I’ve indeed purchased all three of final A line models below the flagship upon their release, which means – I realise it now – I’ve been owning A3000 and A4000 for more than 2 years now, and A5000 for almost one, but for one reason or another I always slacked behind on writing a proper piece about such last ones, and more in general dwell onto the family’s common traits.

A5000 like all of the A line is readily distributed in Europe, and can be bought from multiple sources including Amazon for € 299,00 retail.

Introduction to final A series​

I’ll take the story from a bit far back in the past this time: I’ll start from D8000.

final’s D8000 project was (and is) founded on reaching absolute top sonic results stemming from world-class leading-edge R&D and technology.

More simply put, this more or less equates to engaging into the following bet: if we design components which are world’s best, really meaning 360° best materials, employing 360° best methods, etc, then we’ll get the absolute “best possible” head/earphones.

Is that the case with D8000? Well in a sense, arguably yes indeed, at least in terms of high-range market reception.

Let’s move forward.

As you may or may not know, the first model within final E family of earphones was E3000 (presented in the same year: 2017), and it was created with the exact purpose of obtaining a sound perception as similar to D8000’s “universality” as possible.

Of course, E3000 as a product being aimed at the budget market, no one ever thought to start from employing top end materials or parts on them, rather – in a sense, an equally and perhaps even more challenging effort indeed – by “just” applying extremely sophisticated psychoacoustic research to otherwise much more “ordinary cost” components.

It’s totally obvious that E3000 do not sound like D8000 in the end, but it’s certainly as much obvious that their general presentation, and even some parts of their technicalities, are incredibly close to their intended archetype, again the more so when considering the ridiculous price tag they were positioned on the market at.

In the couple of years following those 2017 months final pitted a total of 5 other models onto the market to complete their E family lineup – some carrying a pretense of higher sophistication and style, some oppositely aiming at an even tinier-budgeted market segment, however all based on two common fundaments : employing the same single 6-mm dynamic driver, and offering an arguably general-purpose tuning, beyond modest flavour touch-ups ranging from bright-neutral (E1000, E500), to balanced-neutral (E2000), to warm-balanced (E3000, E4000, E5000).

Then – and we are in the end getting close to our today’s case – a different train of thought was applied.

Making headphones sounding “as good as possible” starting from “as advanced as possible technology” may be a nice engineeristic exercise but runs the risk of ending up producing a remarkable piece of equipment which is nevertheless distant from the particular, real-world preferences of many users.

Alternatively said: what if world technology’s best can only get some – or many? – users “close” to what they really need, but not right on the spot? Simple as hell, they will just be not fully satisfied – in spite of all the rutilant technological words accompanying the product they were sold as “best”.

So : instead of moving from technology traits towards application, final started flipping the point of view, focusing on specific auditioning targets to begin with (!), and got engaged on understanding their particular challenges, ending out backtracking into (re)designing technology, and developing products purposefully tuned to best pursue such newly scouted needs.

As I reported in the introduction of my B3 review, when conceiving their B-series final reflected on the relations between spatial projection and dynamic range.

Taking into consideration small bands, acting on physically unextended stages, a lot of overlapping sounds and voices usually happen. In such situation there’s a relatively lesser need to render “spatial amplitude”, in exchange for much higher demand for sonic separation capabilities. B3 are absolute champions on that purpose.

On another drawing table – and we are finally starting to refer to the A series now – they started investigating better on the dyscrasy between today’s most common auditioning situations, naturally at the base of nowadays’ user expectations, and the very different ones which where common when much or even most of that music was actually produced.

Within such project, they moved from observing that perceptions such as “sound transparency” are not modellable in terms of sound amplitude modulation (you know? those “frequency response graphs” you see everywhere… they do not represent the entire IEM/HP sound behaviour!), yet they are crucial to a user satisfaction depending on the musical genre, and/or the aforementioned chasm between a piece’s original mastering and its today’s reproduction conditions. And that’s just an example.

In their effort to model user expectations, soon they realised that a mixture of physical measures and subjective evaluations was involved, and to manage it all they even developed an appropriate internal-use scoring methodology called Perceptual Transparency Measurement (PTM) – no real technical details sadly available on that, bar a succinct marketing-level description.

As already hinted before, different types of musical situations require, or at least preferentially would call for, different renderings to best be perceived by the auditioner.

For classical and other acoustic music the sense of a wider stage space, and perceiving the various instruments well enucleated from one another on it, is of course much more important vs rock or pop.

Furthermore: while (for example) for classical music priority #1 is no doubt making sure that the auditioner perceives the correct relative distances amongst the various instruments (violins and other strings in the front, wind in the middle, percussion back there), having a particularly wide dynamic range (i,e. a particularly wide breadth of in-between sound nuances separating the faintest and loudest note played by each instrument) is not a vital requirement here.

Oppositely rock and pop bands play much more tightly grouped together, and their music is supposed to be much more blended in the first place, which is why sound field size and imaging are much less prioritary in their case, while resolution and layering become key, and dynamic range amplitude with them.

All such differences were known since the beginning to music professionals, and that’s why different types of music were most often recorded / produced with such priorities in mind to begin with.

So how to approach such situation?

There are of course two different ways: develop relatively more specialised headphone/earphone models, each aimed at optimising a defined subset of musical situations, or, work on R&D to try and come up with something that will cover a broader, ideally almost universal applicative span.

While the former method would naturally result in products loved by relatively restricted groups of specific enthusiasts, the latter is supposed to deliver products that would be recognised as excellent by a very diverse users population.

Cutting this very long story very, very short: final’s marketing narration tells us they re-thought their (intended) universal-purpose IEM line on the basis of more up to date technical-demoscopic research, in parallel of course to their ever-accruing technological advancements and skills.

Fair enough. Enter the A series then !

Starting from the first model and flagship – A8000 – and through its other 3 ones named A4000, A3000 and A5000 (mentioned in the order of their release dates) A series is focused on delivering the most extended possible mix of clarity and spaciousness together, while not compromising on dynamic range.

In final’s own words (referred to A4000): “realize [its] quality not by its ability to create sound capable of attracting a small number of wild fans through its strong individuality, but rather sound aimed at greater universality”.

A bold target, indeed. I mean… try asking Diderot and D’Alembert…

No wonder that once self-encased in such an epic task they deemed it appropriate to specially develop a brand-new dynamic driver from the ground up. Or indeed, even two different ones.

The first one is the so-named “Truly Pure Beryllium Diaphragm” driver created on purpose for their A8000, released some four years ago. One of the very few real things on the market when it comes to Beryllium foil adoption. By the way: you did laugh at cheap chifi brands’ sudden hype, emerged just weeks after final and very few other higher standing companies presented their new Beryllium-tech drivers, stating they could deliver “True Beryllium” diaphragms for a fraction of the price, didn’t you?

Past social marketing fun apart, at the technological level the resort to Beryllium came from the search for an extremely lightweight material, to obtain superfast sound propagation speeds. In other words: they designed the fastest-moving dynamic driver they could think of, meant as a crucial component to get to the intended sonic target.

They also developed a second version of such driver, the so-called “f-Core DU” driver. No Beryllium in there, “just” a call for a speed as close to that of the Truly Pure Beryllium Driver, for a much lower manufacturing cost – both in terms of sheer material cost and of the equipment and skills required to treat it – which is a quite as tough industrial challenge, indeed.

I won’t bother you with the various marketing wordage final uses about the f-Core DU, you can find some here if you like. Long story short: it’s fast, very fast, and it costs less so it can be fit into “budget” finished products – as low as € 130 retail, instead of 2K€-tagged ones as the TPBD.

All good, even epic, indeed. But did it all work ?

Well if you want my opinion – and I presume you do at least a bit, otherwise why wasting your time reading all this? – yes to an extent, but not quite as they intended to.

Be warned: in frankness, I must say I am not a supporter of the project in line of principle. Universality and optimisation are irreconcilable enemies for me, and my life is made of distilled choices in most if not really all of its aspects, so I will always be a supporter for “specialised” vs “genericist” – and this applies to “items” (audio gear, vacuum cleaners, cars) as well as to “services” (restaurants, jobs…), or relations (friends, partners). This alone might and probably should be seen as an apriori bias leading me to downvote final A instances vs their declared intentions.

That being duly noted, first and foremost I must say I was not impressed by A8000, considering its price of 2000 €.

While I never owned an A8000 sample, I took some extended audition time on them during the latest Munich High End show, and there I built some solid “impressions” – not the same as a long term experience, for sure, however I feel what I heard is enough to form a clean opinion about their key aspects at the very least.

That beryllium-based fantastic driver is, indeed, as fast as a planar, and maybe even more – and that’s precisely why I reckon it fails on delivering a truly organic timbre – as I can’t fail decoding its supersnappy transients as a taint of artificiality touching pretty much everything in their presentation.

That is indeed a monumental pity, as it undermines all the effectively marvelous other deeds no doubt accomplished by A8000 in terms of clarity, spatial drawing, tonal coherence, range extension and more. However, an artificial timbre is a too serious turn off for me.

As for A3000, A4000 and A5000, instead, I happen to have purchased a sample of each right upon their release dates – so I have a much more extended opinion on each of them. You already [should] know my take regarding A3000, as I covered them here.

This article is of course about A5000, and before you wonder I will not write a full blown piece about A4000, and I hope I will succeed conveying why within the Comparisons section, here below,

Well I guess I can consider this introduction over now…

Full Device Card​

Test setup and preliminary notes​

Sources: AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt / Chord Mojo / E1DA 9038D, 9038SG3 / Questyle QP1R, QP2R, M15, CMA-400i / Sony WM-1A – INAIRS foam or JVC SpiralDot silicon tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC + DSD 64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

A5000 are tuned following a rather classical V shape, if a bit wide, so with elevated bass and sub-bass, energetic treble and (moderately, in this case) recessed mids.

The timbre is clear and a whiff lean-ish but not too much really, and the result stays reasonably close to organicity. The overall impact is a bit off neutral colour, shifted towards the cold side, and medium-bodied notes, a bit more such towards the bass, and less towards the high-mids and higher on.


Sub-Bass

Sub-bass is fully extended, and more elevated then midbass. It is not overly elevated though, so it stays there as a good, hearable rumble floor when of course the music calls for it.


Mid Bass

Mid bass on A5000 is good, fast, with quite pulpy and well contoured notes. Decay is tight, attack perhaps a bit on the relaxed side. From my library I get good bass readability, yet when pushing a bit up on the amping kickdrum may at times tend to get fuzzy. Even in such occasions however mid bass in never bleeding on the mids.


Mids

Mids are recessed yet well delivered nonetheless. They do partake to the overall note leanness, probably ultimately connaturate to the very f-Core DU driver, and such feat may resolve into a first impression of relative coldness and unwanted thinness.

Letting music flow, however, one appreciates such texturing, and the level of detail which are present in this segment, too, with that soon re-ranking A5000’s mids onto their honest value in the overall mix. It stays anyhow true that central piano octaves, and some guitars, will sound dry, somewhat unlushy.

No doubt, a sole driver is in general on vantage position to grant seamless tonal passage from mids to highmids, and this is the case on A5000 too, even in presence of a steep-ish ramp in the output, up to an important pinna gain at around 4Khz.

Good news include that there’s very little if any glare.


Male Vocals

A5000 treat baritones an basses with good authority and power, and tenors too but those start to partake to the mids’ general dryness – this, in spite of their relatively recessed level in the presentation.


Female Vocals

Female vocale are sparkly, energetic and clear. I would much prefer them having some more “butter” on them, yet their actual tonality is in the end consistent with the rest of A5000 signature, which is clearly not mid-centric by design, quite the opposite as we already noted.

Sadly, they are quite often affected by sibilance which paired with their dry-ish timbre brings them south of truly organic, and most importantly lets them come across quite raw a bit too often.


Highs

A5000 trebles are a mixed bag, and that’s a real pity. On one end there’s very good energy, sparkle, and clarity, without excessive thinness, and no zings. On the down side however they do lack airiness, and often expose a modest yet fastidious sibilance – and more in general their elevation and modulation is anyhow such to produce fatigue on mid-length listening sessions, which is a serious turn off to me.

Sadly, JVC SpiralDot tips – usually quite effective in taming harsh trebles and sibilance – don’t help in this particular case.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

In compliance with an intended feature for the entire A family, A5000 offer soundstage drawing capabilities that are extremely significant in absolute terms, with this I mean they widely transcend the levels of other drivers, probably most other drivers, in their price category.

A5000 in particular draw very ample width, and even more remarkable height, paired with no less than significant depth.


Imaging

Microdynamics are an absolute forte on A5000 – it is always very easy to pinpoint instruments on the stage, and their positioning is offered in a very natural way.


Details

Detail retrieval is extremely good, perhaps even sensational on A5000 on the low mids and mid bass. It is also above average, but just that, in the trebles, due to their previously mentioned tendency to get a bit hot.


Instrument separation

Layering and separation are very good on A5000, at the absolute top and beyond of their direct price competitors. This, paired with the aforementioned drawn stage amplitude, depending on the particular track master delivers a comprehensive no less then theatrical spatial experience, with voices not only well identified and enucleated, but also seemingly positioned at sensible distances from one other.

Microdynamics are a bit above average but no more then that, hampered in general by the driver’s tightness. Within such general view, they are better on mid bass and low mids, and more limited the more we go up in the frequencies.


Driveability

Properly driving A5000 is not overly hard, but their 100dB/mW sensitivity at 18 ohm does call for sources with at least some current delivery muscle on low impedance loads. Read: I would not recommend direct smartphone pairing, or other particularly known-weak mobile source usage.

Physicals​

Build

The ABS resin material appears fully resistant to “normal” solicitations. The Shibo finish is a love/hate thing (I am in the former group).

Recessed and notched cable connectors are good on the tech side, but a bit inconvenient for the user as only few(er) third party manufacturers easily make compatible 2pin terminations available.


Fit

A 3-contact-point fit between the housing and the outer ear has been designed by final aiming at the best compromise between wearing firmness and light stress accumulation over time.

The design idea is quite brilliant to be honest, the rationale being: you need (just) 3 grip points to obtain stability. One is the eartip umbrella, inside the canal. Another one is the housing’s short front side vs the tragus. And the third can be any one of the possible 4 contact spots between the housing’s shaped back side and the concha – depending on one’s ear particular shape that of course will happen on one or another position. I would say that for my experience it all works as intended.



The nozzle is relatively short – same situation for the whole A series of course as the shell size&shape is identical on all models – that calls for a shallow fit, which is consistent with the housings’ shape and size: pushing them further in would defeat their triple-support-point design, and most of all would (and will – I tried!) soon become uncomfortable.

Be as it may, this situation makes tip choice apriori limited. In my case luckily the working trick “just” stays in choosing a bigger size for my left ear: that gets me a firm grip and seal with the tip sitting “just in” the canal. Oh and by the way: stock final E black tips are good for the purpose.


Comfort

A5000’s particular housings size, their 3-point-fit design, and their external finish all contribute to a good comfort once the right “personal” position is found.

Oppositely, if you want, or feel obliged by your particular outer ear conformation, to opt for a deeper fit very high chances are that A5000 housings will not be as comfy for you after a moderate, and in the worst cases even short period of time.


Isolation

Passive isolation is quite nice once A5000 are properly fitted “as per design”, but not more than that as the housings won’t even “fill the concha up”, which would of course block more of the leak.


Cable

A5000 stock cable is a new model for final. Instead of the Junkosha silver plated copper, 2-thread PVC-sheated cable bundled with A8000, E5000 and B3, a new silver plated copper 8-thread braided cable is offered.

final did not disclose much additional information, nor spare / alternative termination versions are available yet on their website.

Sadly, similarly to all other final packages, no modular termination plugs are available on A5000 either, so pairing to a balanced source requires swapping it anyhow.

Talking about cable rolling: better stay on silver plated. Dunu DUW-02S is a good rec for A5000.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

final A3000 – € 109,99 Amazon.it​

There’s an almost 3x price difference between A3000 and A5000, and such piece of data is totally misleading. In terms of general quality, strong points and – more simply – listening pleasure, the two are on par at the very least, and depending on personal tastes (such as in my case) A3000 indeed come ahead in the comparison. Which means that, while A5000 are already worth every cent of their cost, A3000 represent a total no brainer for whoever is akin to their presentation flavour.

Insofar as part of the same A family, the two models share identical housings (A5000 just carrying a different external finish) and drivers, and their packages bundles are identical too. A5000 come with a supposed higher quality cable – which however did not impress me too much in terms of sonic quality, not to speak about the fact that, both carrying a classical non-modular single ended termination, I had to swap both for the sake of properly exploiting my various sources.

A3000 present a U, or even W if you wish, shaped presentation in lieu of the (wide) V on the A5000. In terms of modulation, there are two extremely important, and crucial differences between the two tunings.

One: high mids are tamed and very slowly growing from 2 all the way to 6KHz on A3000, while “more harmanilly” ramping quite sharply from 2 to 3Khz on A5000, and almost plateauing thereafter.

Two: mid bass and mids are all the way uniformly more forward on A3000, this already per se resulting in a perceivable warmer tonality and a bit fuller timbre across the board, but it all results in a very evidently different overall timbre and tonality balance as the two aspects of course work together.

A3000 have an overall tonality which is much more pleasing to my ears, and while it may be said to be a bit less energetic and dynamic especially on guitars and trumpets, I would never trade added muscle in those areas for the wonderfully delicate balance A3000 offer on acoustic music, therein included tracks with vocals, and female vocals in particular.

Both sets can be said to have a non-lushy timbre, with A5000 on a furtherly drier position. A5000 have an evident if modest bit better extension towards the bass, with their sub-bass rumble being more nicely present in many occasions. Sadly, both are unable to completely avoid sibilance, but A3000 fall into this pit less then 50% of the times compared to A5000. Even with that said, however, in presence of similar 6KHz peaks A3000’s more relaxed high mids tuning makes them much, much less fatiguing, and pleasant to enjoy even for quite long sessions.

Technicalities such as soundstage casting and microdynamics are on par at stunning levels on the two models. Microdynamics are an evident tad better on A3000 thanks to their slightly more relaxed transients across the board. Similarly, detail retrieval is better on A3000 both on the bass, and moreover on the high mids and trebles, vis-a-vis them being much less invasively “hot” compare to A5000’s.

A3000 carry a (decisive) even lower sensitivity, which makes totally impossible to disregard selecting an adequate power source when it comes to pairing choices. Forget smartphones, and all low powered sources / dongles too. To give an idea, a Sony NW-A55 is barely enough to cope with A3000, with no headroom to spare to compensate for low volume recorded tracks.

final A4000 – € 129,99 Amazon.de​

A4000 are the third individual in the “different twins born group” A3000-A4000-A5000. With this said, let me cut very short here on everything else which is similar or even identical between A4000 and A5000: shells, package, fit and comfort, cable (identical to A3000’s, different to A5000’s but not “practically so” in the end, see above), and last but not least f-Core DU driver.

Presentations are also quite similar between A4000 and A5000, however they diverge by that small much that makes for a decisive difference – especially for my tastes. Similarities are in the general tuning, which is a V, a sharper one at that on A4000, and on timbre, which is equally fast / clear on both models. Soundstage and imaging are equivalently top notch too. A5000 have farther lower extension, resulting in a more strongly evident sub-bass.

Most important, and crucially, A4000 offer even more energetic high mids than A5000, which is where their tonality breaks in my opinion, and anyhow for my tastes. Fast transient, so much (too much!) energy on guitars, trumpets and high piano chords, and that 6KHz peak which won’t forgive sibilating more frequently than not make A4000 a definitely unbalanced-bright, at times even splashy high tones cannon, too often sounding artificial – which is a true pity as their low mids and bass lines are viceversa beyond commendable.

Microdynamics are equivalently no more than average both on A4000 and A5000, with A4000 being nothing to write home about in terms of high mid and treble detail retrieval, too often drowning under the waves of excessive clarity and brightness.

Long story short: I would exclusively recommend A4000 to die-hard treble-heads.

Tanchjim Oxygen – € 269,00 AliExpress​

I called A3000 and A4000 in as the first two comparisons due to them being part of the same product family of course, however no doubt the most significant notes will be those referring to Oxygen, being for me the rock-solid, as of yet undisputed natural-tonality sub-300€ reference.

Both A5000 and Oxygen carry a single Dynamic Driver, and while both can be classified as bright-neutral tonalities, their immediate skin-effect is obviously different due to the much clearer timbre brought up by A5000 compared to Oxygen, which – while still in the category of relatively fast drivers – offers definitely more relaxed transients, both as for attack and decay.

Oxygen sound therefor “mellower”, tonally softer, less clear, and most of all they convey a more closed-in group sensation – there is a way less air between one instrument and the other. En revenche, acoustic instruments and human voices sound obviously more organic on Oxygen.

Oxygen and A5000 are equally extended down to the bass, but A5000’s tighter transients deliver punchier, more energetic feeling to midbass, which of course may be more or less welcome depending on the track/genre.

Oxygen are more aggressive when it comes to high mids modulation, but less when it comes to low trebles. Their thicker note weight, however, make the entire high line less aggressive, if a bit less impactful, compared to A5000.

There is *no* sibilance on Oxygen.

Stage projection is evidently better on A5000, and by a significant margin. The opposite can be said about microdynamics, where the palm clearly goes to Oxygen.

Oxygen’s lesser cleanness and air presence do not compromise on layering and separation: Oxygen and A5000 are equally good at resolving overlapping instruments and voices.

Oxygen may be less easy to comfortably fit – shallow insertion being sadly a forced option here.

Like most if not all Tanchjim / Moondrop models, Oxygen require opposite-than-normal 2pin cable polarity so there’s that, too, to keep in mind when (as I strongly recommend) upgrading to a better cable, binning Oxygen’s disappointing stock one.

Yanyin Canon II – $ 341,00 + import duties, Linsoul​

These recently-released 1 DD + 4 BA hybrids are surfing their hype waves right these weeks, and I happened to have a chance to assess a pair.

Both Canon II and A5000 offer full bilateral range extension, which is of course a more significant achievement on A5000 given they carry a single driver instead of five. En passant, it’s however fair to underline how Canon II offer commendable timbre coherence amongst their drivers, with some hearable débacle exclusively circumscribed to the passage between low and high mids.

Canon II’s dynamic driver offers very nicely calibrated sub-bass – possibly even better than A5000’s – and fuller bodied, slower decaying mid-bass notes, which sound punchier, but less cleanly separated, compared to A5000’s, resulting therefore in a stronger, but less readable and a bit more “stuffy” bass presentation. This, when Canon II’s tuning switches are both kept on their OFF positions – as flipping either, let alone both, up will make bass even thicker and less natural.

Canon II’s treble is vivid, and their BAs carry nothing short of a delicious timbre. Treble note weight is surely better on Canon II – and a sort of absolute weakness on A5000. Compared to A5000, however, detail retrieval is less on Canon II, and airiness is nothing to write home about even in absolute terms.

Imaging on Canon II is above decent, primarily hampered by the too bold bass actually, which would be not too big a drawback in absolute terms, if not in direct comparison to A5000 where it is practically perfect instead.

Canon II are also good at separation and layering, again with the sole exception of the 80-250 Hz region falling too often hostage of their exuberant mid bass personality. A5000’s are near perfect across the board though. Microdynamics are not superlative on A5000, but even more ordinary on Canon II for one reason or another.

Canon II’s fit is not too easy (not arduous either however) mainly due to quite bulky housings, and thick nozzles. Their stock tips are right away binnable, JVC SpiralDots offering good results on them, for the record.

Intime Miyabi – € 150,00 + reforwarding costs and import duties from Japan​

Miyabi feature a hybrid setup made of a dynamic driver paired with a industry-unique, patented ceramic tweeter and other specialties, vs A5000’s proprietary f-Core DU single dynamic driver. In spite of such hybrid setup of theirs, Miyabi sport a totally commendable timbral coherence, nowhere shorter than A5000’s.

Miyabi and A5000 offer substantially equivalent bilateral range extension, with A5000 coming across stronger in the bass and sub-bass – Miyabi being nevertheless significantly slammy and textured there – and Miyabi more energetic, bodied and engaging in the treble. The two are also arguably on par on their exceptional space projection, separation and layering capabilities. Microdynamics are better on Miyabi.

Miyabi’s presentation is fundamentally neutral with a slightly bright accent, while A5000 is markedly V-shaped in comparison, although a mild-V if taken in absolute terms. Either can be said to carry a quite personal timbre, however diversion from more common options is more pronounced on Miyabi.

As a consequence, some may viscerally love Miyabi’s voicing while others might not fully enjoy their “brassy” aftertaste, and that sort of “popular crudeness” of theirs may be decoded as “commoner class” by those who will tend to better appreciate that silky, “rich middle class” style taint offered by A5000.

Miyabi’s vocals are a big notch more organic compared to A5000, very obviously so when it comes to female voices.

Miyabi’s fat bullet shape will probably result statistically easier to fit, and more easily comfortable vs A5000’s shallow fit. Neither get positive votes for their stock cables, which in both cases is bound for a quick upgrade. Unlike A5000, Miyabi benefit or indeed even require third party tips for best results.

Last but not least Miyabi are significantly less expensive, but much more difficult to source outside of Japan due to the very limited distribution network set up by their manufacturer, a very small crafting company.

Penon Fan 2 – $ 165,00 (down from $279,00 …why?) + import duties direct from Penon​

Fan 2 are based on 2 dynamic and 2 BA drivers, vs final’s single proprietary f-Core DU driver on A5000, and sport a U-shaped presentation, with a nice organic timbre and a slightly warm-colored tonality, vs A5000’s more accented V tonality, definitely leaner note body and (in comparison) dryer/colder color.

I find Fan 2 striking a better, as in more realistic, note body compromise compared to A5000, which again I find a tad too lean in comparison. Fan 2 exhibit some timbral incoherence, which is extremely subtle if ever perceivable on A5000 instead. Both models offer very good bilateral range extension, I’d say on par the one with the other.

A5000 offer a much better defined, textured, detailed and slammy bass, which instead comes across too frequently a bit woolly from Fan 2. Flipping the situation, I would choose Fan 2 for what attains to organic mids rendering.

While both are very good about imaging and instrument separation, A5000 come clearly ahead in terms of layering capability. Soundstage casting is also hands down on A5000 favor.

Fan 2 are very picky when it comes to eartips selection, and possibly even more so in terms of source pairing – they require a very low impedance amp not to scant into fr skewage due to their extremely low internal impedance. Fan 2 and their stock cable pair better with one another vs A5000 and their one.

Considerations & conclusions​

As I tried to outline above, I have mixed feelings about final’s A series, starting from not agreeing with the fundamental project purpose of delivering wide-range drivers, intentionally targeting equal satisfaction to very diverse user categories, continuing with not having been dazzled on my road to Damascus by auditioning the A8000s, on one end, while greatly appreciating the deeds of the f-Core DU driver as implemented into A-series budget models – such positive feeling standing beyond the tuning differences characterising those 3 models – on the other.

More than 2 years after my original piece about A3000 I do reaffirm that to my senses the overall best of the three budget priced A series models are indeed A3000. They deliver an incredibly subtle balance amongst note body, clarity, macro and microdynamics on top of a full-neutral presentation over a stunning all-direction-extended stage.

A5000 are anyhow second in line. Athletic like an Olympic fencer, they strike strong when needed while at the same time chiseling their movements in a precise and artistic way. Too bad for those modest, but perceivable, exaggerations in the treble area, as they could otherwise join their siblings on our Excellence showcase.

Lastly, I find A4000 much less special then their sisters, and of what they might potentially be. While they do positively hit on the user with the same grand stage, and imaging clarity, as their fellow A’s, they do pass the excess limit on their trebles, making an overly bright tonality, as such delivering a non-realistic overall musical experience.


This article originally appeared on www.audioreview.org.

It sadly took me much longer than I initially planned to put together this article about one of the most outstanding IEM sets I ever happened to audition. Also due to some unpleasant health problems, which still partly grip me, it is only now that I am able to publish my piece about the IE900s demo unit I received from Sennheiser Europe no later than last August .

I can anticipate I had a very big pleasure in the encounter, and I hope I’ll be able to properly convey my take on the many pluses and few minuses of this set, together with some comparison hints with their lower cost (but not lower quality) sisters IE600 and more.

IE900 currently sell in Europe for € 1499.00 including VAT. Main official product page, with direct purchase possibility here.

Full Device Card​

Test setup and preliminary notes​

Sources: Questyle QP1R, QP2R, M15, CMA-400i / Lotoo Paw Gold Touch + Cayin C9 / Sony WM-1A / E1DA 9038D, 9038SG3 – INAIRS AIR1 foam and/or JVC SpiralDot silicon tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC + DSD 64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

IE900’s general tonality is bright-neutral. The timbre is slightly lean, especially in the mids, and you can tell from the very first audition that this is a product aimed at rendering trebles in the most organic, detailed, engaging at the same time non-distorting way as possible, while in the process never leaving bass less attended to. And – boy! – if they succeeded at this!

From a more tech-involved angle standpoint, what I also very interesting to note is that they chose not to closely follow, let alone chase, any most en vague target curves out there… More on this, maybe, much later on.


Sub-Bass

One of Sennheiser’s 7mm dynamic driver’s qualities – perhaps not the most important one, but the most readily apparent to me for sure – is its extension capabilities, something very hardly heard before on IEMs, at least from my modest hobbyist’s ears.

As a direct consequence of that bass reaches as deeeep as you can possibly hear. You can safely bet the limiting factor in this case is more your hearing than anything else.

In terms of volume some elevation is present, but a modest one at that. IE900 definitely are not made to satisfy so-called bassheads, not even “educated” ones. Even for the tastes of die hard acoustic jazz lovers like me, there are times when I concede to the pulsion to adding a +3dB low shelf at 50 Hz, but that’s really occasional: in most situations IE900 sub bass is just perfect for my (quite specialised – mind you!) library.

I’ll reach even further, actually, and I would say that although not so high in elevation it’s presence is anyhow so consistent and predictable that the net effect is similar to adding a subwoofer to your nearfield setup, keeping it at a modest sound pressure level, just for “background support”, so to say.


Mid Bass

IE900’s mid bass is fast, even sculpted, yet fully textured and very expressive, emotional. This is one of the sets that renders Andrew Cyrille’s kick drum with the highest level of realism I ever auditioned.

This weren’t enough IE900, and very particularly its bass line, scale incredibly well with amping power and quality.

While in general IE900’s sensitivity is not low, so as to make them driveable to already outstanding results by relatively modest powered mobile sources, you will be totally astonished by the difference – emerging particularly in the bass section – when driving them from high quality, much higher specced amp sources.

One inter alia: Cayin C9, which I happen to have access to. Mid bass and low bass notes come up in body, viscerality and slam in a totally surprising way. It all sounds (pun intended) as if you’re sitting in a mixing studios listening to on those high end monitors hanging in there. Really, really, REALLY significant. Oh and by the way: even in such “exalted” situation, mid bass never, ever takes over on the low mids…!


Mids

Mids feel slightly recessed, if nothing else because the other parts around them (bass, and most of all high mids and trebles) come across with even bolder personality, so to say.

On the other hand their general timbre is very good if a bit lean especially in the high part, yet feels spot-on in most if not really all cases for my library.

