Fearless Audio HyperS12

Fearless Audio snuck up on me. I somehow missed the conversation. Then when introduced, I found that they had a fully fleshed out lineup with 12 models:



Wow, how did I miss that? I was then introduced to Fearless Audio by @ironpeg at HeadFi.org. Having managed a number of HeadFi.org tours, I offered to manage a full lineup Fearless Audio 2019 US tour – selfishly, to be able to hear the lineup myself. For this, @ironpeg introduced me to Iconic Music who is the host of our tour. When I received the tour kit, what I found is that these are very mature models at a very high value being priced significantly below its competition. Listening through the lineup, there was a wide range of signatures and pricings to suit most IEM enthusiasts with many tempting options for myself. My favorite of the lineup was the S10 and the ACME8, but there were many others that I loved as well.

However, while in the process of setting up the tour, I found out that Fearless was getting ready to launch its 12th model – the HyperS12 listed above and knew that I had to hear it. So I ordered one customized to my tastes and am here to tell you that it is a very nice addition to my collection. Beautiful, aren’t they.



Fearless Audio HyperS12 12BA
The HyperS is a 12 balanced armature earphone – yes, 12 BAs in each side. They use a 4-way passive crossover with 4 tubes to offer a spacious, transparent sound quality. Fearless Audio offers universal or custom options. Here are the stats:

• Sensitivity: 118dB/MW
• Impedance: 13ohm
• Passive noise reduction: 26dB
• Frequency response range: 15Hz – 22kHz

Technology
I am still unclear on many of the technical elements and design choices, but here is what I have.

• DPP™ partition pressure treatment technology: This is my best interpretation of what I am hearing – there is soundproofing between partitions. If I am understanding correctly, sound leaks between partitions – perhaps different crossover chambers or tubes and maybe the outside world require more sound pressure to compensate for the interference. This new isolation if I am correct should further isolate the sound tubes to offer more clarity per crossover channel and ideally provide more transparency and visibility into the music. Taking a chance here, this may mean that the details come out at lower listening volumes as well. This requires a different mold processing technology to achieve this benefit which is claimed to improve the wearing experience significantly.
• Handcrafted: Per Fearless Audio, “Ear impressions scanning, digital processing, partition pressure ear impressions processing, shell, components placement reinforcement, sealing, and polishing are completed by professional technical personnel, each step will be carefully crafted, each step will be carefully produced, produced one work of art after another.”
• Medical Grade: Medical grade resin for maximum comfort.
• Cable: While I cannot figure out what the cable is, my best guess is that it is an upgraded SPC 8-wire. The cable is soft and comfortable and sounds great. In fact, it is so good that I have no immediate need to upgrade cables yet. It came in a standard 3.5mm configuration which was fine for my uses in 0.78mm 2-pin design.

Unboxing
Given that the S12 was brand new and pre-launch, I ordered from a PDF standard form and used shell/faceplate pictures to determine the design. I was very pleased with the design options and had difficulty making the final decision as there were a lot of great options that I had not seen before. I had the full Fearless Audio Tour lineup in my possession at the time so I could see that all options were stellar making it that much harder to pick one. Finally, I decided on the design you see in the pictures above and the unboxing video below and am very happy with the results. While I am not the best photographer and didn’t capture the elegance of the final output correctly, take my word for it that it is much prettier in person. The Arizona sun makes them pop and dazzle.



Kit Quality
As you can see in my unboxing video the kit comes packaged in a nice reasonably sized box. Within the box were instructions, a warranty card, and a unique blue case that looks more like a necklace display case. The case itself contains the earphones and accessories. That’s it, simple and to the point. While the instructions and warranty card are nice touches, they are quickly pushed aside to admire the beauty of the CIEM.

• Box: The box is very interesting as a display case, but it doesn’t have a latch so if not bound tightly, the CIEMs push the lid up. However, it has worked very nicely for me so far. The cable does have a Velcro wrap attached so this is not much of an issue. This, however, is just is not a case I would take on the road with me.

• CIEMs: The CIEMs are flawless – smooth, soft, no bubbles, no defects…perfect. There are four boar holes for the sound tubes that are flush, so I am likely to do a bit of cleaning, but they are nice sized so that it looks easy to clean. I also don’t see any components near the bore hold such as my NT6pro that could be damaged easily so that is nice. Those boreholes take up a lot of space so I can see why they wouldn’t try to recess them for ease of clean. These CIEMs are built as good or better than the others in my collection that cost 5 times as much.

• Wire: The 8-wire setup is as good as I have gotten from any CIEM manufacturer or better except for Empire Ear that offered a name brand wire from Effect Audio of known high value. I have not had a need to change the wire yet as it sounds great and I am getting good results. However, like any other wire, I am sure that an upgrade somewhere will yield better results, but the wire, in this case, is not a significant bottleneck requiring immediate replacement as I have found with others. Good work Fearless!

• Fit: This is the only area of concern. The fit is perfect, and they are very comfortable except… they are a little long. Because of this, it is uncomfortable to push them in all the way to cup my hands on the sides of my head to see if I can get more bass – a standard test for me. Now they are not uncomfortable if I just put them in, but I also have a feeling that the millimeter more insertion would add that little more seal for more bass impact that I feel I may be missing and will mention in later sections. That extra length is just pushing them out a little possibly breaking the seal. So, I am on the fence here, send them back for refit or work with them as is. For the purpose of this review, I decided to work as-is.

