QOA Adonis

SOUNDTIFUL
QOA ADONIS
by PROblem


Tested at 100€ (Used). Could be bought at HIFI-GO

INTRO & SUMMARY

QOA, sub-brand of KINERA, focused on Japanese (female) customers, presented another hybrid, meaning this a step up from another known earphone, the QOA VESPER. This is a more complex construction one, with beautiful packaging, as always KINERA tries to bring us. Compared with the vesper this product is more treble focused, less dark than the lovely VESPER. Let’s check it out!



DESIGN & BUILD 81%

• Resin capsule with 2pin, a little bit recessed, nice glossy finish in a small size capsule, perfect for female users.
• The body is blue with a violet painting on the faceplate, looks like the interior of a stone, with complex colors and the silver letters of ADONIS on top. You can see clearly where the faceplate starts, because of the difference in colors of the two parts of the body.
• The weight is 4.3gr with a nice “custom” mold with no edges
• It has a small vent on top, that avoids driver flex. Drivers got their own tunnel to carry the sound separately, one of the channels has a metallic finish (photo)
• The isolation is average, and the sound leakage is un-appreciable.
• The fit and comfort are top notch, I love the fit of these tiny capsules, it is on the same level as the vesper. The cable provided is nice with a clear-brown color.

PERFORMANCE & TUNING

• Easy to drive, works nicely from a phone. A Dongle-Dac will be more than enough.
• A neutral dac, or any with relaxed highs would be the best suit, to control the high frequencies.
• Foam tips are recommended to give more body to male voices and avoid sibilance.

An Asian tuning coming from QOA, with excess sibilance at high volumes. Listening to these pair on low volumes could be nice, but when you increase the volume, they start to be annoying, with excessive sparkle. The Dynamic is capable of serving a textured bass, a little bit prominent, but on the neutral side. On other frequencies it has a nice mid presence and extends high frequencies, more sparkly than detailed.


LOWs 82%

• More analytical than enjoyable, not enough for some bass-genres, but u can feel the rumble. Like all DD from KINERA launched, got a really good quality one inside.
• Textured, with all the information you need. Neutral, with some warmth on it.
• Tight & dynamic, nice recovery. Got some rumble for sub-bass. Clean & fast as hell.
• From a bass-lover perspective, maybe it lacks some punchiness.

MIDs 81%

• The mid frequencies are the stars here, up in the front, giving to the voices the center of the scene. With the bass, is the coherent part of this earphone.
• Strong male voices lack some body, but the female one, like Alicia Keys, sounds amazing. Nice for blues or r&b.
• With some recordings, because of the revealing profile it has got some metallic timbre. Nothing to worry about, but this is the only bad point in this area.

HIGHs 72%

• It is going to represent every sound on the track, their ability to reveal little detail is clearly over-average.
• The excessive effort on presents every detail, lacks on the timbre and coherence of the earphone, tends to sibilance and maybe need some tuning on these frequencies to calm them.
• With foam tips, or a DAC capable of giving the bass more body (the K9PRO achieves that) the top frequencies sound less aggressive. Another choice should be the Xbass on any iFi product.

TECH & STAGE

RESOLUTION 82%

• Layering is over-average, rich on information, ability to reveal new sounds on the tracks.
• The texture on the bass is impressive, but on the rest of FR the only instruments that deserve mention are the guitars.
• For 180€ the richness of detail is impressive.

TIMBRE 74%

• The coherence on the representation of the scene is nice, everything sounds natural, if you don’t go so high on the volume knob. If you like a pop-guitar focused music, this really is going to sound splendidly natural, but tends to sound over-exaggerated and saturated some frequencies.
• Female voices: amazing, this little beauty really makes me hear other kinds of music in my library. With male voices is good as well, but with deepest ones is not the best example to enjoy them.
• On string instruments is a hidden gem, the rest tends to have so much contrast.

STAGE 83%

• As Horizontal as Vertical, form a perfect circle around your head.
• The spaciousness of the presentation is like a big pub, its going to sound with the voice on the front with everything pushing it to your ears.

IMAGING 83%

• The separation, thanks to the fast DD is nice, details come from the sides, voice and bass in two different layers on front. Is nice for the price, but maybe you can expect a little more from a hybrid configuration.
• The bass never bleeds and keeps a good effort to be musical without invading the rest of frequencies.

DYNAMICS 89%

• With some complex tracks or bad recordings maybe loose some on the bass dynamics, anyways, the BAs works nicely with velocity and resolving the high frequencies
• The recovery of the DD is just nice, probably the best DD on this price range, sometimes I think this could be a nice single DD setup if QOA would like to.

OUTRO & VALORATION

For a 180€ earphone, you got what you paid: a relaxed V (W) shaped tuning, with typical Asian excess on the high frequencies, but suits perfectly for unplugged male singers (just lacks a little of body with the strong ones) and it shines with the female ones, the guitars sound perfect, extremely detailed and could be tuning with just a little pair of foam tips. These facts made them a little uncomfortable with some recordings but that is the only terrible thing you are going to find on this package, the rest is beautiful… and enjoyable.

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