The passage from middle to high mids easily reminds me what happens on Final’s A3000 – another, much lower tier, single-DD set featuring a remarkable (within its price class) quality single dynamic driver. And, another virtuous example of totally surprising results based on a not so common, off-choir even, tuning curve.

The passage is very smooth, of course consequence of the one driver employed, and also of the sensible taming applied to the 2-4Khz region which, thanks to driver elasticity (and, in IE900’s case, of who knows what other aspects liaised to the triple resonance chamber milled into their housings – more on this below), does not translate into overly tamed feedback in that region, oppositely it delivers a very lively, detailed while unoffensive experience.

As I mentioned before, if one remark the high mids segment calls for is some relative leanness to the notes. I feel some “butter” missing on central piano octaves, and on female vocals, to match my personal perfection. I’m not of course expecting to find the same focus on that region here that you can get from specialised sets like Final F7200 to just name one, yet as I said just a tad more of lipids would have rendered the dish even more flavoury.


Male Vocals

IE900 render baritones and bass humans with organicity and authority, and tenors, too, with just a bit of relative leanness commencing to appear on their higher registers.


Female Vocals

Female vocals are well presented, textured, clean and quite engaging. As mentioned above, they do lack a bit of body to their central notes to be astonishing.


Highs

These, together with some of the technicalities, are evidently the stars of the show on IE900.

The result is so outstanding that you can bet this must be the consequence of something really special the developers had to put in to get there: energy, expression, body, details and air, all together, while never scanting into sibilance, shoutyness let alone zinging.

A wonderful litmus paper test for this is Lee Morgan’s trumpet phrasings from 1 up to to 2 minutes into Art Blakey’s & The Messenger’s monumental 1958 Moanin’ take, from the homonymous album. Morgan instrument’s sound is full bodied yet perfectly textured, but most of all powerful yet not piercing, and far from splashy or shouty.

Such result does vary a bit in accuracy depending on eartips selection (more on this below).

Incidentally, I could only hear one other set doing better to date, but it did so only on this very particular aspect and failed in others in comparison to IE900, bass being first: a German-made multidriver unit. Oh and that’s priced 3X over our today’s reference .

Technicalities​

Soundstage

IE900 stage projection is probably the widest I ever heard in an IEM, and while I think about that I would also put all closed-back overears I heard in, for good measure. There’s significant height and good depth, too !

This is another situation where IE900’s huge treble extension shows its good deeds: as many know of course we can hear sounds up to 16Khz (well… when young! ) but frequencies above such mark are not useless at all, as they contribute carrying information about the time it takes for sound to come back (or not come back) from the “walls around the room” – thereby helping on “drawing the stage”.

This is of course only evident when the source digital material does contain such higher frequency information, and the DAC is indeed capable of reconstructing it – which is luckily the case for much of my library, and a few of my sources .


Imaging

Macrodynamics are extremely precise, positioning cues are spot on at all times, along all 3 axes.


Details

Detail retrieval from the high mids and especially from the treble is nothing short than superb, twice as much if again we remember we are in presence of a single DD set.

I like to believe this is one consequence of those Sennheiser’s claimed designs efforts focused on sound modelling obtained via those cavities inside the housings (more on this below).

Let me add that, as an old western-economy industry bear myself, I also like to think that in addition to the positivity on the obtained result this way of proceeding is also much less prone to be “easily replied” by of some of those chifi usual suspects – building practical reproduction hurdles into one’s physical product arguably representing an even more effective method, supplemental to “mere” legal patenting, to better protect one’s industrial invention efforts in our globalised world lacking cohesive governance.


Instrument separation

Layering and instrument separation is another field where IE900 surely excel, once again especially so when considering we are talking about a single driver set.

Even on busiest (acoustic) tracks you never get a sense of congestion or mixture between voicings coming from the same spot on the stage, and the sense of depth is always granted. At times, it seems as if IE900 are able to render virtually infinite layers, such is their capability in keeping overlapping but heterogenous sounds apart from one another.

I could only hear one other IEM set till now able – on equal source gear and tracks, of course – to present me with a superior readability on low volume and/or background sounds, and that’s Softears Turii – which other technicalities, and the tonality before them, are however quite different from IE900’s so I wouldn’t easily cast a better/worse score between the two, frankly.


Driveability

As en passant I previously mentioned, IE900 are quite easy to drive exploiting the power of so many at least decent mobile sources on the mainstream market, most dongles included. Their 123dB/V (corresponding to approx 105dB/mW) at 18 ohm are not a huge requirement in facts, and that’s surely a big plus in terms of crowd accessibility.

On the other hand, IE900’s note body will dramatically improve when the source happens to have the guts to push up on current delivery, this with particular regards to mid bass and mid tones.

While listening to IE900 directly paired to a Lotoo Paw Gold Touch DAP is already a lushy treat – for many reasons, first and foremost LPGT’s quite special proweness on subtle microdynamics reconstruction – you should wait until you’ll hear what you get having LPGT’s output pass through a further amplification stage, e.g. a Cayin C9 mobile set: then you’ll be in for a strong experience … .

Such situation can, and should, be reported both as a pro and as a (relative) limitation of the set.

Physicals​

Build

I suspect not to be the only one whose first eye-impression when shown a pair of IE900 has been something like: “inconspicuous”.

Actually handling them such impression – well, at least my impression – changed radically: IE900’s housing are in facts CNC-milled off a solid piece of aluminium, which incidentally is a wonderful material I happen to know the positive properties of due to my professional involvement with it, on a completely different market.

Long story short, IE900’s housings are at the same time extremely solid and sturdy, and very lightweight.

I also do approve the choice for those thin engraving lines on the outside, which – if anything on the aesthetical level – result in a pleasant, if a bit mitteleuropean-industry-flavoured, “unglossy” finish style, and avoid overexposure to fingerprinting.

On the solidity and shock resistance there’s no question: a solid piece of aluminium gives more than the required warranties for this use case. I’m ready to bet that trampling over these ones (with their cable removed) with a car would leave them a bit dirty, but in shape.

Apart from all this, what is surely most interesting is what cannot be appreciated from the outside, and that is the internal shaping given to the housings – always by CNC-milling them – and the specially developed ultrawide range-capable 7mm dynamic driver.

The DD is responsible for offering coverage for an exceptionally wide range of frequencies for a single driver: from 5 to 48KHz.

That being not enough, taken alone, to deliver the wanted sonic result, tonality shaping is carried out by way of tree small resonator chambers, i.e. appropriate “carvings” milled into the very piece of solid AL making the housings, in-between the driver and the nozzle. Furthermore, some specialty shaping and internal surfaces finishing is put in there, to take care of smoothening excessive treble energy – and I must say with excellent results, based on my audition (see above).


Fit

Kudos to Sennheiser also for the just incredibly effective ergonomics they conceived for the shape of their IE series, which includes IE900 of course.

Even if for some reason you wouldn’t tell when seeing that somehow uncommon form for the first time, it takes seconds after wearing (any of) them the first time to vibrantly love them, and the one(s) who designed them.

On the flip – read negative – side two things are worth noting.

One: in some cases – me included – the main housing body may be a (decisive) tad too lean to match those magical proportions which fill your outer ear just enough to gain perfectly stable positioning while never feel like a swollen bean is nagging at you from out there.

It’s of course then evident that you can’t possibly design a one-size solid structure that’s so precisely fitting into everybody’s body, no matter human diversity. And in doubt, of course you’ll have to do it smaller vs bigger ! So this ain’t defect of course, yet it’s definitely an issue to manage, when it arises.

Two: again, in my case, the supply of stock tips (both silicon and foam) for one reason or the other falls short of being adequate.

Stock silicon tips have a very soft umbrella, 100% studied to get the best intended sound out of the IE900. Too bad that on the “mechanical” front it happens that, housings being too lean to stay put in my concha’s, I instinctually tend to regain firmness by pushing them deeper in. When that happens silicon tips’ umbrellas fold on themselves, totally losing the seal.

Sadly, the problem about stock tips falling short of properly fitting my canals (left one in particular) affects foamies too! Again, I suspect that’s liaised with me needing to get a higher stability by pushing shells deeper in, thereby reaching a wider segment of my ear canal, which those foamies can’t adequately fill up, not even the supplied L size.

I shared this issue with Sennheiser, and the answer has been enlightening for the sake of clarifying the origins of this situation.

First and foremost, in Sennheiser’s design intention IE900 tips should ideally “feel as if they disappear” in the ear canal, precisely the opposite of the sensation you get from bullet style IEMs, and/or triple-flanged eartips. Hence, the thinner umbrella the better, of course.

Flipping the coin, however, superlight tips intended for such precise aim will not be the best choice if for whatever reason a user prefers, or needs, to achieve a deeper fit.

I do confirm all : if – disregarding stability for a moment – I wear IE900 in a shallower position, indeed their stock silicon tips do keep the seal, and they deliver a very pleasant “feathery” sensation, or even virtually no sensation at all – as per intention.

And by the way, were it possible and handy for me, I would actually prefer such shallow fit, not being myself a die-hard fan of deep insertion – even when I use bullet-shape IEMs (which nevertheless – Sennheiser friends will forgive me – I don’t find so devilish counter-ergonomic as they reckon).

Be as it may, this finally reveals what the entire real problem is in my case: housings’ stability.

Again, in Sennheiser’s design intention, in cases like mine where the person’s ear structure is a bit too big and can’t grab the housings firm by itself, that’s where those easy-shape earhook sheaths installed on the cable (more on them below, under “Cable”) should do the trick, mechanically retrofitting the set so to say, and delivering the required stability.

So that is precisely where the game fails in my case (and not my one only).

No, to me those shapeable earhooks are super-comfortable, but not resilient enough to compensate for the housings’ eventual wobbling. That’s why I can’t personally “afford” a shallow fit, and rest comes with it.

Curtain fall ? Nevah !

First possible workaround: browsing the internet I found some sort of third party “gel outfits” – of course made some place in China. I call them “gloves”: imagine little-finger sized equivalents to a silicon smartphone back-cover. Or, similar to those winged rings you fit onto TWS drivers to help them stay firm in place. Something like this, but there are others around too.

I tried a friend’s ones and indeed those perfectly fit IE900’s housings, granting them that small body size increment that results into fitting my ear in a perfectly stable and comfortable way. And then, yes!, I can afford shallower fit and the whole stock tips game works as per design in my case too.

Alternative workaround: use third party tips .

Well as you can imagine I would have gone through the long tips exploration session anyhow, but in this case it was let’s say double motivated.

This article is getting already lengthy and I don’t believe that adding further smalltalk to it would make it better so my eighteen readers will I hope understand if I won’t indulge in the full report here about how I found each of the probably 15 different tip models I tried.

Suffice it to say that in the end I’m torn between two options, featuring some differences : INAIRS AIR1 foams, and JVC SpiralDot silicons.

INAIRS offer a firmer fit sensation, and their M size actually well fills my external ear canal up, thereby effectively contributing to hold those slim housings firm(er) in place for me. They also grant me better passive isolation, and a sort of delicate “softening” to some note edges (which, in itself, is not always a welcome addition).

SpiralDots feature stiffer silicon umbrellas compared to stock tips but won’t go as far as mechanically compensating housings movements, so their adoption does require either a deeper fit, or those “gel gloves” I mentioned before. The good news is that they are sturdy enough not to lose the seal when pushed deeper. Their wide bore positively contributes to IE900’s already good bass, and they yield a more crystalline timbre compared to foams.

Runnerup silicon options worth mentioning are Radius Deepmount – even better than Spiraldot on bass definition and speed, but tend to turn trebles a bit too hot – and Final E (strictly CLEAR version – black and other-coloured ones making low bass a bit “hazy”) – which deliver more body in the mids but lose some detail and precision in the treble and bass.

Last but absolutely not least, Sennheiser and their mother company being deeply involved with medical grade hearing aids and technologies, a custom eartips production service is made available – sadly only to German residents for now though .

It’s called Custom Comfort Tips. The rationale seems very simple in its complexity: by realising an elongated silicon tip, custom shaped following your own ear canal shape and size on one end, and perfectly slapping onto the IEM’s nozzles and neighbouring shell part on the other, you get extremely close to eliminate that personal fit variation that makes each one’s sound experience with that particular driver too much “potentially different” from its intended goal.

The program is also very well streamlined in terms of enduser fruition. It’s all centrally managed by Sennheiser, you don’t have to “look for” anything your own: place the order centrally, geoloc the supporting audiologist shop nearest to your location from a link on Sennheiser’s site, take an appointment and have your canals measured there (their service is part of the price paid to Sennheiser), wait for a few days and receive your tips at home.

The very same tips can be swapped onto IE900, IE600 and IE200. The tips’ fee is currently included with the price of an IE900 package, and a discount is offered to IE600 owners.

Those friends (lucky bastards individuals) who, residing in Germany, already could get their custom tips confirm they are indeed absolute game changers. The rest of us need to come to terms with a impatient wait .


Comfort

IE900’s shape is designed for very easy and natural fit and this immediately traduces into supreme comfort even for very protracted period of time.

In case the housing turns out to be a bit too “slim” for one’s ears (like in my case) there’s a chance the consequent instability may be somewhat fastidious. Longer story above about the origins of this. Consequences: compensating instability by reaching down for a deeper fit may turn out to be a bit uncomfy in medium/long sessions; adopting “gel gloves” of appropriate thickness may be the best way to go.


Isolation

When perfectly fitting, IE900 offer good levels of passive isolation – even more if equipped with foam tips.

In “fat concha” situations like my case, the same result is quite easily obtained by outfitting the housings with with “gel gloves” or such (see above).


Cable

It’s certainly pleasing – if after all in line with expectations vis-a-vis the package price, one may say – to find 3 different cables inside the box, each with a different hard-wired termination: single ended 3.5mm, and balanced 2.5 and 4.4mm, covering I would say 99.9% of possible needs.

Also, the freely mouldable TPU sheath applied towards to cables housing’s end allows you to shape them into the most precisely matching and comfortable earhooks you can get, exactly following your ear root line.

It’s the first time I encounter this offering, and it’s a very welcome feat – even if, as reported under “Fit” here above, it does not get as far as solving the problem of housings being too lean for my particular outer ears.

On another important note: Sennheiser’s IE-line MMCX connectors are not “everyday MMCX” fixings in reality. So be prepared: hardly any of your (my!) existing MMCX cables will fit, or safely fit .

Sennheiser’s MMCX implementation (in some documents tagged as “MMCX Fidelity+”) is indeed proprietary. Looking closely, the male connector coming off the tip of the cable has an additional “lip” compared to ordinary MMCX plugs. Such lip, plus a deeper, and more deeply recessed female connector, are responsible for significantly improving on connection firmness.

All good so far, the less good news however being the following two.

One I already mentioned: 99% chances are that you won’t be able to pair your IE900 with any loved individual off your thick existing herd of however good – and expensive! – MMCX cables.

The other is safely identifying the genuinely licensed (!) third parties, which would therefore be in condition to supply reliably compatible cables. Fact: between a few friends of mine and myself we experienced a few 3rd party cables sold as IE900-compatible, most of which turned into wobbly, unreliable connections. Tread lightly when shopping for cables here!!

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

Sennheiser IE600 (€ 799,00 – currently on sale for € 549,00)​

Even if very similar aesthetically, and equally based on a single dynamic driver, IE600 and IE900 are quite different at the technological level from one another.

Sennheiser confirmed to me that the dynamic driver inside IE600 is a different variation (although part of the same main project) from that adopted for IE900. The same applies for the driver inside IE200, by the way.

In addition to that, housings’ builds and their internals are also quite different.

Unlike IE900’s earpieces – CNC-milled from a solid piece of aluminium and featured with 3 specially designed resonance chambers inside – IE600’s housings are 3D-printed from a special zirconium alloy by Heraeus Amloy Tech, and featured with two sets of 2 internal chambers. Such structure internal to IE600 (D2CA: Dual 2-Chamber Absorbers) focuses on treating overlapping notes coming for different instruments at the same time, helping on dramatically improving they separation, and layering.

With all this said, the sound experience offered by IE600 is for some respects similar, for others quite different from that granted by IE900.

Similarities stay in rendering clarity, and in outstanding layering and separation proweness.

The main difference is in the tonality : unlike IE900, IE600 are quite evidently V-shaped, although maybe a “wide V” at that. A more mainstream indulging tuning choice if you wish, vs IE900’s off the choir one.

Bass is equivalently speedy on IE600 and IE900, but on IE600 it is much more evident, elevated, and I refer to mid bass and even more to sub bass here. In spite of such higher elevation, bass is still perfectly readable at all times, very well textured, and stays consistently separated from low and central mids – as it definitely should – in IE600 no less than in IE900.

Another part where the two sets diverge is in the high mids, and – I would say al least in part consequently – in their treble.

IE600’s 2-4K frequencies are way more forward and pulpy, with this bringing guitars and female vocals the “butter” which is a bit left behind on IE900. However an important taming is imposed on 6KHz on IE600, I assume to avoid that their composite output would scant into shouty and/or fatiguing. As a consequence, treble detail retrieval and overall “airiness” is quite obviously less on IE600 vs IE900.

Quitting all this tech talk : choose IE600 for prog rock, hard rock, electronic music and general purpose, while – money not being a hurdle – go blind-eyed with IE900 for acoustic jazz and most of all classical music.

Such separated applicative indications, paired with ultimately equivalent proweness in doing, each one, what they are designed to do, calls for refraining from positioning IE600 and IE900 one on a higher step vs the other, and I rather recommend them as different tools to reach different pleasures, so indeed complementary to each other.

Campfire Andromeda 2020 (discontinued, was € 1099,00)​

I feel this is a quite interesting comparison not only due to the reputation Campfire Audio as a manufacturer, and the various iterations of their Andromeda set deservedly conquered over time, but especially vis-a-vis the under many respects opposite design philosophies behind Andromeda and IE900.

As everybody may remember, Andromeda are a full-BA multidriver sets, vs IE900 single-DD choice.

As a further testimony to the successful results obtained by Sennheiser on their sole dynamic driver, I would readily note that if one of the two sets may be found to deliver a tad less bilateral extension that is… Andromeda. Differences on this are small, however.

Other aspects which are very similar between Andromeda and IE900 include treble detailing, and the tuning choice to keep their 2-4KHz regions tamed down to help deliver a smooth, unshouty yet energetic overall highmid+treble section, which is indeed the case on both sets, and probable the key reasons why treble is equally delicious – beyond within some differences – in either situation.

Other similarities, or real equivalences are about stage size and three-dimensionality, with Andromeda being probably a tad deeper but less high and wide, and about layering and separation.

Tonalities are instead quite different: Andromeda is obviously warmer, consequence of some more power impressed onto 2-400Hz and some taken off from 1-2Khz. IE900 offer more airiness up above, not much resulting in terms of better clarity but rather in terms of a more realistic spatial sensation.

The most obvious differences however stay on bass note body and microdynamics: Sennheiser’s model attains to a higher level altogether, especially on the latter part – IE900 microdynamics are a very thick step above Andromeda.

As for driveability Andromeda require much less power to shine at its full potential, but conversely they require so little of that, and at such a low impedance, that many if not most sources will make them hiss, and that will of course be audible through quiet musical passages.

Beware of counterfeiting !​

It is sadly worth noting that the market is literally flooded with fake / counterfeited IE900, and IE600, and many other Sennheiser sets – and not since yesterday.

Sadly the criminals involved with this are quite skilled on delivering aesthetically near-identical products (from the boxing down to the actual items), thus posing a serious threat to the casual user when it comes to choosing and giving trust to their vendors, especially considering the important price tags we are talking about.

I happen to have access to a fake IE900 sample, which I could therefore compare with the guaranteed-genuine one coming directly from Sennheiser’s headquarters.

Sound quality wise I must say I expected a much bigger difference between the two sets. What surprised me the most was in particular the fake unit’s remarkable bilateral extension, roughly in the same ballpark as the genuine one – and that’s saying something. In terms of bass definition, note body and microdynamics, however, genuine IE900 are just straight better.

Visual counterfaiting is really staggering for how realistic it is, and how much attention and careful observation was required to discover the clues indicating the two units did not come from the same ultimate source. I took a few pictures, and shared them with Sennheiser personnel to have confirmation of my findings, and here is my report, with the hope that it might be useful to someone to avoid being frauded.

First and foremost, there was no way to spot any difference whatsoever about the printed carton box sleeve, not on the box’s internal structure and elements, the paddings etc. All apparently identical.

By closely assessing product details however some differences started to come up.

1) Cables’ earhook sheaths are not freely reshapeable on the fake unit I checked – they stay much firmer on their pristine curvature for how much you try to model them. Genuine Sennheiser sheaths are pliable almost like plasteline, and they stay in your wanted shape quite reliably while you wear them.

2) Cables’ chin sliders feature a Sennheiser logo sticker. The genuine one carries an S-logo hologram, the counterfeit one is a very obvious flattened, non-holographic, clumsy imitation. Genuine cable is sitting on top in the following picture.





3) Genuine cable’s main sheath features a smooth, uniform, solid external finish. This fake unit’s sheath carries some sort of twisted wires appearance. You can appreciate this difference, too, from the picture above – where, again, the counterfeit cable is the coiled one, below the genuine one.

4) Assessing nozzle ends, genuine IE900 should look “pitch black”, while this counterfeit sample reveals silver colour inside through a wider mesh structure, as shown by this picture.





5) The pinned plastic plate carrying stock tips should show glossy S M L size letters, not matte ones. Furthermore, genuine foam tips have quite flat tops, not bulging ones. Based on this information, try yourself to spot the genuine set in the following picture .




It’s of course worth noting that I could assess just one fake unit, so there is no certainty, let alone guarantee, that the above hints do apply to other cases.

Sennheiser recommends to buy new units exclusively from fully trusted, official Sennheiser distributors – and that’s a no brainer.

For second hand units – while of course remembering that channels like ebay or similar need to be taken with two grains of salt (always better than one) – a good idea is to have the seller send a picture showing the unit serial number in advance, and get in contact with Sennheiser Consumer Hearing support services: they will check if the number is reported as legit.

Considerations & conclusions​

I tried to outline the multiple reasons why I believe IE900 are a beyond-outstanding product, particularly suitable for classical, and acoustic music in general, and I feel like adding some considerations at a more general level here.

What is seems from the outside is that Sennheiser did this by going back to the design board, and restart from assessing the wanted target, asking themselves how to reach it – “reinventing the wheel” if need be, and/or using more “usual” parts and competences, purging their minds from “assumed-well-established existing solutions” bias in advance.

Of course I have no real clue about their internal processes and how the real story went, but if it were a plot for a movie about an industrial success story, it might probably go as follows.

IE900’s dynamic driver itself is proprietary, made to deliver a sensibly wider range extension compared to other high quality dynamic drivers on the market. Why? Because multidrivers do struggle with tonal coherence – all of them – and, let’s face it, for good reasons too. On the other hand, existing single drivers are all “short blankets”, so to say.

So point #1 : let’s design a “wiiiiiide blanket” driver. Period. Then we see the rest.

Oh by the way: let’s do it without employing marketing-buzzword-level raw materials.

IE900’s is in the end a plastic membrane driver – such an “obsolete sounding” technology, inn’it? – yet it loops dozens of circles around others made of “newer materials”. Guess why?… .

I must say I feel empathic on these topics as they can’t fail reminding me that within the infinitely more modest scope of the small industrial company I currently serve in as a marketing and sales manager I often listen to my agents recursively pointing at certain innovative-name-sounding products from the competition. Transeat. Back to our plot.

Once you have an eXtra Wide Range transducer, you are still supposed to shape its sound to manage its behaviour, avoid excesses, and bend its tonality to a specific wanted target sound. This is usually done by a mix of shaping IEM shells, adding vents, filters, foams, meshes etc.

As for us: we will primarily “shape the shells” – and good luck to those who will try to precisely copy them.

Inside IEx00 housings there are milled or built (depending on the specific model’s production process) micrometrically formed spaces (“chambers”). They even got as far as studying how wrinkled their internal surfaces need to be to get the right wanted effect on sound waves passing by.

I can only remotely fathom the complexity of such a research, and the level of competences, skills, tools and budgets (!) you need to put on the table to even commence spinning such a project up. Well they did it – and succeeded.

Last but not least: once you have those grand IEMs done, based on a superbly extended driver, and tuned to consistently output the exact wanted timbre and tonality onto… lab measuring equipment (!) how about maximising the chance the same or at least a very similar result is actually appreciated by anybody’s ears – which sadly (for engineers, and luckily for philosophers) are all “guaranteed different” from the most advanced acoustic coupler mockups employed at the lab ?

Yes, you can try closing the gap by filling the commercial package with countless alternative eartips, or…

Our mother company is a leading multinational involved in hearing aids and acoustic implantations. Let’s roll out a custom eartips program!

I presume this very long stream of considerations, and their fictionalized dressings, can be summarised as follows: the old saying “when the game gets tough, the tough get playing” is of course in general an abstraction – it does take for the tough to actually be willing to get playing ! But when they do… .

Sennheiser for decades did deliver undisputed top-class headphone models (do we need to remember that HD600 originally came out in 1997?) yet they flew much lower in the rankings of IEM proposals until recently.

With their IE900 / IE600 / IE200 program they took a wholly-renovated approach to the segment, and results do show.

These 3 models lead their corresponding price brackets, and debating whether they deserve #1, #2 or #3 entry in their specific subclasses is surely very important for Sennheiser’s product marketing, their numbers etc, but for us, the users, it’s now probably just funny, loud coffee bar discussions. IE200, IE600 and IE900 are, all of them, absolute winners, and each one can easily be taken as the sole IEM one may want to own given that budget and/or that musical preference.

IE900 are light years far from being yet-another high quality high priced single DD IEMs. They can and should be narrated as a successful reinvention of the entire IEM experience, instanced onto the specific preferences of classical and other acoustic music lovers.

Sennheiser created a monumental product with IE900, and while its price tag is no doubt demanding, not a cent of it lacks justification in the multifaceted quality it offers.

IE900 is dutifully tagged on our Wall of Excellence.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

O2aid Inc – the Japan-based company behind the commercial brand “Intime Acoustics” – is a very small business with a strongly artisanal trait. Their flagship IEM model called Sho (翔) is exclusively handmade-to-order, for example. Then, they have another model called Sho (翔) DD, this time serial-made, which is marketed as an affordable hint to the flagship’s sound.

Sho DD differ from Sho at various levels, including the housing material (an AL-CU alloy in lieu of Titanium), the material chosen for the ceramic tweeter, the sophystication of the pentaconn connectors, etc, so I’m sure it’d be wrong to expect that Sho DD represent a “Sho replacement” at a much lower price, as it would after all be totally illogical on a commercial level of course.

I happen to have two different versions of Sho DD available: the standard one, regularly in production and purchaseable from the company’s website (here without a cable for the equivalent of less than 100€, or here with a cable, for the equivalent of less than 200€), and a special edition called Sho DD Halloween, externally recogniseable by their purple colored backside resin, currently out of production. One of the two is my own property, the other has been sent to me courtesy of the manufacturer.

The description here below refers to the currently shipping Sho DD version. I’ll add the differential notes regarding Sho DD Halloween in the Comparison section below.

Test setup and preliminary notes​

Sources: Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R, QP2R, M15, CMA-400i / Dragonfly Cobalt – JVC Spiraldot silicon tips – Dunu DUW-02S cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

Sho DD presentation is a sort of V-shape, with vivid yet controlled high-mids. Their tonality is on the warm side of neutral, however much less than the muscular bass might threaten to make it at first hearing.

The timbre… that’s where it gets tricky. On Sho DD timbre depends quite heavily on how trebles come up, which in turn changes even dramatically depending on eartips selection and insertion depth.

More in detail: when “casually” worn, and with narrow bore tips, Sho DD may easily present a dual-timbre scenario with a solid, bodied, muscular bass standing in front of razor cutting, brilliant, finely detailed treble (and highmids, to some extent). Such “inconsistency” might even rather be taken as a “duality”, something in the ballpark of a 2 tweeters + 1 subwoofer nearfield setup, to give an idea of what I’m talking about.

By working on insertion position and eartips (wider bore) it’s however very possible to smoothen the highs a bit, taming their finest and leanest fringes, but most of all adding to their body thereby significantly closing the gap with bass notes. That’s where my recommendation rootens, to choose for JVC Spiraldots.

Even with that Sho DD will be living on a dynamic balance between diverse elements, much different from a seemless or near-seemless merge like you can get on other hybrid setups. Such situation is very thin ice to thread onto: when done right a good orchestration delivers extremely interesting composite results, and comes across nearly unhearable otherwise. Sho DD are an evident example of the former case.

Last but not least: of course tips choice and insertion positioning being totally subjective, it may well be the case that the virtuous scenario I just mentioned takes place in your case just on stock tips, or with totally different ones. You’ll have to try your own mileage.


Sub-Bass

Sho DD have a hefty, solid, physical sub-bass acting like a concrete basement, while staying separated from the rest for most if not at all times.


Mid Bass

Midbass is no doubt one of Sho DD’s strengths. It’s thick, visceral yet very well controlled, quite fast but not sharp and very well textured. Transients are calibrated on a totally commendable speed compromise point, to one of the best “thick-bass tunings” I ever came across.


Mids

Mids are obviously positionally recessed nonetheless they carry good definition. Their note body is also not lean, just “unlushy” in a sense, such as to make vocals, guitars and part of the piano stay more in the back in relation to drums, winds and drumplates which are made to take the lead by Sho DD.

I guess it’s fair to say of Sho DD that they represent an example of a situation where leaving some parts (like mids and vocals) on second-priority does not necessarily mean not curing them at all. Au contraire.


Male Vocals

As they are contributed to both by the VST and DD driver, male vocals are indeed more than pleasing on Sho DD. Certainly positioned in the back, they carry good texture and especially more than decent organicity and credibility.


Female Vocals

Taken in absolute terms female vocals are also relatively un-lushy and somewhat cold, yet can’t call them lean: they indeed carry more than a bit of texture. If I put them in a V shape sig perspective they are actually very good for the category.


Highs

If I had to elect my preferred value on all Intime IEMs I heard (a total of 8 different models till now) their unique highmids and treble rendering is very likely where my choice would land. Which is in the end consistent with the fact that their patented ceramic-based piezo tweeter is the owner’s competence specialty coming from his previous professional history, too.

Be as it may, Sho DD’s highs section is shiny, vivid, energetic and fundamentally always south of excessive.

Also, if after trying other piezo technology drivers you tend to expect a characteristic unwanted timbre to them well, forget it: Intime’s VST does not carry any “electric” sheen or aftertaste.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Sho DD offer a very sizeable horizontal stage, good height and above average depth.


Imaging

Macrodynamics are extremely good, mainly thanks to the solid but unbloating bass not covering the tweeter’s job. Mid’s recession may occasionally put some vocals or guitars a bit too much in the background.


Details

The combined effort of the two drivers grants very good detail retrieval from all segments of the spectrum. The lion’s part is surely taken by treble, especially in their higher part, which deliver


Instrument separation

Sho DD are extremely good at separation and layering, and that’s surprising after the first audition when you notice those lushy midbass and their buttery transients. The crux is that bass stays so well controlled, and the VST2 driver extends all the way down to the mids, the result being just gorgeous with the user being able to follow each voice singularly, even on crowded passages.

