CAYIN N6II is an old terminator(T800) who fought the audiophilia wars and still hasn’t given up. Given that he has got a new exoskeleton and a better heart, it is back at its game of being the best again. So today we will be looking of how its new heart, fares against its previous models. So here comes the Version 5.0.1 heart (now T800 V2) – “THE R01-24Bit discrete R-2R ladder DAC module”.

DISCLAIMER- THIS UNIT IS BOUGHT BY ME FROM @MusicTeck AND Andrew FROM MusicTeck WAS VERY HELPFUL, TO HELP ME PASS THE SHIPPING AND CUSTOMS HURDLE TO INDIA. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO BUY FROM THEM SINCE, THIS IS THE MOST HELPFUL STORE I HAVE ENCOUNTERED, EVEN MORE THAN MY COUNTRY’S ADUIO STORE. PLUS, THIS GOES WITHOUT SAYING, THE POSTIVES AND NEGATIVES IN THIS REVIEW ARE MINE ONLY, PLEASE DON’T TAKE THEM HAHA! AND I CANNOT BE CONTROLLED BY ANYTHING EXCEPT A DOG/CAT MAYBE
HERE’S THE LINK FOR R01, NOT AFFLIATED OFCOURSE. (spoiler alert-you might want to keep R01 after you try it haha!!! BE WARNED ).

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
Now the N6ii I got was from a good friend and it was a real good experience but sadly, it came with T01 module only. So, no unboxing experience for me from there E02 similarly, I missed out since another friend aka @RoXor loaned it to me for an experience and I missed out buying another module again haha!! Well I think my brain and GOD both had same thing in mind for an unboxing experience, so I would let the pictures speak and show how beautifully simple yet elegant it is. (P.S- I like simple yet elegant unboxing)

ACCESSORIES-

• A screwdriver T5X25mm, NO-828.
• Two leaflets for user guide and installation.
• A nice small bean plastic full of extra screws.

TECH SPECS-

SOMETHING MORE ON THE R-2R LADDER DAC’s AND HOW CAYIN MANAGED TO ACHIEVE IT-

“R-2R Digital-to-Analogue Converter, or DAC, is a data converter which use two precision resistors to convert a digital binary number into an analogue output signal proportional to the value of the digital number.



A R-2R resistive ladder network provides a simple means of converting digital voltage signals into an equivalent analogue output. Input voltages are applied to the ladder network at various points along its length and the more input points the better the resolution of the R-2R ladder. The output signal as a result of all these input voltage points is taken from the end of the ladder which is used to drive the inverting input of an operational amplifier. The R-2R resistive ladder network uses just two resistor values, one which is the base value “R” and the other which has twice the value, “2R” of the first resistor no matter how many bits are used to make up the ladder network “quoted from www.electronics-tutorials.ws.

In case of CAYIN, they did research and testing over years to find a good resistance that is – 5.1kΩ and hence adopted this as their Resistor (R). Hence the ‘2R’ is gonna be 10.2kΩ and it’s made to order.

Now they just had to figure out the circuitry and how much of the R-2R can they manage to cram into the small module and yet provide a fully balanced connector and also keeping single ended connection too. Now chips are not everything as implementation also make a good change to the sound. Hence, they went with Oversampling Interpolation Filter – which converts the Digital audio signal to Land R channel of 24bit/768kHz serial audio data signal, further being converted to parallel data signal by Serial to parallel Shift Register and transmitted to DAC circuit. This is then converted to analogue by the 24-Bit Discrete R-2R ladder DAC. They also kept high power LDO linear regulators on both R and L as power supply to the R-2R circuit.



Given, R-2R DACs have been renowned for the natural and realistic sound signature, I truly hope they provide such an experience. (FUTURE ME- I LOVE IT!!! )


PRICE- HERES THE R01- 619$

POWER-
430mw @32ohms don't expect it to do heavy lifting, but for my IEMS and HP this just works great.



R01 SOUND IMPRESSIONS (This is subjective and may vary from yours; NOTE- THIS IS AN AMALGM OF MY EXPERIENCE WITH VARIOUS IEMS AND HPs)-

OVERALL SIGNATURE-
The overall signature is way different from what I thought and it just surpassed my expectations. It’s more of a balanced signature with lots of layering in stage and great number of details. It’s the most natural sounding DAC I have heard yet. Now I won’t spoil more , so have fun reading.

SUBBASS-
Sub-bass is something which will depend on most of the hp, iem or speakers that you might use with this DAP, but the ability to produce the best out of it comes from the DAC and AMP. With that said, R01 with its R-2R DAC brings out the grandeur in sub-bass once you pair it with something which goes deep into the sub-bass. I have found in some iems like MEST MK2, EARSONICS GRACE, the transparency and rumble are much better than T01 module or even the E02 module. There is the best natural/realistic timbre I have heard yet in any DAC modules (compared to T01 and E02). The sub-bass also gives a realistic texture with dynamism in the notes when they die as you can find in the second song. The relation of sub-bass to other parts of the frequency is also so natural that you won’t feel a gap in the space to expand the soundstage, like I did with the T01 . The notes do fill the horizontal head-stage around you but the vertical head-stage is slightly lacking and this is the only con I found out.

BASS-
Bass makes or breaks a song, make it too much and it will bleed, make it too less and it will dry. This has a very realistic feel to the bass due to largely its natural tonality and organic timbre. It is well textured and dynamic too. There is a good mid bass punch even in full BA iems and this feels organic and not forced which I felt more on the E02 module. The reverberation of drums in also very excellent , coming from the natural decay of the instruments. It’s also that every instrument has a different decay which is present in most of the recordings but the difference here is that, it’s much more pronounced here. There is good amount of energy in bass and it’s in absolute sync with the rest of the spectrum and also with the sub-bass. The notes of the toms, kick bass, snares, djembe, tambourine, bongo drums etc. all have different tonality and its well presented here with great amount of separation (sometimes though it gets difficult to pick them up since I forget I am reviewing haha ). Since this also expands the stage a lot with its layering (many times I am just confused as to why do I feel the drums are slightly below and behind the vocalists and that’s the special feature of this DAC, ha-ha ) and width, the separation is further enhanced (An example being my Blon 03 doesn’t bleed even a tiny bit, into the mids now; while earlier even with slaters mod it did, although slightly). Don’t expect that it will make a low tier iem/HP into God tier bass champ but it will add the required qualities to take it much further!!! (God tier iems still achieve a higher level with this, but what’s above god tier ha-ha ).

MIDS-
Since mids consists of vocals and most of the instrument’s notes body, I will separate it into two different segments-


TREBLE-
Treble lovers and haters both will love it. There is great tonality and lots of microdetails. There is a sense of air and space in nearly all wind instruments like flute, sax, trumpets etc. and some guitars too but only when the recording specifically shows it, so this needs a little more sense of air added to strings instruments. The energy is pretty good, there is good sparkle but treble lovers might need a little more (I like treble, bass and mids so, in short, I like everything haha). There is great treble extension and it’s not like, its thrown at you, more like it’s a great musical experience without being overbearing (Made Earsonics Grace more musical at the treble region and also Penon fan too). Separation of the notes is excellent and even the edge definition has more to it in terms of resolution too. The instrument separation is also well executed, nothing I would want more from it. Staging here also plays a great role in the way the instruments are more naturally spaced, with gaps between them being less, with the timbre but also giving a real sense of room filling experience when needed in the recording (Fly me to the moon- Frank Sinatra) and when not needed, just creating a space around them (example of binaural recordings- Amber Rubarth - Sessions from the 17th Ward and also in games like Hell Blade-Senua’s Sacrifice). The decay is natural or real but a slightly slower decay would have been my preference here. The dynamics of the edge notes could have been done better but with good dynamic iems/HPs (MEST MK2 or Penon FAN) these just excel. The treble haters would just love this, but treble lovers would not be dissatisfied either hence it just the best middle ground.

HEADSTAGE-
Head stage is wider than what I have heard among the other modules (slightly more than T01, way more than E02). The height depicted is lesser than the said width but there’s a lot of stage depth and real depth (-y axis when the kick drums hit, more depicted in my focal Clears and CA Holocene and Earsonics Grace). The feeling is like a big studio hall rather than a theatre per say. The instrument layering though is something it just adds on, like a planar does to the table and you will be abacked to hear that when you compare the modules separately. The before said line took my heart and guess what now my 2.1 active speakers just love it.

IMAGING, RESOLUTION AND SEPARATION-
Imaging is excellent “conservis meis auditorio”. Its stays on a fine line between too much precise and musical experience. The imaging is no way diffuse either, it just keeps you on the realm of asking for attention but not too much and allows you to have your space. The resolution is excellent but is presented in a more musical and dynamic way, with my listening levels it’s just really good, but with an amp it just takes it much higher. The separation is excellent in inter-notes area but slightly more air is needed in the treble department in the inter-instrumental region. Now I ain’t saying its average but in comparison to something like T01 or E02 module yes this is just tiny bit behind.


BATTERY LIFE-
Use case scenario- from 100%- 0%, Medium Gain, Vol- 59 on dial, with Downloaded flacs on tidal android app, it ran for 11hours 21mins straight!!!

With WIFI on since I prefer to keep it between 20-80% battery level as advised by @Andykong, it gave me around 7 hours Slightly more testing is required regarding Gain and volume settings with wifi on as it seems, I forgot where i kept the notes of it.

COMPARISONS WITH OTHER MODULES I HAVE TRIED-
NOTE: Every module has a different sound signature and yes, there are pros and cons, but I am rotating T01 and R01 every week to keep me fresh from being bored of just one sound signature. Find what two or three modules fit your signature and keep using them

T01 MODULE-
PROS-

• Theatre like experience with you being on the 3rd row.
• Transparency is better but not in a musical way
• Air around instruments is better
• Slightly taller
• Slightly more dynamic and better energy in treble
• More analytical experience
• Dedicated line out
• More power

FALLACIES-

• No stage layering
• Timbre is slightly on the faster side and tonality more in line with strings instruments but less with pianos making them feel slightly less thick.
• Vocals are a little lean more in case of male vocals
• Might be too treble heavy in some recordings.
• Upper mids emphasis is slightly more.
• Mids are slightly more pushed back
• Battery life

E02 MODULE (WAS A LOANER, PLUS I HAD TAKEN NOTES OF IT AGAINST T01, HENCE KIND OF WORKS WITH R01 TOO WHEN I USED THE SAME SONG LIB) -
PROS-

• More dynamic
• Better treble energy and extension
• More forward mids
• Faster timbre hence better clarity
• Punchier midbass
• More treble energy and sparkle
• More engaging listen but will ask for attention always
• More power

FALLACIES-

• No proper stage layering
• Closed in experience (no room filling timbre)
• Transparency is slightly better than R01
• Less natural decay and timbre
• Emphasis in treble is more making it bright in some recordings than needed.
• Sub-bass lacks texture
• Coherency is slightly lacking.
• Battery life

I DID TRY E01 MODULE TOO BUT IT WAS SO LONG BACK AND FOR SO LESS AMOUNT OF TIME AND ALSO WAS LAZY TO TAKE NOTES(PIZZA TOOK PRIORITY )

PAIRINGS-
WITH UM MEST MK2- THE BEST ONE OF ALL.

