Introduction
I received the Masons V3 as part of the European Review tour. I did not get to keep them and I did not receive any compensation for writing this. My main point of reference for this review were Focal Clears driven by either iFi iDSD Black Label or Schiit Ragnarok. All music was lossless from Tidal. Sorry in advance for the poor picture quality.
Package contents
Unique Melody definitely wants you to feel pampered as soon as you open the box. THe amount of accessories included with the Mason V3 is seriously impressive. Aside from the IEMs themselves we get:
Pretty much everybody will be able to use the Masons out of the box without first going to a store and buying iems that fit given how many of them are included. Same thing with the cable, UM not only included a regular 3.5mm unbalanced cable and a 2.5mm balanced one, they even threw in a Pentaconn cable in case one of ten people in the world who use this standard buys their IEM.
Speaking of the cable, just look at this thing. It’s beautiful. Silver and copper strands interwoven together to form the most beautiful stock cable I’ve ever seen. Unlike most IEMs the Masons don’t use the 2-Pin connector or the MMCX, rather they use a four pin threaded connector (not unlike the one used Dita Audio Truth cable). This makes ordering custom cables a bit of a hassle as cable makers usually don’t have such connectors in stock. On the other hand though, the cables included with the Masons are so good that you shouldn’t have to order custom ones anyway.
Appearance
The pictures I took with my phone don’t fully capture the beauty of the Masons so you’ll have to just trust me that Masons are a beautiful pair of IEMs. Design is subtle and not at all flashy with discreet Unique Melody logo on the sides. If I could change just one thing about them I’d make the shells opaque and not transparent but that’s just a preference. Overall I really dig them.
Comfort
This is one of few gripes I have with these IEMs (we’ll get to the rest soon). Unfortunately the Masons turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable IEMs I have ever used. When fully inserted into my ears Masons press very firmly against the outer walls of my ear canals causing severe discomfort. At first I thought this was just a personal incompatibility but I asked several other people to try them out and four other people confirmed my findings. After about ten days of daily use the pain stopped. I don’t know whether my ear canals got accustomed to the shape of the Masons or I just became dull to the pain but yeah, not a great first impression as far as comfort goes.
Sound
Here’s the most important part of any audio review. How do the Masons sound? Well, if I had to describe them in one word, I’d say they sound realistic. The vocals are very natural and accurate sounding, even badly recorded ones (looking at you Jeff Mangum). Soundstage is moderate in size, with great sense of depth. Masons easily beat my Focal Clears when it comes to soundstage. It’s not as big as say, HD800 but it’s still pretty large. Overall tonal balance is rather neutral with a small tilt towards darkness. Bass has a lot of detail (when the seal is perfect, otherwise it’s rather thin) but isn’t bloated and doesn’t overpower the mids (despite the darker tilt). I’d say it makes both Ron Carver and Gessafelstein sound pleasant. Detail retrieval is pretty good too but not as good as the Clears. In Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche I can clearly hear the small ripples in the vocals but they are not as big as on the Clears. Similar story with Steely Dan’s Babylon Sisters, the female vocals in the chorus aren’t as clearly (pun unintended) separated but I can still hear that it’s not a single voice. Overall I found the listening experience very satisfying once comfort stopped being an issue for me.
Conclusion
Okay, so we’ve talked about how beautiful those IEMs are, how satisfying and natural the sound is and how rich the accessory set is. If you were to stop reading this review at this point you might leave under the impression that the Masons are a flawless, perfect product worth eating ramen for a year. I wish I could tell you that. Unfortunately there is one glaring flaw with the Masons which in my eyes make them non recommendable and that is their price to performance ratio.
Don’t get me wrong these do sound fantastic, that’s not the issue here. The issue here is they don’t sound fantastic enough to justify $2499 price point. When I compared them (albeit briefly) against Campfire Audio Andromeda I found them trading blows with each other with neither being a clear winner. And Andromedas cost less than half the price of the Masons. At around $1200 I’d recommend them in a heartbeat, hell even at $1500 considering all the swag you get when you buy those. But at $2500 the only thing I can recommend is for you to buy Andromedas instead.