Curiously enough, bass comes across physically “above” (in the sense of soundstage’s vertical dimension) mid tones most of the times, unlike what I tend to here more often on other IEMs.


Driveability

Sho DD require “some” amping power due to their somewhat modest sensitivity (100dB/mW). The good news is their impedance is not ultra-low (22 ohm), which increases the population of sources able to deliver the required current at that load point.

Physicals​

Build

Much like most of Intime’s other models, Sho DD’s housings are made of two parts: a Duralumin front, complemented by a resin back side. “DD” in the name stands in fact for “Duralumin Design”, and also somehow recalls the presence of a DD (Dynamic Driver) inside.


Fit

Bullet shapes (slim ones like those designed by Final or Akoustyx, or fat ones like Intime’s) are quite easy to fit for me, just a bit wobbly.

I always considered wobblyness as a sort of unavoidable drawback until I came across those Earlock fitters bundled with Akoustyx S6, which taught me that it is possible to stabilse bullet-shaped housings, and do that for good. Sadly, original Earlocks won’t fit Sho-DD due to their too small central bore, so I temporarly adopted “comma-shaped” rubber fitters. The result is better than nothing but not perfect yet, so I’m keeping my search for suitable Earlock-shaped alternatives – stay tuned…

Eartip selection is one of those particularly tricky cases here. Most of the silicones I tried make treble going too hot and somewhat metallic. At long last I concluded that the best 3 silicon options are Acoustune ET07 (that is – guess what – those bundled with the product), Intime’s own iSep01 tips, or JVC SpiralDots.

Nearly identical to ET07 in shape and size, Intime’s own iSep are not ideal for my particular case however due to their softer umbrella structure: that’s supposed to be more comfortable to wear, and bring the advantage of a somewhat tighter bass, but it also proves a bit “too soft” for my particular case, and it tends to collapse under my ear canal tightening, thereby losing the seal – which does not happen with their stiffer siblings, the original ET07.

SpiralDots are an even better bet in terms of treble rendering, but they come with a further note body incresase on the midbass, which some might find excessive, even if it’s not associated with any additional transient loosening / bloating.

A very good alternative to silicones are foamies, which I normally don’t like but in this particular case I got very good sonic results with Comply TSX-400, and with INAIR Air-2, both of which I can then dearly recommend.


Comfort

Very subjective. I personally find them quite comfortable like all bullet shaped housings, even better if complemented with suitable rubber fitters (see above).


Isolation

No concha shielding due to bullet shape, but their “fat” build contributes positively nonetheless.


Cable

Sho DD are offered in 3 alternative packages: just the housings with MMCX connectors and no cable, the housings with MMCX connectors and a silver plated OFC 3.5mm terminated cable (“Intime M drum” cable), and the housings with proprietary Intime Pentaconn connectors and the matching silver plated OFC cable, in a choice of 3.5, 2.5 or 4.4 termination (“Intime P Tsuzumi” cable).

While Intime’s silver plated OFC cable is technically good, Sho DD (like Miyabi) are very sensitive to cable variations and after quite a few swaps and rotations I found Dunu DUW-02S pair best on Sho DD, significantly improving layering, separation and airness.

Specifications (declared)​

Key technologies​

I already covered Intime’s key internal technologies within my previous articles regarding Intime IEMs, here and here. I’ll quickly go through the differences applying to Sho DD.

The Dynamic Driver has a Titanium coating, different from Miyabi and Sora 2 which carry a Graphene-coated membrane.

The housing’s front part is made of Duralumin, which is an alloy made of Aluminun, Copper and some other stuff. Its advantages are basically similar resistance as stainless steel, with a weight similar to aluminum instead.

The VST tweeter and the HDSS device are instead both 3rd generation version, the same adopted inside Miyabi.

Comparisons​

Intime Sho DD Halloween (discontinued)​

Externally different just insofar as they carry a purple-colored resin housing backside (vs. regular Sho DD’s clear/transparent one) internally they reportedly differ only for a slighty different internal wiring.

Sonically, Sho DD Halloween come with a bit dampened, “more polite” (“less energetic”) highmids and treble. Sho DD are “crisper” up there. Sho DD Halloween alre also somewhat slammier on the midbass, decay is a bit shorter. I think the mids being a bit more evident compared to Sho DD are a consequence of what precedes.

final E5000 (€ 249)​

Given E5000’s strong oddity, this comparison can’t forget to mention powering requirements.

When both are paired to a high(er) system, featuring very strong current delivery on low impedance loads, e.g. CMA-400i, QP1R/QP2R, 9038SG3 etc, then Sho DD deliver more solid note body and slightly less controlled midbass compared to E5000. Mids and vocals are less recessed on E5000, which also makes them sound a bit more organic. Sho DD delivers all the highmids and treble power, air, and energy that E5000 lacks. And finally, E5000 is still a bit (yet not much) better at layering compared to Sho DD.

When instead both are paired to a weaker-current source (e.g Dragonfly Cobalt, Sony A55, etc etc) E5000’s bass overfills the place and the presentations stirs towards darker tones – while Sho DD suffers much less if at all of the situation, coming out simply better on all respects in that situation.

Ikko OH10 (€ 170)​

OH10’s bass is way tighter, colder and slammier, therefore less visceral and textured. Sub bass is a bit deeper on OH10, most of all more hearable due to the leaner midbass. Mids are similarly recessed but Sho DD has a fatter note body and therefore a more organic timbre. Treble air is similar, Sho DD is more energetic and presence treble is superior in quantity and quality. On the flip side OH10 is (in comparison) more relaxing in a sense.

Considerations & conclusions​

Really well exectured V-shape IEMs are very uncommon, and that’s an already good reason to recommend Sho DD to those looking for one.

Add near-perfectly harmonised heterogenous drivers offering meaty yet controlled bass, and sparkly, vivid, energetic, highmids and trebles free from excesses and sheens. Complete with spectactular technicalities and you’re close to unicity. Masterful, nothing short of it.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

Penon is for whatever reason outside my normal “orbits” when it comes to assessing novelties. There’s no negative reason why, I guess, except maybe for the simple fact that I tend to have an apriori higher interest on japanese, american or european products.

Be as it may, I did assess a Penon driver (the Sphere) some time ago and I found it so wonderful it got stuck to our Wall of Excellence as the best single BA money can buy below $250, and that probably still is the case.

So it’s with quite some curiosity that I borrowed this pair of privately owned Fan 2 for a few days. They can be purchased on Penon’s site, here, for $279 plus freight and EU duties if applicable of course.

Test setup and preliminary notes​

Sources: Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R, QP2R, M15, CMA-400i – TRN T ear tips – Dunu DUW-02S cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

Fan 2 have a mid-bodied note weight, showing some modest timbre incoherence between bass and treble segments (latter beind of course tighter and dryer). The tonality is however very natural across the board, with a modest, inoffensive tint of warmth, in a somewhat U-shaped, pleasant presentation


Sub-Bass

Rumble is very nicely calibrated, not too impositive nor too shy.


Mid Bass

Fan 2 deliver a very good mid bass line as notes are bodied, quite textured and almost punchy. It’s a good compromise between overly punchy / arid on one extreme and bleeding / boomy on the opposite. Timbre is a whiff wooly here, which is at the base of the abovementioned modest horizontal incoherence.


Mids

Mids are not forward but their timbre is natural and not lean, notes are decently bodied. Highmids are well present, quite energetic and well rounded, never offensive and almost glare free.


Male Vocals

Male singers come across well textured and organic on Fan 2, although not particularly outstanding vs the rest and a bit too lean to sound really organic. They may occasionally be influenced by (without outright succumbing to, though) the midbass warmth.


Female Vocals

Fan 2 offer a good rendering of female vocals, not particularly outstanding but not offensive let alone sibilant, while – like males – still a bit too lean to sound truly organic. Not a bad job for a non-vocal-specific driver though.


Highs

Treble is another part where Fan 2 strike a very good balance. They are vivid, open, almost airy, almost sparkly, without ever getting into excess leanness let alone scanting into metallic or artificial sheen. Sole negative notes are the already mentioned (modest) timbre incoherence vs the midbass and some very occasional splashyness.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Stage projection will depend quite a bit on fit optimization (see below). In best situation it’s not very wide, decently high and remarkably deep.


Imaging

Macrodynamics are no doubt amongst Fan 2 fortes: instruments are very pleasantly and distinctly positioned on the stage, and there’s air, clean space between them.


Details

Fan 2’s detail retrieval is simply “good”, thanks to the good work of the BA up there, free from excesses, and the good control imposed on the 2 dynamic drivers in the bass.


Instrument separation

Separation between main voices is very good thanks to very good imaging. Layering is also good, however it sometimes falls short, especially from the mids down, which is connected to the previously mentioned sligtly “wooly” timbre I found.


Driveability

Fan 2’s dynamic drivers are very sensitive to source impedance: a very low impedance host is recommended to avoid getting an evident bump in the mid bass. Apart for that, their quite high sensitivity help making it easy to get them amped mode than decently also by budget sources typically incapable of goo current flows below 16 ohm.

Physicals​

Build

Housings are made of medical-grade resin and they seem quite solid but their most apparent feature is aesthetical beauty which is indeed a welcome if sadly uncommon case. The shape is clearly intended to offer as much hergonomicity to as many users as possible. Nozzles are uncommonly long, which is a love/hate thing I guess.


Fit

Fan 2 enter the class of very fit-sensitive drivers: move in-out, or even change their insertion angle and you’ll get quite obvious tonality and technicalities differences. In my case (see below) their particular shape & size is a further hurdle to find the ideal positioning + comfort + sound quality compromise.

After some long rolling I found TRN T EAR tips contribute to shorten midbass transients that little bit that makes them more neatly punchy without losing texture on one end, while – thanks to their short stems – helping on compensating long nozzles.


Comfort

I’m not particularly fond of Fan 2’s particular shape & size: in spite of the long nozzle the housings stay somewhat too “outside” my concha transferring me an unpleasant sensation of instability.


Isolation

Passive isolation is going to be quite good for all those who are lucky enough to have Fan 2 housings “seal” into their conchas.


Cable

I couldn’t assess Penon stock cable. Dunu DUW-02S pairs wonderfully though.

Specifications (declared)​

Considerations & conclusions​

Fan 2 are good, and I mean seriously good. They have all it takes, and they do put it to good use to deliver a very pleasant musical experience. They are energetic however not violent, detailed however not aseptic, and feature a spot-on note body compromise, all of which make a superb allrounder of them. They also draw a sizeable scene, and cast wonderful imaging.

The fact that in spite of all that precedes I did not fall in love should honestly be considered incidental. My preference case is quite sided (see description above) and Fan 2’s somewhat too “soft” (slightly “wooly” I called it) note timbre is probably much more a turn off for me than for many others.

I also do value layering quite highly, and that’s an aspect where Fan 2 don’t excel (without however being “bad”, mind you…). So for me Fan 2 is just “nearly there”, but as I said YMMV (for the better).

At their $279 price Fan 2 is no doubt to be taken in high consideration. It’s definitely relieving to find a piece of “chifi” manufacturing which is seriously worth its price. Good job Penon.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

As some of my 18 readers may recall I am kinda impervious to hype and quite inelastic on sidegrading. It’s with such unchanging mind that I approached the assessment of the hype of the day – Hidizs’ new take to the mid-tier IEM market.

These MS5 have been heavily anticipated and are supported by a very energetic marketing campaign (nice job there, it must be said). Priced at $499 list, they are currently on promo at $399 + freight, and you can buy them here.

Test setup and preliminary notes​

Sources: Questyle QP1R & QP2R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle M15 / Questyle CMA-400i – JVC Spiraldot tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

MS5 come with a modular screw-in nozzle system intended to offer easy access to tuning alternatives.

Default nozzles are colored “Gold” and are supposed to offer the most balanced presentation – whatever that means in the manufacturer’s mind.

Red nozzles are supposed to offer a bassier alternative, and they do, but just indirectly: they mainly tame trebles between 3KHz and 5KHz, and quite substantially so, while leaving the bass line pretty much unaltered in elevation, just a bit tamed in terms of transients.

Lastly, Silver nozzles are supposed to offer a brighter, more treble-accented presentation, which they indeed do – even too much so.

Which one to choose?

Let’s start from noting that on Gold nozzles MS5 offer a “reasonably” coherent presentation. The Dynamic Driver in charge of the bass is well harmonized with the BA also in charge of the same segment, and that’s very good. Not the very same however happens when we consider the 2 BAs in charge of the trebles. The end result is decent in terms of timbre homogeneity but not much more than that: MS5’s timbre is on average lean-ish, a bit better bodied towards the bass, and oppositely quite anemic towards the treble. The general tonality is bright although not excessively so (treble exaggerations are a separate discussion, see below).

So much for Gold nozzles. As trebles are MS5’s most prominent Achille’s heel (again, see below), Silver nozzles furtherly enhancing treble are a quite obvious no-no. I guess that will stand for die-hard treble heads too, however personal tastes are sacred of course, so…

Red nozzles sound (pun intended) like a viable alternative to Gold ones: they change the general timbre making it “woolier”, and make tonality much less bright, mure like “bright-neutral” indeed, but the presentation gets definitely duller.

Long story short, MS5’s nozzles remind me a “pick your poison” scenario: Gold nozzles for a bright tonality on overly thin timbre. Red nozzles for a less thin, less bright but also less engaging experience. Silver nozzles… just bin them. In the end I “preferred” the Gold poison option, which is then what all the following notes refer to unless, where explicitly otherwise indicated.


Sub-Bass

Rumble is very present and not excessive, thanks to the good deeds of the Dynamic Driver


Mid Bass

The midbass is arguably the best part of the product. Here a very good job has been made in making the BA and the DD drivers work together coherently, resulting in mid bass notes which are at the same time snappy, punchy, textured and bodied. No overshadowing of the mids ever takes place, and a correct balance is also kept vis-a-vis the sub bass rumble.

On Red nozzles the entire timbre gets a perceivable bit less sharp, more “wooly” so to say, which files off some of the bass thumpness. Not wonderful but not a tragedy either.


Mids

Mid frequencies are uninspiring, mainly due to a definitely lean timbre making them lack body and credibility. They are clean, and that’s a plus of course, but highmids tend to be often too prominent, and sibilant in many occasions.

On Red nozzles the tonality situation gets sensibly better, whereby mids come across a bit (not much) more bodied and natural, and highmids cease being sibilant and excessive in most occasions, however clarity gets a severe hit.


Male Vocals

Male voices partially benefit from the good deeds of the low-range BA (and possibly of the DD too?) so in terms of tone they come across as reasonably organic more often then not. Microdynamics are however basic if even present, and texturing is meh.

Red nozzles make them a bit better, if a tad softer.


Female Vocals

MS5 is not the driver you want for female voices, that’s clear as the sun in the sky. Too lean, even ethereal, very often sibilant, and totally inorganic. Red nozzles make them less tragic, almost viable.


Highs

Trebles are a mixed bag of very diverse stuff. On one end there’s some good energy, a lot of detail, and a lot of speed. On the flip side there’s way too thin body, and a sharp and frequent tendence to get unresolving and even messy, screwing layering and in the worst cases imaging too.

On Red nozzles the situation gets miles better, thanks to a quite dramatic taming of the frequencies between 3 and 5 KHz. Imaging comes out much more organic and credible, and that’s another plus. The downside however is that the positive energy is almost entirely gone, and Red-tamed trebles make the entire MS5 presentation much more “ordinary”, almost “dull” – a true pity.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Soundstage projection is not more than average for this price class, mainly focusing on horizontal and vertical axes, and hardly any depth.


Imaging

Macrodynamics (imaging) are not bad in general on MS5, and they would be even very good if it weren’t for the mids and most of all the trebles too often paddling in the wrong direction. Red nozzles make the situation better on this chapter.


Details

Detail retrieval is, together with bass, where MS5 show their best. Both bass and highmids+trebles do deliver tons of good details


Instrument separation

MS5’s proweness on detail retrival on one end turns into outstanding resolving power. The down side – very common on not particularly sophysticated BA-sets, and MS5 is not an exception – is a quite dramatic lack of microdynamics, mainly on the high registers. So MS5 offer very good instrument separation but at the high cost of too cut-out notes which is particulary detrimental on acoustic music of course.


Driveability

Thanks to their 104dB sensitivity MS5 are not difficult to drive, but beware their superlow impedance in case your source has an output impedance of 1 ohm or more – that might result in some unwanted midbass pushup

Physicals​

Build

Housings are realised as a one-piece aluminum container, which appears at time solid and very elegant. Very stylish is the faceplate (its appreciation of course depends, even more then the rest, on personal tastes).


Fit

MS5 housings are quite bulky and they don’t sit properly into my concha: in spite of their quite long nozzles their shape and size are such that they keep protruding quite a bit towards the outside, which makes their firmness somewhat wonky.

MS5 also are quite tip sensitive, and (not uncommonly) none of the 3 different types of bundled tips are ideal for my tastes. After the usual long rolling session I decided that best match are JVC SpiralDots as they tend to tame the treble excesses while also offering a bit more tightness to the bass.


Comfort

Their shape and size make MS5 fit only “partial” as described above, which generates some light discomfort over medium wearing time for me


Isolation

Passive isolation is light, in my case mainly due to the housings not “filling” my concha appropriately


Cable

The stock cable is – like the housings – no doubt very nice to look at. Not the same I can say however in terms of practical use. Its creative 2-pin plugs can be annoying (they are in my case). The cable structure is very thick and wont be liked by those preferring smoothly flexible chords. Last but not least, I see no excuse at this date for offering a 499$ MSRP set (even if 25% discounted upon launch) bundled with a non-modular termination cable.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

Penon FAN2 ($280)​

FAN2 offer an almost neutral presentation with a punchy bass emerging off of it without however warming it all up too much. The timbre is quite bodied although south of lushy – however miles more solid than MS5’s. Most of all, FAN2’s timbre is coerent across the entire spectrum, while MS5 is far from that target.

FAN2 bass is very good, punchy and somewhat rumbly, yet MS5 is better on both counts. Mids and moreover trebles are totally obviously better on FAN2 in terms of timbre, tonality, texture and organicity.

Detail retrieval is superior on MS5, microdynamics and layering are obviously much better on FAN2, which also leads in terms of imaging sharpness and realism. Neither is a monster at stage projection however FAN2 has much better distribution especially in the sense of depth.

Fearless S8F ($489)​

S8F are a mid-tier full-BA set. Their main, probably single serious downside (a total turnoff for many, however – me included) is the unforgiving BA timbre and consequent scarcity on microdynamics, which is mostly common to MS5 however.

S8F tonality is well balanced, marginally even better than S8F. In spite of its above-mentioned “imperatively BA” nature, S8F timbre is anyhow less lean and most of all much more coherent compared to MS5’s. MS5 offer a better structured bass line. Vocals are better on S8F, females in particular. Detail retrieval is about on par on highmids and trebles with S8F sounding a bit better thanks the somewhat better control in the presence and brilliance sections. Soundstage is no biggie in both cases, S8F being less wide but a bit deeper.

Tanchjim Darling ($419)​

Darling are based on 1 DD + 2 Sonion BA, in lieu of the 4 Sonions adopted inside MS5. Very simply put, Darling deliver correctly on pretty much everything MS5 fail on.

Darling’s tonality is bright-neutral, with a much more coherent and bodied, acoustic timbre compared to MS5. Darling bass and sub bass are extremely good, fast, punchy yet rumbly and textured – nothing worse than MS5. On Darling highmids and brilliance trebles are wonderfully cablibrated and deliver clarity, detail, sparkles and air while always avoiding fatigue – the polar opposite of what happens on MS5. Female vocals are very good and therefore much better on Darling, male vocals are just marginally better though.

Separation is probably on par on the two sets, but Darling win big on microdynamics and soundstage, and less big, but still have an edge, on imaging.

Final A5000 ($279)​

A5000 represent a possibly even more significant comparison then even Darling are, as they deliver on many counts even better results than MS5 within a very similar bright-neutral base target tuning, all of that by employing just 1 (one) driver, and at a sensibly lower price.

A5000 first of all offer an almost impeccable timbre coherency accross all the spectrum. Their bass is similarly punchy, with even better texture but a bit less rumble compared to MS5. Low mids are somewhat recessed on A5000 and a bit lean too, however their timbre and note body is way more organic and natural-sounding that MS5’s.

Highmids and treble are superbly calibrated on A5000. Certainly detail retrieval is less articulated on A5000, but in exchange microdynamics are all there where they are supposed to be – within a fast driver category, surely – instead of MIA as on the MS5.

From the tonality standpoint a valid criticism on A5000 is that highmids are too enhanced compared to mids. What’s interesting here is that moderately pushing central mids (1 – 2KHz) up with a wide eq filter closes the gap on that transition, delivering a more balanced result free from excesses (shouts, splashes or zings). Not the same happens on MS5 when you try (via the Red nozzles or via EQ) to similarly rebalance: the result is a more fluid tonal transition, yes, but still accompanied by lack of refinement both on the highmids & trebles, and on the lowmids & midbass (read more above).

Instrument separation sounds more detailed on MS5, but much more enjoyable on A5000 thanks to the less arid timbre, and better microdynamics.

Considerations & conclusions​

As I tried to outline, I found MS5 a more than acceptable product, presented in a quite elegant and rich way too. Bass, detail retrieval and instrument separation are surely commendable, so is the adoption of replaceable nozzles to offer pre-defined “tuning variations” to the more curious users.

The timbre, however, is off, both in nature and coherence. Note body is too lean, trebles can obviously use more work upon, so do soundstage projection and microdynamics.

In conclusion MS5 are not disdainable at all, however they don’t seem yet to have what it takes to stand out of their existing competition, sometimes even costing significantly less.

Based on the very plesant communication I’m having with them I can testify Hidizs sounds strongly committed on their IEM program, for which they of course aim at the same market recognition they deservedly conquered on the budget DAP segment. I’m very sure they will come up with better and better proposals on the IEM market too in the near future. Let’s stay tuned.

The review originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here.

EA500 represent Simgot’s take to the supremely difficult <150€ market. You can find them here, They can be bought for around € 92, including Italian VAT – from multiple AE shops.

Test setup and premilinary notes​

Sources: Questyle QP1R & QP2R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle M15 / Questyle CMA-400i – JVC Spiraldot tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

EA500 feature a clear and light-noteweight timbre, and a choice of two different stock tonalities realised by installing two alternative pairs of screw-on nozzles, identified by different colored rings.

“Red ring” nozzles closely follow the Harman 2016 target aiming at balanced all-rounder tonality. “Black ring” nozzles instead cater to Simgot’s “house target” i.e. the same used for tuning their higher tier models EA1000 and EA2000. Such tuning differs from the H2016 one insofar as mid and sub-bass are more enhanced, so are high-mids and somewhat presence trebles too, with the intention to deliver an obvisouly brighter presentation delivering better detail retrieval, separation and female vocals.

In my views black ring nozzles’ intention is pretty overambitious when paired the EA500’s light timbre: the result is excessively open, etheral, uncospicuous. For my taste “red ring” nozzles pair much better with this particular driver nature, the result being still bright but more down to earth and not dramatically distant from organicity.


Sub-Bass

Sub bass is present and well calibrated vs the midbass. This applies to both nozzle cases.


Mid Bass

EA500’s mid bass has good energy but only average texture and detail, also due to not particularly tight transients. Such effect is more evident with the red nozzles, while the black nozzles offer a whiff tighter bass speed in addition to more energetic highmids, all contributing to putting the midbass a bit more at bay in the general presentation economy.


Mids

Mids are a bit recessed from the middle down, and get more upfront on their upper part. Their tonality is reasonably organic, their main limitation being note leanness. Guitars are better on red nozzles vs black nozzles. High mids do have a tendence to get shouty sometimes.


Male Vocals

Male voices on EA500 are somewhat too much in the back to take good part to the ensemble. They are quite often put on second layer either by the midbass’s lack of tightness or the high mids’ energy (the more so on black nozzles).


Female Vocals

Female singers on EA500 come across much better than male ones, especially on black nozzles. Their notes are almost always reasoably bodied and organic.


Highs

EA500’s treble is energetic and somewhat sparkly, but also perceivably grainy and sometimes shouty. Small detail resolution is present, but also quite limited. Last octave is also not partcularly well extended.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

EA500 cast a reasonably sized stage, mainly on the horizontal axis however. Depth is severely lacking, height is hinted.


Imaging

Imaging is above decent: instruments are, per se, quite credibly positioned in space. A limitation is more coming from lacking separation.


Details

Detail retrieval is OK-ish on highmids and trebles, however something better might be done even at this price. Black nozzles help but at the frequent risk of scanting into sibilance and some splashyness. Mid bass detail retrieval is very basic due to lacking texture.


Instrument separation

Instrument separation and especially layering are average at best, or I should say basic, really. Again the black nozzle with his extra brightness certainly helps discerning treble instruments better by adding some more clean air between instruments, if you can accept their sonic characteristic.


Driveability

EA500 are reasonably sensitive at a generally workable impedance, and can therefor be decently driven by very many sources, including some phones or low power dongles.

Physicals​

Build

Housings are nothing short of beautiful to see and manipulate. Of course there’s some problem with fingerprints like it obviously happens due to the (well executed) mirror finish. The screw-in nozzle system is well realised, and the nozzles also have an eartip retention ring.


Fit

EA500 fit me very nicely, as they strike that golden (and very personal) balance amongst size, shape, weight and surface smoothness to almost perfectly adapt to my outer ear. YMMV of course.


Comfort

I find EA500 extremely confortable once fit, I could use them for hours without any mechanical fatigue.


Isolation

Due to their shape they realise a quite nice passive isolation in my case.


Cable

Stock cable is very much in line with the market standards at this price level.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

Final E3000 (€86 from Amazon in EU)​

Even on red ring nozzles EA500 is tuned to be a priori brighter then E3000, which of course may make the comparison not relevant. Also, with their lower sensitivity E3000 come with the non-secondary aspect of requiring a less “common” source compared to EA500 to deliver their full potential.
Once all that’s considered, E3000 are obviously better in terms of note weight, and most of all space projection, instrument separation and layering. Their trebles are less extended and energetic – in this EA500’s being better – but also always well controlled, never sibilant or splashy. Bass on E3000 has good texture, and better detail retrieval then EA500 which however has the lead on the highmid and treble details side.

Intime Sora 2 (€52 + circa € 25 refowarding costs from E-earphones)​

Sora 2 offer a quite similar stock tonality compared to EA500 “red” option, with an evidently more solid, organic note weight. Mid bass is more controlled and more textured on Sora 2. Highmids and trebles are similarly sparkly and energetic, with Sora 2 not scanting into grainiess, and in general delivering more realism – thanks for sure to Intime’s exceptional ceramic tweeter.
Even more difference comes out from layering and separation, where Sora 2 excels hands down (even compared to E3000 by the way). Both drivers, on the contrary, don’t offer big wonders in terms of stage depth. Lastly, Sora 2 is not heavily marketed on western markets, so european and american fellows need some proactivity to even know about them, and buy a pair.

Maestraudio MA910S (€73 delivered to EU from Amazon.jp)​

A less energetic, flatter presentation, silkier version of the Sora-2, Maestraudio MA910S are also a great alternative to EA500. For the distracted ones, Maestraudio is the other brand owned by Ozeid, the same owners of the Intime brand, and their IEMs employ the same base technologies.
Again, layering and separation on MA910S and on a higher category compared thanks to the evidently better driver and implementation. Trebles are expressive yet totally ungrainy, bass is combed, not very snappy, vocals are very balanced, the lot is ideal for a more relaxed but yet still good quality listening. Stage is equivalently mainly extended on the horizontal axis on MA910S and EA500, but MA910S have way better height, and a bit more of depth (not much). The recently released MA910SB (featuring balanced termination for a price marginally passing 100€ delivery included) are also a very interesting alternative.

Considerations & conclusions​

Choosing to compete on the <150€ market is a tough challenge for anyone, and that’s even for two reasons, not one alone.

First: on technical grounds final audio literally devastated the competition on this segment when they decided to enter it already a few years ago. E1000, E2000, E3000, E4000 (for the Harman-ers) and A3000 (for bright-tuners) represent such a wide, solid, complete offering that may make many not bother looking anywhere else, and rightfully so at least in terms of result vs effort ratio.

Second: probably due to the previous fact, a very thick army of manufacturers keep on trying their skills on this playground, making it if possible even more difficult for anyone to stand out of the big contenders crowd, busy as they all are with their endless, almost daily (!) flow of “yet-another” releases.

With EA500, Simgot put in place a solid first attempt at the sub-100€ budget playground, featuring some good personality to begin with. Easy nozzle-based tonality customizability is surely a good bet, in principle, which is made even better by a correct execution as in EA500’s case. Tonal coherence, also, is well carried out. The driver itself, however, does not seem fully up to the task when compared to established similar priced staples. They will make it better, I’m sure. I’m curious to assess Simgot’s future developments !

This article originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here.

As some may recall, I previously assessed iFi’s high end €329 dongle – the GO Bar. I guess there’s little doubt that when I took this € 59 (!) GO Link into consideration my first curiosity regarded such wide price positioning difference – quite evidently hinting towards a very different target audience intention…

Features and description​

Externals​

GO Link is seriously small and lightweight, really barely more conspicous than a mere passive USB cable, and much more flexible thanks to the braided structure given to its external wires.

It comes with a single LED on the chassis, which is supposed to indicate its power ON state while idle, and the resolution of the digital content being played while working, according to the following scheme:


On the main chassis a single 3.5mm phone output port is available. On the opposite end of the white braided cabling, a single USB-C male connector is present.

Lastly yet very importantly GO Link comes bundled with 2 USB accessories: a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a USB-C to Lightning adapter.

The Lightning adapter in particular is a quite expensive item when purchased separately, and it’s a crucial resource for Apple ecosystem users as it perfectly matches iPhone and iPad requirements, thus avoiding them the need for the bulky Apple Camera Adapter.

Internals​

Not diverting from their habits, iFi releases just macro-information about GO Link internals, but hardly any finer details.

GO Link is built around an ESS SOC-class chip, namely the ES9219MQ/Q (data sheet) which, within the inherent limitations of a SOC chip, is a quite interesting model. It features for example “QUAD DAC+” internal structure, which iFi exploits big time within their smart “S-Balanced” scheme (see more below).

Another ESS9219 feature which GO Link puts to good use is Dynamic Range Enhancement (“DRE”). In GO Link case this results into a 6dB DR enhancement, which is quite significant for a product in this price class.

The rest of the components are coming from the usual manufacturers normally enlisted by iFi, first and foremost Murata and TDK (capacitors).

Input​

GO Link is a “pure DAC/AMP dongle”, so its sole accepted input is digital, via the USB connection.

As previously mentioned, the package includes a native USB-C male plug, a USB-A adapter and a Lightning adapter, which considering the very modest total asking price are a huge added value.

Output​

GO Link’s sole output is its analog 3.5mm connector, which of course accepts any 3.5mm single-ended terminated load… and something else, thanks to iFi’s S-Balanced technology implemented behind it.

I already covered this iFi proprietary technology multiple times on my articles regarding other iFi sources (here, here and here). You can alternatively refer to iFi’s own white paper, here.

