of nowhere’ and disappeared from the stage with equally stealth-like speed. I’d read all about the Utopia’s fabled ‘speed’, but didn’t really understand what that meant until I heard this track. You could almost slice the details with a scalpel, but at such speed that it would be humanly impossible to do so. The fastest headphones I’d heard prior to this was a higher-end Stax electrostatic, and this was every bit as fast if not faster.

Speed isn’t the only trait the Utopia seems to share with electrostatics. Not known for moving much air, ‘stats specialise in the delivery of tight, clean and detailed bass that often lacks the weight of real instruments or the rumble of electronic drums. This was a disappointment when hearing my first Stax, and likewise when hearing Thunderstruck through the Utopia. While not specifically a bass-driven track, I’ve heard the kick drums in the intro and the cacophony of drums in the body of the track conveyed with a real visceral impact on the likes of ZMF’s Atticus and the LCD-3, and even the Elear has a certain dynamic punch that makes Thunderstruck’s kicks stand out in the mix. The Utopia, while perfectly articulate, just didn’t do that for me. It was almost a sanitised rendition of bass, like one might expected from the likes of a Sennheiser HD600 or HD650, albeit a touch fuller than Sennheiser’s midrange models, and certainly more detailed.

But where you sometimes want to let your hair down and rock out to a track like Thunderstruck - or similarly styled tracks like Joe ‘Satch’ Satriani’s ‘Always With Me, Always With You’ (watch here) off his ’Surfing With The Alien’ album - you’re more likely to sit and clap to the beat while tethered to the ‘oh so polite’ Utopia. And that’s ok; the Utopia is not, as far as I can tell, a balls-to-the-wall headphone, and that’s by design. There’s just too much detail, nuance, and subtlety in its approach to really bring on the grunge. For many audiophiles that’s a plus, and my penchant for tastefully elevated bass isn’t something these folks will lose much sleep over.

It all comes together

Normally when I audition a headphone, lack of impact is one of the first things I notice, at which point I generally lose interest. But the Utopia was doing too many things too well for me not to pay attention - including the way it described rather than viscerally delivered the bass in the mix. Owl City’s electronically layered ‘Saltwater Room’ literally invited me to walk in and explore the different points of sound emanating all around the space Utopia created. Every layer was separated like an onionskin at the hands of a master chef, and expertly arranged so that the parts were never removed from the whole. On brighter headphones that lack a sense of nuance or control, the sweetness of Breanne Duren’s supporting vocals - which really steal the show from lead singer Adam Young - can be lost in the mix. Instead, the Utopia let me meander through the treble-laden track as if it were lush and rolling midlands, with Adam and Breanne walking with me and around me. It was quite magical really, and prompted me to write in my notes: “best treble I’ve heard in a headphone.”

Cohesiveness is probably the defining character of this headphone. Whether your leaning is more synthesised like Owl City and Daft Punk, or soft rock like Def Leppard, the Utopia presents you with a sound that is both richly detailed and highly musical, without favouring any parts at the expense of others. It’s impossibly smooth, lush and clinical all at once; and unwaveringly musical to my ears. Unlike other high-end headphones that specialise in doing some things well - the space and resolution of the HD800, the speed and transparency of the Stax, the warmth and weight of the LCD-3, the natural realism of the Auteur - the Utopia takes all these elements and melds them together into its own unique sound.

Of course it’s not without its faults, small as they may seem at these dizzying heights. Daft Punk’s ‘Contact’ (listen here) from their masterpiece album ‘Random Access Memories’ is a typical slow-burning, quickly building piece of artful electronica that goes from spartan emptiness to crazy mayhem in a few short minutes. There’s a frantic energy conveyed by the sudden advance and attack of the ‘aliens’ that Utopia’s measured approach somehow fails to grasp. With all the elements neatly intertwined, it almost holds itself back from giving any of the crazy effects prominence over another, but that’s exactly what you want to hear, and many less poised headphones will give you just that.

Utopia is also too fast, in my opinion, at conveying decay, which can make it sound a little dry at times. The droning decay of the deep drums that softly underlie Katie Melua’s ‘Red Balloons’ is a case in point, as are the big, bold booms in Dadawa’s ’Sister Drum’. In both cases Utopia lets you know what you’re hearing - heck it’s so detailed you can probably read the label on the backing material of the drums used in the track - but the size is all wrong. Perhaps it is Utopia’s expensive and exotic Beryllium drivers at play; the Elear and its equally sized drivers doesn’t seem to have too much trouble with the drums in those tracks. It could just be that a buttery smooth rather than hard edged articulation is exactly the sound Focal was seeking, in which case they’ve nailed it.

Back on terra firma

Later that day, after my climb down from the summit, I was reflecting on the experience with my brother, who’d extensively listened to the Utopia in days gone by. In his own words, “the Utopia’s refinement has an incredible way of dissecting the music yet presenting it in an incredibly musical way, so it is articulate all the while being delicate and pleasing, and not sanitised like so many ‘audiophile’ headphones.”

I couldn’t have said that better myself, so I didn’t. What I will say is that, combined with the right system, the Utopia earns its praise and position among the very best of the best. While I consider my system to be of a very high standard, there’s no question a headphone like Utopia will benefit more - and give you more - from a system more commensurate with its price tag. That’s not to say the system I’m using was necessarily a limiting factor, but that there are more gears to be shifted if you have the means to do so. Add to that the mysterious effect that synergy may yield with different components, which Utopia is undoubtedly transparent enough to respond to.

Closing thoughts

Which brings me to the reason I decided, in the end, to take leave of the summit, regardless of how stunning I found the view. Truth be told, the difference between high-end and summit-fi is not nearly as large as you’d imagine based purely on how much it will cost you to walk those extra few steps to the top. If, like me, you’re willing to spread your listening between two or more headphones, each of which does something different or better than the other and is therefore more suited to different types of music, then putting all your eggs in one very expensive basket like Utopia is not necessarily the best way to spend your money.

Then again, if money is no object, and the price of Utopia doesn’t make your palms sweat and eyes twitch, then few headphones I’m aware of can elevate your music to extreme levels of fidelity like Utopia can. It may not get you up and dancing, but it will make you cry - and not because you had to sell your car to buy it.