Moondrop Droplet

A very short review. I hope I reasonably summarized most in pros and cons.


Tips: perhaps, the foams are the best (and nice and sturdy foams are supplied), but I really can't stand the tactile feeling, so no foams for me. Then, luckily, my favourite TRI Clarions seem to do a very good job for me.

Fit and isolation are great with Clarion - very small and not pulling, as often the case with the bullet shape factor.

Sound: great out of a single BA, but "processed/modified" would be a part of overall perception.

Bass - on the margin of overenhanced, overprocessed to me, but does the job well (and remarkably, squeezing a single BA).

Mids - nice, almost as good as legendary 29689 in Etymotic (could not imagine owing Ethymotic - the tight fit is not an option for me at all).

Highs - great for a single BA.

Music fit: quite universal across the genres for me. I listened to a Chesky sample disk - anything from lows of a pipe organ to highs of flutes and violins sound good, and the jazz vibes feel fine. Nothing remarkable, as well as nothing overly detrimental for the stage. The dynamics is reasonable, likely pushed back by DSP processing.
The Droplet is surprisingly acceptable for string quartets (an equivalent of high praise).

Technical achievements: 5-6 mA of power consumption (WOW, like really wow!). The Apple dongle is ca.14-15 mA, while other lower-power dongles, including Moondrop Click, are at 25-30 mA. I had to double check with another instrument to confirm these measurements.


Overall: very enjoyable experience, and overall 4.5+ stars.

—Did you know Moondrop CEO is actually an Etymotic Research fanboy?

Yes, he is.

He loved ER4, but due to ear canal surgery he had when he was young, a deep insertion was no longer an option. Since then as one of Ety fan, he had looked an alternative.

Here comes Moondrop‘s answer to the question.

”What could possibly be achieved by a powerless single BA?”

—About myself
===START OF INTRODUCTION ===
—Background
Audio equipment reviewer with over 20year+ of experience in headphones/earphones/IEM/DAP, initially motivated by:
Sennheiser | AKG | Sony | Bose | JVC | JBL.

—Imprinted Instruments Timbre
Drums (TAMA & Zildjian cymbals) | Guitar (Gibson Les Paul & Marshall Amp) | Piano (Yamaha)

—Bio
After spending a decade with full-size headphones, and home audio speakers, I shifted my main listening environment to IEM. Of which, I have over 100 personal inventories —not loaner or review units—purchased with my hobby budget

—On mobile
I enjoyed Lexus’s Mark Levinson system and moved to Mercedes AMG’s Burmester 4D System

—Affiliation
Under the penalty of perjury of the United States of America, 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I’m neither affiliated with any sellers/stores/makers nor given review samples or paid for this review.

I purchased Moondrop Droplet from HiFiGo at my own will with my own disposable income, for purely my personal entertainment purpose.

=====END OF INTRODUCTION=====

—A crossroad of generations

—Audiophile’s staple and old buddy
$350USD. It was the price I paid for legendary audiophile stationary that actually produces a sound, a very detailed high-end sound. ER4S (100ohm) since the had been one of my go-to for vocal-focused neutral reference monitor which has superb resolution and imaging capabilities, at least until 5 years ago. I’ve encountered SleekAudio SA6, Harman Kardon EP720, Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studio, and many other single BAs up to very recent releases of KBEAR Neon, and Floaudio Lily. All those single BA were behind the bar that ER4 had set.

Floaudio Lily when plugged with matched source, had very close performance with ER4, but that’s after a long long ear tip / cable / source matching, at least not out of the box performance.

—Until the moment when Droplet falls from above to my ear canal


It reminded me of the movie “Arrival”

source:https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/x2FJsf1ElAgr63Y3PNPtJrcmpoe.jpg

It was really that “Arrival“ of extraterrestrial object.



— the shell
The shell is way smaller than I expected, smaller than ear tips. You can see USB-C DSP connector size vs droplet shell size, wow that’s small.


—Out of the Box Sound Impression
▶︎Long Story short, Droplet is a surprise. It actually sounds better than Lily… the diffusion field and internal echo inside the acoustic camber (blue parts) is a thing. Very nice timbre


▶︎Weirdly Droplet only comes with foam ear tips (maybe by some error or something) So I’m using the stock foam ear tips of which I’m usually not a fan of them because it basically kills sub-bass resonance. For Droplet it does match with the somehow elevated sub-bass, pretty good, of course the sub-bass imaging is blurry because of this foam tip, but the timbre itself isn’t bad at all.
After spending a week, I noticed Moondrop actually designed the timbre with foam ear tips. When I switched to aftermarket general silicone tips Droplet immediately start to sound too thin and dry, by setting default ear tips as foam one, Moondrop managed to add warmth and tuned dry timbre with some moisture.


▶︎Diffusion Magic. When you take a look at FR of Droplet, you may wonder, “heck, whats that 3khz small peak?” , it’s the same trick used for Crin’s FiiO FHE, a small 3khz peak will generate a room for notes to diffuse as well as the vocal spotlighting effect, it doesn’t work all the time, but it worked on FHE. It’s also working on Droplet. A fun factor for imaging.

Noticed something from FR? Droplet has almost neutral flat slope from pinna gain peak 3khz all the way through 14khz, that is the Diffusion Magic.

This stable slope reminds me of Softears RSV’s custom tweeter, and the tonality of Droplet’s treble and RSV oddly has some similarities. RSV has an intentional dip with high path filter for 12khz but Droplet is more easy going with that area.

Actually Droplet (with stock foam tips) is in a sense a little happier sister of Softears RSV.

Neutral? No. Colored for vocals, with Moondrop’s VDSF nicely implemented.