Simply put S-Balanced is a smart way to route the analog signal inside the device such to realise a sort of (give me some rope here) “fake” balanced scheme even with a single amp stage (vs two independent, parallel ones as they are used within “real” balanced schemes).

S-Balanced offers the same benefits of a true Balanced scheme in terms of lower noise and distortion, and none of its drawbacks (to know why… RTFWP!) when it is connected to a balanced-wired (TRRS) load.

In addition to that, unlike a true Balanced scheme, S-Balanced is fully backwards compatible with single-ended (TRS) terminated loads.

And more: single-ended (TRS) terminated drivers plugged onto an S-Balanced port will get “some” improved sound quality (50% reduced crosstalk) compared to the same dac-amp circuitry organised following the “ordinary” single-ended flow.

So you understood well: GO Link’s 3.5 output port (same as Nano iDSD Black Label’s, for that matter) does accept both single ended and balanced ended terminated IEMs/Headphones.

But… how do I connect a balanced-terminated cable (typically ending in a 2.5mm or 4.4mm male plug) to GO Link’s 3.5mm phone out? With an adapter of course !

Now for the really odd part: iFi does not provide such adapter – neither within GO Link’s standard bundle, nor even as a separately-purchaseable part.

Be as it may, the 3.5 mm TRRS wiring you want is what is also called “Hifiman standard”. See here for reference.

I do have such an adapter (3.5mm TRRS male, 4.4mm TRRS female) from back in the days when I was using the Nano iDSD BL, and I can relate the “trick” does work: pairing the same balanced-wired IEM to GO Link once via a 4.4 to 3.5 TRS single ended adapter, and then via the 4.4 to 3.5 TRRS adapter, results in an obviously improved sound in the latter case.

Host power requirements​

GO Link absorbs 1W = 450mA (max) while playing and 0.7W = 375mA while idle.

These are not the lowest figures in the industry – the champs always being the Dragonflys here, followed by E1DA 9038SG3 and 9038D – yet these are still to be considered quite modest values, which won’t make too quick shame of your phone’s battery. Yes, iPhones included (via the Lightning adapter supplied as a freebie).

Volume and gain control​

GO Link does not offer a physical on-device volume control. Its volume control is interfaced with the one on the host platform (I positively experienced Windows and Android).

The situation is potentially problematic on Android which – by default – divides the USB device volume range in only 40 steps (or even 25 for the latest Android releases…), resulting in the last ticks converting into way too big SPL variations.

Luckily, those better featured player apps (e.g. UAPP) which you would normally anyway use for a number of other reasons one above all bypassing standard Android audio drivers do also allow for re-defining the number of steps Volume control is divided into (up to 250, on UAPP) – which solves the issue.

Other features​

MQA Rendering​

I won’t spend a word on what MQA itself is, of course. Google around if you wish and you’ll be overflooded with info.

What matters here is: GO Link is a “MQA Renderer”, so it can fully unfold MQA tracks on its own hardware, which is an upgrade vs the default represented by having the music player host do the unfolding, and only limited to the first 2 folds.

Firmware​

Like all other iFi devices (well at least all those I know of, but the list seems quite comprehensive…), GO Link allows for the user to easily change/upgrade the device firmware.

At present time, on GO Link this option can only be actionated with the purpose of installing incremental firmware updates aimed at feature optimisations or bug fixing.

Package​

I already covered this en passant above, but for the sake of completeness: GO Link comes in a small box but with the right bundle accessories, and premium quality ones at that too.

• USBC-Lightning passthrough adapter
• USBC-USBA passthrough adapter

Sound and power​

GO Link sound quality is basically in line with what one would expect from a latest generation ESS SOC chip – such as what you get off of a Shanling M0 Pro, which I recently reviewed – with some little bit of further enhancement.

Who wants to go the extra mile is cordially encouraged to get a TRRS 3.5mm adapter and plug balanced-terminated drivers onto the GO Link. The improvement in terms of noise reduction, clarity, stage drawing and imaging will be quite obvious.

GO Link’s output power is not huge yet not weak either: it delivers 2V on high impedance loads (300+ ohms) and 1.5V (70mW) onto 32 ohm loads, making it an absolutely viable option for 95+% of the IEMs out there and much of the cans, too. Just avoid planars, and particularly current-hungry IEMs (E5000, B1…), and you’re a happy camper.

Considerations & conclusions​

With the GO Link, positioned at just € 59 EU retail, iFi clearly aims at marketing a ultra-portable, not-necessarily-audiophile-tier “smartphone audio upgrade” device, offering all users of no-wired-analog-out phones an option to plug their wired drivers, and a sound quality and/or output power upgrade to all others.

After assessing it I can relate that iFi indeed went much, much beyond such intention.

While surely south of the top dongle market levels reached by the likes of Questyle M15, Apogee Groove, Dragonfly Cobalt and iFi’s own GO Bar, iFi GO Link offers very interesting output quality and power, full MQA rendering, instant matching with Windows, Android and/or Apple hosts, and even an extra option to pair with balanced-terminated drivers (via a third party adapter) for even wider compatibility, and even better sound.

What more an occasional user might ask for € 59 retail I frankly wouldn’t know.

This article originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here.

After auditioning final B3 multiple times in the past 2 or 3 years, and liking them of course, I took an opportunity recently and purchased a pair at a very convenient price. Originally released in 2019 and still in full production to date, B3 retail for € 499 in EU.

Important foreword​

I feel it’s appropriate to extend an informative preamble here, you’ll understand why as you read on.

As you might (or might not?) know, the people at final do take a quite scientific approach to acoustics, and to their headphones design in consequence. If you didn’t yet, I warmly recommend you to spend a couple of hours (or more) on this article.

Until a few years ago final’s strategy line was to develop “in-ear versions” of their flagship D8000 headphones aiming at delivering something as close as possible to the “allrounder” archetipe. Such was, and still is, their E-series.

Later on, final took a different approach: investigating specific musical genres and their listeners’ preferences and/or requirements as a basis to develop IEMs focused on each particular situations.

Final A- and B- series are the results of such different strategy.

Final shared some more detail regarding their studies and consequent choices.

First and foremost they put attention on the aspect of “distance perception”.

When listening to some musical genres – namely orchestral classical or big band jazz – more than others spatiality is key. Thinking to the “real thing” (the orchestra in the theatre) you expect, and therefore you want , to “feel” their music “in a big room”, and perceive the different distance the various instruments or instrument grups are placed at from your seat, and from each other.

Oppositely, when one listens to hard rock, pop, or even small-group jazz (think to a trio in a smokey canteen) widespread 3D spacing is not important as indeed it does not correspond to “the real thing”. In such situation you indeed expect a group of voices playing physically close to one another, and what you want is not hearing them artificially scattered here or there, rather you want them to be rendered “sonically well separated” from one another.

When at a live venue of a small group you do in facts always discern the guitar from the bass and the voice even if they are all standing on a stage less than 10 square meters – such discernment capability is instead too often “lost in translation” while we listen to corresponding audio tracks.

Another key element that final focused on is what techies call the sound’s “dynamic range”.

Vulgarly translated, think to dynamic range as the number of distinguishable shades of a certain physical quantity. A box with 12 colored pencils from dark red to black is an example of a much tighter dynamic range compared to a big box of 144 Caran d’Ache, still going from dark red to same black.

Ported onto audio terms, a wider dynamic range sound is what you want to appreciate all the most minute variations Maria Callas was able to issue while warbling, or Uto Ughi can deliver from a Guarnieri del Gesù.

Oddly enough, in some cases a wider dynamic range is less desireable. Using only 12 colored pencils, in facts, it is much easier to tell a red from an orange, even if they are drawn one adjacent to the other, for the simple reason that there is apriori only “one” red and “one” orange in your palette, not a dozen different intermediate nuances of each.

When you have “a lot of space” in between two color (or sounds) spots, one blue the other red, you can have each reproduced with more subtle nuances. Oppositely if the two spots are closer to one another, or even overlapping each other, your first priority is to avoid they mix into a violet!

Thinking in these terms, orchestral music, or anyhow music composed of many “voices”, be them acoustic or electronic, coming from multiple, spread-out physical positions will better require higher space reconstruction and dynamic range capabilities.

Oppositely, music generated by very few instruments/voices/sources playing shoulder-to-shoulder will rather want all voices to be “more or less in the same spot”, and that’s when the highest available proweness in rendering them clearly distinct from one another becomes crucial.

The B series has been developed exactly thinking to such last mentioned applicative scenario: small groups acting on physically small stages, with overlapping sounds and voices – calling for relatively lesser need for “spatial amplitude” in exchange for much higher sonic separation capabilities.

This graph taken from final’s web site is at this point quite readable.



https://snext-final.com/files/topics/881_ext_08_en_0.jpg?v=1561543365

The term “Clarity” in this case is used in the sense of “being able to tell different sounds apart from one another”.

For completeness: the opposite scenario is the typical big orchestral setup, involving many voices positioned on a quite (or very!) sizeable physical stage. In such case priority #1 is rendering the amplitude of the original, real scene. Technically, translates into micro-managing sound timing, and rendering distant sounds as clean and articulated as close ones. That is final A-series ballpark, instead.

At the end of this lengthy preamble, I hope I made its very reason obvious: don’t blame your Fiat Panda turtle speed and deafening noise if your purpose is covering 50.000 KM/year on motorways, nor criticise your BMW 530 if costs your a pretty penny of gas in the messy downtown traffic.

Full Device Card​

Test setup​

Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / Questyle M15 / E1DA 9038SG3 / Questyle CMA-400i – Stock Final E tips – Dunu DUW-02S silver plated cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD 64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

B3 are just a bit on the bright side of neutral, with a presentation I would call roughly W-shaped. The timbre is very interesting: notes are clear and bodied, detailed and meaty – not simply “analogue”, rather “organically lifelike”. Veeery different from what’s commonly called “BA timbre”.


Sub-Bass

Sub-bass reflects the inherent limitations of BA drivers: its extreme end is in facts modestly rolled off. Not a big deal for my tastes: standup bass rumble is there anyhow. I can make it a bit more evident with some light EQing, which B3 bear with a certain tranquillity.


Mid Bass

Mid bass is very good but before that it’s… surprising. The BA driver reserverd to B3’s mid and low frequencies yields solid body and relaxed-calibrated transients, delivering still fast and punchy yet – very uncommonly for a BA – textured, flowery and meaty notes. For my personal taste B3’s midbass is at times even a tad too “imperative” – first time I hear such situation on a BA driver. Again, this can be easily corrected by some light EQing.


Mids

Mids are just spectactular: moderately forward, bodied, textured, articulated. Acoustic piano, guitar and tenor sax benefit most from this tuning.


Male Vocals

Baritones on B3 sound natural if just a whiff too much bodied to come across as “totally” realistic. Tenors are better in this sense: less “flowery” then baritones while still very much organic.


Female Vocals

Opposite to the male case, female voices are very good and cured, yet a purist might say they could use a bit more butter. And that’s true, in a sense, but in such case the rest of the tones “around” the soprano would have to be adapted too, to avoid losing coherence.


Highs

One of the two BA drivers is exclusively dedicated to this segment, with the quite obvious target of delivering an engaging and detailed experience while staying rigorously south of excesses. And boy did they succeed! A very good compromise has been reached here between note body and fine granularity, livelyness and unoffensiveness.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Unsurprisingly considering their apriori design choices, B3’s soundstage is not more than average for it price class. It is however, if modestly, extended in all directions including some depth. Caveat: stage size also depends on fit – deeper push-in = narrower scene, as always.


Imaging

All instruments are well cut-out from the ensemble – for how closed-in may it be – and realistically cast on the scene with good body, to a very organic result.


Details

Detail retrieval is very good on B3, however you shouldn’t expect a “detail monster” effect, whereby details are thrown at you as “the first thing you hear”. It’s indeed the other way around here: on the frontline you hear main-bodied notes, while back layers bring you the details that complement the sound richness.

That’s very likely the consequence of the precise tuning choices operated in particular on the trebles, where as I mentioned above an evident succeeded effort has been applied to delivered the highest possible energy while never scanting into excess and fatigue.


Instrument separation

Layering and instrument separation is arguably where B3 deliver their best. Capitalising on their timbre clarity, on the accuracy of their tonal calibration, and – why not – on particular driving hardware features, they deliver a really uncommon separation quality. If their design purpose was to render small, closed-in groups with the maximum single-voice definition, they no doubt hit the bullseye here.


Driveability

It’s not so easy to drive the B3 due to quite modest sensitivity (102dB/mw). Nothing as hard as a nasty planar however – a modestly amplified source is basically enough.

Physicals​

Build

Housings are produced by Metal Injection Moulding, a process involving mixing steel powder with another element to form a resin which is then moulded at high temperature into the desired shape. The result is solid and sturdy, and aesthetically very pleasing at least for my tastes.


Fit

A 3-contact-point fit between the housing and the outer ear has been designed by final aiming at the best compromise between wearing firmness and light stress accumulation over time.

The design idea is quite brilliant to be honest, the rationale being: you need (just) 3 grip points to obtain stability. One is the eartip umbrella, inside the canal. Another one is the housing’s short front side vs the tragus.

And the third can be any one of the possible 4 contact spots between the housing’s shaped back side and the concha – depending on one’s ear particular shape that of course will happen on one or another position. I would say that for my experience it works as intended.

What I just find sub-ideal is the nozzle length which is a tad too short and makes tip selection pickier than it should. In my case the working trick luckily “just” stays in choosing a bigger size for my left ear: that gets me a firm grip and seal even if the tip stops “just in” the canal, relieving the need to push the housings too much into my left concha.


Comfort

B3’s particular housings size, their 3-point-fit design, and their external finish all contribute to a good comfort once I found my right “personal” position.


Isolation

Passive isolation is quite nice once B3 are properly fitted, but not more than that as the housings are not designed to “fill up” the concha, which would of course block more of the leak.


Cable

Stock cable is Final C106, a Junkosha silver plated copper with fixed 3.5 termination – it’s the same cable bundled as stock on A8000 and E5000. I recently focused how sonically limited such cable is – it’s at best on par with some quite cheap chifi alternatives, with the bad difference of it retailing for like 200$ when purchased alone.

In addition to that no modular termination plugs are available, so pairing B3 to a balanced source requires swapping it anyhow. To this day in 2023, and for packages like B3 starting to cost around 500$ list, I think final could do better.

After some cable rolling for my experience better stay on silver plated – pure copper “combs” B3’s trebles a bit too much – so I find Dunu DUW-02S an adequate quality option for B3. Compared to stock layering and note contouring get obviously better, and bass is better defined, less flowery.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

I’ll list a few comparisons down here, trying to be (for once) quite succint while hopefully informative enough

final B1 (€699 EU list)​

Insofar as another member of the B-series, B1 follows the same apriori musical pairing indications as B3. Featuring a Dynamic driver in the mid & low frequencis in lieu of B3’s BA driver, B1’s timbre is full and lush, tonality is obviously warm and V-shaped, their bass is viscerally deep and authoritative (even too much), mids are more recessed, and trebles are relaxed. If B3 pleases those like me longing for organic, unadultered acoustic renditions, B1 obviously caters to people liking bass-colored, energetic playbacks. B1 is also very tricky to drive, requiring much more current than most portable sources are able to deliver, and when underbiased they sound dark and quite ugly (E5000, anyone?).

final F7200 (€ 469 EU list)​

To me F7200 are [even more] specialised drivers, particularly dedicated to vocal performances like songwriters singers etc. Pretty much the single best driver I ever heard on that application. B3 offer more bodied, natural and more extended bass, and a bit better trebles.

Intime Miyabi (JPY 21000 + import costs)​

Miyabi offer a more “classical-all-rounder” presentation with stronger bass personality, and those unique piezo-trebles-without-piezo-timbre. A close call on layering and separation with the edge probably in Miyabi’s favour, if not by much. Mids are better on B3, which also deliver “silkier” notes all over the spectrum, but cost twice as much.

final A5000 (€ 299 EU list)​

As I tried to outline in the foreword up above, A-series stems from a polar-opposite design intention (rendering big bands instead of small groups) – no wonder then how B3 and A5000 sound different like day and night. A5000 draws a much wider space, and cast instruments all over it with a lot of clean air in-between one another. Notes are dryer on A5000 all accross the spectrum, its timbre is leaner, detail retrieval is “more upfront”. High mids and trebles may be “hot” for some on A5000, which do react very positively to EQ however. TL;DR: A5000 and B3 are fundamentally “complementary”.

iBasso IT04 (€ 499,00)​

IT04, too, feature particular proweness on layering / separation, and prefer casting a more intimate scene with band elements imaged as more closed-in to one another. A very good job was done on IT04 bringing the 3 BA driver’s tonality close to their DD one, which however deprives IT04 of that little % of “treble life” which is there on B3 instead. IT04 has an open-V shape, warm-ish presentation in lieu of B3’s more W-shaped, bright-neutral one.

Oriveti OH500 (€ 499,00)​

OH500 offer a U-shaped, warmer presentation compared to B3. Both ends (bass and treble) are more evident on OH500. Layering, separation and detail retrieval are better on B3, more so in the low end. OH500 are (even) pickier to drive then B3.

Dunu EST112 (€ 489,00)​

EST112 has slower and fuzzier (bur more visceral) bass, not as full vocals and a bit more tamed trebles (which are in my books EST112 Achille’s heel tbh) compare to B3. Stage casting is a bit wider on EST112, layering is better on B3.

Considerations & conclusions​

B3’s main cyphre is realism. When applied to the music they were designed for they gift their owner a stunning sense of physical presence on the scene. Instruments and players are cast near you such that you can almost reach out and touch them.

Even more importantly, B3 deliver a note discernment capability over the music being played which gets surprisingly close to that of your own ears when you are sitting in the front lines of a live venue. All of this paired with a deliciously organic timbre on a bright-neutral tonality.

As my eighteen readers know I am not a collector. Life is too short, and I have too little free time to spend any of that on second-best options, when I am lucky enough to have more than one availalble. B3 are part of my (very) short best-option list.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

P.S. – for the record: as any truly affectionated user knows spelling, “final Co., Ltd.” lowercase (“final”) is not a typo

Following Jürgen’s recent review of Tempotec V6, the Dongguan-based manufacturer sent me a sample unit of their TOTL DAP to obtain a second opinion / review. I thank them for that.

As per our standard in such cases I’ll keep my piece a bit less descriptive as most of the general product information is already well covered by the original article. I’ll of course fill the pros&cons table, and I will add personal notes and considerations that might – hopefully – add something new to the reader’s benefit.

What’s good for me​

Sound​

First a foremost, when judged vs its reference price V6 sounds good. Imaging (microdynamics) in particular is very nice. Extension is more than acceptable, and there is no significant sign of shoutyness or other “overdoings” from the 3KHz up. Well done.

The general device timbre, furthermore, is pleasant. It transmits a sense of silkyness – notes are well defined yet rounded. As a consequence V6 pairs best with bright / analythical drives.

On the flip side V6 is not the most resolving or microdynamical source you can get for the money – although quite likely the best one in form of a standalone DAP. On such regards it must honestly be kept in mind that miracles not being allowed, limited resources imply compromises. Cutting it with an hatchet, but not going far from reality, experience tells us that you “either” get good imaging with limited resolution, “or” a shaper accent on details but a fuzzier imaging, and fatigue on the midterm. Getting both at the same time requires different hardware (starting from the power module), therefore – by the way – higher budgets.

Power​

V6’s balanced output delivers some very nice power, which turns into a lot of good flexibility. I find its almost 4V voltage swing OK for my HD600 in most if not all occasions, and 610mW on 32ohm are a great reservoir of power vs the overwhelming majority of IEMs out there, solely barred uncommon cases like Final E5000 or RHA CL2 – and fullsize hard planars, of course (more on this below).

Audio-specific system foundations​

In exchange for being stuck with Andoid 8 (more on this below), V6 can adopt the full suite of audio-specific Android customisations originally developed by HiBy.

The most important of those is no doubt the bypass to Android’s stock audio driver, which “locks” all standard Android devices onto max 48KHz sample rate output – barred aposteriori interventions by clever apps e.g. UAPP, or, more recently, Roon ARC. On custom Android 8 there is a sort of “direct path” available between audio hardware and any higher-level apps, allowing the latter to fully exploit the former’s potential.

Another extremely interesting feature available at system level on these custom Android 8 distros is HiBy’s own user-friendly parametric EQ system called MSEB (as in “Magic Sound Eight Ball”)

The same feature is indeed included with HiBy’s music player app (“HiBy music”) – yet having it implemented down low at system level means you can exploit it also when using any other player app. Not a small thing at all.

Other nice audio features​

V6 offers full access to its DAC chips’ 6 (six!) different built in filters: Sharp Roll-off, Slow Roll-off, Short Delay Sharp Roll-off, Short Delay Slow Roll-off, Super Slow Roll-off and Low Dispersion Short Delay.

By the way: for an explanation of what reconstruction fiters are you may want to grab a coffee, then go read my article on the subject (I recommend: in the listed order…). Full AKM AK4493SEQ specs are instead available here, after some registration.

V6 has 4 (four) separate analog audio outputs: 3.5 and 4.4 headphone out, and 3.5 and 4.4 line out.

It’s worth noting that unlike other devices V6 does not offer S/PDIF (digital) coax output from its 3.5 jack port. To get S/PDIF out from V6 you need to pick it from the USB-C port, via an adapter.

While talking about digital ouputs (and inputs), V6 offers them both on Bluetooth and USB channels.

Bluetooth in particular is at level 5.0 and supports most advanced codecs including LDAP and APTX-HD. No APTX-LL however. BT in general is well implemented and I could get good connection stability both in and out on LDAP.

And good battery support​

V6 carries a 4500mAh battery, which taken per se is one of those pieces of info that really mean nothing.

It becomes good news when we consider that

• The battery itself supports QC3 fast charging : with the right charger in just 1 hour you get up tp 70%
• The device consumption is quite modest. Based on my typical usage I could get more than 12-13h effective play time.
• Android’s deep sleep is correctly implemented: you can leave V6 “on, but sleeping” (like your phone) and it will last weeks
• Last but not least, 4000mAh are enough to cope with powering a not particularly hungry dongle (e.g. E1DA 9038SG3, Dragonfly Cobalt) in case you want to use one to sensibly upgrade V6’s internal sound quality

What’s not​

Android​

In spite of the audio-specific customisations – one above all: the proprietary patch allowing for bypassing of Android’s own audio drivers – Android still impacts negatively on sound quality.

How do you know? Just try. Take the very same track and play it once on the DAP, and another time from a good quality transport after connecting that DAP as an external USB DAC: the latter will transit through at a “lower” level, and will be audibly cleaner, airier, livelier. Do the same with a non-Android DAP and the differences, if any, will be much less evident.

That being said, Android brings a lot of additional convenience to a mobile audio player. Sure! So does the smartphone I already carry with me everywhere however. So why should I use carry dedicated mobile audio player (DAP) ?

Long story short the sole valid fundamental rationale is: because I want better sound quality. Correct.

Just be warned: a) on even price conditions you can and will find non-Android DAPs sounding significantly better than same-priced Android ones, so much so that b) there is no Android-based DAP seriously rivalling top sound quality DAPs (Questyle QPM, Lotoo Paw Gold Touch).

Android 8.1​

Amonsgt the few really interesting possibilities opened by adopting Android (or iOS) is using the device as a mobile Roon terminal via the recently released Roon ARC app. Very true, very important. Too bad that Roon ARC requires Android 9 (or iOS 12)

Why is the overwhelming majority of the existing Android-based DAP still adopting Android 9 ? Quite simple if you think about it : no one wants (is able / can budget-justify) to develop new audio-specific kernel modifications. Everyone is forking / licensing the same original patches – hence they are stuck on that kernel version.

Limited system resources leading to limited system performances​

As mentioned above, Android is supposed to bring flexibility as its main advantage. Key to that is the possibility to use multiple different applications to run different tasks, and do that concurrently, read: at the same time.

To reach such target a certain amount of system resources (computing power and RAM) are required. And that’s what V6 sadly falls short of. The Snapdragon 425 SOC is a 6 year old model – which is a loooong time span in the mobile gear CPU chips market. Furthermore, it’s equipped with just 2GB of RAM. By comparison my everything-but-TOTL Samsung A52 phone runs a 2020 SOC (Snapdragon 720G) on 8GB RAM.

Surely choosing an outdated SOC and very little RAM contributes keeping market price down – no question about it – however it also hampers applicative performances especially in terms of multitasking.

Long story short: V6 works OK when you launch one music player, and use it to its full extent (including some EQ etc), but it starts showing “fatigue” (slow UI responsiveness) or “serious fatigue” (sluggish UI, stuttering etc) when you keep more than one music player and/or other (e.g. messaging, video etc) apps up together.

Other (common) shortcomings​

From some point of view V6 is a genuine son of its time – so I guess we should be mild on its main shortcomings as they are common to most if not all the rest of the market offering at the same prices, and sadly at higher prices too.

Much like most of its peers, V6’s Single ended output should be considered “there just in case you can’t but use it”. Sound quality with some meaning exclusively comes out the Balanced output line, really.

Additionally, while V6 is able to deliver some very significant output power onto high impedance (almost 4V swing on 300ohm) and mid impedance (610mW on 32ohm) loads, its architecture quickly drops the battleaxe as load goes down: current output vs sub-16ohm drivers is seriously limited, so much so that it does not pass the E5000 acid test. Again: V6 is in great company ! It would then be too severe to point this out as a shameful limitation or such. Just be warned that – as always – money matters, and “there ain’t such thing as a giant killer”(tm).

A couple of significant comparisons​

Sony NW-A55​

Simply put, NW-A55’s worst defect is that… it was recently discontinued. Until a year ago it was still on sale as new and, while already good in itself, thanks to a great humanity benefactor anyone could (and still can) even upgrade its internal operating system adopting more sophisticated versions Sony normally dedicates on their higher tier DAP models, turning A55 into a real sound quality masterpiece for a very modest budget (a bit less than 200€ retail).

A55 is worth mentioning as a part of our discussion today as it’s a glowing example of how a much lower priced device, free from the Android “burden” (see above), in terms of sound quality, audio features and UI/UX can closely rival a (good!) Android DAP like the V6 costing more than twice as much. Indeed in my opinion A55 still surpasses V6 in terms of sound definition and UI, while is succumbs as for sound extension, sheer output power, flexibility and compatibility.

HiBy R5​

Also recently discontinued to be replaced by the much more expensive “R5 II Gen-2”, R5 was HiBy’s lower end Android-based DAP.

Lastly priced at the exact same ex works price as V6 ($369), the original R5 is extremely similar to its Tempotec competitor in terms of internal system hardware (same Snapdragon SOC, same system resources, same Android distro, same standard mods and apps), the meaningful differences consisting essentially in the audio section, whereon R5 is equipped by two CS43198 instead of V6’s more modern 2 x AK4493SEQ, complemented by 2 x ADP8397 opamps vs V6’s OPA1688.

R5 also has a smaller form factor (and screen), BT 4.2 instead of 5, and is minorly less powerful in terms of output wattage… details, really.

What’s most important: V6 sounds better. Not like day / night better, no, still very much audibly better. R5 sounds edgier, grainier, less refined.

Again, what matters to our discussion today is that the two devices are very similar under multiple design aspects, and they mainly differ insofar as V6 adopts a more modern DAC chipset. The existing although not excessive differences I find correspond quite exactly to my apriori expectation.

Wish I had a chance to audition HiBy’s latest R5 iteration, the R5 II GEN-2. I’m ready to bet it will be… very similar to V6 again – this time the gap being even smaller between the two, and it will be a close call wether one or the other can be called “better”.

Why do I reckon so ? Because R5 II is… pretty much again the same piece of base hardware (same Snapdragon SOC, same Android 8.1, same sw suite, same… etc), this time complemented with a more modern DAC chip set (2 x ESS9219C) and a Class-A output stage which will likely provide a tad better (cleaner, livelier) sound at the cost of a much higher power consumption.

How much difference will such more modern componentry make? Tough to say – as the burden represented by the antique (!) underlying hw and sw architecture will surely drain part of their good deeds…

Considerations and conclusions​

Taking solely output audio quality in consideration the DAP market offers better quality for the dollar on proprietary-OS DAPs vs Android-based DAPs.

That said, for many adding more applicative flexibility to their pocket audio player device is a priority, and that’s where a general-purpose OS like Android comes into the equation.

Android DAP lovers don’t seem to really care about compromises in terms of sheer sound quality, or in terms of higher price budget, or both. Their (legit) mindset calls for Android-based DAPs to be considered (paraphrasing you-know-which movie line…) a separated ballpark, if even the same sport compared to custom OS ones.

All that recalled as a crucial preamble, as I tried to outline today Tempotec V6 clearly represents a solid staple in the sub-1K€ Android-based DAP panorama.

Its original introductory price of $280 made it into an absolute no brainer to be honest. At that price V6 was “the” budget Android DAP to own – full stop.

Now that the launch campaign is over V6 retails for $369 ex works, converting into a whiff less than €450 including EU VAT – which means stiffer competition, which however won’t likely significantly outrun V6 in terms of overall quality, leaving it as a still solid choice in its category and price segment.

This review originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

Not my first time with a Shanling product in my hands, yet this is no doubt the most eye-captivating one at the very least.

An M0 Pro has been sent to me for review by the manufacturer. You can find specs and full official description here. It currently retails for €155 including shipping from China and Italian VAT. Here’s my report.

The Shanling M0 Pro was provided by Shanling for my review – and I thank them for that. You find more information on the product page.

Features and description​

Externals​

The M0 Pro is amazingly small an featherweight : a bit less than 44 x 45 x 14mm and just 37g. Fits an Italian espresso coffe cup. For reference, an Apple Watch is minorly thinner and lighter…

The screen is 1.54″ (a bit less than 4cm diagonal) and offers a 240×240 pixel map. Definition is quite nice, and brightness (which can be sw-controlled) is OK for sunlight visibility.

Globally taken, M0 Pro exhudes design and build quality. The aluminum chassis is extremely well conceived in terms of ergonomics and haptics, so is the screen on its front face, which is even slightly curved at its edges to better connect with the housing.

Managing the GUI via that tiny screen may seem discouraging before trying, but it oppositely proves incredibly efficient thanks, I guess, to good hardware and some quite smart tap and swipe implementation choices (more on this later). Be as it may, using M0 Pro’s touch screen is easy and straighforward.

On the upper right side there’s the sole physical control being the general on-off / screen on-off / volume up-down button.

On the bottom panel there’s a slot for an SDC card (up to 2TB), a USB-C port and the 3.5mm phone out port.

Accessories​

It’s not an “accessory”, but the carton packaging M0 Pro comes in is amongst the better designed, more captivating and nicer looking I ever met – at any price by the way. At Shanling they evidently care about consistent communcation and they – correctly – properly invest in the right complements to their main product to reinforce the positive user’s impression about the care they put in their products.

M0 Pro comes with a good quality factory-preinstalled screen protection film. A spare one is supplied too, it can be found inside the flat box containing product literature.

Part of the package is also a good quality USB-A to USB-C cable .

My sample unit was also supplied with a leather “jacket” – which is normally sold separately and in facts came in a standalone package. A very nice add-on, both for quality and even more for looks.