UM MEST MK 2 has one of the best sound signatures at around 1500$ but what I thought when I first listened to it was “it’s too lean in tonality, with Focal like imaging and slightly on the verge of analytical taste” with my T01 module/ E02 module. But I didn’t think that I would ever get R01 and now I just love it pretty much “Redemption” . The change in tonality from lean to pretty much thicker and natural was just in line with my preference. There is slight increase in width too and the dynamic nature of this iem is maintained even thought the R01 has slight less of it. The treble is better and timbre has also become better. More over the projection of the sounds is much more transparent. Musicality is enhanced and energy is maintained overall making it a great iem now.

WITH EARSONICS GRACE-

EARSONICS GRACE is a neutral iem overall with not much energy anywhere except vocals, where I feel like its just unlike anything I have heard- neutral yet lush and with the layering of its head stage, it’s very good. Pairing has not been much of a trouble since I was using R01 from the beginning, other than the ear tips (finally Azla Sedna Xelastic tips). Now using it with T01, I found it much less dynamic but more energetic in the treble region and with more and spacing with air in between the instruments. But with R01, it has much better timbre and better vocals with more layering in stage. I am confused as to use what with what haha so I just keep on changing it week by week. Given how Grace iem is, it changes not by much with the sources, so it’s just great that way that I will forget each week haha

WITH VISION EARS VE7-

VISION EARS VE7 was a flat and neutral set of iems where everything is just present, with great dynamics but it’s the only one of the VE series of iems I have tried that did every genre well without a compromise but without much energy into bass or treble or vocals either. But then came the anomaly R01 and let’s just say it changed for the good. There is now better timbre, tonality was already good and now more natural, no hint of that slight glare I heard in some death metal songs with electronic guitars. There is now more width and its now more of a good horizontal distribution of instruments. So, a good pairing, yes for sure.


WITH CA HOLOCENE-

CA HOLOCENE is a truly great iem and for me a 600$ benchmark. Theres nothing much wrong with it except its slightly V shape and vocals can be as great as Zen. Now with R01, there is an added layering in the head stage and more added control to the notes. The vocals became slightly more like Zen and was pretty good. The plucks of the strings were also more defined and separate, I was happy haha!!!

WITH COPPLIN ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH FS-

ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH FS was mixed bag feeling for me at first with way too much mids and treble and bass and everything just forward with not a proper sense of separation and staging. With R01 staging was improved and much more controlled notes, it felt like but still not it improved too much. Putting it with T01, was a rather better option to bring the sound, slightly back and more separation.

WITH AKOUSTYX R-220 AND R-110-

R110 loved the layering of stage with R01. The whole review is with T01 module but I think it brought the best of R110 by giving more air and energy which I think needed than the R01 module. While R01 added the organic timbre and lush experience but given its more flat sounding, I need that dynamism so, T01 was better for me and it added the energy to the treble too so more in my preference.

R220 loved R01 than T01. The added transparency and microdetails of T01 wasn’t suiting an already highly resolving iem. Plus, it felt a little too lean for me so R01 did manage to add that thickness too.

WITH SEE AUDIO BRAVERY-

SEE AUDIO BRAVERY is an already a much organic and musical yet laid back iem. R01 enhanced that but I would still take T01 here, since it provided more technical aspect to it than the R01. Still, I would I say I loved T01 for some genre and R01 for some.

WITH BLON-03 (SLATERS MOD + SIMPLE KBEAR SPC CABLE)-

Now Blon-03 loves some technicality while the tonality and musicality are pretty great. But with T01, it did become slightly overbearing in some of the upper treble region, where R01 just nails that. The widened stage and transparency of T01 loves to bring more technicality to the Blons and R01 nearly does the same but slightly less. So, it will depend on you, for me I use it when I am on the run to office, outside etc. so R01 for me plus the battery life is awesome too with R01.

WITH SHOZY POLA-

SHOZY POLA is an impressive iem already but the mids on this are slightly "V" shaped hence sometimes you might be wanting for more vocal performance. While I say that, with R01 the tables turn, POLA has now become way more natural and also has that foreword and balanced vocals which make it really good experience. The bass has now become natural and the upper midrange slight glare has become controlled. Given its an estat, the timbre felt slightly off in certain instruments like bells with T01 module, R01 changed that. But this thing requires power to sing, so 40-50 on high gain on R01 module.

WITH PENON FAN (WITH FOAM TIPS)-

PENON FAN is really good iem for the price I got it for. It has pretty bright signature full of energy, so R01 tones it down a slight bit, by bringing the tonality thicker and bringing more punch to bass too. The better layering also helps plus there is slight decrease in the energy of the treble which helps. So R01 for me here.

HEADPHONES –
I don’t have many headphones per say since I sold quite a few earlier before this arrived. But those were hard to drive ones haha and would have needed an amp for sure.

FOCAL OG CLEARS (DEKONI HYBRID VELOUR PADS WITH CAMPFIRE ALO SXC- CABLE RETERMINATED)-

FOCAL CLEARS is easier to run with vol up to 40-50 on high gain on R01 and 25-35 on high gain on T01 module. Now for sound, Clears love the layering and width added with more musicality and more organic nature. With T01, the treble air and extension plus the slightly more V shaped signature and transparency makes it a much better technical yet musical HP. So, I get confused as to what to choose hence, I added an amp to the mix, something a little clinical and very low end, here comes L30 or much better A30(modded with V5i burson opamps) which added with R01 brings out more similar to T01. So T01 when I am bringing my clears with me or R01 when I am on desktop or know that I need that amount of battery life.

SENNHEISER HD558 (NO FOAM AND 3.5MM MOD)-

SENNHEISER was one of the first brands that got me into audiophilia and made me buy an HD558. I loved the sound then and I do it now too but adding more and slightly more to an old DD Hp is what I needed. So here I am running HD558 off R01 and T01, might I say I loved the layering of R01 and the timbre is much better giving much better instrument spread. This instrument spreading made it much better than T01 as an overall experience. So R01 wins here

SUMMARY-
With such a big review and those funny pics, I know most of you will just jump to the end haha No worries, I got you covered, R01 with its R-2R ladder DAC flavor has got me into this R-2R game and I will be looking out for more R-2R products now to try.

But is R01 a real second life option for N6ii which is nearly 2-years old and slightly clunky and slow now? Well, the answer is surely a YES. The change in sound coming from all the modules at least the ones I have tried are so much different that changing one each week is great to have a great sound and not get bored. But R01 added that organic and lushier sound while retaining that transparency and details, and giving layering in stage as a gift just made it like giving “THE HIGHEST MILITARY AWARD” to an old soldier the CAYIN N6II. So, R01 highly recommended!!!

LOTOO PAW S1

Lotoo needs no introduction. They are well known now for their Lotoo paw 6000 dap and it has created waves in the audiophile community. But today, I get to try one of their cheaper offerings which has been making a name for itself in the industry- The LOTOO PAW S1.

DISCLAIMER- The LOTOO PAW S1 is provided by the courtesy of Conceptkart as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this dongle. That said I want to thank Conceptkart for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find a link to buy them here

SPECIFICATIONS-

• AKM AK4377
• Supported Format: PCM 32K-384KHz DSD64/DSD128
• Weight: 27.10g
• Size: 6.6cm x 2.2cm x 1.3cm
• Max Output: 3.5mm:70mW/Ch @32Ω; 4.4mm:120mW/Ch @32Ω
• Freq. range: 3.5mm: 20-20KHz..+0/-0.017dB; 4.4mm: 20-20KHz..+0/-0.016dB
• USB Port: USB Type C
• Noise Level: 3.5mm: -118dBu; 4.4mm: -114dBu
• Screen: OLED 128x32
• THD+N. - Low gain: -106dB (0.0005%); High gain: -108dB (0.0004%)
• S/N: 3.5mm: 123dB; 4.4mm: 122dB
• PRICE-165$/ 11900 INR

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
I will let the photos do the talking-




BUILD AND SIZE-
The build is pretty dense. It’s an all-metal build with somewhat of a matte finish, might easily scratch. But the OLED screen is an awesome addition and makes it much better for the viewing angle. The screen goes off pretty fast but this is better for the long run if you know about burn in which plagues OLED screens. Size is pretty small and easily pocketable but its as long as BTR5.

There are 3 buttons- Two for volume up and down and also circling through the menu ; one more for menu options change



ACCESSORIES-

• USB C TO C CABLE
• PAW S1
• USB C TO LIGHTNING CABLE (I WAS SENT BUT YOU COULD BUY IT IF YOU OWN APPLE DEVICES)
• USB C TO MALE USB ADAPTER FOR PC.

FUNCTIONALITY-
It’s pretty straight forward, plug it in to your Android phone, IPAD, iphone or PC and it just works. You need to provide exclusive access in ROON or tidal app on PC for it to work properly at the required bitrate and frequency. In android, I used UAPP with tidal access and it just worked flawlessly. In IPAD, just plug and play with apple music and in IPHONE, same as IPAD.

Now the best thing about this tiny little device, is the EQ. Some devices take EQ pretty nicely some don’t, but given your mood it’s the best way to change a sound signature. For nearly all the iems and HP’s I tried, all took EQ pretty nicely and the underlying nature of the dongle didn’t change much from device to device.

POWAH-
Now the low gain isn’t pretty much powerful but the high gain is decent. The 4.4 pentaconn is much more powerful than the 3.5mm but the sound characteristics remains the same. There is slightly better energy and more background clearance overall. The overall powah is little less though.

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS- PAWS1 and MANY IEMS and 1 HP.