Sound Description
For me, the HyperS12 is all about voice. The signature is flat across frequencies, but the voices seem forward. The clarity of the voice is phenomenal. If I want to clearly hear all the words, even those that I cannot understand with other CIEMs, the S12 delivers. The only other voice challenger that I know is the Unique Melody UM Mentor V3, another 12 BA CIEM. The S12 offers a transparent and wide sound stage to accomplish this goal, so instruments have extra black space between. Yet the voices take center stage and all the intricacies of the human voice. This is not a man vs. woman’s voice scenario either offering both in the highest fidelity. For all these reasons, I am loving this CIEM in voice focused applications such as for my work where I have to listen to meeting recordings at times or to listen to YouTube videos which are sometimes hard to understand. Again, the S12 really comes through for me. While I have a lot of high-value CIEMs in my collection, none of them match this quality so I am finding this to be a huge win for me.

However, most people will look at this CIEM and be most interested in the musical capabilities. For this, I can tell you that I am enjoying it immensely, and it is bringing a new signature to my collection to hear things differently than I have heard it before. First, I want to point out that this is not a very safe tuning as it is not the greatest for all genres. However, where the genres match, it is stellar. Again, voice-first recordings are wonderful as well as classic rock, instrumental, orchestra, oldies, and even well recorded DSD style tracks. However, enter the volume wars and the signature breaks down. It is hit or miss on pop and hip hop depending on the quality of the recording, but those bass first hot recordings are not a great pairing. Pair the S12 with Whitney, Mariah, Christina, etc. and I am in heaven.

Technical Breakdown:

• Bass: This is not the highlight of this CIEM. While on occasion I get some wonderful performance, I think that I am having fit issues that hamper me here. It feels like it is tuned for sub-bass vs. midbass so mid-bass-heavy songs suffer. Sub bass-heavy songs don’t work well either as I am just not getting that dynamic kick. However, moderate bass songs work very well and are very elegant with wonderful bass reproduction. To put this into perspective, I am comparing against the A12 and the Legend X which are very bass first in their signature, so this is not a cut on the S12, just a differentiation from the others in my collection. Think of this as a two-way speaker setup, no subwoofers. The bass is there, hits hard, but not big and dynamic – no theatrics.
• Treble: Many might consider this to be a bright CIEM as there is a lot of the detail that comes from the top. Although when comparing to a bright IEM this is a very smooth treble without sibilance. When you bring in strings, the mids are integrated well with the treble to offer edges to the pluck and enhanced detail. The air at the top also opens the sound stage.
• Mids: This is the basis of the voice performance and the star of the show, and for good reason. But the voices are in front of the other mid objects which can be different with some recordings sometimes good, sometimes bad depending on the artist intent. Again, this is still the star of the show and well-integrated with the treble to offer my favorite mid focused CIEM results.
• Sound Stage: At first the focus is on the voices which pulls you into the center stage making a quick listen sound narrow. But, as you get sucked in you start to hear how wide this stage can go and there is a moderate depth that expands as well. I am very happy with the sound stage results that feels like an intimate vocal performance with a nice sized stage for the rest of the band. This show is about you and the singer is in front of you with other band members sometimes leaving the stage to surround you.
• Timbre: The voice is again the focus and is very well represented with realistic voices characteristics. The other instruments depend on their frequency range. Drums are not always realistic, but sometimes they are. Guitars usually sound very realistic, but sometimes in hot recordings, this is lost to noise. Pianos are good, but I have heard better as they remain on stage behind the singer.
• Speed: The transparency for this CIEM seems to be more about sound stage and space with the clarity spun up from the treble. The speed seems to be just ok as crowded passages can get noisy. Again, my preference for this CIEM is easy listening and voices that don’t require the intense speed that busy passages demand.
• Imaging: The imaging feels solid with that sense of space between instruments. The imaging offers a great atmosphere.

Source Pairing
After walking through a number of sources, I found that while the source matters when comparing the portable DAPs to my desktop options, the DAPs were harder to tell apart. So here are a few combinations for comparison.

• Sony WM1A DAP: This is a nice pairing, but not very different from my Calyx M DAP. There is a nice stable sound signature that is consistent with both. I find that the description here is what I am pulling from to describe the S12 above. So refer there for the standard signature.
• Burson Play w/Vivid Upgrade: My Burson Play with upgraded Vivid opamps have a ton of power that is wonderful with the S12 adding a bit of warmth, girth, additional texturing, and offers more lifelike instrument timbre across all instruments. Here it is really about the added texture, but the sub-bass also comes out to play more here as well.
• Hugo 2 > Eddie Current ZDs Tube Amp: This takes the results of the Play up another notch with more sub-bass and texture. The Hugo 2 also adds additional elegance and smoothness to the treble. While this is the best the S12 has sounded, the layout of my office and the length of my cable doesn’t make this a practical setup for me to spend a lot of time here….too bad.

Conclusions
Having listened through the entire Fearless Audio lineup including my new S12, I can say that from sound quality alone, this is a very impressive and diverse lineup. When factoring in the quality of the product and the comparative pricing, Fearless Audio offers a huge value much like 64 Audio did in their earlier days that is bound to attract a lot of attention. My only fear is that like 64 Audio who is now at premium pricing, the Fearless lineup is very likely to increase their pricing soon as they start to get backlogged in orders. This value pricing may not be here tomorrow for those that wait too long. This is in the back of my mind as I am really interested in getting the ACME8 as well for a completely different signature as I enjoyed is very unique 3D printed bass chamber.

My new S12 is a vocal champion and is likely to be the one that I reach for easy listening genres with vocal focus. It is also likely going to be the one that stays attached to my podcasts and audiobooks as it makes this process so much more enjoyable as I no longer strain to understand the spoken word. As I often do these activities at my desk, this also offers me access to the Play which offers an optimal pairing for optimal fidelity. The S12 will also be my critical listening partner to draw out those details and words that I just cannot make out with my fun signature options. In the end, this is a unique CIEM that fits well into my lineup offering its own unique take on my library of music, making it fun to listen through again and again.