One thing worth noting is the jacket “embraces” the devices, and ends up “overlapping” the front screen by like 2 / 3mm on both left and right sides, and it’s like 1mm+ thick. I presume there’s little to do with such sizes / measures as long as one wants to keep the same raw material and manufacturing quality, however I feel it’s worth noting that the jacket prevents both horizontal thumb-swipe gestures to swing all the way from/to the very screen border(s). Tapping really close to screen borders is also nigh impossible – this, even to people with relatively lean fingers like myself.

Regarding horizontal swipe “span” – so to call it – Shanling support pointed my attention on the fact that on-screen swipes on M0 Pro do indeed work best (as in: more precise and responsive) when initiated from the center of the screen, not from its sides. And that’s true (I checked)! So once taken such habit, the jacket’s presence ceases to represent a hurdle for effective horizontal thumb swipes.

It stays however extremely hard (too hard, really) to tap very close to screen borders, which means that those “…” icons on the far right side of Album or Track lines on the GUI are de facto inaccessible when the jacket is on. A venial sin in my effective use case, yet still worth noting.

Lastly: considering how small and lightweight the device is, I find it a bit odd that no shirt-clip, nor wrist-strap addon/option is available. Not too difficult to find adaptable third party ones. however – also considering how nice the rest of the package is – I reckon the average M0 Pro user may reasonably expect “something” in that direction to be included within the box. I shared my thought with Shanling and they told me they are working on this.

Internals​

The M0 Pro is based on an Ingenic X1000 SoC (System on a Chip). It’s an ultra low power microprocessor – take it as the mini-mini-brother of the CPU inside your smartphone. Spec sheet here.

The X1000 takes care of everything the device does (display, USB I/O, BT 5.0 I/O etc etc) bar the sole sound part, which is delegated to a pair of ESS ES9219C DAC/AMP chips (data sheet here), working in team.

The ES9219C is 32bit quad-dac audio SOC, one of those chips which are commonly used inside budget and/or small size audio devices where there is little space (economical and physical alike) to include separate components and tunings.

ES9219C processes PCM data up to 32bit / 384KHz and DSD native data up to DSD 128. Talking about DSD, accepted formats include DSF, DFF and even ISO.

The ES9219C sports brilliant power features considering its minuscle power requirements : 1,7V on 32 ohm corresponding to circa 90mW, and low output impedance (0.4 ohm). By integrating 2 of them in a Balanced scheme the M0 Pro can deliver up to 235mW @32ohm with a still interestingly low output impedance (0.8 ohm) when a balanced ended cabled driver is connected.

The dual chip option is also obviously the one to go in terms of sound quality: DR and SNR get better by 2dB, and most of all channel separation improves from 70 to 109dB.

The ESS SOC includes 4 standard and more programmable FIR filters, and M0 Pro offers a choice of 2 : a linear phase fast rolloff and an apodizing fast rollof – sadly no slow rolloff option available. (If you are unsure about FIR filters, you can read my piece here).

The M0 Pro includes a 640mAh battery which offers is up to 14h play time on single ended and 10h on balanced ended – which are plate figures as always. My direct experience talks more about 7-8h play time on Balanced which is still a good figure for such a tiny and small device. M0 Pro also offers weeks of sleep time thanks to negligible absorbtion when the device falls into deepsleep mode.

Software​

M0 Pro has a surprisingly complete operating system and audio playback application.

Apart from the necessarily “miniaturised GUI”, resolving into totally excusable concessions for example in terms of labels readability and such, the vast majority of the key features regularly available on much higher end DAP are available to the user, and even some ones that are not so common to find on any DAP, too.

I’ll mention here those I consider most interesting / handy. Take into account that what follows is not a complete list (!).

A 10-band graphic equaliser is present, featuring separate attenuation control, 12 pre-defined profiles and 3 “blank” ones. All profiles (13+3) are customisable and get saved once modified. Their names cannot be changed, that’s the sole real limitation.

There is a Low / High Gain option switch, and a Gapless playback switch too.

A switch to select one’s preferred FIR filter is also available.

It’s possible to define a Max Volume. This is handy if you know you’ll be using very sensitive IEMs and don’t want to run the risk to pierce your eardrums by mistake. On a similar line, it’s possible to set the Default Volume, i.e. the volume which is set when you turn the M0 Pro on, irregardless to what value was it set at when you turned it off.

On DAPs I normally use folder-level navigation onto the library. For those who are rather keen on using tag-level navingation, M0 Pro gives you the possibility to choose amongst Artist or Album Artist sorting – which is crucial for my experience.

You can customise after how long the screen turns off, and wether the Volume wheel will stay active or not while the screen is off. You can also set wether the device is to just go to “sleep” after 1 min of inactivity, or it has fully shust down after 1 or more inactivity minutes.

A switch defines if the 3.5mm connector delivers Headphone output, or Line output. In the latter case, the volume control is set to Max Fixed.

Another switch defines how the USB port is supposed to behave: just allow for battery charging, provide USB digital output (e.g. to connect a dongle or a DAC/AMP), or receive USB digital input (e.g. to connect the M0 Pro to a PC or a phone as an external DAC/AMP.

When set for digital USB out, with another control you also switch between fixed and variable (digital) volume – the latter being handy of course when the downstream DAC/AMP does not have its own independent volume control, the former being best (higher output quality) in the opposite case.

An android (only) companion app is available which allows for remote-controlling playback on M0 Pro from a smartphone. It’s called Eddict Player and can be downloaded by the public Google Play store. It’s in fact a full-blown music player, offering a feature set very similar to that of HiBy’s HiByMusic, if you know that.

The remote controlling mechanism also works very similarly to HiBy’s case : you need to enable a SincLink option under M0 Pro’s Settings menu, in addition to BT communication – once that’s enabled, the Eddict Player app will be able to “find” the M0 Pro as a pairable device, and take control of it. Once the M0 Pro is under control, you can select music, and manage basic playback (play, stop, pause). Nothing else, sadly – so no remote access to advanced features like EQ, filter selection etc is available.

Last but likely not least I must note how commendable is on-screen swipe gestures’ implementation on M0 Pro. Given how tiny the screen is, a very accurate tuning must have been run on this aspect to find the right compromise in favour of the user’s comfort.

Tap is of course the way to “click” and “drill down” the various options, and right-swipe is the way to “back-track up” from any tree branch. The latter potentially being a bit tedious (it takes 5 right-swipes to get from Track-being-played all the way up to the main menu), long-tapping on any screen brings you straight to Home screen (Yeah I know, that’s unexpected. What can I say? RTFM…)

Up/down swipe is of course the way to scroll through lists (folders contents, settings options etc). That’s probably where some “hand” has to be taken at first to “calibrate” how the “short swipe” stroke you want to command a quick scroll: making it “too strong” makes the scroll “too wide”. Nothing that can’t be managed in more than 1 day of direct experience.

Input​

The main way to feed music to the M0 Pro is of course by means of an SD Card. The most recent ones are accepted, up to 2TB capacity.

Two altenative input routes are also available: Bluetooth and USB.

When used as BT 5.0 receiver M0 Pro supports LDAC, SBC and AAC codecs (no APTX available in receiver mode). LDAC connectivity in particular is for my experience very stable and works with no glitch with my Samsung phone.

Considering how small the M0 Pro is, it can in pratice be used as sort of “addon BT receiver” for otherwise wired-only headphones/earphones.

The less-than-desireable thing about BT-receive mode is that it is essentially modeless. The sole thing you can do when a source is streaming music to M0 Pro via BT is adjusting volume. The EQ, for example, is not available. Nor any other GUI controls.

The M0 Pro also can be used as a USB DAC/AMP. I.e., you can connect it to a PC, Mac or Linux host, to an Android phone via an OTG cable or to an iPhone via the Apple Camera adapter. When connected, those sources will “see” the M0 Pro as an external DAC/AMP.

Similarly to the BT situation, no sound control except volume is available while USB-receiving. You can however decide via a switch if you want or not the M0 Pro to get recharging power from the USB connection while playing.

An odd difference between BT and USB input cases is the following: while the M0 Pro is in BT-input mode, swiping on the screen makes a pop-up appear asking the user if they want to stop BT transmission – so one can just tap NO in case of mistake; no pop-up happens when swiping while in USB-input mode – so an unwanted swipe produces an automatic sudden break-up of the stream.

M0 Pro is a pure DAP, there is no way to feed it with analog input. You cannot use it as a mere “amp”.

Output​

M0 Pro’s main output is – of course – the analog 3.5 port on its bottom panel.

By default, that port provides single-ended Headphone output signal.

A GUI control allows for switching into Line Out mode. In that case the output volume is set to Max-Fixed. This mode is what you want to set the M0 Pro at when using it as a pure DAC, or DAC+Preamp, connecting it to a downstream amplifier.

Last but certainly not least, M0 Pro’s 3.5 port actually has a special internal structure allowing for a special 3.5 pentaconn-male to 4.4 pentaconn-female short adapter cable, purchaseable separately. Via such adapter you can plug any 4.4-balanced wired driver (or, by means of a further adapter, any 2.5-balanced driver, too).

Considering M0 Pro’s super-tiny size I guess this was the sole available way to provide both single ended and balanced ended connectivity, so that’s understandable. Of course having to (separately) purchase an adapter is less than ideal but there’s little to complain given what just said. Sole oddity: Shanling only offers the 4.4-female version of the adapter, no 2.5-female version available – at least for now.

In addition to its analog output, M0 Pro also allows for BT and USB interfaces to be used as digital outputs.

It’s possible to connect BT 5.0 compliant devices (TWS drivers, or BT streamers) to M0 Pro. In this case LDAC, SBC, AAC and APTx codecs are available.

And finally, it’s possible to connect M0 Pro to the USB input port of a standalone DAC, DAC-AMP, or to a dongle, defacto using it as a tiny transport.

Of course in the built-in battery being calibrated for the needs of the M0 Pro itself will do what it can when a high power requiring dongle is connected – so appropriate countermeasures with a side-battery and a Y-USB cable better be taken in that case.

Sound quality and power​

Very much in the line of most devices offering both single ended and balanced output, M0 Pro shows a dramatic difference between the two cases in terms of sound quality. Long story short: this is yet another case where balanced output is the sole one you really want.

From its balanced output M0 Pro sounds way above decent. Of course it won’t replace a mid-tier DAP, let alone a high end one, however the sound quality compromise vis-a-vis this little boy’s minuscle size and convenience is waaaay acceptable.

M0 Pro has a quite relaxed sound presentation, nicely extended bass, and nice treble. No signs of shoutyness in the highmids, indeed the opposite, if something – a tad relaxed and tamed, overall “soft”.

Aa for output power capabilities – from the Balanced ended port – the situation in terms of voltage swing is very good, while obviously limited in terms of current delivery.

M0 Pro’s power vs the “usual” 16 to 30 ohm impedance, 105++ db/mW sensitivity IEMs is way enough not to bother about this piece of info. For the more curious, M0 Pro delivers 236mW on 32 ohm, which is “good”.

On high impedance loads – like an HD600 for example – M0 Pro deliver almost 3V, enough to make those cans sing properly when the original digital material is not particularly tamed – which is the most common case. There’s only little room to compensate for low tracks volume (e.g. vinyl digitisations, DSD conversion compensations, pre-attenuations due to important EQ compensations).

On the opposite end M0 Pro – like most of its similar priced peers, and most DAPs in general indeed – won’t be able to properly feed < 16 ohm, < 100 dB/mW drivers. Although I didn’t (as always) bother measuring it, it’s quite clear that the system quickly runs out of current under a certain threshold load condition. The usual workbench E5000 sound tamed, dark, unresolving. Simply put: forget M0 Pro for such type of “job”.

Considerations & conclusions​

I am more than impressed by M0 Pro. It’s a unique, very well made DAP featuring minuscle size and weight, paired with a bold feature set and way more than decent sonic performaces at an affordable price.

When looking at its totally reasonable price point, and the countless features it offers, I’d get as far ahead as stating that whoever is not excessively concerned with “top-audiophile-level” sound quality may easily be find M0 Pro the one DAP that makes sense owning.

Weighing output capabilities (quality and power) vs price M0 Pro comes out as a remarkable offering in the DAP market. To my experience it’s quite tough to do better with a € 150 tax included nowadays: also considering Sony A55 is sadly discontinued, DAPs delivering significantly better sound and features cost almost 2, better 3 times more.

Caveat : Different is the case if we take the DAP format out of the equation, and we consider sheer sound quality and power vs a 150€ budget – in such case E1DA dongles still run circles around any similar or somewhat higher priced competitor – but that’s another story of course, that’s why I mention it here "in parentheses", for completeness.

All in all, M0 Pro gets my solid recommendation as a difficult-to-beat allrounder DAP for non-extreme audiophiles. And even those with a more audiophile tooth – so to call them – may consider M0 Pro when looking for a super-portable if a tad relaxed-sonic-quality companion for outdoors or such.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

California-based Akoustyx Inc kindly sent an S6 sample to deliver a second opinion after Jürgen’s recent article.

It is customary for us in these cases to write a rather succint piece to avoid too much replication of the previous article’s contents but I’m going for an exception here. These little ones do in facts make me feel compelled to share my extended opinions with my few readers. I know, it’ll be boring. Few readers, however, means little damage. So let’s just get down to it.

Just for the record: Akoustyx S6 are currently on deeeep discount sale (like: 50% off) on Drop.

The manufacturer’s official page is instead here.

Test setup​

Apogee Groove / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / Questyle M15 / Questyle CMA-400i – Final E tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD 64/128/256 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

S6’s timbre is natural, sculpted, muscular and well bodied, and stays so all across the spectrum. There’s above decent microdynamics, and no sign of “artificial” aftertastes. This, alone, would be worth closing my article with a glowing rec.

S6’s tonality indeed deserves some articulated comments. The manufacturer underlines S6 are intended for “studio reference acoustics”. Talking through with them they reported they tuned them closely following the Harman IE2017 target (see below) – and I must say it does show, big time. The presentation I hear from the low mids all the way up is definitely that. Sub-bass elevation is only more modest on S6 compared to the theoretical target.


https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/10122931.png

Simply put IE2017 is not my personal preference, period, and this for two main reasons.

One: the circa 11+dB value gap between the 1Khz and 3Khz points results in highmids being slapped hard into my face when I raise volume beyond a very moderate level, and

Two: the depressed lowmids values convert in a very dry, too dry tonality – I do prefer bright neutral to warm balanced, but IE2017 is below neutral, it’s almost aseptycal.

This has to do with the target itself. Then, depending on the particular driver technology and/or implementation accuracy or lack thereof on this or that driver the “actual” result will be for me moderately bad, very bad, or downight unbearable.

Now, the good news is that planar drivers in general bear tonality corrections by means of equalisation with a certain ease. And, S6’s driver is very flexyble (pretty much in Audeze iSine or RHA CL2 league), so first thing I did of course was bringing tonality more in my preferred ballpark, and a bit off the effing IE2017 “thing”.

Here’s the scoop:



My experience with S6 refers to the first 2 corrections (3K and 4K) imperatively applied. I will outline differences when the optional ones are applied too.


Sub-Bass

S6’s sub-bass is fully extended and quite present. Typical snappy planar transients apply without distortions here so there’s little more to squeeze off the onion so to say. That said those who prefer an even more visceral rumble can experiment with a Low Shelf correction from 50-ish Hz, +3dB (or more) and a very wide badwidth (0.3 or so).


Mid Bass

S6 midbass is seriously good. Oh well, of course it’s good if you like technical acoustic bass as I do. Distorted overbloated bass lovers should never buy S6, period.

Transients are well managed here and while they stay in fast, precision-rendering territory as you expect from a planar, they are not overly snappy and do deliver some body and microdynamics.

Applying the aforementioned warmth correction (Peak 200Hz +2dB wide bandwidth) does exactly what it says: midbass (and not only) will heat up a good 20%, coming across as a bit more bodied and flowery.


Mids

Mids are spectacularly sculpted yet organic and detailed. Guitars and tenor sax benefit most of the situation delivering good nuances and microdynamics while staying precise and seprated (see Separation below).

Highmids is where the IE2017 – and S6 which follow that very closely – loses my personal approval and that’s why in my books S6 strictly require the EQ-based retuning I mentioned above.

Once that’s done however the magic happens in all its splendor: high mids are energetic, detailed, sparkly and controlled (!!), even when you pump the volume up significantly, which is indeed a way to open the presentation up and let S6 give its musical best


Male Vocals

Tenor vocal lovers will be those finding the Wamth correction (see above) most desireable. Without that there’s too much dryness to call delivery really organic.


Female Vocals

Female voices are natural and organic, although not flutey. Good texture available and good microdynamics for a planar.


Highs

On a corrected S6 trebles are integral part of the nice show. Well extended, quite airy, snappy without excesses, not zingy, not tizzy. Love them. Apply the “Extra Air” EQ correction to add further airiness. Don’t be scared nor shy: experiment. Try +3dB, +4dB, +8dB if you want. Only stop where you like the sound best : S6’s driver shall anyhow follow you like a doggie.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

S6 cast a nice sized stage both accross and in depth – a bit more or a bit less depending on fit depth (the deeper the fit, the smaller the room).

Not the absolute widest projection I heard but very good anyway.


Imaging

Macrodynamics are beyond good. Intruments and voices are well scattered on the scene and there is nice air inbetween


Details

This is a point of excellence. S6’s detail retrieval smoothness is easily top rank for my experience on sub-500€ drivers. While I can name other “detail monsters” around, they all will “cost” some or a lot of fatigue and, before that, distraction from the music flow. S6 deliver fine and subtle details without slamming them onto your face nor covering you with “metallic noise dust” as other much leess refined drivers do.

Detail is also good from bass, although to a lesser extent: down there I guess planar-snappy transients do represent an apriori limitation to low frequency microdynamics. Something can be obtained with some light EQing but that’s it. Not “bad” however, just not so outstanding as to point it out as key plus. If you want special bass articulation and nuances get a high end DD.


Instrument separation

S6 execute separation very well. Crowded passages stay perfectly readable at all times, thanks to very controlled transient behaviour, and that glowing compromise mentioned above between snappyness and microdynamics.

Layering is top class: you can follow second or third voices with ease at all times and that’s not trivial to get – at any price, let alone with this small budget.


Driveability

In the “planar drivers” world S6 are probably the easiest to bias I found. You can even drive them from a phone, although you won’t have much headroom to compensate for low recorded materials (e.g. some vinyl digitisations, DSD conversions etc).

That said, their presentation opens up to more details and microdynamics when submitted to somewhat higher power. Once I apply my EQ corrections and the highmids excess goes for good, S6 offer a wonderfully smooth SPL progression. Indeed I find that even “dangerous” insofar as they cease any shouting, and you don’t get any “too high volume warning” so to say when pumping them up. Be careful… we all have only one hearing system you know that, once screwed you can’t fix it…

Like any bright/bright-neutral drivers S6 pair best with relatively warm sources, or at least with non-analythical ones. A special mention for Groove: the pairing with S6 is beyond spectacular.

Finally, a last important point of attention regards the equalisation requirements: your source need to be capable of at least “some” EQing.

Physicals​

Build

The cylindrical part of the housings is in titanium alloy. The supersmooth outside finish is a titanium-oxyde based treatment. The backside is realised of a special polymer, in angled shapen, to properòy house the MMCX connector. Very stylish at least in my tastes, and covered by some patent too.

A red/blue colored ring helps easy identification of the right/left piece. Depending on fitting that ring might end up covered by the Earlock structure (see Fit below), however.

Lat but not least S6 housings are extremely lightweight: once selected the right size/type tips, and worn on with Earlocks etc they virtually “disappear” from your perception. Superb.




Fit

Stock silicon tips are not bad for the job. It’s not so easy to rotate others in as S6 nozzles are quite slim. In the end I settled for Final E (black) as they tend to tame trebles and bring mids forward a bit, which of course helps on re-estabilishing my preferred balance in this particular case.

Technically speaking a good alternative would be Spiraldots too, but their stem diameter is too wide so who wants to adopt them onto the S6 must be ready to apply a tight rubber ring onto the nozzles first, then the tips. Couldn’t be fussed personally, as I found Type-E’s more than good enough.

As you may reacall I am not in general a foamies lover but S6 is one of the few exceptions: here the typical foamies effect (“combing” thinnest treble notes and making bass a whiff “matte”) resolves in a very pleasant timbre nuance alternative.

Once again stock tips are of very good quality – very soft and quickly reactive material, classic cylindrical style – so you can easily go with those to begin with. My effing left canal is always creating problems though so in my particular case S stock tips is too small and M is too thick :-/ My best option is Comply TS200. YMMV needless to say.

Last but certainly not least in importance: the Earlocks. Those are totally brilliant. Think to the IEM version of those “comma shaped” rubber thingies you fit onto earbuds to help the stay put in your concha – and add twice the design accuracy.

These EarLock® silicon “rings” realise several contact points on the outer ear to (literally) lock the housings in place and fit the same way every time. The item comes from a company focusing on hearing protection aids for people involved in very loud noise situations (including law enforcement, army etc) aiming at guaranteeing that the noise attenuator/plug/intercom – whatever stays in-ear – won’t ever budge let alone pull out even in case of sudden hard movements, pullbacks, rush etc etc. And boy do they work!

Simply put: the Earlocks (provided in 3 sizes S-M-L) fit perfectly and “disappear” in/onto the outer ear, I don’t even perceive them as being there once worn, and S6 housings get a 100% firm stability in place, whatever I do however I move etc. This not only means that they won’t entirely slip off, but also and probably even most importantly that they won’t budge even as a consequence of mandibular movements while talking or eating which – in my case it does happen – may produce loss of seal and/or need to reposition.

Long story short: now that I tried them I want something similar for all my IEMs !


Comfort

Subjective differences apart, bullet shapes are normally considered “comfortable”. Amongst their downsides there’s typically stability which is totally fixed by the Earlocks in this case (read above). S6 are not particularly “long” in the bullet shaped category however they do support mid-deep fit, as a free choice user option.

As always: the deeper the fit the softer the trebles, the more relevant the bass, and the narrower the stage. Pick your poison.


Isolation

Using foam tips and Earlocks to guarantee stable fit, S6 reach a whopping 34dB passive ambient noise reduction (NRR 28dB). That’s a lot! We are in professional NR aides territory indeed – these values are indicated for people working on tractors for example, or in some noisy industrial plants. Fantastic. Just be careful walking outside : you won’t hear traffic (!)


Cable

S6 stock cable is an unassuming-looking yet very sophysticated 16 core Oxygen Free Copper conductor. According to the manufacturer it is accuratly impedance-paired with the drivers. Be as it may, it sonically pairs spectacularly well with S6. I tried rotating some others – OFC is definitely the right choice, SP-OFC adds on edgyness which is not required here, Grafene does not pair well either.

As it often happens on low budget packages the cable has a fixed 3.5 termination only (the company is working on a multi-plug alternative to bundle on future versions but that’s on the drawing board yet).

Considering how well the cable pairs with S6 I recommend swapping only to those who are in dire need as all their sources sound best exclusively from their balanced otuputs. In such case a very inexpensive, decent option is the good ol’ ultracheap NiceHCK 16 core High Purity Copper (aka “Ugly Cable”). Alternatively a Linsoul HC08 will do well. Or, wait for Akoustyx to deliver their own,

I guess something more is also worth saying about the cable.

One: the Kevlar sheath may easily be a love/hate thing. The material itself is beyond wonderful, super resistant etc. On the down side it’s badly microphonic (which is probably why the manufcturer strictly recommends over-ear cable install – RTFM…) and it’s quite springy at first. For the latter issue the good news is that the sheath gets obviously softer and malleable after a quite short time.

To quicken such “break-in” period you can frictionate harshly the cable in between your hands after coughly “coiling” it – don’t worry it won’t break – do it a few times and it will already get much better.

Two: the MMCX connectors offer a very firm “click-in-fit”. This may sound like a detail but for my experience it is not (!). Without going too far, this is one of the very few points of structural weakness I underlined on my Miyabi analisis (here). The down side on low quality MMCX options is of course micro-discharges resulting in subtle craclking noise while listening or worse.

Don’t take me wrong here, I’m not saying S6’s stock cable is the one and only good cable out there – I’m just saying don’t discard it quickly replacing it with “just any other one”, as – unlike what too often happens with cables bundled with budget-tier drivers – Akourstyx put a good one in here…

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

7Hz Timeless ($ 199 Drop deal)​

Simply put, S6 are miles better. Timeless have bloated, untextured midbass, a generally artificial timbre, scarce microdynamics (aka invasive “planar timbre”), very modest layering and separation. They also don’t seem to react particularly well to EQing, although some correction do make them a bit better. They do cast a wider stage compared to S6, there’s that. And they are more expensive.

TINHIFI P1 ($ 169)​

P1 offer a smooth, nicely balanced and inoffensive tonality. Possibly a bit “too inoffensive” – one of their limitations for my tastes being that I find them a bit boring. S6 are obviously sparklier, much more engaging energetic and “brilliant” – they do require EQ correction ootb however, which is not an “absolute requirement” for P1 instead. Other major differences are the timbre – P1 being desperately “planar” vs S6’s much better microdynamics – and the driveability – P1 is much harder to bias.

Ikko OH1s ($ 74 promo on Amazon.com)​

Recently price-repositioned by Ikko (I’d like to think: also after our suggestion), OH1S are based on different driver tech (1 DD + 1BA) but offer a general presentation and tonality similar to S6.

OH1S don’t require EQ corrections to deliver good bass, mids, vocals and some technicalities – all coming close to S6, which still has the edge on pretty much all counts, even if sometimes by not much. OH1S fall more evidently short of S6 in terms of imaging, and most of all energy. They are also very much tip dependent, and may not be so easy to fit.

final A3000 (€ 129,99 on Amazon.it)​

By far my sub-300€ clear-timbre, bright-neutral tonality reference. A3000 are built on a custom-developed DD essentially sounding like a planar, and specially tuned prioritising equal clarity on sounds both closer and farther away from the listener position – which is particularly beneficial to acoustic music from large orchestras or groups.

As a direct consequence A3000 win big on sounstage drawing vs S6 – and pretty much any other sub 1K$ driver I heard tbh, solely bar their siblings A4000, which I find however less pleasant for my tastes on other counts (won’t digress here).

Tonal homogeneity, phenomenally nailed compromise on details vs musicality on trebles, layering proweness and well calibrated snappy transients are on par between the two. S6 offer higher note weight and whith that a more energetic, muscular, lively musicality while A3000 are obviously silkier. S6 sound if you wish… american, while A3000 so japanesely discrete-yet-deeply-sophisticated.

A3000 does not “require” EQ out of the box, however its few shortcomings can’t easily be fixed by EQing. Opposite situation on S6, which need to be put hands onto, but can be EQ-pushed/pulled/stirred in so many different sonic flavours, such argubaly being their most solid upper edge.

Considerations & conclusions​

Some 2-3 years ago I auditioned my first planar IEM and I was kinda puzzled. Then I heard another. Then another. And I gave up. Most of all, they were all drowning me into “planar timbre”, i.e. [almost] complete lack of microdynamics. A total turnoff for me. Simply put, I could see no reason why one would prefer one of those to a much more expressive and/or refined fast-transient DD or (quite rare, on low budgets) good BA.

Then in spite of my disappointment for the category last year a friend convinced me to audition a pair of RHA CL2, and that’s where I finally “got” planars: different beasts, indeed. And not at all “inexpressive” as the previous ones I tried.

Too bad that a) those CL2 babies cost a pretty penny, and what’s worse b) they are not in production anymore. “Allright, too bad” – I said to myself. At least now I know “what” I look for “can” exist in a planar, and that I was right on disregarding lower rank / quality alternatives.

Finally, in came Akoustyx.

Simply put, their S6 are truly hightech planar drivers built into a scaled-down, very modestly priced, stellar value package.

I sharply disagree on the apriori choice which as been made in favor of the IE2017 target. In my very modest personal opinion I don’t find it neither studio-neutral/reference, nor pleasantly musical. I was even more disappointed in stock CL2 tuning, however !

The outstanding things with S6 are their spot on native timbre, and their great elasticity vs EQ corrections.

No they do not deliver “precisely the same” technical proweness I heard on RHA CL2. They come seriously close however, with that indeed representing a credible, significant, differently flavored alternative to DD or BA technology budget drivers – that is, at a fraction of CL2’s price.

If you ask me, S6 are indeed worth their full 250$ MSRP, and then some. At their current deal price on Drop they are on “steal” category.

This artcle originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here. Our generic standard disclaimer.

Test setup​

Sources: Questyle QP1R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle M15 / Questyle CMA-400i - Final E tips - Stock cable - lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tuning nozzles

Kirin feature a replaceable nozzle system. Three pairs of different nozzles are supplied standard, labelled "Trasnparency", "Reference" and "Atmospheric", they differ in terms of length, internal bore, and external mesh and are supposed to finetune the presentation in 3 different ways.

Indeed, I found no audible differences when swapping Transparency and Reference back and forth, while Atmospheric does indeed offer a change, which is however limited to the highmids and trebles - the rest of the mids and the whole bass is to me identical no matter which nozzles get installed.

Atmospheric nozzles offer a tad more brilliant female vocale, and more relaxed highmids and trebles, which is not only good but in my opinion needed, as highmids and trebles get easily shouty on Transparency/Reference nozzles.

Long story short: Atmospheric nozzles are to me by far the best option, read: the sole good one, and once I realised that it's with those on that I conducted all the rest of my assessment.


Tonality

Kirin's presentation is a very wide V, featuring modestly elevated bass and enhanced however not offensive treble. Mids are not overly recessed so the overall experience is quite "balanced" in the end, and pleasant to listen to. Tonality is neutral with a tint of warmth. There's a quite evident planar timbre, but it's less pronounced compared to other cases I experienced, it's not overly annoying.


Sub-Bass

Sub bass is not rolled off however it's less elevated than mid-bass. Besides, it's in itself tuned to be somewhat shy, the end result being that rumble is there but never comes forward nor imposes its presence, it rather stays in the back as a perceivable recessed foundation.


Mid Bass

Midbass is in the typical planar style: very fast. It's also moderately punchy, enough to be significant, but not to be evident. Texturing is quite limited.


Mids

Kirin mids are well articuleted and moderately bodied, which counterbalances them being somewhat recessed. Overall I can call them nice.


Male Vocals

Male voices have a natural tonality, maybe with a touch of warmth. Tenors are ok, baritones and basses are a tad too light instead.


Female Vocals

Female vocals are better than male, more forward, energetic and well bodied. No shouts nor sibilance.


Highs

Kirin trebles are very likely the result of a precise tuning choice: they are very extended, airy, quite detailed and well bodied while at the same time carefully dampened never to become shouty or otherwise piercing/offensive. They carry a definite planar timbre but the consequent tint of artificiality in Kirin's case is much lighter then in many other cases I heard.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Kirin cast a nice 3D stage. It's size is no more than average however.


Imaging

Imaging is decent yet not stunning. Probably due to treble "softening", I guess, there's some sort of light fog in room. Not a criminal offense, however, considering the product cost.