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours )

BASS AND SUBBASS-

Ohh!!! I am really happy with this tiny little thing haha!!! This has great tonality with above average timbre which is really difficult to see at this price point. The decay is slightly faster than natural but unless you haven’t tried something more organic, this will be your thing pretty much. The bass is not too tight but slightly more on the thicker and little loose side which I like, and feels more natural. The mid bass energy is pretty good and does deliver a punch and not at the cost of sub-bass. The bass dynamics are also pretty good and it doesn’t feel boring. More inter-notes separation and inter-instrumental separation with more texture is preferred, but for the price you getting this, I won’t consider this a con at all.

Sub-bass is awesome with good amounts of rumble. The rumble feeling is not too much exaggerated compared to the bass. The tonality is excellent and it is textured. The sub-bass is dynamic though with good coherency with the bass and mids. Does the bass and sub-bass provide atmospheric feeling? Nope, that’s something I felt lacking even when trying my clears.

MIDS-

Mids are really good in this iem. They have great tonality and good dynamics overall. They have good microdetails and notes contrast is slightly lacking but still pretty good. The notes have slightly more musical feel to them due to good height that each notes reach overall in the soundstage. The decay is pretty good, more on the natural side lending a good deal of timbre and realism. The notes are on the balanced side with good beginnings but lack a little edge definition. The inter-notes separation is decent but inter-instrumental separation is much more excellent. Vocals, both male and female are pretty great. They are more foreward than the rest of the instruments in the mids. They have good extension overall and non-grainy at all. The tonal difference is pretty much better too. The transparency is above its pay grade for sure but its excellent with reverbs coming at you pretty nicely. Upper mids- lower treble seems to have a little too much energy but not overly sharp though. Overall, a damn good experience. Did I forget something, yes, this thing felt more musical than any I have tried yet!

TREBLE-

This is the fun part of this thing. The lower treble has a slightly more energy than upper treble or mid treble giving hi-hats a slightly brighter than required feeling, but it’s still not sharp and really good for the overall detailed presentation of this small dongle. But the upper treble is really good, there is great tonality and dynamics. There is some air in the wind instruments like trumpets and they do sound great. A little more inter-notes separation would be more preferred. The notes are well defined but lack edge definition but the beginnings of the notes with body are much more distinct. The transparency is great with good number of micro details. The treble though overall compared to mids lacks energy making it feel more mid focussed. The treble does come through though which is a great thing but it does feel a few points less powerful than mids But I still like this presentation as it took time and many changes of iems and headphones to be able to point it out haha, so pretty difficult to point it out.

HEADSTAGE, IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-

Head stage is pretty good with lots of height and depth, but lacks in width. There is though some sonic headroom left still. There is not much layering going on but it still manages to keep instruments well separated. The inter-instrumental separation is much better overall and really pushing any other dongle at this price range, to have a run for its money. The imaging is okay, I didn’t expect much but its average but does a decent job. The resolution is good and it really works great with highly resolving iems/headphones.

PAIRINGS-

PAW S1 and FOCAL Clear
Now the inherent sound quality of the PAW S1 does come through, with the upper mids providing more energy to the clears, but clear handles them pretty nicely. The clear is inherently much more separated so that is not big of a problem, but the added timbre and also musicality helps clear reach a further level altogether over using something like BTR5. The pairing is really good and I whole heartedly recommend it. EQ is also handled pretty nicely and the sweet EQ made more sense since the Clears have some spikes in the treble region which makes it difficult to handle sometimes.

NOTE- Gain- high and vol-45-50, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall-song.

PAW S1 and VE 7
The VE7 has a neutral and flat signature so adding a musical dongle is for the best. This theory stands true with this pairing, there is more dynamism and notes contrast added which makes it livelier. Timbre isn’t much more exaggerated but still lovely to listen to. This did also take the EQ well without any distortion.

NOTE- Gain- high and vol-15-20, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall-song.

PAW S1 and MEST Mk2
Now this pairing I thought would make more sense, since MEST MK2 has something of a tuning similar to FOCAL Clears with slightly MEST MK2 being on the analytical side. But unlike my expectations, this sounded okayish type. There was loss of vocal balance and control (it became too forward) and these sounded a little sharper in upper mids than needed. The dynamics and musicality were good but it became limited to certain genres only but there was added thickness and more timbre which made it more in line for instrumentals and solo vocals.

NOTE- Gain- high and vol-30-40, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall-song.

PAW S1 and SHOZY POLA
Now this pairing was much better than MEST MK2, the Pola loved the extra bass natural timbre and with the Pola’s accentuated atmospheric feeling, this made it much better. The forward vocals added makes the Pola’s midrange more forward and balanced, hence makes this more musical and beautiful to listen to. So worth the pairing for sure.

NOTE- Gain- High and vol- 45-55, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall- song.

PAW S1 and GRACE
Grace and Paw S1 pairing is pretty good. There is more musicality and notes height contrast added. The Grace surely does love some more timbre in bass from PAW S1 and its pretty good in that sense.

NOTE- Gain- High and vol- 20-35, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall- song.

PAW S1 and BLON 03
Blon 03 loves Paw S1, the added timbre and bass definition really helps. They have an increased musicality and they synergise well with each other. There is though slight midbass encroachment in some recordings probably a slightly wider soundstage will help blons again.

NOTE- Gain- High and vol- 18-25, makes it have good loudness in Skyfall- song.

PAW S1 and PS5-
It does work with PS5 but you have to hold the Vol - + button and connect to PS5 so that UAC 1.0 mode is on and it becomes compatible with PS5.

COMPARISON-
SPARROW-
Better layering
Better separation
Bigger stage width and depth
Better air
More energetic
Better timber
More powerful

PAW S1-
More organic
Smoother in treble
More musical
Better Built
EQ is lovely

QUDELIX 5K-
Wider stage
Slightly more details
Slightly leaner tonality
Better texture

PAW S1-
Thicker tonality
Slightly better timbre
Better musically
Better solid build

SUMMARY-
All in all, this little device is a great addition and given it has no battery (Qudelix 5K ahmm!!! ) And is smoother than sparrow, will be better overall for longer listening session. But if you have a demanding HP or iem, I would recommend the sparrow over this. But I somehow love this too since its cheaper than sparrow and nearly similar in pricing to Qudelix 5K, so depends on your needs now, whether you want BT and take a risk on battery of the Qudelix or you want a better built dongle, with a hit on your phone’s battery life. Still, I would recommend this since it’s a good dongle overall.

ACOUSTYX R-110 and R-220

ACOUSTYX are a Californian Iem company with much presence in the in the recording world. I will be honest, I never heard of them before at all, I just came to know them this year when my friend asked me whether I wanna review some iems like ETYMOTIC and I was like, why not!!! So here we are with ACOUSTYX R-110...

DISCLAIMER- THIS IS A REVIEW UNIT SENT BY ACOUSTYX AS A PART OF REVIEW TOUR IN INDIA, IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST OPINIONS. ALL POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE OPINIONS ARE MINE ENTIRELY AND NOT INFLUENCED AT ALL BY ANYONE NOT EVEN BY MY PARENTS LOL (P.S THEY LOVED THE R220)!!!

UNBOXING-
A simple cardboard box with everything about the iems written on the sides. Then on the inside is a big blue box with a wonderful blue Acoustyx logo which looks epic. Inside we see the iems in the a foam pocket and underneath this is a thick, soft cloth wallet type thing and inside this are all the accessories and they are quite a good amount of them.


BUILD AND FIT-
They are sturdily built out of plastic with having mmcx as a connector and also a black rubber case called as outer ear gel, to cover the inside part of the iem which goes onto the ears and this makes it much more comfortable to use. The fit is decent and goes nicely deep into the ears. No problem with fit whatsoever. One more thing is they have ear hooks which makes it much easier to use it and customize the fit pretty much to very fine adjustments.
The outer iem gel cover has R and L written on it, mindfully though so people don’t try to force it on wrong side iem.

CABLE-
The cable is 4N monocrystalline OCC cable and it comes with a mic. The cable is really decent with no cable noise at all coming through. The mic is decent catches a lot of air but the buttons are clicky and works with both android and IOS (tested on Android and iphone 10 Max). The cable sounds really good too while being slick hehe!!!
The cable has no colour indicators for R and L but you can look for them on the MMCX connectors where there’s a written indicator for it. They need to work on that art.

ACCESSORIES-

• A neoprene padded pouch with 2 different compartments.
• 3 pairs of silicone gels of sizes S, M & L.
• 1 pair of double flap tips.
• 1 outer gel cover.
• 1 pair of M comply T-100.
• 3 pairs of ear hooks- aka Freebit ear interface of sizes S, M & L.

SPECIFICATIONS-

• DRIVER- 1 Knowles BA.
• IMPEDANCE- 50 ohm.
• SENSITIVITY- 108 dB.

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

• PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
• DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
• AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)
• Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on high gain at 40-50 on volume.
• The tips used are BGVP W01 tips (the included wide bore vocals tips)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)

BASS AND SUB-BASS

The sub bass is decent for its price and given it’s a BA, it’s fast, accurate and textured. It is not rumbly that will shake you up but it’s just enough to give you a feel of it. There’s not a big body to it either feels. It doesn’t go too deep and doesn’t leave an atmospheric feel to it. Given it’s a reference tuning, its pretty good at what it does!!! Don’t just for depth though which is just not there…

Bass is a different story though!!! It feels tonally, a little lean but feels less energetic like it doesn’t hit hard. There is good midbass body but lacks in the timbre. The decay is so fast that the ending of notes is like near to instant. The bass isn’t also that well extended. Now given a reference set, I didn’t expect it to hit hard or have great timbre but the difference in percussion instruments and the notes of different hits are really very well maintained. Not a hint of the notes from same instrument getting mixed nor the notes of different percussion instruments get mixed. The separation from mids and the transparency of the notes is really good. And that might be required given the need for this iem.

MIDS

The mids are really the star of the show. Theres a lot of transparency and separation continuing the tradition from the bass. The lower mids are slightly more on the leaner side with the notes having more of lean note but much more defined beginnings. The decay is also near instant with not much lingering around of the notes. It has a slight metallic timbre but not too much to make it a problem since it has fast decay. Now unto the string instruments mostly in the upper mids woahhh… These are the best part with lots of details more than I thought it would give. There is good energy and the slight leaner notes makes it feel a bit natural as if listening to them in real life. There is a lot of energy here too to make it a really good experience. The cons I could feel is that the timbre is slight metallic and very fast with lacking in air and slightly less dynamism in some songs. But dynamics can be a little dependent on recordings too but I felt it a bit lacking than what I am used to. Notes clarity even though present might

Vocals on the other hand I feel is pretty balanced. Vocals have great shape to the voice with having good body with lots of extension. It is slightly leaner tonally than what I like but hey my choices are for me haha!!! Don’t get me wrong, the thicker male vocalists do come as thick but the vocals seem to have less width that’s what I meant. They have great reverb and air too. Its pretty great plus its slightly mid forwards I feel like and brings the emotions with it. The energy and dynamics of the vocals are pretty great too. Ohh!! I forgot I didn’t feel any sibilance. The small whispers in the background do come up too.