I received the Masons V3 as part of the European Review tour. I did not get to keep them and I did not receive any compensation for writing this. My main point of reference for this review were Focal Clears driven by either iFi iDSD Black Label or Schiit Ragnarok. All music was lossless from Tidal. Sorry in advance for the poor picture quality.
Package contents
Unique Melody definitely wants you to feel pampered as soon as you open the box. THe amount of accessories included with the Mason V3 is seriously impressive. Aside from the IEMs themselves we get:
- Three cables
- Six pairs of ear tips
- Cleaning cloth
- A USB drive (which I haven’t plugged into so I have no idea what’s on it)
- a metal storage jar
- A keychain
Pretty much everybody will be able to use the Masons out of the box without first going to a store and buying iems that fit given how many of them are included. Same thing with the cable, UM not only included a regular 3.5mm unbalanced cable and a 2.5mm balanced one, they even threw in a Pentaconn cable in case one of ten people in the world who use this standard buys their IEM.
Speaking of the cable, just look at this thing. It’s beautiful. Silver and copper strands interwoven together to form the most beautiful stock cable I’ve ever seen. Unlike most IEMs the Masons don’t use the 2-Pin connector or the MMCX, rather they use a four pin threaded connector (not unlike the one used Dita Audio Truth cable). This makes ordering custom cables a bit of a hassle as cable makers usually don’t have such connectors in stock. On the other hand though, the cables included with the Masons are so good that you shouldn’t have to order custom ones anyway.
Appearance
The pictures I took with my phone don’t fully capture the beauty of the Masons so you’ll have to just trust me that Masons are a beautiful pair of IEMs. Design is subtle and not at all flashy with discreet Unique Melody logo on the sides. If I could change just one thing about them I’d make the shells opaque and not transparent but that’s just a preference. Overall I really dig them.
Comfort
This is one of few gripes I have with these IEMs (we’ll get to the rest soon). Unfortunately the Masons turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable IEMs I have ever used. When fully inserted into my ears Masons press very firmly against the outer walls of my ear canals causing severe discomfort. At first I thought this was just a personal incompatibility but I asked several other people to try them out and four other people confirmed my findings. After about ten days of daily use the pain stopped. I don’t know whether my ear canals got accustomed to the shape of the Masons or I just became dull to the pain but yeah, not a great first impression as far as comfort goes.
Sound
Here’s the most important part of any audio review. How do the Masons sound? Well, if I had to describe them in one word, I’d say they sound realistic. The vocals are very natural and accurate sounding, even badly recorded ones (looking at you Jeff Mangum). Soundstage is moderate in size, with great sense of depth. Masons easily beat my Focal Clears when it comes to soundstage. It’s not as big as say, HD800 but it’s still pretty large. Overall tonal balance is rather neutral with a small tilt towards darkness. Bass has a lot of detail (when the seal is perfect, otherwise it’s rather thin) but isn’t bloated and doesn’t overpower the mids (despite the darker tilt). I’d say it makes both Ron Carver and Gessafelstein sound pleasant. Detail retrieval is pretty good too but not as good as the Clears. In Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche I can clearly hear the small ripples in the vocals but they are not as big as on the Clears. Similar story with Steely Dan’s Babylon Sisters, the female vocals in the chorus aren’t as clearly (pun unintended) separated but I can still hear that it’s not a single voice. Overall I found the listening experience very satisfying once comfort stopped being an issue for me.
Conclusion
Okay, so we’ve talked about how beautiful those IEMs are, how satisfying and natural the sound is and how rich the accessory set is. If you were to stop reading this review at this point you might leave under the impression that the Masons are a flawless, perfect product worth eating ramen for a year. I wish I could tell you that. Unfortunately there is one glaring flaw with the Masons which in my eyes make them non recommendable and that is their price to performance ratio.
Don’t get me wrong these do sound fantastic, that’s not the issue here. The issue here is they don’t sound fantastic enough to justify $2499 price point. When I compared them (albeit briefly) against Campfire Audio Andromeda I found them trading blows with each other with neither being a clear winner. And Andromedas cost less than half the price of the Masons. At around $1200 I’d recommend them in a heartbeat, hell even at $1500 considering all the swag you get when you buy those. But at $2500 the only thing I can recommend is for you to buy Andromedas instead.