Details

This is a weak spot on Kirin. Detail retrieval is just basic all across the frequencies (trebles a whiff less bad, but nothing to be particularly happy about)


Instrument separation

Layering and instrument separation, like imaging, can be rated as average/decent


Driveability

Kirin's relatively high sensitivity is very uncommon for a planar driver, and makes them not hard to drive at all.

Physicals​

Build

Housings appear solid and well built.


Fit

Fitting Kirin may be a problem for some due to its housings' "bowly" shape. Nozzles protrude from the main body enough, however, so getting the tips into the canal and score a good seal is not impossible, the (possible) issues are more on the side of stability and comfort. Of course it all depends on one's concha shape/size.


Comfort

Read above about "fit". In my case, for example, Kirin's bowly housings don't fully fit into my conchas; once worn they do feel OK (no angles, no aching edges nor anything) but their staying "a bit outside" give me a sort of "unsecure seating" feeling.


Isolation

Depending on luckier or unluckier pairing with one's outer ear there'll be more or less passive isolation. Even in the luckiest case however three vents on the housings will do their job against isolation.


Cable

Stock cable is nice. An 8 core very soft brided silver plated OFC chord, with modular terminations. All 3 most common terminal plugs (3.5, 2.5 and 4.4) are offered free in the box, with the further addition of a 3.5-6.25 adapter.

The modular plug system is quite basic, no lock-in system is present. The connectors on the housings side are 2-pin with an uncommon "oval shape" variation to a QDC shell around them : third party non-QDC 2pin cables will fit, but look a bit odd when plugged.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

TINHIFI P1 ($129)​

Very simply put: Kirin and P1 offer quite similar outputs. Both have near-natural tonality, a not excessive planar timbre, smooth trebles, modest technicalities. P1 are probably a tad more "refined" in some sonic traits, and easier to fit. On the flip side, P1 are much harder to drive, and infuriatingly capricious when it comes to tips selection.

7HZ Timeless ($200)​

As you might remember, I'm not particularly fond of 7Hz Timeless (follow link above for my take on them). That apart, the two IEMs offer very different tunings. Timeless are energetic and engaging, with a stronger bass line and cast a wider stage. On the other hand Timeless's planar timbre is much more annoying, up to making its entire musicality a perceivable bit artificial, and their stage, however wider, is dramatically bidimensional. Timeless' trebles are also too often shouty and fatiguing, which never happens on Kirin (with the Atmospheric nozzles).

Conclusions​

TRN Kirin are with little doubt the most interesting TRN drivers I heard as of yet.

Don't get overexcited: they are and stay a pair of budget IEMs but it's fair and just to underline that TRN paid some good effort here resulting - first of all - in a pleasantly sounding system. Which is never a small thing.

More in detail, Kirin offer fast transients, quasi-natural tonality, and don't drown under a cheap planar timbre as much of the competition does. They can surely grant clean, relaxed listening especially to acoustic music lovers. On the flip side: their technicalities have ample room for improvement, and who loves engaging, energetic presentations will want to look elsewhere.

Once again my sincere thanks to TRN for the free sample I received. You can get Kirin here. This article originally appeared under audioreviews.org, here.

Full Device Card​

Test setup​

Sources: Questyle QP1R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle M15 / Questyle CMA-400i – Final E tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC and DSD64/128 tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

Hodur’s presentation is an evident W-shape, reaching good result in terms of tonal balancing however lacking in terms of timbre coherence and overall organicity. Bass is rather flowery, treble is by converse dry and technical, and such two souls don’t merge one into another as smoothly as they should (and I would prefer).

The general timbre is somewhat lean accross the board, with a partial exception represented by the sub bass – which also contributes to the mentioned incoherency feeling. Mid bass helps warming the presentation up, without adding too much butter to the notes however.


Sub-Bass

Sub bass is well extended and present. The rumble often gets an excessive bit out of control up to sounding bloaty, and interfering with the midbass’ job.


Mid Bass

Hodur’s midbass is… uncommon. I can describe it as strong, warming also insofar as not particularly fast, although not sloppy at all, either. Which would all be good if it were not for a moderate artificial timbre making it lack realism.

In more vulgar terms Hodur’s bass overall (sub+mid) is quite deep, energetic and colored, and as such I find it more pleasant when listening to some genres (electronic, rock…) and less ideal on others (acoustic music in general, jazz, classical…)


Mids

Mids are where Hodur’s overall lean timbre deepens its roots. Their tuning is quite brave in a sense, especially for the higher half of the mids segment which is forward, energetic and somewhat bright while succeeding in staying south of shouty – although sometimes by a tiny margin. Note weight is lacking everywhere, which is a pity as this results in missing organicity especially on acoustic music.


Male Vocals

Male voices like the rest of the lower part of the mid segment are more recessed than the rest. Add some note thinness and you easily look elsewhere if you’re fond of tenor vocals.


Female Vocals

Female vocals are much better than male on Hodur, insofar as much more forward, brighter, cleaner and more energetic. The downside is they come very close to shoutyness some times, and sadly they do pass the sibilance threshold in a few occasions too many, and they lack the body it takes to make them convincingly natural/organic.


Highs

Treble is no doubt “the” strong point on Hodur, with particular regards to its EST driver performance, which kicks in just above highmids, by ear I’d say around 3.5/4K onwards. Highmids’ already fast, BA-style transients become supersnappy thanks to the well tuned EST, never scanting into artificial metallic or “electrical” timbre. Good job here!

Without prejudice to what noted before about horizontal tonal incoherence, here’s where the re-balancing role played by the bass reveals itself as so precious in the overall Hodur presentation, which would certainly come across as “overly trebly” otherwise. Indeed, within its noted limitations the ensemble taken as a whole is indeed pleasant, I reckon especially for “treble heads” longing for “not-just-bright” IEMs.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Hodur draw a modestly wide and high stage, however depth is above average – provided of course a good DAC is upstream, needles to say (or is it?).


Imaging

Hodur’s imaging is no better than average, and that’s already a compensated evaluation resulting from a bit better performance on less crowded passages, and definitely fuzzy rendering on more crowded ones.


Details

Hodur’s EST driver is very good at detail retrieval within of course its applicative scope (treble frequencies). Not the same happens on mid frequencies, where details are at best average due to lean note body, and especially on the bass, where texture is quite basic and an over-flowerly (so to call it) rumble tends to often fog the segment off.


Instrument separation

Even more than imaging, Hodur lack big time on instrument separation. Everything is made difficult by the lack of microdynamics coming off the BA and the EST drivers, negatively paired with sub bass’s “rumble dust” covering the lower registers too often.


Driveability

While not particularly hard to drive in terms of sound volume Hodur are very tricky to bias as their DD is very sensible to dampening, and their 8 ohm impedance calls for quite specific sources – or the midbass gets immediately bumped up which, coupled with the already “egocentric” subbass, makes up for a sort of “indistinct blob” down there, which is certainly not pleasant to hear.

In addition to impedance, beware warm sources mainly as they negatively resonate with Hodur’s difficulties on instrument separation.

Physicals​

Build

It’s of course totally subjective but I find Hodur’s “kidney” shape very nice both in terms of ergonomics and aesthetics. I could instead easily do without the thin line of sparkling little stones added as a decoration on the backplate. The aluminum structure comes across as convincingly solid.


Fit

Nozzles are not particularly long so the fit stays on a somewhat shallow level. In my particular case a 1-size-larger than normal eartip on the left channel helps getting the right fit.


Comfort

Very comfy once properly fit thanks to the modest sized, oval shaped and smoothed housings. Surely amongst the most comfortable IEMs I ever used.


Isolation

Passive isolation is quite average, and depends on how you sit the housings into the concha so each one’s experience will be a bit different.


Cable

Hodur are supplied with a nice hybrid material (silver plate copper + pure copper) stock cable bearing modular termination plugs. Oddly enough, only 3.5 and 4.4mm terminations are included in the bundle, no 2.5 plug – a pity.

The modular system does not come with a click-lock mechanism to secure the plug in place, which makes me suspect that terminal plugs may tend to become a bit lose over time. This is however a speculation, as I used the Hodur for a few weeks and those have definitely not produced any form of deterioration on the system.

Specifications (declared)​

Miscellaneous notes​

Hodur are one of those few IEMs I encountered for which even a short “burn-in” did make for a very obvious improvement. Out of the box the bass was totally unaudible (fully bloated) and the entire presentation was obscure, compressed. Just a couple of short auditions later, it all settled to what I tried to describe here above.

Hodur are supplied with a very, very good bundle of eartips: a full 5-sizes set of Final Type-E (black), a 3-sizes set of Kinera K07 tips (very, very similar – read identical – to Kbear A07), and a 4-sizes set of Kinera K-205-02. In particular, I found it difficult to decide which between Type-E and K07 pair better on the Hodur. In the end I probably prefer K07 as they tend to “tame” the sub-bass bloat a bit.

The carton box… Well this is an odd one. Of course it has nothing to do with sound. It however caught me (in positive) for how creative, well-designed, and well realised it appeared when I unpacked it.

I mean it: it’s a box which is clearly trying to communicate with me, being European, both in terms of historical evocation, colour and shape selections, internal setup, storytelling… everything. Very well conceived. Immediately afterwards, however, I was stunned when I noticed with which incredible lack of accuracy the copywrite has been developed for the box and the literature inside it.

Grammaical errors, typos, wrong translations, symplistic lexical forms. Even 2 out of 3 syllabic splittings are ridiculously wrong (this stuff is taught at primary school). Horrible. Seems as if Kinera paid a good level, international-cultured professional marketeer for the general brand design and graphic concept, but didnt put any attention in hiring someone knowing English at a decent level.

A glowing example of how even a single amateur-level contributor can waste the otherwise very good work carried out by other good professionals. Ah, well…

Comparisons​

Geek World GK10 ($48)​

GK10 feature 2 DD, 1 BA, 2 Piezo drivers, and a price which is 1/6 then Hodur’s

GK10 have more limited sub bass extension so they generate less rumble then Hodur. Mid bass on GK10 is also lower in accentuation compared to Hodur, and at times it appears like a bit “dampened” (for lack of a more appropriate word).

That said however, sub and mid bass are more organic on GK10 and they don’t interfere with the rest of the segments. Mids are more recessed on GK10 but also less lean compared to Hodur, so globally more pleasant.

No female voice sibilance on GK10 unlike Hodur. Trebles are somewhat similar, with Hodur having it this time as the “Piezo-timbre” comes out more prominent and more often on GK10 vs how nicely “discrete” the EST nature of the driver is on Hodur. Detail retrieval is better on Hodur’s trebles, equivalently modest on mids on both models, and much better on GK10’s bass.

Both GK10 and Hodur suffer from timbre incoherence issues, Hodur being the worst of the two due to more invasive bass. Unlike Hodur, GK10 offer very precise imaging and nothing short of surprising layering (especially considering its ridiculous price). Stage drawing is different: taller for GK10, deeper for Hodur, both limited horizontally.

Both are tricky to bias due to identical ultralow impedance (8 ohm). Hodur is more comfortable to wear.

BQEYZ Summer ($129)​

Summer feature 1 DD, 1 BA, 1 Piezo ceramic driver at less then half Hodur’s price.

Summer have less important mid-bass, and a sub-bass which is similar in quantity to Hodur’s, but is not bloaty so won’t steal the scene. Mids and vocals are quite similar on the two models, in both cases too lean to sound organic, nontheless decent overall. Highmids are better on Hodur, except for the sibilance.

Trebles are very similar, with Hodur having the edge in terms of quality and timbre, Summer’s piezo nature coming out more evident in comparison. Detail retrieval is better on Hodur’s trebles, similar on either’s mids, and better on Summer’s bass.

Summer images much better than Hodur, although with a sharp preference for horizontal distribution / stereo effect. Layering is obviously better on Summer. Stage is wider on Summer, way deeper on Hodur. S

ummer is much easier to properly bias thanks to its 32 ohm impedance and good sensitivity. Summer is more capricious in terms of eartips selection, and a bit less comfortable than Hodur to wear.

Shuoer Tape ($116)​

Tape feature 1 DD, 1 Electret Tweeter for little more than one third of Hodur’s price.

Tape’s sub and mid bass are monumentally better than Hodur in terms of elevation, cleanness, power, texture… everything. Different from Hodur’s W-shape, Tape feature an obvious V-shape presentation resulting in mids being recessed in addition to lean (in that, quite similar to Hodur’s).

Female vocals scant into sibilance on Tape as well. Trebles are extremely good on Tape, and it’s a really tight call on deciding which is better compared to Hodur – I’d probably settle for a tie, considering that Tape offer a tad more body which I like better, but they feature a 16KHz peak which may be nasty for some, and calls for some EQ correction in most cases.

Detail retrieval is similar high quality on either model’s trebles, and is hands down better on Tape for the bass segment.

Imaging and layering are much better on Tape, easy enough for how lacking they are on Hodur. Stage is almost holographic on Tape, which are also much easier to drive then Hodur. Tape are extremely – or I should probably say infuriatingly – capricious as for tips selection, and depending on ear shape they may be not comfortable at all to wear.

Intime Miyabi ($145 + import costs)​

Miyabi feature 1 DD, 1 Piezo ceramic tweeter for little more than half Hodur’s price.

Sub bass is less prominent on Miyabi then on Hodur, and never bloaty let alone invasive. Mid bass has similar elevation on Miyabi and Hodur, however quality wise it is very obviously better on Miyabi in terms of precision, slam, texture, detail and organicity.

Mids are more recessed on Miyabi however they are much more organic compared to Hodur. Vocals are much better on Miyabi, tenors are absolutely organic, realistic, and contraltos and sopranos are bodied and even flutey at times.

Trebles is where both models express some of their magic and it’s a tight call to say which is better but I would give the palm to Miyabi in this case: superthin detail comes out a bit better on Hodur but this in my books superseded by Miyabi piezo’s “typical timbre” virtually disappearing, diluted in a well bodied, natural, realistic, transparent treble tone coming off that driver. Miyabi retrieve way more and better defined details from bass and mids.

Imaging and especially layering / separation is where Miyabi excel and are worth a few times their prices so the comparison with the very modest (in this area) Hodur is just… embarassing. Stage is better on Miyabi horizontally and vertically, while the two models are similar in terms of depth.

Both models are very easy to fit and comfortable to wear. Miyabi require some more amping power than Hodur, but are much less tricky to dampen thanks to a much more “urban” impedance (22 ohm).

Conclusions​

These Hodur deliver a definitely pleasant overall presentation, featuring energetic, engaging musicality with a particular accent on treble definition and detail, and a solid deep bass counterbalancing the tonality on the opposite end.

They are also amongst the most comfortable UIEMs I ever worn – this is also worth noting. On the down side I hear a non-organic timbre making them hardly fit for acoustic music, timbre incoherence and fuzzy instrument separation.

The sample has been provided free of charge courtesy of Kinera staff, which we thank once again for the testing opportunity.

This article originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here.

Falcon Pro are Dunu’s entry level model on their Eclipse lineup – the one featuring Zen / Zen Pro and Luna on its higher tiers.

Featuring a single dynamic driver and a $219,99 price point Falcon Pro compete on a quite interesting market segment, populated – as usual – by a lot of underwhelming (or downright garbage) competing products alongside a few very solid longstanders.

Full Device Card​

Test setup​

Apogee Groove / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / Ifi hip-dac2 / Cowon Plenue 2 – final E clear eartips – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality​

Falcon Pro feature removable earpiece nozzles, and a selection of 3 different alternatives are bundled with the package – labelled “Reference”, “Transparency” and “Athmospheric Immersion”. Each nozzle has different sizes (diameter and length) and a different mesh, resulting in some audible impact on the delivered musical experience.
Auditioned with their Reference Filter at first, Duno Falcon Pro offer an obviously low-enhanced presentation, coming accross as warm-coloured and laid back. Low mids and especially midbass notes are definitely bloomy. Timbre is smooth, rounded.
The Transparency filter very modestly tames the bass line, by ear I would say by less than 1dB, and enhances highmids and presence trebles by a more significant margin. The result is a bit more highend openness but not enough de-accentuated midbass, the combination of which does not reach a balanced presentation level. The general tonality stays warm colored. Timbre stays smooth as the added treble accent doesnt come with particular edgyness. Curiously enough for a single-DD I notice a slight but perceivable lack of cohesion between such enhanced trebles and the persisting midbass importance.
The Athmospheric filter applies the same minimal taming to the bass line as the Transparency one does, and enhances highmids (slowing their transients down a bit in the process) sooner than its Transparency sibling, but a down-tame this time is applied to presence trebles, and an even more serious tonedown happens on brilliance. The result is an even more soft-toned, relaxed, more intimate and warmer presentation.
For my own tastes Athmospheric is a no go: its evident bass accent pairs badly with too relaxed transients, and a general blurryness that transfers a too dark and unresolved feeling to me. In terms of horizontal coherence Reference is best, but in terms of tonality I still find it too invasively bassy so I settled for Transparency, accepting the modest tonal incoherence I mentioned above. I conducted most of my audition on Transparency nozzles.

Sub-Bass​

Sub Bass on Falcon Pro is modestly rolled off but most of all subdued to mid-bass slowish transients and warmth. Very little rumble emerges from that, and it’s a pity. This applies to all nozzles.

Mid Bass​

Falcon Pro’s midbass is not overall bad, but it surely plays the elephant in the room’s role, which is I guess a quite objective reality, and in addition to that I find it too bloomy, which is a much more subjective point of course. It’s anyhow evident that midbass is conditioning the entire presentation setting the ambient to warm, soft and relaxing mood, lacking on punch and definition and showing only limited texture.

Mids​

Mids on FalconPro are recessed in positioning but OK in quality. Note weight especially is good, on the other hand they don’t sound particularly “organic”. On their low part they are subdued to midbass and this generates more than some limitation in terms of definition and layering. Highmids are much better. Transparency nozzles make highmids leaner, which is in some case a pro, othertimes a limitation – depending on musical requirements of course.

Male Vocals​

Male vocals are full, lush but slow so for example baritones fail to be organically cavernous. A bit better are tenors which are still a bit too bloomy but definitely better detailed and closer to reality.

​

Female Vocals​

Females are also nicely bodied, and less bloomy than males which makes them nicely liquid, pleasant. Transparency nozzles make them a tad faster and clearer, but on the flip side they bring them dangerously close to sibilance at times.

​

Highs​

Treble is no doubt my preferred part in Falcon Pro’s presentation. They come accross reasonably vivid, polished and clear on the Reference nozzles, and a bit furtherly enhanced and slightly clearer on the Transparency nozzles. On the other hand they don’t go as far as being sparkly, let alone airy – not even on the Transparency nozzle. And the clarity from this section is not enough to compensate on the warmth and intimacy imposed by midbass.

Technicalities​

Soundstage​

Referred to direct competitors Falcon Pro draw an average stage, with some decent depth and height. Reference nozzles are best at this, Athmospheric worst.

​

Imaging​

Macrodynamics (a.k.a. imaging) is the single aspect where Falcon Pro excel: instruments and voices are all given very good body, almost a 3d-personality, and they are wonderfully positioned on the stage. Which makes scarce layering and microdynamics an even bigger pity.

​

Details​

Detail retrieval is very modest, both on highmids and trebles, and even more so on mid and sub bass. While this sounds coherent with the general laidback tuning choice, I still believe something better might have been made here

​

Instrument separation​

The aspect I liked less on Falcon Pro is the general – and quite evident – lack of resolving power. Instrument voices are always at least somewhat “mélanged” together, which may be nice from the musicality standapoint, but when excessive it fails to deliver proper separation and clean layering.

​

Driveability​

Falcon Pro are quite sensible therefor “easy to drive” loud enough even from lowend systems. Beware though – as always amping power is not the same as amping quality, and Falcon Pro do require a good bass-controlled source, and surely not a warm one, or their naturally slow midbass would resonate even warmer/darker than it already is.

Physicals​

Build​

Falcon Pro shells are made of stainless steel and appear evidently sturdy and greatly designed and realised. The finish on the external side is very elegant, with sandblasted logos onto mirror-chrome surface. Interchangeable nozzles are threaded for secure screw-in/screw-out operations. Ace stuff, really. Multiple air vents are present on the internal housings’ side.

​

Fit​

Falcon Pro fit me quite easily, thanks to relatively long nozzles and medium-sized well-shaped housings which sit quite well into my conchas.

​

Comfort​

Once fitted Falcon Pro feel definitely comfortable to me, I can wear them for protracted lengths of time easily.

​

Isolation​

Just average: the passive effect of well fitting housing shapes is limited by the multiple vents.

​

Cable​

The bundled cable is very nice from many respects. Modular termination, with a 3 main plug modules included (3.5, 2.5 and 4.4mm), a high purity (6N) silver plated OCC structure, accepbtable flexibility, and very well working MMCX connectors (patented, according to Dunu)

Specifications (declared)​

Some critical comparisons​

vs Tanchjim Oxygen ($260)​

The comparison is pertinent on the “similar” pricing and technology (1DD) standpoints, although it must be noted that Tanchjim Oxygen are by designed tuned towards a “lean harman”, neutral organic target, Falcon Pro towards a V shaped warm one, which of course should set different apriori expectations from either product.

With that being said, Tanchjim Oxygen’s midbass is way faster, more controlled and articulated. Mid bass, down to sub bass notes are much more textured and technical on Oxygen compared to the bloomier ones issued by Falcon Pro.

Although not a detail monster by design, Oxygen also retrieve significantly more subtleties both from highmids/trebles and bass. Note weight is leaner on Oxygen accross the spectrum – maximally so on midbass, but on mids and trebles too. Oxygen are better at layering and separation.

Overall, Oxygen are obviously preferrable on acoustic music (classic, jazz), Falcon Pro’s “meatier” personality may be preferrable on folk, progrock & such.

vs final E4000 ($149)​

Oppositely from the previous case, there is quite some common ground between Falcon Pro and E4000 in terms of intended tuning as both are clearly designed aiming at a warm-colored tonality.

With that being said, E4000’s tonality is evidently more balanced, with a much less invasive, color-imposing, slow bidbass, a bit, but definitely, clearer highmids and trebles.

On a more technical level, Falcon Pro deliver more solid note weight in the trebles, but less definition on trebles and everywhere, really. Falcon Pro offer a somewhat more extended stage size (both on width and depth), E4000 are way better in terms of layering and instrument separation.

Falcon Pro are easier to bias, E4000 require more current to properly open up.

Considerations & conclusions​

Dunu Falcon Pro are honest, well executed single-DD IEMs, exuding design and construction quality from all the angles you can watch them from. Their tuning is very sided, so to say, towards a warm, laidback, intimate presentation which clearly aims at pampering the user more on the overall musical experience then at stunning on technicalities.

Their features do not coincide with my personal preferences neither from the audio nor from the musical standpoints, but that’s of course totally personal.

I received a sample unit kindly provided by co-blogger Kazi. This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org last year, here.

GO Blu is iFi’s entry-level DAC-AMP, primarly focused on Bluetooth connectivity, high miniaturisation and straightforward operation. It retails for just below 200€ and I got a temporary loan unit for review purposes which I analysed for quite an extended time. Here’s my report.

Features and description​

Externals​

The Go Blu is a minuscle device, approximately the size of a 9V battery but much lighter in weight (just 26g).

It carries an on-off button, an options button, and a volume knob which also has a button as its central part.

Phone outs, and a status LED are on the top side of the device. On the bottom there is the USB-C port, the microphone hole, the power LED, and a futher pin hole for hard reset.

The accessories package is quite limited: GO Blu comes with just a short USB-A/USB-C cable and a soft carry pouch. No USB-C/USB-C cable, let alone Apple cable are included, nor – oddly enough – a shirt clip is bundled inside the box.

Internals​

Unlike so many competitive alternatives on the market, GO Blu is not designed around one of those “single chip does it all” items, but is rather a fully articulated dac-amp device, with separate communication, dac and amp sections, just “miniaturised” to fit an extremely small and lightweight footprint.


https://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/iFi_GO_blu_Lowdown_02.pdf

Connectivity is assigned to Qualcomm’s QCC5100 chip, the latest or one of the latest releases in its class by the wireless techology leader. The DAC section is centered on a 32-bit Cirrus CS43131 chip, sided by a separate hi quality precision clock. The amp section follows a full dual-mono design, and exploits some iFi proprietary technology called “Direct Drive” whereby they avoid using output coupling capacitors to get an even cleaner result on even other conditions.

Input specs are quite limited in terms of accepted formats: just PCM and only until 24bit / 96KHz. No higher res PCM. No native DSD. No MQA. The meta-message by iFi is quite evident here: focus on doing less, at higher quality.

Output specs (find them all here) are quite impressive: up to 5.6V @ 600ohm load on balanced output (half of that on single ended) and a promising 245mW @ 32ohm load on the opposite end (always on BE). Output impedance is below 1 ohm on both ports.

There’s a 6dB gain which is applied “automatically” as volume goes up – read more under Volume Control, here below.

The on-board battery while small features 450mAh capacity, and offered me – based on my typically low-ish playback volume, and always top-rank digital resolution – around 9-10 hours of operation.

Input​

GO Blu is mainly conceived as a BT DAC-AMP device, and BT performance is in facts ace both in terms of features and results. The pairing process is straightforward and I had no problem with any of my owned devices (phones, computers).

GO Blu supports BT 5.1, and a whopping array of different codecs including AAC, AptX (Adaptive, HD and Low Latency), LDAC and LHDC/HWA. The LDAC/96 implementation in particular is very solid and – when paired to another known-good-LDAC capable device – I was able to get at least 10 meters away on open path, or 7-8 meters with 2 walls in the middle, with zero dropouts.

The USB-C port on the bottom of GO Blu main body can be also used as a digital input. Again, connectivity proved straightforward both when attached to my PC (directly, and via the Nano iUSB) or to my Android devices – on which I use 3rd party sw players e.g. UAPP and Roon.

Didn’t try Apple ecosystem devices, which are declared as fully supported nonetheless.

Existing connectivity type will take priority: if GO Blu is connected somewhere via BT, a subsequently established USB connection will “not to work” – and similarly, if I have GO Blu on BT pairing mode, but not yet BT-connected to anything, plugging it into a USB data source will kill the BT pairing process, which will not resume for as long as the USB link stays on.

Finally, GO Blu has a very good working microphone on its bottom, which is straightforwardly used for calls and phone assistant interaction. The mic quality is above average at the very least, and Qualcomm’s built-in ANC works a charm: I could use it as an office tool for a while with great satisfaction.

When using GO Blu as a bi-way communication device, short-pressing once on the volume knob’s central button answers the incoming call. Long-pressing ends the call, or activates the phone assistant.

Output​

GO Blu comes with two phone output alternatives: a Balanced 4.4mm option and a 3.5mm Single Ended (S-Balanced, actually). The former is by all means the one to go for whenever possible – more on this later.

Neither is configurable as a pure Line Out.

Volume and gain control​

The volume knob is apparently well designed and feels solid and precise. iFi is particularly proud on the Swiss tech they added on that, I got no competence to confirm or dismiss but a fact is I couldnt appreciate any audible volume unbalance above 2% or something, and I did witness supersmooth and cracklefree operation for my entire (long!) assessment period.

On the GO Blu iFi chose to integrate gain control within the volume knob excursion – they call it “automatic gain”. In a nutshell, GO Blu is offering low gain until 60% volume level, then it quickly applies a +6dB gain from there on.

In general, I’m not a high gain fan to say the least: the higher the gain, the higher the compression especially on budget (read: sub-multibuck) class devices. High gain to me can and should be used with high impedance loads only, and that’s why I don’t particularly mind having a classical separate “gain switch” for that.

On the other hand I do see the point iFi designers are making on seamlessly integrating gain and volume controls, clinging at non-specialistic users who will simply not want to care on learning why and how they should or should not engage High Gain, and just want a device that “does it right, automatically”.

What makes the equation solve correctly in GO Blu case is that that little device delivers a whopping high level of current already at low volume marks. Which means that most if not all mid & low impedance devices I connected to GO Blu went nicely loud and dynamic (!) already at moderate (way sub 50%) volume levels, thus never needing to engage the High Gain mode. Plugging my HD600 required a deeper volume knob excursion, and -correctly- ended up into +6dB gain territory. Good job!

Other features​

Software and Firmware​

Like all iFi devices GO Blu allows for easy user-operated firmware flashing. In this specific case, operations can exclusively carried out from an Anroid host though, so be aware!

There’s currently only one GO Blu firmware version available, released last January 2022 – which must be flashed in should the device come with an earlier version as previous one(s) were, frankly, buggy as hell.

On the other hand, iFi offers no host software to remote-control / remote-configure GO Blu. Nothing in the line of what E1DA does for 9038x, or Fiio for BTRx, etc is available. Too bad.

Alternative reconstruction filters​

GO Blu firmware includes a sort of “easter-egg”, allowing the user to switch onto an alternative DAC reconstruction filter by following an undocumented button-pressing sequence.

To access such feature one needs to turn on and connect Go Blu (BT or wired, doesn’t matter), then triple-short-press the Power Button. At this point, single short-pressing the Options button (the one below the Volume knob) will toggle between two DAC filter alternatives:

• Minimum phase filter (upper LED turns Purple)
• Standard filter (upper LED turns Green)

The setting is saved, and will resist powering the GO Blu down.

XBASS and XSPACE​

On the GO Blu too iFi added two of their most appreciated “extras”, namely XBASS and XSPACE.

Both implemented on the time domain – i.e. on the already calculated analog output coming off the DAC – for superior quality results, XBASS is a bass/sub-bass enhancer, i.e. a filter enhancing all bass frequencies without impacting on the rest of the presentation, while XSPACE is a crossfeed filter, i.e. a system whereby, vulgarly speaking, “a bit” of the left channel sound will be hearable on your right channel too, and viceversa, which brings the headphone/earphone listening experience closer to that of full size speakers of course.

Both are great to have – especially on such a modest budget device – and being a late-50ies / 60ies acoustic jazz lover I’m especially fond of XSPACE, which “magically” compensates on many of those early stereo hard-panned masters with John Coltrane “fully stuck to the left”, for example, making them even more enjoyable.

To activate XBASS and/or XSPACE all it takes is to cycle-press the options button on the right side of the device, just below the volume knob. 1 press = XBASS, 2 presses = XSPACE, 3 presses = both, 4 presses = reset to none. The options led on top, near the 4.4 port, will light of a different color accordingly.

Sound​

GO Blu sounds seriously well.

The presentation range is very well extended both down low and up high, notes have very good body accross the board, and a particular mention is deserved by bass being very controlled. Highmids come accross a tad too evident, on the other end. Trebles are way airier than one may expect from such a small – therefore necessarily hw-limited – device. Perhaps most importantly, instrument separation and microdynamics are nothing short of outstanding.

Comparing by memory (I sold my unit quite some months ago) with an overall similar-featured device, GO Blu sounds significantly better than Fiio BTR5 for example : definitely cleaner, more extended, more macro and micro-dynamical.

Comparing instead with a different-featured but similarly priced device by the same manufacturer, GO Blu’s presentation is not the same as Hip-Dac – the latter is warmer down low, and less hot up high – although the “general sound quality” impression I can get from either is definitely on the same league.

As for probably 95% of sub-1K$ devices I auditioned to date, on Go Blu too single-ended output delivers much lesser quality than the balanced option next to it. Simply put, I would recommend Go Blu for Balanced only – and skip it if your main drivers are all single-ended and you don’t want to (or can!) plan on swapping cables.