TREBLE

Its pretty good lean tonally. There is good energy with slightly leaner natural tonality here makes it a good experience. The dynamics are also really great. The lower treble has a good energy and spicy feel making rock music, an energetic experience. The transparency is excellent here too with great deal of separation among the notes. The hi-hats though felt a little lacking in energy but cymbals had a nice hit to them. Trumpets had a great deal of energy and felt real just lacking in air. The notes have great extension and resolution too, it just shows you everything. Timbre might be slightly metallic but it’s not too much to cause an issue. Upper treble has great energy overall with great extension too. It’s not too bright either. There is good of amount of reverb which comes up too.

HEADSTAGE

Now this is excellent in this. This is a wide iem with lots of stage depth that is missed in many others. This has good depth too. Only thing is it’s not too tall but guys enough for my tastes and also this fills the sonic headroom as well when needed by the recording. I guess, now I know why all the reference sets I tried have so beautiful staging, it’s required that’s why .

IMAGING, RESOLUTION AND SEPARATION

Imaging is great but the exact location on the head stage is a little missed. But the location is in between diffuse and perfect. The resolution is extremely good for this price, every small note in the head stage comes up excellently. The separation is uhm, may I say the best part of this iem. It's just an excellent item and the faster decay obviously helps here.

COMPARISONS

PROS R110
Great micro-details
Wide and tall headstage
Great transperancy
Good mids
Better sub-bass
Better treble performance

PROS ER2XR (off my memory)
Better bass
Tonality is more organic or thicker.
Notes are better defined
Smoother treble performance
Better timbre

PROS DN3
Better bass and sub-bass
Thicker tonality but sibilant vocals
Better acoustic instruments presentation
Better price

SUMMARY
R-110 is made as a reference iem and for the price of 150$ it excels in it a lot. Had there been a little more timbre and better bass texture, this would have triumphed over everything else.

ACOUSTYX R-220
ACOUSTYX are a Californian Iem company with much presence in the in the recording world. I will be honest, I never heard of them before at all, I just came to know them this year when my friend asked me whether I wanna review some iems like ETYMOTIC and I was like, why not!!! So here we are with ACOUSTYX R-220.

DISCLAIMER- THIS IS A REVIEW UNIT SENT BY ACOUSTYX AS A PART OF REVIEW TOUR IN INDIA, IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST OPINIONS. ALL POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE OPINIONS ARE MINE ENTIRELY AND NOT INFLUENCED AT ALL BY ANYONE NOT EVEN BY MY PARENTS LOL (P.S THEY LOVED THE R220)!!!

UNBOXING-
A simple cardboard box with everything about the iems written on the sides. Then on the inside is a big blue box with a wonderful blue Acoustyx logo which looks epic. Inside we see the iems in the a foam pocket and underneath this is a thick, soft cloth wallet type thing and inside this are all the accessories and they are quite a good amount of them.


BUILD AND FIT-
R220- The shape of this iem like a barrel iem similar to Etymotic. These are sturdily built out of plastic with having mmcx as a connector. The fit well, it penetrates your ears and you would need to have one size larger to get a proper seal. No problem whatsoever just don’t sleep on it, since it will go into your brain haha!!!
There's L and R written on the iem so no mixing up at all haha!!!

CABLE-
The cable is 4N monocrystalline OCC cable and it comes with a mic. The cable is really decent with no cable noise at all coming through. The mic is decent catches a lot of air but the buttons are clicky and works with both android and IOS (tested on Android and iphone Xs Max). The cable sounds really good too while being slick hehe!!!

The cable has no colour indicators for R and L but you can look for them on the MMCX connectors where there’s a written indicator for it. They need to work on that art.

ACCESSORIES-

• A neoprene padded pouch with 2 different compartments.
• 3 pairs of silicone gels of sizes S, M & L.
• 1 pair of double flap tips.
• 1 pair of M comply T-100.
• 3 pairs of ear hooks- aka Freebit ear interface of sizes S, M & L.

SPECIFICATIONS-

• DRIVER- 2 Knowles BA.
• IMPEDANCE- 29 ohm.
• SENSITIVITY- 109 dB.

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

• PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
• DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
• AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)
• Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on high gain at 40-50 on volume.
• The tips used are the included tips

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)

BASS AND SUB-BASS

Now this is a different experience all together from R-110. Subbass has good presence, it’s thick, rumbly and enough to satisfy my ears. Accuracy and texture are maintained along with the ability to go deep. But it still a BA bass, as the body is not that thick. The timbre is okayish given the fast decay of the iem.

Bass is decent. It’s a BA bass with not too much punch but it's there when needed. The energy is awesome in the bass. Tonality is natural, lean but a slightly metallic timbre in the snare drums. The texture and inter notes separation are excellent. It's could have done with a slightly more punch. The mid-bass has a good coherency with sub bass with neither over powering each other. The upper bass is slightly leaner compared to the mid-bass but it’s so doable. The notes have great body and beginning but the endings feel like they are opening to form an umbrella.

MIDS-
The mids let’s say are excellent. It has slightly leaner tonality but really felt more in the lower mids. The mids are presented in a balanced way beside the treble and bass. The transparency and inter-notes separation are excellent, something that I haven’t even found in 400$ iems too. The notes ending could require some better finishing. The decay is good giving a slight timbre feel but not too much. The timbre has a slightly metallic feel. The texture in string instruments is excellent too and given this does leave an atmospheric feel makes it a wonderful listening experience. The notes have a great dynamic nature to them with each being separated in reaching different heights. There’s a slight sonic headroom too which is great to feel but the notes rarely reach that. This could do a bit more with a little more thicker notes in the lower mids but given this is made for musicians hence accuracy and tonal distinction is more prioritized. This does miss air a bit in the instruments and I would have loved a little more instrumental separation but given the price, I might be asking too much. It does not lack micro details at all but unlike other reference tuned iems, it’s more nicely presented in a musical way.

Vocals are really good for this price. It's more of a balanced body with great extension. The emotions of the singers do come through and they yes, the endings of the notes are pretty good. The slightest reverberation comes through easily. The female vocals are more beautifully presented than the male vocals, which lack the required thickness. Multiple male vocalists are though easily separated from each other in a single listen which is great. Given it’s a balanced iem, vocals with the instruments in mids makes this an enjoyable experience. Forgot nearly sibilance is missing entirely something that I only found in VE8.

TREBLE-
Now this is interesting here. I haven’t heard something like this in the 220$ price range ever. There is a great amount of sparkle and energy in the upper treble which makes them more pronounced. This has obviously more energy than the lower treble and mid treble not by too much but it's felt, hence upper treble is more felt (EQ a bit ). The tonality is excellent on the leaner side and has great inter notes separation. Transperancy is something I haven't seen at this price range, let alone in 500$ range (that was my face). The notes have excellent body and great distinct beginning, the endings might need more clarity, feels like it opens up rather than just slowly vanishing that's how I can describe it as best as I can. The treble extension is excellent. The only thing it lacks is a bit more timbre, while it does have some but it’s slightly metallic and air around the instruments, feels like they are too near to each other more than what I like.

HEADSTAGE-
This is a fairly wide iem with great stage depth too. It does have good height but rarely fills up the sonic headroom. The notes are greatly dynamic and really reach great heights. Centre staging is excellent too rarely seen at this range. Great Z axis presentation and in some songs like Beyond the sea – Bobby Darin, I could hear the instruments on the right behind my ears, a wow experience . It’s greatly improved on the heights and dynamics than the R-110.

IMAGING, RESOLUTION AND SEPARATION
This blows out anything in this regard. The resolution aka transperancy makes some higher tier iems like ER4XR, ER4P etc., a run for their money. Imaging is really a grade above their own R-110 and it’s much better than anything else I have heard around the 200$ mark. Inter-notes separation is excellent but inter instrumental separation could require some work altogether. It’s great for the price but I want more

COMPARISON-

PROS R-220
Great micro-details (class leading in my experience)
Great transparency
Good vocals
Good midbass and sub-bass
Great vocals
Better notes height contrast among them
Treble extension is really good

PROS IKKO OH10
Sub-bass is better
Thicker tonality
Treble is smoother and less bright
Wider soundstage

PROS ETYMOTIC ER4XR
More organic tonally
Better notes body uniformity
Midbass punch is more
Slightly better timbre
More colored compared to R220 and pleasing

SUMMARY
R-220 is class leading at this price range. Its neutral tuned but it does so many things better that I wouldn’t call it bad at all. Musicality can be improved but given it’s made for onstage musicians; the tonality difference of different instruments and their presentation is more kept in mind. Even with these, I haven’t heard anything with such details and transparency and staging as this ever, highly recommended if you can handle a little bright nature(uhmm comply tips work here hehe) and highly detailed yet enough musical iem.

CCZ PLUME

CCZ is a new company in the chifi world and have been making a name recently for their lower priced models a lot. But today I get to try their CCZ PLUME- A flagship in their lineup.

DISCLAIMER-The CCZ PLUME is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said I want to thank HIFIGO for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!!

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
Since this is a review unit, this only came in a small package. The small package is a synthetic leather pouch with CCZ logo on it. Inside it were two adapters- 2.5mm to 4.4mm and 2.5mm to 3.5mm and a pair of M sized tips. Then came the big beautifully looking nylon sleeved brown (Really!!! CCZ brown colour ☹) cable and beautiful looking golden coloured iems.

SPECIFICATIONS-

• Interface/Connector：2Pin (0.78mm)
• Plug type: 2.5mm (original)/3.5mm/4.4mm
• Impedance: 16±2Ω
• Sensitivity: 110±2dB
• Driver units: single side- 1 dual magnetic DD + 2 BA (CCZ-IF-A for mid-high frequency) + 2 BA (CCZ-HI-A for high frequency)
• Cable material: 2 cores 6N Single Crystal Copper in BROWN COLOR

PRICE-239$

BUILD AND FIT-
The build is solid with all metal build with a good ear contour shape and a wing to help secure it in place. Where it lacks is in the finishing department that is, the review unit is already losing colour at the contact points with the ears. Fit for me was good no issues with that and although it was a good fit, the wing is may be a bit too aggressive for me.