—Post Scripts after a week with Droplet

Droplet is worth a post script:

▶︎Timbre is extremely well balanced, not that I’d expect from sub$100 range for 2023, it certainly has Softears tuning spirit the high-end tonal approach.

▶︎Cymbal diffusion makes Droplet special, especially to side ways

▶︎As it has rolled off 16khz+, lossless and above won’t benefit much from this, Droplet is suitable for more casual listening yet high performing enough to “wow” hardcore audiophiles.

—Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, from the size & side sleeping compatibility, tonal accuracy, wide diffusing imaging illustration and widely applicable to any music genres, I found Droplet is yet another smashing hit material coming out of mighty Moondrop. You just cant imagine a single BA could do this much, even better than Floaudio Lily.


—Final impression score (based on my HRTF)
Overall | A-
Tonality | S
Resolution | B+
Overall Coherence | A-

1. Diffusion Field coherence | A
2. Image coordinate positioning coherence | A-
3. Image Focusing Coherence | B+
4. Sound wave momentum & Sound Image vectoring coherence | C+

My other A-rated IEMs:
DUNU Titan S (A-) | AFUL P5 (A) | Truthear HEXA (85/100: A) l Blessing 2 (84/100: A) | Blessing 2 Dusk (85/100: A) | Mangird Tea (84/100: A) | AKG N5005 (A-) | See Audio Bravery (A)


My higher than A-rated:
Sound Rhyme SR5 (A+) | Westone W80 (A+) | Tangzu Wu Zetian (A+) | 7Hz Timeless (A+) | DUNU SA6 (S-) | Moondrop Variations (S-) | Softears RSV (S-) | Thieaudio Monarch (S-) | Aur Audio Neon Pro (S) | UM MEST MKII (S) | qdc Anole VX (S+)


@MOONDROP Lightning DSP is highly desirable. Western Market probably won’t need Threebody novelties, please cut the cost to $39 and release a lightning finish. It will a great gift option choice.

General info/Build/Comfort/Packaging
There has been some traction going on lately with DSP tuned IEM, Moondrop’s Quarks is one of them that catered for the budget segment. Today I have the Droplet with me, which is priced at 50$, targeting users who're craving for more after trying out what the Quarks is capable of.

The packaging is of the usual Moondrop’s style, except this time it isn’t the typical “waifu” but more of a Sci-Fi themed. It came with 3 pairs of foam tips, some cards and the Droplet IEM itself. The shell is made out of aluminium and it is prone to fingerprint and scratches. The shape is quite similar to Moondrop’s Spaceship, except Droplet is slightly smaller.

In terms of comfort, they fit very well and almost feel weightless due to the size of it. However, I did not use the stock foam tips as I find them to be uncomfortable in my ears, probably due to the material as it’s causing me to itch when it’s in my ears, hence i am using my own foam tips in this review.



Gears used for this impression

• Droplet with 3rd party foam tips
• USB C to Lightning adapter (to use it on my iPhone 12 Mini)
• Macbook Air M2

Foreword
My impression is solely based on what I hear via my equipment and I never consider my reviews to be objective in any way rather a subjective approach. Do take into consideration that everyone’s ear anatomy is not the same, so the psychoacoustics perception might be different as well, but i believe it will not stray too far

Sound Impression
Droplet has the Moondrop’s house sound which follows the VSDF’s target, if you had owned several Moondrop’s IEM in the past, you should be quite familiar with it. Droplet being a single BA IEM, it does have the BA timbre but not to the point where it is metallic sounding. Droplet is a fun sounding IEM overall, let’s take a look at the frequency breakdown below:

Bass

• Sub bass rumble is surprisingly deep for a single BA, of course it doesn’t rumble like a basshead’s IEM, but it is quite good coming from a single BA
• Mid bass is punchy
• Bass has good texture and good note weight which is really surprising coming from a BA
• As expected from a BA, speed is very good and handled complex track effortlessly

Mids

• Mids are forward and very lively, upper mids doesn’t sound shouty to my ears
• Vocals are forward and quite “in your face”
• Female vocal is lacking a little texture to my ears, Billie Eilish’s voice sounded a little thin, lacking weight
• Male vocal sounds alright with sufficient weight

Treble

• Treble is smooth and overall non offensive, however, once you start to crank the volume up, it can become quite energetic and fatiguing at times, i believe this is where the DSP compensation is happening
• Detail retrieval is good, you will be able to pick up the micro details easily
• It has good amount of air and instruments doesn’t sound congested

Soundstage/Imaging

• Soundstage is average, good width but lacking depth and height
• Imaging is good and instruments can be pinpointed easily, even on complex track such as Slipknot’s, it keeps up pretty well

Driveability

• Not exactly easy to drive, i need about 5/10 in terms of volume on my Macbook Air in order for Droplet to sound proper (dynamics, bass, treble)
• Using Type C to Lightning’s adapter and plugging Droplet to my iPhone, i need about 7/10 in order to get to my usual listening volume, whereas on other IEM with Apple’s Lightning Dongle, i only need 3-5/10 listening volume

Final Thoughts
This is my first time trying/reviewing DSP tuned IEM. Balance of good sound and technicalities, I personally think that they are a very good solution as it offers an all in one solution, eliminating the need to carry a dongle/dap around. This of course is not targeted at those hardcore audiophiles which ultimately still prefers a dedicated DAP/Dongle.
I have no issue recommending Droplet to someone who’s looking for a simple “pick me up and go” kind of solution and not looking to use Droplet as a critical listening device, if your intention is to use Droplet for critical listening, you may look elsewhere.

*Moondrop’s Droplet is sent over by HifiGo in exchange for this review, I thank them for the opportunity.

If you are interested in getting a pair, head over to HiFiGo’s website to get one:
Moondrop Droplet - Non Affiliated