Some caveats now.

One: In spite of a quite low output impedance (below 1 ohm), GO Blu’s Balanced output produces significant hiss on very low impedance + high sensitivity loads (Andromeda and such).

Two: GO Blu’s USB connection does and will charge the battery while playing, when connected to a host providing power on the VBUS wire. As a consequence, USB-connecting GO Blu directly to my PC produces audibly worse (closer, more compressed, less dynamical) output compared to connecting it through my Nano iUSB3, or to a battery-powered pure transport (eg a Tempotec V1).

Some educational pairings​

Final E3000​

I would call this an unreal pair in terms of amping authority, if it weren’t for the fact that E3000’s fixed cabling forces me into the Single Ended option on the GO Blu, and sadly it shows. With that being said, GO Blu’s amping module makes E3000 open up and sing quite well, so much as to make the pair an incredibly good “compromise option” e.g. when adopting GO Blu as a BT device and mid-fi digital sources e.g Spotify or similar.

Final E5000​

Not the best pair in the world at all for those but waaaay better than so many alternatives. E5000 is the empyric proof, if one is ever needed, of how vivid current GO Blu outputs already at very low volume positions, making E5000’s bass not “melting” into a too dark presentation as on most other lowcost stuff I heard it on. Very well done here.

Sennheiser HD600​

GO Blu drives HD600 with great authority powerwise, even from the single ended out which is the sole I could test as I don’t care putting a balanced cable on my HD600, Groove pair being endgame for those at my place. GO Blu’s “automatic gain” works greatly here.

Considerations & conclusions​

The main thing about GO Blu is that, quite simply, it sounds surprisingly good – especially so via its Balanced Ended output, which is the part I would recommend it for anytime really.

This little kid impressed me quite a lot for its very good DAC reconstruction quality, its more than decently clean amping stage, its capacity to drive low impedance and high impedance loads equally well, and the incredible life it delivers to most of my drivers.

Weren’t this enough add supersolid BT 5.1 (!) connectivity, XBASS and (to me, especially) XSPACE, and great performance for office calls, too.

What else can one want? The man on the road would probably, and justly, respond “nothing, just take my money now”.

I’m an old grumpy fellow so I always go around looking for flipsides, and GO Blu does have a few of course too: Single Ended output quality is rather unimpressive for one; output power although good is not enough for planars and such; Balanced output hisses off on very low impedance loads; well… that’s it really.

I took my sweet time assessing this device and I feel I need to particularly thank iFi Audio for the patience they had after supplying my loaner review unit back last december 2021 already! This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here, in april 2022.

GravaStar is a US-based workteam founded by an industial designer developing wireless speakers and earbuds putting a strong accent on the aesthetics of their audio products in addition of course to their sonic contents. Their main leitmotiv is “cyberpunk style”. I got a chance to assess their current totl TWS airbud model named “Sirius Pro”, which retails for $149.95.

Test setup​

Transports: Samsung smartphone and tablet, two different Windows 10 laptops, Sony NW-A55 DAP – Stock silicon eartips – 16/24bit-44.1/192KHz tracks

Physicals​

Build

Sirius Pro TWS’ carry & battery recharge case is very, very nice design-wise, both in terms of aesthetics and of phyisical conception. The shell is fully metallic, with a sort of “unlockable cage” on the upper side safely keeping the buds down in their recharge position. The design follows a very well calibrated cyberpunk style, clearly clinging at such theme lovers but staying a small but decisive step “not too far” on that path, resulting in an item that can still stafely be taken out during an informal business meeting for example.

The metal case is complemented by fancy LED lighting – up to the user selecting their color by cycle-clicking on a button at the bottom, or disabling (!) them – and it’s very uncommon “open-body” shape indeed doubles as a bottlecap opener. Again: strong styles aesthetics design involved, but always with an eye at not really “overexceeding”, the result being still possibly compatible with the taste of an old somewhat conservative old european sole like myself for example. YMMV, needless to say.

I couldn’t devine what material are Sirius Pro TWS’ bud housings themselves made of – the manufacturer talks about zinc-alloy. Whatever, they are apparently very solid, and IPX5 certified which means they can bear moderate watering (like rain, or of course sweat) – no submersion or big water splashes tho so remember that when going to the beach or so.

Sliding the buds out of the battery case gets some… creativity, at least the first times you try. Their backsides are conic shaped and short, and they are almost impossible to safely grab with a fingertip pinch to pull them out both due to their shape & size and to the magnetic force applied between them and the case. The trick at least for me is to start pinching on the case (!) right below where the buds start emerging from it, and pull up while letting fingertips slide on the structure: this way they come out easilly and aergonomically as (I suppose) intended.

Access to the battery case is regulated by a metal “gate” which besides being aestheticall in-line with the overall style also serves the function of keeping the two buds safely into their case when pocketing them, and last but not least ensuring their bottomside contacts do fully match those on the receptacles, to initiate recharging when the buds are homed.


Fit

Sirius Pro TWS bud shells are very reasonably lightweight and their shape is quite anatomical. They fit easily into my ears but be warned: they need to be orientated the “right” way. Simply put, you have to make sure the “octopus legs” are pointing towards your lobe, and this for two reasons: one to get the best fit of course and two to avoid the mic hole being occluded. This is also properly mentioned on the manual (RTFM, ***! ) )

Nozzles are oval shaped (à la Ikko OH1S, to give an idea) so are the bundled eartips. I must say this is one of those rare occasions where stock tips are perfect for the job. Caveat: it may be not so simple finding third party spares.


Comfort

Once properly fitted I found Sirius Pro TWS very comfy, also for prolonged usage timeframes – both listening and/or office calls. I presume this is another achievement coming from all the industrial design attention which was obviously applied to this project and product.

Tapping once on more on the housings allows the user to issue the usual commands e.g. track fwd, track backwards, play, pause, answer call, reject call, etc. Tunneling voice commands to Android assistant is also supported.


Connectivity and battery

Sirius Pro TWS support Bluetooth 5.2, but sadly only SBC and AAC codecs. No aptX, no LDAC. So forget hi-res audio in the first place with them, although as I will report more below that’s not their worse audio drawback.

Pairing with all the transports I tried them with was straightforward, no annoying bad surprises. Long-clicking the button at the bottom of the batterycase resets all BT pairing by the way.

The buds themselves turn ON when take off the battery case, and OFF when put back in. After pairing the two to a given source, they can be used together or one at a time as preferred – just leaving one of the two inside the case.

The battery-case on its turn has a USB-C port for recharging of course.

The small batteries inside the buds offer up to 4 hours of operation time, and the case can fully recharge them for 3 times, up to a theoretical autonomy of 16 hours. But : earbuds take 1.5/2h to recharge ! So if you imagine to use them continually until they are fully discharged you will have to bear a quite sizeable downtime every 3.5/4h. In more practical terms you can expect to use Sirius Pro TWS for more than a full working day (including even long commuting time) for calls, and for listening to music during free time, as long as you take them off into their case for a while every now and then to restore some juice up.

Sound analysis​

As all TWS earphones/headphones, Sirius Pro of course carry their own small DAC-AMP which is in charge of analog reconstruction starting from the digital stream received via BT. Barred a few very high end (and expensive) cases, the overwhelming majority of budget-priced TWS drivers carry quite basic-quality DAC-AMP circuitry, from which of course we can’t reasonably expect top sonic results.

Sirius Pro TWS are no exception. Simply put, they offer some pleasant music rendering experience when evaluated under “non-audiophile” standards, while – like most of their peers – they fall way behind critical listening / audiophile quality standards offered by even more modestly priced wired options.

Sirius Pro TWS also carry some DSP capabilities offering the user 3 pre-set audio modes – Music, Gaming and Movie – each offering a different overall presentation which the user can switch onto on the fly by simply tapping on the buds’ housings.


Music Mode

Music Mode is probably the zero-DSP mode, i.e. the situation where I am direct listening to the unaltered Sirius Pro DAC voicing.

Tonality on Music Mode is V shaped, on a warm, dark-ish timbre.

Bass range is moderately extended, sub bass is hinted but does not deliver proper rumble. Midbass is pushed up, and too much proactive for acoustic music where it comes accross almost booming. May be liked by EDM and other non-acoustic music lovers.

Mids are evidently recessed and seriously overshadowed by the midbass. Highmids are also quite timid so even on female vocal prominent tracks the ryhtm section steals the scene to the leader. Trebles are inoffensive and unshrilling, at least that, but (quite coherently with the rest of the presentation) they clearly lack air thereby not succeeding in properly “counterbalancing” the overall experience.

Technicalities are very basic. Soundstage is intimate, with just a bit of depth. Imaging is hampered by the midbass. Microdynamics are nowhere near audiophile ballparks.


Gaming Mode

Gaming mode evidently expands the soundstage, a distributes imaging better on the X axis at least.

Midbass gets less invasive which makes at least female vocals come up more natural.


Movie Mode

Movie mode delivers a stage similar to the gaming one, and stretches (so to say) bass similarly too, so midbass is also less invasive, which is good of course.

The less good part is that mids are pushed forward and end up quite artificial from the sound fidelity perspective. Good for watching movies (as intended!), not for listening to folk singers nor jazz or most pop stuff of course.


Latency

Latency is very modest, and simply put it does not get in the way any seriously when watching movies. And that’s good.

While gaming… well, it depends on gaming levels. I expect an hardcore FPS gamer to underline the ever so slight delay Sirius Pro TWS deliver, but then again that individual would probably not choose a similar pair of TWS buds for his most engaging plays anyway.


Calls

I could quite successfully use Sirius Pro TWS for business calls, and I was very positively surprised by that.

As previously mentioned, it’s crucial to appropriately orientate the housings into the ears to get the best fit and properly expose the mic’s hole (again: RTFM). When that is taken care of, mic quality and Environment Noise Cancellation (ENC) is above decent at the very least – not comparable with professional vertical products of course, but way beyond usable.

On calls I ended up preferring Sirius Pro TWS on Gaming mode in terms of vocal quality.

Specifications (declared)​

Considerations & conclusions​

TWS earphones are no doubt a huge technical challenge in terms of achieving true audiophile results, comparable with wired alternatives.

Firstly, there ain’t such thing as “lossless BT communication” so that is an apriori negative bias no matter what technology or competence goes into the buds themselves.

Even more importantly, by definition TWS earphones must carry their own DAC-AMP. Think to how much did you spend for your DAC and your AMP, and/or for your DAP, add the cost of your preferred IEMs, then compare that with the budget you are investing into a pair of TWS IEMs : this will give you a rough measure of the expectations you may reasonably set in terms of output quality from TWS buds.

Indeed, it’s even worse than that: earbuds are small. The smaller the size, the more complicated (and sometimes impossible) it is to fit truly high quality DAC and especially AMP technology in.

With all the above in mind, looking at their asked price Gravastar Sirius Pro TWS are a wonderful piece of industrial design in terms of construction, ergonomics, features set and not least aesthetics (although carrying a definitely sided style at that). On the flip side they evidently lag behind in terms of pure hires sound reproduction quality – which I quite simply rate “no audiophile grade” – and make themselves more appreciated as a multipurpose music, office calls, gaming, movie watching audio gadget instead.

The Sirius Pro TWS set I assessed have been provided free of charge by Gravastar Europe, to whom my thanks goes for the consideration and the trust. They can be purchased from Gravastar web site, here. This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

After a very unfortunate first try (the review unit which was kindfully sent to me by the manufacturer was stolen at my door), I finally got an M15 unit which I quite oddly found for a very good price 2nd hand in Japan. This second package reached me regularly so I can finally assess this device which already collected convinced cobloggers' praises.

As there already is a comprehensive article about M15 on Audioreviews, I will entirely skip a general description of the device features as it would be needless repetition. I will also be succint on most sound impressions.

I'm going to focus on some detail which are not covered in the previous piece, and/or on aspects for which I have a different opinion.

M15 costs € 249 + freight on the manufacturer's website.

Miscellaneous good stuff and caveats​

Good High Gain option​

Unlike what happens on so many other devices I heard, M15's High Gain option is not chastising in terms of dynamic range compression. The effect is indeed very modest, which makes HG a totally viable option whenever one feels like adding some more early juice delivery to one or another driver.

Bad Single Ended output​

It is so obviously duller and noisier compared to the Balanced option to be totally unworthy of such an otherwise outstanding product. To give a vague idea, it's roughly on quality level of M15's cheaper (120€) sibling, the M12 - which quality, at that price level, is trounced by the like of E1DA 9038D.

This means that one cannot elect the M15 as its "only" dongle if he/she has one or more drivers with single ended connections to support. Too bad.

Spectacular sound, if not totally uncolored​

M15's sound is first of all grand (spatially), and immediately after that it's clear and detailed. Instrument separation and layering are just spectacular - which paired with its space drawing capabilities make for a really uncommonly good imaging and "sense of immersion" into the outcoming sound.

M15 is not uncolored in terms of tonality. There is some added accent on midbass notes - which is if you wish part of the "usual" compromise "musicality vs purity". The situation comes out obvious when comparing M15 with E1DA 9038SG3: the two offer equal bilaterally extended sound ranges, with the latter's bass staying faster, "more technical", therefore also "less expressive" in a sense.

9038SG3 is however a step under M15 in terms of spatial reconstruction, with particular regards to depth. Layering is also a bit less refined - and that's mainly why M15 comes across overall "more musically pleasing" compared to 9038SG3.

Powerwise 9038SG3 is better vs very low impedances: in the E5000-acidtest 9038SG3 beats M15 in terms of bass control and overall clarity. It's fair to observe that 9038SG3 remains the best option around, and by far so, when the available budget is like half M15's asking price.

In its being "exquisitely musical if unpure" M15 can't but recall Groove in a sense. In Apogee's dongle case sound colouring is even more marked, and comes with furtherly higher capability in terms of stage drawing - depth and height most of all. The two devices are not effectively comparable though - mainly due to Groove's internal architecture making it the odd ball it is - read my piece for the full reasons why.

Annoying RFI sensitivity​

When paired to a smartphone connected to the 4G cell network M15 easily picks up RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) when within approx 10cm from the phone. The "solution" is using a non-ultrashort USB-C cable for the connection, but a problem still remains when you walk around with your phone + the M15 in a coat's pocket...

By comparison, E1DA 9038D behaves very similarly, E1DA 9038SG3 is instead virtually immune to such RFI.

Oddly lacking Direct-DSD support on non-mobile OS​

While M15's USB interfacing is fully supported by Android, not the same happens when the device is plugged onto a Windows or Linux host.

For Windows, Questyle does not make an ASIO driver available (yet?). M15 can therefore be used only on "WASAPI Exclusive" mode. Which means there's not way to have access to direct DSD transfers (Wasapi only supports PCM).

For Linux the situation is even wierder (if not unique). M15 is apparently not fully supported by standard ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) and the end result is that Roon Bridge on a Linux server does not offer Direct DSD support onto M15 when locally connected to it. Not the first time it happens to me - 9038D and 9038SG3 suffer of the same issue.

Considerations & conclusions​

It's very simple: Questyle M15 is "the" DAC/AMP dongle to have if one has 250-300€ to spend, and has balanced connectivity options for all its drivers.

It's got superb sound clarity and body, very good spatial reconstruction capabilities, very good power management and strong power output.

In terms of overall sound experience M15 easily beats all standalone budget and mid-tier DAPs I happened to audition or own, the ones starting to represent an evident upgrade to it being nothing short of Questyle's own QP1R, or Lotoo's Paw 6000 and Gold Touch, or Cayin's N8. Seen from this angle M15 carries a very reasonable price tag.

The sole serious caveat to mention for me about M15 is its Balanced output option being the sole one delivering good quality. Whoever wants or needs a Single-ended source wouldn't be as satisfied with M15 (and its price).

M15 is rightfully stuck on Audioreviews' WoE, and determines the passage of Earmen Sparrow and L&P W2 to the relevant Past Excellences section therein.

This article originally appeared on audioreviews.org, here.

It’s with great interest that I received a sample of Ikko’s latest OH5 “Asgard” model, considering the very high consideration I have for the other 2 models I assessed in the past, being OH10 (read here) and OH1S (read here).

OH5 can be bought from Ikko’s website for approx $495 before promos. There’s a nice giveaway promo going on right now, and I have been hinted that a xmas promo is also coming up so stay tuned on their website in the coming days

Full Device Card​

Test setup​

Sources: Apogee Groove / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / E1DA 9038SG3 / Questyle M15 – Radius Deepmount tips – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

OH5’s tonality is warm-balanced, and the timbre is bodied and polished.



IKKO OH5 frequency response graph (official one supplied by Ikko)


Sub-Bass

Sub bass is there but doesnt shine enough. Looking at the graph it does not seem too much rolled off but from actual audition you can check that rumble may use some help to be more evident, and this also impacts negatively on spatial drawing of course. Mid bass elevation tends to cover it, too.


Mid Bass

OH5 have an evidently enhanced mid bass which is key to their global tonality in a positive sense on one hand, but paired to somehow “dampened” transients it also contributes to limitating overall resolving power.


Mids

OH5 mids are very well positioned in terms or relative relation with bass and trebles – not forward, not recessed – to the general purpose of obtaining a globally balanced, horizontally-calibrated presentation (much more so than the graph seems to say). Their tonality is very well “centered”. Highmids ramp up quite rapidly and deliver quite some energy, thus sometimes (although rarely) resulting in some minor inconsistency with the mid and lower ones. Those overly sensitive to 3KHz might be a bit “touched” on some tracks (I’m not in that category, rather the other way around), yet I cound’t hear sibilance which is great of course.


Male Vocals

Vocals on OH5 are good, with particular regards to male vocals. While midbass sometimes gets too close (and does sometimes overlap baritones) they come across very organic, especially on tenor registers.


Female Vocals

Female vocals are also good. A clear preference has been given to energy vs smoothness here. Purists of flutey sopranos may not consider OH5 as top of the block – but apart from that this is another spot where a good job has been made on the OH5.


Highs

OH5’s treble is nice, somewhat airy, and most of all energetic, sparkly while also staying combed, smooth though, so they are in the end not offensive while still staying engaging. The 4.5KHz peak gets hot at times, and depending on eartips selection and/or personal preference/sensibility it may want to be tamed by surgical equing. Other then that, a nice job was done here.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

OH5 draw an average sized stage, with a decent width, some height but very limited depth.


Imaging

Macro dynamics (imaging) is good, although primarily in the sense of stereo separation given their flat-ish spatial rendering capabilities. Central panned instruments and/or mono tracks, suffer from OH5’s limitation in terms of layering/separation.


Details

Detail retrieval, like instrument separation, is dramatically sub-average for this price class. It’s quite evident that the entire tuners’ effort has been concentrated on delivering tonal pleasantness and a specific musicality tone, sacrificing resolution and analithical skills.


Instrument separation

Layering and instrument separation are the other major Achille’s heels of OH5, together with detail retrieval as previously noted. There’s little chance to appreciate various voices’ / instruments’ nuances in their singular identities even on acoustic, well mastered, uncompressed tracks.


Driveability

It’s not difficult to drive OH5 as their sensitivity is relevant, and their impedance is on a level where many amps deliver their best current, or near that. A decent phone should be enough, and surely not particularly powerful sources will be.

Physicals​

Build

Housings offer a convincing impression of solidity, and sport a very pleasing design style.


Fit

In my case OH5’s shape and size are the right shape and size to fit my concha without difficulty, filling it up almost completely. The nozzles are not very long so long stem tips are in order for me as pushing the housings in beyond a certain point is a no go. In the end I settled for Radius Deepmount.


Comfort

As long as I adopt long stemmed tips, OH5 are very comfy for me once fit. Their weight is also “right” (not too light to “disappear”, not to heavy). They’d become unbearable however if equipped with short stemmed tips, as their housings would hit my antitragus (this is a common issue I have with similar shaped housings e.g. Final A and B series, Tanchjim Oxygen, etc especially on my left ear)


Isolation

As housings do fill my conchas quite well, some level of passive isolation is achieved in my case.


Cable

I found stock cable is quite nice. In addition to good sonic behaviour and very nice haptics, it comes with a modular plug system and 3 termination plugs included in the package (3.5, 2.5 and 4.4). Modular plugs miss a lock-in mechanism but they seem quite firm in position anyway so all OK on that front too.

Specifications (declared)​

Considerations and hints​

What positively hits you about OH5 is its musicality. Somehow the tuners managed to reach a particular tonal balance, adding a quite personal color to the music being played, and such color is indeed pleasing. The sound coming from OH5 is bodied, vibrant, warm and enveloping. It’s energetic but also rounded off, smooth – there’s no sharp edge, no rigid brick wall, and no floppy surface either.

You got to love OH5’s particular color to appreciate that, of course, which might not happen to you. If you do like its timbre, however, chances are you might develop a particular affection for OH5.

On the flip side, I find OH5 compromise quite dramatically on key technicalities, first of all layering and instrument separation. I am no EQ guru, so I couldn’t (and I wouldn’t) find out inhowmuch the situation is due to aposteriori tuning or to the driver’s specific nature. What I did is play with Roon’s PEQ and after some fiddling I could devine some touch-ups wich make the situation a bit better (for my tastes of course)


The 150Hz demotion helps making midbass much more polite and somewhat faster. The low shelf adds some missing “rumble tail” to bass notes. The 950Hz (or thereabout) pushup also helps de-dampening midbass and lowmids and the 4.5K dip takes some hotness away from metal notes.

All those figures are not carved in stone, take them as ballpark values, but if you try you will hear instrument separation and clarity improving, a more detailed bass, and a quite evident opening on stage drawing especially in the depth direction. Play with values to learn how sensible each one is to the final result.

An alternative possible intervention is adopting TRI Clarion eartips. In such case the pushdown on 150Hz or thereabout is not needed anymore, however a more generous dampening intervention gets required on the highmids – I would add a -2dB or so to 3Khz for example, in that case.

Lastly: some care is in order about ideal source pairings. OH5 do not welcome bass-strong sources too much. Questyle M15 or QP1R, and E1DA 9038xx dongles all OK. Groove on the other hand excites OH5’s “artistic” midbass too much, yielding a too dark result, thus not even being able to help OH5 on adding space depth which is amongst Groove’s specialties in general.

Comparisons​

Final E4000 ($149)​

The epitome of IEMs featuring strong musical personality (color) which grew on me since the day I got them and won’t ever leave me, even now that I have technically better alternatives, are Final E4000. And guess what: E4000 and OH5’s personal “voicings” offer quote a few common points.

Both are warm, smooth, musically “pop” and deliver a very particular balance between smoothness and strenght, energy and pampering. Compared to OH5, E4000 are… more japanese: silkier, a bit (even) more elegant in a sense. OH5 feel more energetic – in a good sense.

OH5 are braver on the trebles compared to E4000, even at the cost of minorly overdoing sometimes. E4000 on the other hand are very good at layering and separation, where OH5 is dramatically lacking, especially on the mid and low segments.

E4000 are much more demanding in terms of source power, and they have the not secondary advantage of costing one third of what OH5 do.

Oriolus Isabellae ($500 street price)​

Isabellae’s musical personality is evidently different from OH5’s insofar as they deliver a V shape presentation, with relatively recessed mids and important, enhanced sub bass and bass (for the connoisseurs: something more in the ballpark of Ikko’s other model, the OH10). This alone of course already imprints a big part of the comparison between the two products.

Beyond that, Isabellae’s high mids are smoother, and trebles are less energetic, yet airier compared to OH5. Mid bass is definitely more textured and detailed on Isabellae, while still staying on the relaxed and buttery side in general. Sub bass is OK out of the box on Isabellae while it requires some help on OH5. Most of all, layering, resolution and detail retrieval is obvisouly better on Isabellae, which are also equivalently undemanding in terms of source power as OH5 are.

Dunu ZEN ($699)​

Zen’s bass is arguably as good as the industry gets at least until pulling Softears stuff to the comparison table: perfectly calibrated mix of punchyness and body, volume and texture. ZEN also has beyond outstandind microdynamics and layering capabilities – on both fronts, that’s very much unlike what happens on OH5. On the opposite end, trebles are marginally but perceivably airier on OH5, although highmid sensitives as previously noted my consider that segment on the limit or even a bit beyond their preference. Taken as a whole, OH5 have a stronger musical personality (love or hate, of course), ZEN are more “technical”, and 40%+ more expensive. I’m referring to original ZEN model, not the subsequent Pro version (which I find less nice then its sibling).

Conclusions​

OH5 are a nicely and coherently colored set. As such, they can be target of “unquenchable hatred and indomitable love” – like that other well known invididual from some 200 years ago, you know – depending on one’s own ego. Simply put, if you are the uncurably curious audiophile addict you may want to check these, knowing chances are you might viscerally love them, or find them as being “not your cup of tea”. I hope my article did convey at least some hints to educate your guess before you actually carry that out.

In summary OH5 deliver a bodied, vibrant, warm and enveloping musical experience. They are energetic while also smoothed. An evident accurate job has been carried out behind the curtains here to get to such point.

Their major downside is on resolving power and layering proweness, which can be helped a bit albeit not solved – without revolutionising the entire presentation – by means of some surgical EQ as I also tried to hint you about, here above.

The OH5 sample covered in this article has been delivered to me courtesy of Ikko staff which I warmly thank once again for the opportunity.

This article originally appeared on www.audioreviews.org, here.

As some of my 18 readers may recall, I’ve been quite impressed by a prior Intime IEM model called SORA 2, which I wrote about one and a half year ago. That’s surely why when last summer I got notified that mr Watanabe had released some new IEM models, and in particular one supposed to be a sort of direct upgrade to the SORA project I didn’t hesitate much to order my pair of Intime Miyabi.

At the time of this article, Miyabi sells on the manufacturer’s site for JPY 21.450,00 which is approximately $ 150. Add another $ 30 to have that reforwaded to EU / USA by a service like Tenso or equivalent.

“Intime Acoustic” is not a known brand at all in the west, as it comes from a very small company limiting its commercial horizon to Japan, where it’s based. In my previous article I spent some lines about the company, and about the technology (developed, and sometimes even patented by the company’s owner) involved. I’m echoing such information here below, with appropriate updates, for the reader’s convenience.

Intime Acoustic, a.k.a. Ozeid Co., a.k.a O2aid.com…​

Intime Acoustic is a brand owned by Ozeid Co., Ltd., a quite young (2016-founded) Takasaki City (JPN) based company. Its main business is actually not manufacturing, but consulting.

The owner and key developer Mr Yoshiyuki Watanabe has 35+ years of experience on devices and applications that use piezoelectric materials.

Rotate his company name “ozeid” (or even better its web domain name “o2aid”) by 180°. What do you read ?

That said, mr Watanabe also decided to deliver some of his competence in form of earphones, targeting young users – young like his children – aiming to convey (in his own words) “the good sound of Japan“.

Key technologies​

Similarly to other models in Intime lineup, Miyabi is based on a dual-driver system including a 10mm dynamic driver, and a somewhat special ceramic tweeter taking care of the upper treble / top octave end.

A number of very interesting details are available regarding the technology inside them, let me summarise what the main claims are.

1 – “Vertical Super Tweeter”​

VST is made of some sort of special laminated ceramics, instead of the most commonly adopted titanium oxide.

Fundamentally, laminated ceramics is supposed to offer more controllable vibrations.



Conventional “super tweeters” are so-called as they reproduce sounds outside the audible range, but this Intime’s variation, thanks to the uncommon material selection in addition to their calibrations, has a different behaviour and reproduces overtones, effectively contributing to the highest-end part of the audible spectrum.

The Miyabi feature “third-generation" of such VST2 tweeters. According to mr Watanabe the improvement has to do with adopting dual ceramics, which ensures that the hysteresis characteristics are minimized, while sound pressure sensitivity is maintained.

For example, 3rd gen VST is supposed to offer richer overtones on piano notes, and crisper notes on a jumping saxophone. Owning a model based on a previous VST iteration (Sora 2) I can testify this is indeed the case.

2 – Graphene coating​

A graphene coating has been applied to the Dynamic Driver unit, which – always according to mr Watanabe – is amongst the reasons why his drivers reproduce mid-high range frequencies with controlled power and good definition.

3 – Brass housings​

Unlike what happens on the Sora line, Miyabi housings are made of brass. According to mr Watanabe, this choice contributes to delivery Miyabi’s signature soft, deep sustain and bass reproduction. I don’t know if the cause-effect liaison is right, but the result definitely is good.

4 – HDSS​

Another unique (and patented, actually) technology adopted inside Miyabi, as much as inside Ti3, Sora, Sora2 too, is called “HDSS” as in "High Definition Sound Standard".

Its purpose is to suppress sound reflections inside the housing, resulting in cleaner output.



Some sound waves are commonly uncontrolledly reflected inside the housing, impacting onto the dynamic driver diaphragm, causing dissonance from the intended purpose. With HDSS technology, the sound inside the housings is more controlled and does not “invest” the diaphragm randomly, allowing the dynamic driver to move “only” as a consequence to the signal source, as indeed it should.

This – according to Intime – increases sound realism and decreases fatigue. It has a down side though: it tends to purge too much of the high frequencies off the dynamic driver vibration.

This is where a careful calibration between the resolution of the ceramic VST2 and the mid-high range tuning of the graphene coated DD becomes vital, resulting in a bass with a solid outline, harmonious mid-high range and wide spatial expression – as in facts Miyabi does deliver, big time !

Full Device Card​

Test setup​

Sources: Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / Tempotec V1 + E1DA 9038D – Spinfit CP-145 tips - Dunu DUW-02S cable - lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis​

Tonality

Miyabi’s tonality is a mild V, with modest bumps in the midbass and highmids, and unrecessed mids, all well reciprocally calibrated to offer a very pleasant overall presentation.

Most importantly, Miyabi offer an in-cre-di-bly “natural” (“organic”) timbre, so much that some may find it excessively unforgiving, almost “crude”. Acoustic instruments come across sort of raw, unadultered, nature they’d say in Paris – which grants the auditioner a unique “presence on the performance scene” sensation, as if sound were delivered to them prior to any postprocessing combing imperfections or such.

For someone like me listening for 99% of his time to acoustic jazz this is a unique, addictive experience which quickly turns into an invaluable asset.


Sub-Bass

Sub bass is moderately extended, fast, but a bit subduded in power vs midbass. More then adequate to render standup bass.


Mid Bass

Miyabi’s midbass is fast and slammy, yet articulated and textured. It’s evidently bumped up, offering very solid body to standup bass while staying respectful of mids at virtually all times.

Only occasionally and/or on specific musical genres or selections male vocals or guitars may come accross a bit subdued.


Mids

Miyabi’s mids are organic, realistic, very well modulated and textured – this in spite of them not being particularly forward. Pianos, cellos and guitars are very naturally rendered.

High mids are energetic and shiny, but always south of fatiguing – at least in my books, YMMV (we know the drill: highmids are one of those areas where personal sensitivity varies a lot).


Male Vocals

Male vocals, with particular regards to tenors, are very well rendered, textured and credibly organic. Bass voices may occasionally partially conflict with midbass on particularly crowded passages, especially when non-acoustic instruments are involed.