CABLE-
The cable is pretty good nylon sleeved and UGLY BROWN color haha!!! Its 2.5mm terminated and 2pin type of connector. The cable is 2 cores 6N Single crystal copper cable (I guess they were trying to show its copper color) and it’s a pretty looking dense cable.

ACCESSORIES-

• 2 adapters- for 4.4 pentaconn sources and 3.5 source
• Tips
• The synthetic leather storage bag

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

• PORTABLE -N6II, BTR5 and LG G8X
• DESKTOP- DAC- N6II with T01 LINEOUT
• AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED with BURSON V5I D or TOPPING L30 or XDUOO MT602(not used here for review but hey it does help to add a bit of tube touch and also don’t try this for this iem-not great experience)
• Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on medium gain at 20-35 on volume.
• The tips tried are stock M size (these are included by the manufacturer) and Wide bore tips Reverse KZ starlines (which is used for the entire review)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)

BASS AND SUB-BASS-
Bass is something purely different than what I have experienced. The entirety of bass is visceral with a little nice decay to have enough atmospheric experience. There is not much notes separation between each hit and they tend of get mixed up just after the hit pretty much. The tonality is thick and is an enjoyable experience. Notes definition is simply lacking a lot but since the beginnings are distinguished with the body being slightly less distinguished gives a sense of better definition but once you use A/B against some other iem which has better definition and control, this takes the hit (check snares on this). None the less its mid bass heavy and more woolly, soft kind of bass, not the tight punchy type. Still, it was enjoyable except in bass heavy tracks where it seemed too congested.

Sub-bass on the other hand is good, goes deep and is tonally pleasing. It does have a good rumble but somehow feels more thicker than rumblier haha!!! Still the energy is more on the sub-bass side than the bass.

MIDS-
The overall tonality is thick with slightly slower decay. The instruments are enough dynamic and have good energy in the mids. The timbre is average though. The slower decay helps with room filling experience but the notes separation is not that great which makes it feel congested a lot. The notes are nicely thick and lack ending definition, and they turn outwards at their ends. The lower mids though really love the thicker tonality and makes it a very pleasant listen. The upper mids are good too, have energy but are not sparkly enough to give you goosebumps when the sudden electric guitar strikes come up, haha!!! They do lack air in the acoustic guitars and also in the vocals. Tonally the acoustic guitars lack the sparkle overall. Microdetails are lacking and in stage depth too. But somehow with slower tracks and less instrument heavy tracks, these do fine a lot.

Male vocals love the thicker tonality and make them feel quite thick haha!!! They have good body but lack extension. Female vocals on the other hand are slightly thicker but quite pleasing anyways haha!!! But they lack the extension that some vocalists try to attend in a lot of recordings. They do come close to bass and treble but never mix for me (but they might look to do so, but I didn’t feel any volume changes when bass and vocals are going on at the same time). So, with congested tracks they don’t particularly fare well but giving the imaging and overall resolution, easier to recognize them. Microdetails are lacking here a bit too but best thing, sibilance sensitive people you guys won’t hear anything sibilant at all.

TREBLE-
Treble is fine just a tad bit too thick note. It lacks sparkle but is somewhat extended. There is lack of air though but energy seems fine. There is less emphasis on the upper treble and more on the lower treble. There is good dynamics and good thick tonality. There is pretty much very early roll offs The notes have similar separation as mids and feels a little congested on instrument heavy tracks. You can consider it as smooth overall experience.

IMAGING, HEADSTAGE, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
Imaging is good overall with each instrument coming up in the headstage but in a diffuse way. Resolution helps with this too to make it better overall; it doesn’t have too much resolution but I didn’t feel much missing in the songs that I tested. The separation is not that great and lacks a lot overall. The inter-instrumental separation is okayish but inter notes separation is not that great. Transparency is overall okayish but still good enough. Headstage on the other hands is the weaker link. There is just width with height being tall but not enough contrast among notes. There is very little if any stage depth. Had there been more width, this would have fared well in congested tracks too. Feels like an L shaped soundstage with less emphasis on treble.

COMPARISONS-
IKKO OH10
Much better treble extension but lacks contrast
Bass is more defined and sub-bass heavy but here in plume, its woollier and thicker.
Better vocals but slightly grainy midrange
Microdetails are better
Wider but less dynamic
Much better stage depth and separation

PROS TRI I3 PRO
Much better treble extension
Much better separation and layering
Much better mids with better female vocals while plume has thicker male vocals
Much better-defined notes
Better staging and width and height too

SUMMARY-
This is CCZ’s first attempt at a flagship and they did pretty good to make it pretty enjoyable experience. But lack of technicalities and proper separation made it difficult for me to recommend, and also the QC issues that some users have reported about in forums, including this review unit which is already losing colour at contact points with ear. But I think, CCZ can surely improve upon it and make it much better. Hopes on them to make them better.

SEEAUDIO BRAVERY
See Audio is a new chifi player in this big audiophile world. Their recent iem like SeeAudio YUME created a good name for their price to performance ratio. I could not be a part of last review tour for YUME (I was late haha!!!), but this time I got in time for a SEEAUDIO BRAVERY review tour.

DISCLAIMER- The IEM SEEAUDIO BRAVERY is a part of a review tour in INDIA organized by See Audio and all opinions, positive or negative are my own. No benefit, except being able to try this iem is being provided, in exchange for my honest, subjective impressions… You can find the link to their FB site here.

SPECIFICATIONS-

• Impedance: 18Ω
• Sensitivity: 110dB
• Frequency response: 20H-20KHz
• Cable length: 1.2M, HAKUGEI CABLE 6N OCC
• Pin type: 0.78MM 2-PIN CONNECTOR
• Plug type: 3.5mm /2.5mm/4.4mm (depends on your choice no adapters)
• Driver units: 4 Balanced Armature Drivers (Knowles and Sonion); two Knowles BA drivers for the lower end, one Sonion BA driver for mid-range, and one Knowles BA driver for the high-frequency response.

PRICE- 279$

UNBOXING-
Since this is a review unit, it came only with the matted metal case with kind of bunny ears printed on top (kinda Playboy type too ) and opening it seems like it had some sort of thick foam padding inside. The two beautiful looking iems are seen next one with a See Audio logo (seems more like illuminati) and the other have a beautiful lotus logo. Inside were 3 pairs of white S, M and L tips, no Azla xelastic tips though (But I have mine, hehe!!! and in this pandemic, a good decision by the tour organizer as AZLA tips tend to like a lot of ear dirt and cleaning them isn’t much easy either).


BUILD AND FIT-
It seems like the iem is made of a semi opaque or semitransparent (half glass full; LOL concept), containing all the drivers with beautiful looking faceplates that have wonderful logos. The build is heft and looks like it can take a beating but that only time will tell. The fit is great in my ears with the AZLA Xelastic tips no complaints in that even for long time use.

CABLE-
The cable is an excellent. It’s an Hakugei 6N OCC cable with 2pins and feels great too. They have an excellent sleeving of nylon cloth and feels great. No microphonics and real good cable slider, only thing is the one which came for review is just 3.5mm termination. But don’t be sad, it seems like you can order them with 4.4 or 2.5 balanced termination.

ACCESSORIES-

• Rinko stand (limited I guess to 250 units)
• Azla tips 3 pairs
• 3 pairs of normal white tips
• 1 hakugei cable
• A small pocketable iem case made of metal I guess with matte coating on it

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

• PORTABLE -N6II with T01 MODULE, BTR5 and LG G8X
• DESKTOP- DAC- N6II with T01 LINEOUT
• AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED with BURSON V5I D or TOPPING L30 or XDUOO MT602(not used here for review but hey it does help to add a bit of tube touch and also is a really good pairing for this iem)
• Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on high gain at 20-35 on volume.
• The tips used are AZLA Xelastic M size since they fit my ears (these are included and intended to be used by the manufacturer so will use this!!!)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)

BASS AND SUBBASS-
Bass is pretty good for an all-BA setup. Its has more mid-bass energy compared to other all BA setups and with that warm tonality, really complements the entire musicality of the iem. The body of the bass is great with some amount of timbre which makes it feel a little more natural. The decay is slightly faster than I would like but sufficient enough to leave a bit of timbre and nuances all over. The projection is still not enough to have a grander theater or projection feel to it, but it does have that to an average amount. The bass texture is really good, but the separation between them is still much more desired. Inter-notes separation is okayish and slightly a little too close to each other to my liking.

Sub-bass on the other is decent with it not going too deep but enough to leave a good feel in sub-bassy tracks. The sub-bass has average rumble but a slightly slower decay helps to make it feel like an overall roomy experience. The energy on the sub-bass is less compared to the mid-bass and texture is on par with the mid-bass. A little more energetic feel might be needed, given some synth tracks felt like they are missing out on the energy.

MIDS-
The lower mids are very good, with good enough timbre to make them feel natural. The tonality is slightly on the warmer side with more emphasis on the upper mids presence. The decay is good enough to leave a small presence but the ending notes are not that much defined. The body and beginning of the notes are well defined though and really are the best part of this iem. The upper mids have a boost all together making the acoustic guitars have the desired edge without making them too sharp. The macro-dynamics are not that great though, they individual instruments lacks the height and width difference it should present, to create a better contrast. The dynamics are slightly compressed in my opinion. The details are okayish with transients being fast like the slight easter eggs in Marvel movies . With fast tracks, this lacks the separation between instruments and notes but they don’t mix up but rather the presentation is more compressed feeling type. There is no air in the instrument’s notes. The whole presentation is slightly ‘U’ shaped for me with vocals being forward enough to not make them feel recessed. The background is completely pitch black though.

Male vocals have the thick feeling but a slightly thicker note is preferred in my book. The female vocals are great just lacking a bit in extension, but they don’t sound boxy as some other iems that I have tried. They have an overall balanced and well forward presentation than the rest and hence create a sense of W shaped signature. I am really confused though, haha!!! whether its ‘U’ or ‘W’ overall. This requires a bit more understanding as per notes height its ‘U’ but as per vocals and rest of instruments in mids it seems ‘W’. I will let you be the judge of this.

TREBLE-
The lower treble lacks a lot, seems like the presence is lost of electronic guitars and trumpets, they kinda sounded dull and unimpressive. The cymbals on the other hand have a more enhanced presence with slightly spicy BA metallic timbre and too spicy sometimes, when everything’s going on. Tambourines, bells and other instruments have good presence overall. The dynamics, still is lacking and there is certain congestion which can be felt on busy tracks. There is no air present, but this has a lot of treble sparkle and energy and does have good extension. The micro details are okay and transparency is good, but with not much particular spatial orientation to them. The decay is fast but does leave a presence in trumpets and flutes to make them feel slightly natural.