Female Vocals

Miyabi’s female vocals are even better than male: organic, bodied, at times even flutey. Never scanting into sibilance, they take advantage of the driver’s superb highmids tuning.


Highs

Trebles are no doubt one of the two areas on which Miyabi offers their best. I did hear a few other piezo tweeters, but simply not one holds a candle to what mr Watanabe can make his drivers deliver.

There is a veeeery faint “piezo timbre” occasionally emerging, but for the vast majority of the cases Intime’s VST deliver energetic, dynamic, sparkly, quite airy, well detailed and most of all addictively energetic treble.

I like to assume that part of the “organically brassy timbre” result is also due to the housings being made of… brass, indeed.

Technicalities​

Soundstage

Miyabi’s stage projection is very good. The room is very well extended horizontally, shows an exceptional height, and very good depth.


Imaging

Helped by outstanding instrument separation, Miyabi’s imaging is neat, precise and very realistic.


Details

Miyabi retrieve tons of detail from all segments of the spectrum. The bass part, while very good in absolute terms for a driver of this price category, almost pales when faced with the special proficiency coming out from mids, vocals and trebles.


Instrument separation

Together with treble, instrument separation is the other area on which Miyabi deliver a quality which can only be found on selected, much higher class (and price) competition.

All voices are spectacularly enucleated from one another, and layered in a way that the auditioner has a very realist sensation of being on the stage, or just in front of it, and can almost “see” the various players, their performance, abilities, and mistakes (!) happening together.

Separation clarity coupled to solid note body similar or better to what Miyabi offers cannot be encountered for my experience until engaging with IEMs the like of Dunu Zen – at +-4 times Miyabi’s budget.


Driveability

Miyabi’s sensitivity is modest so they do call for some non-trivial amping. Nothing excessive, don’t worry, but it’s best not to rely on a mere smartphone in their case.

A piece of good news is however that their impedance is not ultra-low, so there’s a thicker flock of sources, dac-amps and dongles which are able to deliver the power Miyabi requires.

Physicals​

Build

Housings are made of solid brass, with the declared intention to deliver a “brass-like”, warm-ish, organic, acoustic timbre.

Their back end is in tortoise-color resin, moulded adopting a japanese tecnique called Takumi. The result is uneven in terms of colouring, resulting in no two units be identical. The resin back-end paired with the brass main chambers make for a quite stylish ensemble. Miyabi is indeed japanese for “elegant, stylish”.


Fit

Fat bullet shapes like Miyabi's are very easy to fit for me.

Stock tips are good in terms of sound results but I found them a tad too soft, which paired with the housings' weight, their shape etc, for whatever reason makes my left driver tend to lose its seal inside my left ear.

After the "usual" lenghty and boring rotation amongst a couple of dozen alternatives I settled on Spinfit CP-145.



Comfort

Very subjective. I personally find them extremely comfortable, like for most if not all bullet shaped housings.


Isolation

No concha shielding due to bullet shape, but their “fat” build contributes positively nonetheless.


Cable

In spite of the effort that I'm sure mr Watanabe put on it, too, I wasn't impressed by the stock cable. After some trials, I settled onto a Dunu DUW-02S which is significantly upgrading the Miyabi in terms of spatial openness, layering and separation.

It's also important to note that not all third party cables I tried onto my Miyabi clicked the same way, and a couple of them even resulted in unstable connectivity (unlike what happens when the same cable is connected to all other MMCX IEMs I have). Mr Watanabe may want to look into this.

Last but probably not least, I understand Ozeid is now bundling their high end cable (M Kanade) with Miyabi. Looking forward into getting one to check a very likely better pairing.

Specifications (declared)​

Comparisons​

Tanchjim Oxygen ($ 250)​

Miyabi is overall warmer, with an evident accent on midbass compared to Oxygen which is more balanced-neutral, if something with a soft accent on highmids. Miyabi’s brassy timbre and coloration is totally absent on Oxygen, which is mostly transparent.

Instrument separation and microdynamics are in favour of Miyabi everywhere except on crowded midbass passages, where neither – for different causes – is at the industry’s best. Treble rendering is more organic on Miyabi, with special regards to metal instruments – Oxygen on the other hand comes across cleaner if a tad less detailed.

Ikko OH1S ($ 159)​

The first thing one notices about OH1S vs Miyabi is the obviously thinner note weight delivered by the former. OH1S sounds leaner and therefore less expressive if also less colored compared with the more energetic, muscular and “thetral” Miyabi.

OH1S DD is faster but not better resolving compared to Miyabi’s so OH1S’s midbass is less inflated but also evidently less textured and organic. Most of all, instrument separation is all in favor of Miyabi. OH1S also has more invasive highmids which may occasionally sound shoutier compared to the energetic but controlled ones on Miyabi.

Ikko OH10 ($ 199)​

OH10’s sub bass is more elevated but midbass is less compared to Miyabi. Most of all, OH10’s bass is faster and dryer compared to Miyabi’s so it sounds cleaner on one end, but less expressive and textured on the other. Also, even in spite of such higher cleanness, Miyabi’s separation all over the spectrum including the bass is better compared to OH10’s.

OH10’s note weight is also leaner and the timbre is not brassy. Wind instruments and hihats and crashes sound much less vivid compared to Miyabi. Mids are much more recessed and vocals are not even comparable (by design, I would say).

Dunu Zen ($700)​

Zen’s bass is faster compared to Miyabi’s, and more controlled. Instrument separation, though superb on Miyabi, is better on Zen all along the spectrum. Zen’s tonality is warm, but its timbre is quite neutral. Miyabi is warmer, not only due to somewhat fatter midbass but mainly due to heavier note body on the mids and highmids, and its brass-metallic timbre.

High mids are cleaner on Zen but also less energetic and expressive. Miyabi is definitely airier up above. Zen has a better detail retrieval all over the spectrum, although not by the same margin as its higher price tag might suggest.


You may also want to check my analysis of the Intime Sora 2.

Considerations & conclusions​

I can’t name many IEMs costing less than $5-600 and delivering an equivalently pleasant mix of highly refined technicalities, organic, lifelike timbre and energetic presentation like Miyabi do. And even less at Miyabi’s sub-200$ price.

To me this is excellent material. I initiated the process to collect cobloggers’ opinions to consider sticking Miyabi on our Wall of Excellence.

The Miyabi sample I reported about in this article is a personal purchase, no contact incurred with Mr Watanabe.

This article was originally published here.

GO Bar is iFi Audio’s first and long awaited take on a battery-less mobile dac-amp (a “dongle”).

As I will try to outline, from multiple standpoints GO Bar fully partakes into iFi’s overall general product philosophy both in terms of components and general application. It promises outstanding results, and surely comes with a price tag (€ 329 in EU) positioning it at the top market level. It can as always be purchased directly from iFi, on their Amazon space, or from one of their distributors around the world.

Features and description​

Externals​

GO Bar’s housing shape recalls that of their Nano / Micro iDSD line – just many times smaller. Within the “dongle” category, GO Bar falls more or less midway in terms of dimensions and weight: 65x22x13mm and most of all 28.5g are not certainly huge yet not entirely disregardable either when I have GO Bar connected to my transport. It’s more than twice the size and weight than an E1DA 9038S, yet much smaller and lighter compared to a Groove.

On one small ends we find two phone outs, on the opposite end a USB-C connector. On one of the long sides there are two + and – buttons, another multifunction button, and a microswitch dedicated to IEMatch.

Finally, on the bottom face there’s a raw of 9 little holes corresponding to as many LEDs, with engravings already hinting about those being dedicated to signaling which PCM sample rate is being played, or if DSD is being received, whether MQA is being detected and finally wheter XSpace and/or XBass+ are activated.

GO Bar is supplied in a small size carton box with adequate internal protections. The bundle is quite generous insofar as it includes a USBC-USBC short cable, a Lightning-USBC cable, a USBC-USBA adapter and a black leather pouch with enough room for the GO Bar itself plus at least one of such cables.

Internals​

iFi traditionally offers quite some macroscopical information about the contents of their devices, but scarce or no fine details about them.

USB communication is taken care by a XMOS 16bit chip, which I would call an obviously good – for quality – and at the same time brave choice – when I think to the power that element alone requires to operate.

Unlike many other iFi DAC devices, “traditionally” equipped with Burr-Brown DAC chips, GO Bar is built around a 32bit Cirrus Logic DAC chip. The rest of the components are coming from the usual manufacturers normally enlisted by iFi: Murata and TDK capacitors, and Texas Instruments power supplies. I won’t go too much down through this as, in lack of better specifications coming from the manufacturers, I find this information to be useful essentially at the marketing level only.

Input​

GO Bar offers a single input, being the USB-C port which is therefore supposed to carry in both digital data and power.

The range of accepted digital resolutions is nothing short of extended:

• PCM up to 32bit / 384MHz (ASIO drivers required on Windows to exceed 24bit / 192KHz)
• DSD direct up to 256 (DSD-direct requires ASIO drivers on Windows)

GO Bar is also an MQA full decoder. That means that it can both unfold non-authenticated MQA tracks, and (automatically) pre-authenticate with the MQA provider to guaranteer even higher quality and especially fidelity vs the digital content distributed by the publisher.

On the housing’s bottom face there’s a generous stripe of LEDs flanked by engraved markings.

One of the topmost 6 LEDs of the stripe will light up in white to indicate which digital resolution is being received by GO Bar: 44/48, 88/96, 172/192, 352/384, DSD64/128 or DSD256.

The 7th LED will light up of different colours depending on the situation:

• when an MQA stream is being received : green for MQA, blue for MQA Studio and magenta for “MQB” (Original Sample Rate).
• when a PCM stream is being received: cyan for BP filter, white for GTO, red for STD, yellow for MIN and off in case of DSD stream. (Read more down below about filters).

Output​

GO Bar offers 2 distinct phone out ports: a 4.4mm Balanced and a 3.5mm Single Ended one.

iFi’s web site is quite stingy on information about GO Bar’s output power so I asked them directly. Here’s two tables giving a much more complete picture of the situation:

Balanced output


Single ended output


So it’s quite clear that GO Bar offers very nice output power on high impedance loads, while it is severely limited in terms of current delivery which turns into not particularly enticing figures from 16Ω down.

Don’t take me wrong here: GO Bar is still more powerful on low impedance loads, and delivers more current on medium impedance loads than many other “dongles” out there. However, GO Bar’s marketing tag line (“World’s most powerful headphone amp of its size”) is, simply, not true when taken in the absolute terms used by its very wordage.

Looking at the figures, it comes out that the device has a hard max current cap around 130mA which it reaches on a 32Ω (or thereabout) load, and to stay at safe distance from that it’s tuned such that drawn current is progressively reduced as load impedance goes down.

Running some simple math it’s also quite clear that GO Bar issues its max power on Balanced Ended output vs circa 55Ω impedance, that being a bit less than 1W, and from there on down it rapidly starts winding down both voltage and current flow.

Neither of the two output connections is configurable as a pure Line Out.

Output impedance on both BE and SE ports are declared to be equal, both < 1Ω. A nicely low value, although not a superlow one.

I also find it interesting to note that SNR and THD+N promised values on BE and SE ports are dramatically different. On BE port iFi declares 132dB(A) SNR and <0.002% THD+N. The former value in particular is really outstanding.

On the SE port they instead declare SNR at 108dB(A) and <0.09% THD+N which I would both call “unimpressive” to be generous. And match unenticing subjective audition experience (more below).

Lastly, the 3.5mm phone out on GO Bar offers iFi’s proprietary “S-Balanced” connectivity – which is a sort of superset of the usual 3.5mm Single Ended standards, offering some more cleanness, and full backwards compatibility to all existing 3.5mm terminated drivers.


If we except the case of fixed-cables earphones carrying TRRS 3.5mm plugs from factory (I don’t personally know of one), exploiting GO Bar’s 3.5 TRRS option would require swapping cables, and as such pretty much anybody at that point would swap onto a 2.5mm or 4.4mm terminated one, and exploit the full-blown Balanced port (the 4.4mm one) on the GO Bar.

So in the case of GO Bar – much the same as in the case of Micro iDSD Signature or GO Blu – I guess that the practical value of the S-Balanced technology applied behind the 3.5mm port is limited to the xtalk improvement – which is nevertheless nothing to bin.

Host power requirements​

I didn’t analythically measure GO Bar’s power requirements, yet there are quite a few things that can be said based on iFi’s published data, and subjective experience.

First: iFi declares a (maximum) host power draw of 4W. That’s huge. It corresponds to 800mA which is far beyoned USB 2.0 limits.

That’s a maximum absorbtion figure – GO Bar will work on usual smartphones and tablets, and even on iPhones, but if the host (the smartphone, the tablet, or the PC) is not capable of delivering up to 800mA current / 4W power then GO Bar’s effective powering capabilities will be limited by the host’s cap. Or oppositely stated: to get the full power “promised” by its specs, GO Bar must be hooked onto a USB3-capable host, or a smartphone compliant with USB PowerDelivery standard.

Second: GO Bar does drain the smartphone’s battery quite fast, even when not “pumped to the max” power by the way.

As my FifteenReaderstm know, the above is no big concern to me as I don’t use my general purpose smartphone as a transport, rather a separate dedicated device, paired to a dedicated small powerbank and wired with an appropriate custom cable. Nevertheless my personal use case is quite evidently not so common, so the average user looking into adopting GO Bar as a classic “dongle” to be paired to his main phone while commuting should keep its power absorbtion needs in due count.

Volume and gain control​

GO Bar offers the user both the option to control volume by pressing the + and – buttons on its housing, and software syncing with the host’s OS.

When changing volume via +/- buttons the LEDs on GO Bar’s bottom faceplate briefly light up to give a visual representation of the volume level.

Host Volume Syncing is supposed to make such that when moving the system volume slider on the host (the machine onto which GO Bar is connected, be it on Windows, MacOS, Android…) then GO Bar’s internal volume changes, and viceversa changing Go Bar’s volume by pushing the +/- buttons will change the host’s volume.

Host Volume Sync is off by default. To turn it on one needs to keep the multifunction button pressed >5 seconds. The switch on is confirmed by an animation played on the upper 6 LEDs on the bottom faceplate. Same procedure to turn it off : keep button pressed >5 seconds, and a (different) animation gets played on the LEDs to confirm.

For my direct experience, Host Volume Sync works as intended on my Android devices, and on my proprietary-Linux small transport, the Tempotec V1. It works “erratically” on my Windows 10 laptop. It does not work at all on any of my different-distro Linux boxes.

After inquiring with iFi’s tech support I got no fix for the Windows problems, and I got confirmed that Linux is indeed not supported “by design”. This is bad, as this de facto prevents GO Bar to be used in pretty much any Linux Client-Server configuration e.g. in a Roon, or LMS, or similar infrastructure, unless by slamming its volume to 100% via its HW buttons, and then actionate on host’s Digital Volume which is of course far from ideal in terms of output quality.

GO Bar also has a +6dB High Gain mode. Unlike what happens e.g. on the GO Blu where gain selection follows an automatic system, on GO Bar it’s the user who has to manually set the device on High or Low Gain mode.

To toggle Gain H / L one needs to push both + and – volume buttons at the same time for >2 seconds. Similarly to the Host Volume Sync case, the “usual” uppermost 6 LEDs on the device’s bottom faceplate will play an animation to indicate the action has been carried out.

Other features​

MQA Full Decoding​

I won’t spend a word on what MQA itself is, of course. Google around if you wish and you’ll be overflooded with info.

What matters here is: GO Bar is a “MQA Full Decoder”. This means that GO Bar not only can (like any “MQA Renderer”) fully unfold MQA tracks on its own hardware, but that it can also:

• Authenticate the provenance of MQA tracks.
• Authenticate the Original Bit Rate of the MQA tracks.

Ifi GO Bar, Gryphon, HipDac-2 are all Full Decoder devices. Ifi HipDac, Micro iDSD Signature, Nano iDSD Black Label are Renderers.

Between parentheses: HipDac and HipDac-2 being virtually identical in terms of sound capabilities, power, etc, with the sole major difference represented by their different MQA capabilities, offered me the interesting opportunity to check the differences on a quite similar if not virtually identical situation and I could tell a quite obvious SQ improvement when listening to a few particular tracks just Rendered (HipDac) or Full Decoded (HipDac-2).

That said, I don’t personally care about MQA, nor about any of the existing digital distribution catalogues for that matter, due to the fundamental lack of good editions of the music I prefer on there.

XBass+ and XSpace​

“XBass+” behaves like what an EQ expert would call a low shelf positive filter. By ear I would say it pushes lows up by 2dB-ish from 100Hz down.

“XSpace” is a “crossfeed filter”, i.e. a function that puts “some” of the right channel output into the left one and viceversa, simulating on headphones what happens when listening to loudspeakers. Within its limits (it’s not parametric, configurable etc – just a mere on/off) and situationality (effects are totally evident on some tracks, minimal on others) the trick is really nice, and I use it quite often.

My main application for XSpace are those original jazz masters from the 60ies where mixing tended to be executed by hard panning each instrument on a single channel only: crossfeed is almost magical in those cases.

Both features are according to iFi’s documentation entirely implemented in the analog domain. No DSPs are involved which promises the minimal impact on sound quality.

To turn either or both features ON or OFF all is needed is short pressing the Multifunction button on GO Bar in sequence. The two bottom LEDs on the stripe on GO Bar’s bottom faceplate will light up or down accordingly.

Alternative reconstruction filters​

Reconstruction filters are an extremely technical topic and some fundamental knowledge needs to be acquired to even start to understand what the heck are they about.

If you are technically inclined a good starting point for your homework about what are Reconstruction Filters is actually this Wikipedia page.

If you alternatively would love a more vulgarised approach, there’s my article about this (or many others on the web).

Assuming you are at least somewhat familiar with these concepts, let me say that GO Bar offers the user 4 options :

• BP (“Bit Perfect”) – this actually corresponds to not applying any digital filtering. No pre nor post ringing is involved (of course).
• STD (“Standard”) – a modestly fast filter with modest pre and post ringing
• MIN (“Minimum Phase”) – a slow minimum phase filter, with minimum pre and post ringing
• GTO (“Gibbs-transient optimised”) – iFi’s proprietary filter, very fast, with no pre ringing and little post ringing. When GTO filter is applied all digital input is automatically up sampled to 352 or 384KHz prior to decoding c/o GO Bar’s internal hw.

To set the preferred filter, hold the Multifunction button down >3 seconds. The MQA LED on GO Bar’s backplate will start flashing of a specific colour. Short pressing the Multifunction botton once will cycle through the 4 possible filters, and the LED will start flashing of a different colour. Long pressing the Multifunction button again >3 sec will “set” the filter and keep it selected until the procedure is done again.

LED color codes are as follows:

• Cyan – BP filter
• Red – STD filter
• Yellow – MIN filter
• White – GTO filter

The first 3 options really sound like 3 of the 5 standard options made available on stock Cirrus CS43131 chips (full spec sheet here)

The “BP” option (Cirrus’ “NOS” filter) – will of course avoid the slightest risk of introducing any ringing, at the cost, however, of leaving artifacts all there where they are. Conceptually not recommended for redbook (44.1/48KHz) tracks, becomes a viable alternative to assess for highres (>96KHz++) tracks. But that’s theory if you ask me: you *do* want to cut the high frequency crap out. Always. I am not using this option myself.

The “MIN” option is a minimum phase, slow filter. More recommended on high(er) res tracks than Redbook ones, it introduces very modest pre and post ringing.

The “STD” option is a step in the direction of a faster filter. More recommended on Redbook tracks, although not really “vertical” as other fast filters are. Ringing is a tad more important then MIN’s one.

Finally, “GTO” is ifi’s proprietary filter called “Gibbs-Transient Optimised. It’s a very fast, minimum phase filter. I strongly recommend you read iFi’s whitepaper about why and how this may be technically desireable, or not.

As mentioned above, selecting the GTO filter also adds a pre-reconstruction systematic up-sampling passage, executed by GO Bar’s internal hardware. All incoming PCM tracks get up sampled to GO Bar’s maximum sample rate of 384KHz (if the original track’s sample rate is 48, 96, or 192Khz) or 352.8 KHz (if the original track’s sample rate is 44.1, 88.2 or 176.4KHz).

In general on higher resolution tracks one tends to prefer slower filters as those don’t risk to cut out on treble air nor spatial cues, their slowness not being a problem thanks to the higher sampling rate. iFi’s GTO filter is a special implementation offering super-fast operation, zero pre ringing and minimal post ringing. This, in addition to the up sampling conducted on the incoming stream, results in very sharp transients and “sculpted” notes. Which – as everything in audio – will then be subject to personal preference!

For my personal experience with iFi devices, and for my tastes, I found the GTO filter viable on all iFi models I tried it onto, including GO Bar, with the sole exception of Micro iDSD Signature, where I found it “excessive”. You may want to read my take about that case here.

IEMatch​

For a through description of what IEMatch is, there’s my article which I recommend you to read if you are unfamiliar with the concept or I guarantee you won’t understand what follows.

Much like it happens on many other iFi’s models, GO Bar carries built-in IEMatch circuitry. The implementation does not exactly follow the same specs as the standalone IEMatch devices though.

Firstly, next to the IEMatch switch on GO Bar we don’t find the usual “Ultra” / “High” engravings, but rather “3.5” and “4.4”. The GO Bar manual quite smokily says that “iEMatch reduces the output level, so that even the most sensitive In-Ear-Monitors (IEMs) can be matched to the GO bar”. Which is only a part of what a full-blown IEMatch does. And does not offer precise figures in terms of attenuations nor output impedances to help the user anticipate what he will get by plugging IEMs of specific impedance or sensitivity.

Long story short, I asked iFi’s tech support and they provided me with the following table:


In spite of my repeated requests, iFi didn’t supply me with the other relevant information which is the Input impedance value on all those cases. Or at least they didn’t yet at the time of this article’s publishing. Looking at the figures, and comparing them with those of the standalone IEMatch models, I can only “guess” that input impedances might be in the ballpark of those featured by IEMatch 4.4, so around 40-50Ω.

Such “guess” is also corroborated looking at the Single Ended output figures: there, the lower output impedance option does not feature a much higher attenuation as it usually is the case on IEMatch devices, but rather a slightly lower one, with a phase flip involved.

Going back to GO Bar manual’s recommendation to use the IEMatch switch to attenuate output in order to cope with extrasensitive drivers, looking at the figures it’s quite clear that the rec stands as stated only when the drivers also carry a not very low impedance (ideally, no lower than 30-ish ohm). Low or very low Z drivers (Dunu ZEN, Oriveti OH500…) will show some midbass bump due to reduced dampening, which shall have to be compensated by EQing – or just avoided by plugging a “regular” IEMAtch-2.5 onto GO Bar’s balanced output (via a 2.5-4.4 adapter of course).

Firmware​

Like for most if not really all iFi devices, for GO Bar too iFi makes firmware package availables for the user to download and easily apply.

At the current time there’s only one package available, version 1.7 (in two sub-versions with just a minimal, almost “aesthetic” difference). I do recommend checking that is the version installed on the device when you get it, as the previous one (v1.48) which was installed on my review sample when I got it was quite buggy.

I won’t be surprised if iFi will make more alternative fw packages available going forward, e.g. offering different filtering options as it happens on other iFi models.

Package​

GO Bar comes in a small box but with the right bundle accessories, and premium quality ones at that too.

Cables include:

• USBC-USBC 10cm cable
• USBC-Lightning 10cm cable
• USBC-USBA passthrough adapter

Cable quality is apparently top notch.

Same can be said of the black leather travel case, offering enough space for the GO Bar device itself and one or actually both of its USB cables.

Sound and power​

GO Bar sounds well, and I should actually remark “very well” indeed, from its balanced output port.

As for voicing GO Bar definitely marks a diversion from that warm and midbass-accented iFi’s “house sound” typical of many other models e.g. Hip Dac, Nano iDSD BL, etc.

GO Bar is much closer to neutrality (although still somewhat into warm-ish territory). Its sound is well bilaterally extended, with very good note body accross the board, good clarity and good detail, with very good but not over-accented bass presence and a good treble rendering.

About trebles it should definitely be noted that GO Bar delivers unoffensive high notes, and a nice, unfatiguing and nicely musical experience on one hand, while staying south of some competitor’s last mile in terms of treble energy and detail retrieval on the other. Pick your poison I guess, and as for all compromises appreciation for iFi’s choices on this will strongly depend on users’ preferences.

From the power delivery standapoint GO Bar is definitely a musclar device, although some notes are in order on this respect.

Regarding voltage swing into very high impedance drivers (600Ω) GO Bar easily promises (and delivers) the highest figure on the “dongles” market today, a whopping 7,2V. That’s significantly higher even compared to Apogee Groove’s 5V on 600Ω. Ifi does not declare (and I couldn’t measure) the swing on 300Ω (Groove’s stays just a bit below 5V there).

Truth be told, as most if not all high impedance cans are equipped with dynamic drivers, I’m not sure to understand what the purpose of a 7V+ swing really is (“stunning” spec sheet figure apart, I mean…).

GO Bar delivers circa 1W onto a 55Ω load (always talking about the Balanced Ended output), which is definitely a huge lot for a dongle, and why it drives the likes of Shure SRH1540 wonderfully well, and SRH1840 near perfectly, too.

It delivers circa half Watt into a 32Ω driver, which is really a lot in a sense, indeed overkill for most DD, BA or other technology IEMS out there, yet (!…) not enough for higher demanding planars, which require even more current and/or they require it at lower load impedance values.

Going further down with load impedance GO Bar’s power drops rapidly (as noted above the device has a sort of hard cap on output current at approx 115mA), thus delivering “only” circa 200mW on 14Ω and circa 140mW on 10Ω. Again, such figures are higher than those on most of the direct competition, yet not quite at dongle market’s top (E1DA’s 9038SG3 delivers something similar to 600mW onto 10ohm…).

Consistently to this, GO Bar drives the likes of Final A3000, Tanchjim Darling, and even Final E5000 waaaay better then most other dongles, but does not have enough power for RHA CL2, nor of course any demanding planar overear.

As I repeatedly mentioned, all the above refers to GO Bar’s Balanced Ended output. The Single Ended output is not at the same level, neither in terms of output power nor – most of all – in terms of sound quality. Even on easy to drive loads GO Bar Single Ended Out is perceivably duller, much scarcer in microdynamics and more closed-in on space reconstruction.

Simply put, if you ask me GO Bar’s Single Ended output is to be disregarded, in favour of its Balanced Ended sibling.

Comparisons​

Cayin RU6 ($250)​

GO Bar is by far better than RU6 on pretty much every single count, although this is much more due to RU6 being an overall disappointing device to be honest – which makes the comparison meaningful only due to RU6’s ungrounded hype than anything else really.

Won’t spend more time on this for now, stay tuned if you wish for my piece about RU6, due Soontm.

E1DA 9038SG3 (€126)​

The first big difference that pops to the eyes comparing GO Bar with 9038SG3 is the price of course: GO Bar is almost 3 times as much.

Another thing is power. GO Bar is more powerful on high and medium impedance loads, 9038SG3 wins big on loads from 20Ω down. In more practical words, GO Bar’s edge on mid/high impedance drivers proves useless (9038SG3’s power is enough for most drivers, and for those where it is not, GO Bar’s higher power is not enough either), while 9038SG3’s higher power on low and superlow impedance drivers allows translates in E1DA’s dongle being much more agile in driving certain “difficult” IEMs then GO Bar is.

Probably due to its performances on higher impedances, or to lesser efficiency, or both, GO Bar, unlike 9038SG3 or 9038D, is a power w**re (it absorbs up to 4W while working, which is 800mA – so it is not USB2 compliant and by far so). Oppositely, 9038SG3 is modest in terms of power needs vs its output power capabilities, and fully USB2 compliant.

GO Bar misses the harmonic compensation and masterclock customisation infrastructure available on 9038SG3, and that’s not small stuff, and offers only 4 different FIR filters to choose from instead of 7. On the flip side GO Bar literally covers the user with features one nicer and/or sexyer than the other, all of which are totally missing on 9038SG3: XBass and XSpace analog-domain effects, selectable low/high gain, integrated IEMatch, high quality integrated power filtering, and (for Tidal’s aficionados) MQA full decoding.

Sound quality wise 9038SG3 out of the box is definitely cleaner and comes across as more analythical and more energetic compared to GO Bar, which sounds more musical and more relaxing. Actionating upon its multiple tweaks 9038SG3 can be made “sweeter/smoother” though.

In the end GO Bar does give more than 9038SG3 especially in terms of overall features package in return for that much higher purchase price and much higher host power need. On the flip side 9038SG3 can power some IEM drivers which GO Bar can’t trigger well enough.

Apogee Groove ($220)​

As extensively reported on my piece about it, Apogee Groove is an oddball. A badass of an oddball if you wish, but still an uncommon device, with the pros and cons one may after all expect from oddity.

Groove’s output stage is based on proprietary technology and does not support crossover filters or similar circuitry, and all too often it also powers Balanced Architecture drivers (even single-driver models) very quirkily. To cut it short, Groove is mainly if not solely intended for Dynamic Drivers, which is of course an apriori fact to seriously consider when looking instead for a “universal application” DAC/AMP dongle.

Groove swings 5V into 600Ω impedance cans which is a lot. It is indeed way short of GO Bar’s huge 7,2V although it’s worth noting that per se there’s little need for those extra 2V when driving high impedance dynamic divers.

On the opposite end Groove is less powerful than GO Bar onto 32Ω loads, but its current cap is a bit higher than GO Bar’s so it ends up delivering more power vs very low impedances like 14Ω or even 10Ω. As a consequence, GO Bar is (power wise) more agile than Groove when paired to the likes of Shure SRH1840, but the coin flips when considering Final E5000.

Groove is quite demanding in terms of host power (340mA, circa 1.5W) but with that it still stays well within USB2 compliance limits, unlike GO Bar which requires almost 3 times as much at full power levels. Beyond these differences, at the end of the day for both sticking an external powerbank onto one’s own preferred transport, and using a suitable single-leg-powered Y-USB cable is the right way to go.

Power profiles aside, Groove and GO Bar are quite different in terms of sound presentation.

Groove is way superior in terms of micro-dynamics and even more so in terms of spatial drawing: I hardly can name a single mobile DAC device better than Groove on this. GO Bar is less colored and may deliver some more subtlety in terms of sheer detail retrieval. Groove is no doubt “more musical”, GO Bar is “more neutral” (just in comparison to Groove – it’s not a “dry neutral” device taken per se).

Lastly, GO Bar’s additional features (selectable reconstruction filters, high gain option, MQA decoding, Xbass, Xspace) are totally alien to Groove.

Conclusions​

In terms of their product line, GO Bar covers an evident lack in iFi Audio’s range which never offered a battery-less device before. Now they do and quite expectably their first attempt is definitely a hit.

GO Bar is a very good device. It’s in facts very powerful. While nitpickingly maybe not the single most powerful dongle around (yet still one of the top… three?) I can hardly name a direct competitor offering half of the extra features GO Bar makes readily available under the users’ fingeritps.

GO Bar is superbly designed, solid, and – last in the list, but of course first for importance – sounds very well.

At the end of the day I guess its single relevant downside is the price – which is not low at all. A few other downsides are also there, but none of those seriously shadows its positives.

This article previously appared on www.audioreviews.org, here.