HEADSTAGE, IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
Head-stage is pretty intimate and more of an in-head experience. There is neither proper height or depth in the instruments to make its stand distinct. The stage depth feels lacking a lot. There is too much in the mids with either edge lacking a bit, for my taste.
Separation is average at best. The notes separation (same instrument notes) is good overall but lacks the edge definition and presence. There is congestion in inter-instrumental notes separation and congested tracks make this feel way too closed in. But the best thing is because of a slightly faster decay there is still no bleed into one another, still there is no proper separation either.
Imaging is good and every instrument has a decent sense of position in the head stage. The imaging is diffuse though and with no proper staging, this is a blessing for this iem.
Resolution or transparency is decent. Transients and slight nuances are missing but overall, the resolution of instrumental notes is pretty good.

COMPARISONS-
PROS BRAVERY-
Musical and coherent
Good midbass for an all-BA setup
Good female vocals
Great treble extension
Enough timbre
Sparkly and energetic upper treble

PROS DM8-
Great micro-details
Better separation
Edge definition better of notes
Imaging and transparency were great
Great treble extension with air
Good midbass
Great vocals
Better dynamics

SUMMARY-
For the price of 279$, this has got the musicality part correct with all BA setup with good vocals and great treble extension. But lacks in other technical aspects hard, so would I recommend it? I guess yes, you can use it with some tubes and all (ahmm!!! warm sources would fare better, I used XDUOO MT602 ) to give more staging and sweeter, lush mids and make it more musical all together. If you are into coherency and good treble performance and can sacrifice technicalities and handle a little bright snare and cymbals, then this iem is for sure yours.

BGVP DN3
BGVP with their previous iems like BGVP DM8 had me in their claws for a while. I was wondering about their recent offerings and then suddenly one day, a friend of mine contacted me if I would review their DN3. How could I say NO to such a chance haha !!! and so here it is BGVP DN3 for me to try and you all to enjoy a read!!!

DISCLAIMER- THIS IS A REVIEW UNIT SENT BY BGVP AS A PART OF REVIEW TOUR IN INDIA, IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST OPINIONS. ALL POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE OPINIONS ARE MINE ENTIRELY AND NOT INFLUENCED AT ALL BY ANYONE NOT EVEN BY BRAIN HAHA!!!

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
It came in a well-hardened cardboard box with that lovely BGVP logo. Opening the box, you are greeted with 7 pairs of tips and two beautiful gray iems and another box LOL. The inside box contains a velvety cloth carrying pouch and inside it is the cable with mic, terminated with 3.5mm jack.

BUILD AND FIT-
This is a stainless-steel build iem with a big thick stem to nozzle. The nozzle is big too. Now the logo does seem like superman’s logo sometimes but yeah it looks great. The fit was a bit odd for me, since the big nozzle and small body made it such, that the nozzle tried to enter the ear canal even though it didn’t fit and hence caused a lot of problems for fit. But I did manage it Hehe!!!

CABLE-
The cable is 5N silver plated OCC cable with a PVC coating and also a 3.5mm cable. The termination can be changed to anything you prefer Hehe, except XLR I guess . The cable is good but not so comfy. It doesn’t cause any sounds while using it.
The mic is decent , it does pick up a bit of noise per se so dont expect too much haha !!!

ACCESSORIES-

• A velvety cloth pouch
• 3 pairs of bass tips hehe (narrow bore)
• 3 pairs of wide bore tips (vocal tips ) which I used hehe
• 1 pair of M foam tips

SPECIFICATIONS-
1) Drivers- 10mm Beryllium DD and HEVK BA driver.
2) Impedance: 19 ohm.
3) Sensitivity: 109 dB/mW.
4) Frequency response range: 10Hz-40kHz.
5) THD+N: <0.5%.
6) Channel difference: <1dB.
7) Rated power: 8mW.
8) Weight: 5.0g (each unit excluding cable).
9) PRICE- 74.99$

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)
4. Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on high gain at 30-45 on volume.
5. The tips used are BGVP W01 tips (the included wide bore vocals tips)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)

BASS AND SUBBASS-
Sub bass is great. It has the texture and the rumble feel to it too. It won’t satisfy bass heads but its good enough for me. The sub bass goes to good depth of about 25hz when doing a tone sweep and it’s felt in songs which have them too. Its much more of a foreword presentation with midbass having a slightly higher boost than sub-bass is what I think. Mid bass has more of a thump, punchy feel to it. It has a lot of energy. The bass is not wooly kind, but has a good thick beginning in the notes and with a sufficiently fast decay, resulting in some amount of cleanliness in notes and also a good atmospheric feel. Timbre on the other hand is missing maybe as a result of fast decay. The tonality is great overall slightly coming over the thicker side.

MIDS-
Now the mids are a different story. The instruments in the mids have good thicker tonality overall. The is great number of details and lots of resolution and transparency. The notes are good with thicker body but the endings are way too much jittering and opens up like an umbrella rather than diffusing into the room. They also don’t reach too much into the ceiling of the soundstage from the bottom. There is good dynamics, with little air which comes up in some tracks. It is mids forwards iem with the instruments in the mids are much in your face. The lower mids have a little bit less energy than upper mids which makes them less energetic and also slightly less emphasized. Separation is okay for the price but really needs a lot more separation.

Vocals on the other hand have a thicker feel to them. Male vocals are really nicely thick and extends well enough. Female vocals on the other hand are more balanced but any high pitch extensions that the female vocalists do, makes it slightly sibilant, causing really easy fatigue. Vocal texture is missing too. Plus, the really forwards nature also adds to the fatigue, any fast-paced vocals like RAP etc., goes way too much into face sadly. This makes it unlistenable for me for a longer duration. If you can handle the very forward vocals, it ain’t bad but still even though the vocals are good, the limitation of being not able to use this on every track makes it no go for me.

TREBLE-
The treble is decent. It has a lot of extension with slightly good tonality and less air. There is lot of good details here but its similarly forwards. There is slight timbre here but sometimes it does become sharp once in a while. There is good dynamics here but notes are way too close to each other overall. The notes have a lot of energy and sparkle, it might be too much on death metal haha!!! Notes are similar to the mids with having much more body and then that jittery ending. The treble is decent overall with more emphasis on the metal instruments.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND HEADSTAGE-
Imaging is okayish, with not much layering. There is good deal of instruments being shown up easily overall but it’s more of a diffused imaging. The separation is decent and does not go into other segments but the notes are very close to each other. Head stage is decent with more width, height but really lacks depth or stage depth. This is entirely missing with the very intimate soundstage makes it really fatiguing after a while.


COMPARISONS-

PROS FIIO FD3
Better coherency
Better vocals
Better stage depth
Treble is much more extended with slight air
Better dynamics in notes

PROS BGVP DN3
Better microdetails
Better taller stage


SUMMARY-
BGVP had a good iem this time which did things correctly but the very intimate nature, no proper stage depth and that slight sibilance didn’t work for me at all. I can only recommend it only if you can handle some sibilance and very intimate nature of the iem. Overall, BGVP has a great iem, just fixing a few things and it will become epic.

RANKO ACOUSTICS- RIE 880

RANKO ACOUSTICS is a new company in the Chinese iem world. But they are already known for their cables and accessories and with their new iem launched just last year they are entering this new audiophile world. Their first launch is RIE-880 with their RA FPhase Patented proprietary Acoustic Technology and a 9.2mm DD.

DISCLAIMER- The RIE-880 is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said I want to thank HIFIGO for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link here(not affiliated, of course LOL)

UNBOXING-
Now this is underwhelming haha but hey I got to try their new iem, it just came in a small box – written RANKO ACOUSTICS IN RED and inside which were two beautiful, resin made, white iems and a Grey cable terminated in 3.5mm connection.



SPECS-

• Powerful 9.2mm Dynamic Driver unit on each side
• High-performance OCC Monocrystalline Silver-plated copper cable.
• RA FPhase Patented proprietary Acoustic Technology- Ranko's patented RA FPhase acoustic architecture that helps maintain the correct phase and accurate response for all the frequencies-Meaning no overlap and happy to say there’s none.
• Resin Material Shells.
• Maximum Power: 15mW
• Impedance: 60 Ohm.
• Weight: 3.5 grams for each earpiece
• Standard 0.78mm, recessed 2-Pin Termination
• PRICE- 149$

BUILD AND FIT-
The iems are resin build and have a decent build quality. They have a dense feel to them yet are light enough. They have two vents on the top. The iems are white all around and lots of gold and grey patterned faceplate, showing just RK. The nozzle is about 6mm big and has a grill on front. Fit for me was decent, it gave good enough isolation and didn’t fall down at all. But it did fit much snuggly like others, so I used it with a larger tip size. NOTE this has recessed 2 pin connectors haha!!!

CABLE-
The cable is decent, it’s an 6N SPC cable and OCC copper wires named as RHA-1050. The coating is like soft rubber don’t know how long it will last, seems good a little different than others. The connectors though are 2 pin type and really had bad coating of paint of them haha!!! They need to fix that and also the ear hooks guide is way too stiff. The terminal is also just 3.5mm so decent but if they provide other options, it would be better. The cable has no microphonics and is easy to reshape but it’s a bit on the heavier side. The coating also could need a rework, the gluing point is visible.

ACCESSORIES-
The box is a pretty decent hard case with foam inside but they need to increase the size a bit haha!!! Its difficult to even put the iem and cables in there unless you open them.
The tips are decent silicon tips. Tip rolling, I didn’t do much but a larger size tip would be great to use. My best used tips though was large RHA Tips among the few tips I tried- beyerdynamics stock tips, BGV A08 and Reverse KZ starline for wide bore.


NOTE- MY SOURCE IS-

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)
4. Would like to add that my DAP N6ii ran it on high gain at 30-45 on volume.

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours)
SUBBASS-

This is a DD iem with an L type signature haha!!! So be sure to rock yourself up the whole night ahmm! Listening to music obviously The rumble is wonderful per se. It will make your ears bleed haha. The sub-bass is nicely textured and does have more presence, in comparison to midbass but not too overly done. The tonality depends pretty much on your choice but here the notes are thick, with great body though lacking a lot on the edges and beginning. The notes do go pretty deep, doing a tone check on bass I could hear 20hz rumble and that was exciting for me!!! All in all, really good at sub-bass.

BASS-

The mid-bass is decent and is less in volume than sub-bass but it doesn’t overtake it. It packs a good punch and has a good atmospheric feel to it. The midbass has a thicker body but lacks in overall beginning, the ending though is quite good. The decay is fast leaving very little timbre feel to it. The tonality is more on the balanced and natural side. The upper bass registers good on the male vocals but more on it in the mids section. The bass is not much dynamic but different notes hits are registered properly. They reach the same height as the mids and are quite tall. They have a more controlled bass which is more in my preference rather than loose bass. It has a lot of energy in the bass and needs a bit more definition. Separation is average too between notes, though it’s really good for its price.

MIDS-

Here the story is somehow way too much different. Let’s start with Male Vocals; these are the best part of the Mids. To get things out of the way firstly is, it doesn’t have mid-bass bleed which is great. The male vocals are more controlled and leaner and well extended and really makes you feel them right to the edge of the sonic soundstage in the vertical axis. The differentiation between different male vocalists is easy to make too given the easier work of the DD to get the tonality correct . The microdetails are nearly all missing, but a good thing is, it makes the vocals have a bit more air hence more presence.

Female vocals on the other hand is like the Surtur who smashed Asgard entirely They sound good and tall, have energy but simply don’t feel that much extended. They seem rather boxed in a small space and have great body but the endings are not at all decent. Are they sibilant? For me yeah ‘ssss’ are there but more in those tracks which have a lot of them haha! They have a good amount of air though.

Mids. are different altogether. Instruments in the mids have good tonality. The lower mids are more prominent but more on the natural leaner side than the thicker side. The pianos have good body but similarly lack beginning and ending on the notes. The decays are fast and hence very little timbre remains. But they have a lot of dynamism in notes, which is a really great sight to see. The endings get mixed up a few times in the instruments yet the body remains well separated. Stage is average at best. The microdetails do come up sometimes. The lower mids still have more presence and also forward hence warrants an engaging listen overall. Upper mids- somehow with guitars do have much less presence but better separation and feel more thicker overall. Timbre was below average but its better to have something than none. The dynamics are great but the presence is lacking a lot. The string instruments felt on the duller side. But they did have good body overall, with having more separation between different string pulls. Better extension and transparency would have suited my tastes better. Using tubes to run this made it much better since its much better overall experience with a thicker tonality and also mids get a good uplift so win win situation.


TREBLE-

Lower treble seems like having good presence compared to upper mids. The electronic guitars have much more presence and extends well. They have more energy and transparency too. The microdetails are lacking in the treble region and overall, it’s a smoother experience. Trumpets and other wind instruments, all do have good air in them but they are much on the smoother side lacking the energy and extension. The notes have a thicker tonality and do have similarly better body than the beginning or the ending of them. There is not much treble extension though which is a bummer. They have decent dynamism and separation in the treble region which is much better to feel.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND HEADSTAGE-

Imaging is decent with vocals and bass being felt much more forward than the treble region. The instruments have decent imaging on the head stage, it’s more of a diffused kind of imaging rather than an accurate kind of imaging but it does a good job overall for its price. The separation is average at best with being much better in the treble region rather than the other regions. The soundstage is average with very tall soundstage and not sonic headroom left. The width is okayish more in the line between narrow and not narrow haha!!! No real depth though. Coherency seemed a lot lacking too.


COMPARISONS-

PROS OF FIIO FD3
Better timbre
Fuller vocals
Better Midbass
Better treble extension and energy
Better mids
Wider headstage and great stage depth
Better separation and details

PROS OF RIE-880
Better sub-bass
Better air in vocals and guitars

PROS OF TRI I3 PRO
Better timbre
Vocals are fuller
Better midbass and texture
Better width in stage and depth
Better layering
More transparency
Better timbre

PROS OF RIE-880
Better sub-bass
Midbass is fuller
Better air in vocals and guitars
Better dynamics in treble region

PROS OF AKOUSTYX R-110
Better details
Better transparency
Better dynamics
Better separation
Better fuller vocals
Better details
Much more textured
Better treble extension
Better stage depth

PROS OF RIE-880
Better sub-bass
Better air in vocals and guitars
Better bass
Male vocals a tiny bit better
Taller soundstage

SUMMARY
For the price, this does things really good but there are better iems a tad bit behind. If you are a mids guy with wanting decent air in your vocals and strings and you love your bass and sub-bass and can do without much staging, this is an iem for you. For me though, this doesn’t get my recommendation. But since they are new, I hope they become much better later on!!!

COPPLINN ALULA CHERRY WOOD / ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S AKA FREQUENCY FILTERING SYSTEM

Copplinn being a new player from turkey have some good things up in their sleeves. Today I am getting to try their two new iems – ALULA & ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S aka Frequency Filtering System(M+F- INSHORT)( just to make it easy to type later on haha). Their new iems are available with a different technology, something new called as F.F.S- Frequency filtering system. So, they have sent me two iems – one is ALULA with cheery wood and no F.F.S and the other is ALULA with mahogany wood and F.F.S. Now these are handmade in wood which is first time for me!!! And I am super excited.

DISCLAIMER- THIS HAS BEEN SENT BY COPPLINN FOR REVIEW AND ANYTHING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ABOUT THEIR IEMS IS MY OPINION AND I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said i wanna thanks copplinn for arranging a review unit and wanted to thank @suman134 for considering me for the review tour
PS. The forum makes F.F.S as *** if i dont use the dots in between so if i missed somewhere it means F.F.S

SPECS-

ALULA WITH CHERRY WOOD AND NO F.F.S / ALULA WITH MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S aka FREQUENCY FILTERING SYSTEM(M+F- INSHORT)

• Body- Either cherry wood/ mahogany wood/ other custom wood (contact them before hand)
• Driver-Full Range Liquid Silicone Dynamic Driver
• Impedance- 35ohm@1kHz
• Sensitivity- 109dB@1kHz; 126dB@50mVa max. output
• Technology- F.F.S aka Frequency Filtering System patented by copplinn in ONLY THE MAHOGANY WOOD ONE
• For more info go to here

PRICE –

• ALULA WITH CHERRY WOOD AND NO F.F.S- 250$ (purchase link here not affiliated)
• ALULA WITH MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S (M+F) -300$ ( do ask them if it has F.F.S or not plus you can customise the wood ) ( purchase link here not affiliated)

FREQUENCY FILTERING SYSTEM (F.F.S)-

The resonance frequencies are 3500 hz in architectural acoustics and 13500 hz in stage acoustics. To avoid resonance frequencies, they made this Frequency filtering system. But we have got two iems- one is without F.F.S (the cherry wood one) and the other is a specialized alula with mahogany wood and F.F.S and I am so excited for these, read more about the experience below.

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-

Now the wooden box is epic, it has some leather padding on the sides and bottom for protection and its big very big!!! It had both the Alula cherry and Alula (M+F)- the specialized one which I am more excited about.


BUILD & FIT-

Now you can have customs options here so build may vary. But for me, this has two woods – mahogany and Cherry wood and TBH they both feels sturdy yet very light. These look really good in person don’t look too much into my pictures hehe!! But they really look great!! Theres no R and L on the iems per se so use any side you want haha !!!

The mmcx connectors are solid fit with the cable but mmcx I have little faith in them. Something I found which is very odd, that the mmcx cable did 2 clicks to fit perfectly so you gotta to press it hard haha!!! Now that scared me but hey it seems easily changeable if it goes bad haha since its just screwed in to the wood!!!

Fit for me was great with the M sized tips and never fell down at all or felt loose. The fit is deep since these are barrel shaped and small enough to fit completely in the ear canal.

CABLE

Now this cable is Pure Copper 4 core cable with 2.5mm, 4.4mm. and 3.5mm connections. The one I got is 3.5mm and it does have a good termination but more balanced termination would have been better. The cable is supple, thin but doesn’t provide much confidence into the longevity but seems really good. All connectors are chrome plated which is good so they erode and the mmcx on cables can be changed which is lovely since I have 3 dead cables with mmcx and I ain’t been able to repair them at all.

Sound wise they feel really good and no complaints there, they do what they intend to do. I did try the DUNU Zen cable on this but since they are below ear, so I had to wear them just to judge them, not much difference. Rather cable rolling for them would require you to have cables with no ear hook for wearing them below ears as I found them more comfortable that way…

ACCESSORIES

• Copplinn leather carry pouch
• Leather organizer
• S,M,L sized eartips
• Solid walnut wooden box
• Collar clips

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours )

ALULA CHERRY WOOD WITH NO F.F.S

SUB-BASS-
Ohh my!!!It brings DD bass back to that top of rumble game (by quality I meant) hehe It’s not too much overdone too such that it drowns the mid-bass which is pretty great. The texture of Sub-bass is good too. It’s not much dynamic though but it goes deep which makes it a great companion to use with tracks with good amount of sub-bass, since it will make you feel it. The tonality here seems a bit warm oriented but it's great to have in such comfy bullet iems The decay is somewhat fast but this guess into this iems favour!!! What would be have been great is more width and space in between since in congested tracks this suffers…

BASS-
Bass is tasteful. I could have just ended with this single word (sorry for my poor jokes ). Then tonality is correct slightly lean, but it seems to have a bit less energy in the bass!!! The mid-bass has that punch but not too much to cause bleed into the mids. The decay is way too fast hence don't expect timbre off this. The texture is average. Notes seem to have more weight in the body and beginning of the notes are good too but seem a bit distant sounding. Edges of the notes are fast and furious . Don’t expect much room filling bass experience from this at all The bass is dynamic and resolution helps in identifying the diffuse placement of the instruments…Somehow I feel the bass is not fuller sounding too might be because the soundstage is like you are sitting in the 4th -5th of a theater and since the height is average too…

MIDS-
VOCALS-
Vocals are the really good part of this iem. It's more of mids foreword iem. Male vocalist has much of the balanced thickness, it's not too lush but rather controlled or a little lean sounding. The micro details are average with the small lip smacks and sometimes the breath comes out!!! But not too much air in the voice. The vocals have a certain weight to the beginning of the words and endings are fast decayed. There is less upper bass presence, making sometimes the vocalists with having thicker voice sounding thin, compared to other iems. But the staging is really good with the vocalists, everyone having their separate places separated by pitch black background but no air at all….

Female vocals on the other hand, love the little lean nature as it shows the high pitch voice more. The are nicely controlled with more thickened body and beginning and endings are cut off fast making them feel a little restricted. The consonants are rarely emphasized making it feel like that they are soft. Ohh!! so it feels a little compressed like the vocalists can’t extend to their fullest potential maybe it’s the fast decay…. But a good thing for those people who can’t stand sibilance, there’s not a single hint of it at all . And yeah, don't expect air in the voices and instruments since this hasn’t got any…

Instruments in the mids have got good tonality. They lack a bit of dynamism (average- here I am taking about the loudness of different notes) but make up with their imaging which is great. The notes don’t reach different heights in the stage making them feel a bit boring. The pianos have great body to them with good thick note beginnings but a very fast decay so no timbre at all it feels like. Guitars on the other hand have a thicker feel to them with no air and feel like they lack energy. Other string instruments sound similar, but violin didn’t suffer much. It feels like there’s a dip in the upper mids making the string instruments feel less energetic, compared to lower mids. Micro details are average but macro details comes up nicely. Imaging is great, but given the soundstage isn’t wide, it feels a bit congested. Flutes do come up nicely but similarly lack energy and air making them feel a little blunt. The decay is fast, so don’t expect timbre much from it. I think the resonance is filtered as such that there’s this instant decay and no air at all. There is no grain though which is excellent…

TREBLE-
The treble presence is pretty good. They all have good tonality. They have more emphasis on the upper treble more than the lower treble. Trumpets and other wind instruments really enjoy that heightened presence but sadly with fast decay and no air, their presence is like 14s we are, in the life of the universe . The bass and vocals seem to dominate more than the treble. Upper treble regions are still good, textured and have a little bit more energy than lower treble. Electric guitars seem to be less emphasized, yet the ringing sound of bells do come through. There’s not much microdetails either but it’s well extended. The notes do reach different heights and hence are well differentiated between the different instruments. The resonances are cut off, it feels such sometimes especially with crash cymbals. But its decent here.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND SOUNDSTAGE-
The imaging is more mid, left and right but not too much in-between. The notes are more from edges to the middle. Imaging is really good though with each instruments having a particular place in the stage. Separation is decent but feels congested in instrument heavy tracks. Soundstage is taller than wide (height is rather below average but width is average if I would rate it). There’s good depth (-y axis) but minute stage depth. It’s much of L shaped signature or more of mid forwards signature depends on the recording you listening to.

Tip rolling- To provide better separation and better stage with a little more balanced coherent signature, wide bore tips will help a lot. BGVP W01 tips, Reverse KZ starline tips etc and other wide bore tips helped maintain the balanced signature with much better separation and stage. My fav being the BGVP W01 tips.

COPPLIN ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S (M+F)(Special edition they sent to try)
MOSTLY A COMPARISON TO ALULA CHERRY WOOD WITH NO F.F.S

BASS AND SUB-BASS
This has sub-bass very similar to alula with an added effect of better slower decay hence having better timbre. Plus, a rumble that goes from right to left or vice versa giving a room filling experience. The rumble definitely has more of a feel and this goes deeper than Alula

Bass on the alula(M+F) is much better with better punch and a more natural tonality. They have a deeper punch to them and much better timbre due to a slightly slower decay (still very fast though ). The texture is really good with better presence I would say than the Alula for sure!! This might be because of better resolution and imaging for sure. The bass is more dynamic too which helps to make it feel more natural. The bass sounds more fuller too! The tonality is rather more natural here. This might be because of the soundstage being more intimate and yet similarly wide as Alula. The notes resolution is way much better than Alula. You won’t be dissatisfied with this kind of fuller bass

MIDS-
The mids have more micro-details for sure (simple finger flicks, background talks etc, all come through so much better), the transparency might be a little less when compared to something like monarch. The pianos are much fuller sounding due to the inface soundstage yet wide, also the notes have much slower decay (still very fast) so much better timbre experience. Theres more to the body and beginning to the notes but now edges are much more defined but little faster ending, giving it a more natural experience. There is a certain amount of air which I would consider tiny but much better than having nothing at all. Notes have better dynamism and better difference in heights. String instruments now have better presence and not subdued with better natural tonality, they also now some amount of better space. Congested anymore nope I don’t think so anymore. Air is still less but now its much more pronounced in the vocals and slightly in guitars. Vocals feel like having more freedom now especially the male vocals. They feel fuller and reach a greater notes height plus slight reverbs added, giving them a good sense of realism. Their F.F.S is still working for sure but let’s say the drivers are much better tuned and better details and back to emphasis on the consonants are much better The drivers are working better. But the female vocals might sound a little sharp on the very edges on some recordings. But remember this still doesn’t have sibilance.

TREBLE-
The treble is much better too like super tweeters but they are not sharp for me at least. Hi-Hats and cymbals have more energy for sure and that’s really good to see. Better lower treble and upper treble presence makes them feel not so lacking in energy and feel and this is much appreciated. The bells now have more presence and feel now, even the tambourine is better too. The tweeters are really are a godsend here haha!!! Haha the trumpets ohh!!! my they are so good now plus they extend much more too, and with better notes presence and resolution its much better felt. Keeping it short, this has much more extension and much better details and better energy all around. Their F.F.S tech, idk but feels like I don’t feel any exhaustion even after 2hours of trying the iem but seems like it might be working to keep the decay fast enough so it doesn’t cause much exhaustion to my listening.

IMAGING, HEADSTAGE AND SEPARATION-
Much better imaging and resolution for sure. Its taller and similarly wide as alula. It has more stage depth too; the notes are much from edges to front as it should be than what it was with alula. The separation is excellent too which is not a complaint at all. It might feel a bit congested into too much busy passages but its minor complaint at best and is overtaken by iems which are way over this guy’s price.

COMPARISON AGAINST ALULA
IKKO OH10

PROS-
Better wider stage
Better vocals
Better separation
Better bass
Better sub-bass
Better treble with bad dynamics in notes height

ALULA CHERRY WOOD NO F.F.S
PROS
No grains in mids
Taller stage
Better dynamics
Better transparency

ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S (M+F)-
Everything is better than IKKO OH10 except wide staging

CA MAMMOTH (a bit higher on price) since around 300$ I haven’t heard much

PROS
Better Bass and sub-bass
Better transparency
Better wider stage
Better separation
More cleaner notes
More Fun signature
Better vocals

ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S (M+F)-

PROS
Better taller stage
Better timbre
Taller stage
More air

SUMMARY-
ALULA-
Guess what!!! this is their first attempt into the audiophile space and their F.F.S tech does work a lot but at the cost of very fast decay and no timbre. Now if they could do add this and increase the stage, that would be really good. This isn’t bad at all but feels like you are sitting in a completely too much sound treated room rather than a theatre. This is really good for those who want a warm iem with an L shaped signature who enjoys a lot of pop genre. But for me, the price and the deficiency are way too much. Had this been at a lower price, this would be recommended for sure. Hoping that they fix it, in the next run of their iems…

ALULA MAHOGANY WOOD WITH F.F.S (M+F)-
This iem is their saving grace pretty much!! At this price range, it’s pretty decent but much better offerings are there at just 50$ more. This would get my recommendation for sure for any genre of music except death metal and metal since I felt it was bit too much sharp. What they could improve upon is having better wide stage and a tiny bit more separation and more air, then this would be a great iem and yeah bring the price down a bit. Their F.F.S really helps to keep the sharpness down for longer listening sessions. I would recommend for sure!!!

DUNU ZEN- A Complete Peaceful Package…

DUNU is a famous chifi brand very well known for modular cables and really good iems like the Studio SA6. Now they were in the industry since 1994, but coming on to the audiophile space recently in the last decade and half, with their offerings, they have made a wave. The only DUNU iems I have tried are the DUNU Studio SA6 (really good iem) and the DK-2001/3001. The modular cables and SA 6 tuning made me a fan of these guys. Well today I am getting a chance to review their DUNU ZEN, the 2nd IEM in their eclipse series and it only comes in BLACK…. MIB music someone haha

DISCLAIMER- Thanks to DUNU for sending out a unit of ZEN to INDIA for review. But my thoughts are my own and anything positive or negative in this review has not been influenced by any benefit. Thanks to @suman134 for considering me for this review!!

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
Now this is once in a lifetime unboxing experience. It’s more like a premium phone unboxing. It has a large black covering box with ZEN written on it. Inside, there is a magnetically latched box with jute pattern and rough texture, which is all foam padded and has two black beautiful looking iems with vents on the stem. At the side of these is the beautiful silver modular cable with a double black strand (looks beautiful).

Lifting the foam package, inside there are modular connectors in an all sized 4.4 pentaconn modular connector space with tips in a great looking box with proper naming. To the right of these is another box which contained the leather carrying pouch in blue (IDK why DUNU didn’t make this black ). Inside this was just a cleaning cloth duh!!! (You expect way too much my reader, Hehe!!!)

SPECS
1)NET WEIGHT: 21 g
2)FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 5 Hz – 40 kHz
3)SENSITIVITY: 112 ± 1 dB at 1 kHz
4)IMPEDANCE: 16 Ω at 1 kHz
5)TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION: < 0.2% at 1 kHz
6)DRIVER MODULE

• DIAPHRAGM: Magnesium-Aluminum alloy dome with nano-porous amorphous carbon coating (nanoDLC)
  and fully independent suspension surround
• MAGNET ASSEMBLY: > 1.8 T External Ring-Type Neodymium Magnet

7)HOUSING

• MATERIAL: 316 Stainless Steel
• INTEGRATION(S): Patented Air Control Impedance System (ACIS)

8)PRICE- 699$

ACCESSORIES YOU GET (you get a good amount of them too )

• Eartips 6x pairs
• Airline adapter
• Shirt clip
• Microfiber cloth
• Brown baggie for the IEMs
• Leather Case
• DUW03 cable with 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 4.5mm adapters

BUILD AND FIT

The iems are all black (one of my favorite colour) and made up of stainless steel. The stems are having vents on both sides and they are MMCX connectors (not a fan of them but DUNU has something called as Patented Catch-HOLD MMCX connector and only time will tell of its durability ). They are quite dense though given the all-metal build and have a weight to them. The stems do have ZEN written on the inside with a small R and L written too!!!

Now coming on to the fit of these iems, these do fit snugly in my ears with no chance of failing down. They have a small signature with not wide bore nozzles and they don’t feel heavy at all. They do have a notch on the nozzle stem and this is welcomed by me (remember trying to get ear tips out of your ears! yeah not great right! Haha!!!). They do have a grill mesh on the nozzle to keep the nozzle clean of earwax haha!!! I used the stock tips for review though since they gave me a proper fit!!!

CABLE
The cable is 8 Core, High-Purity Monocrystalline Silver-Plated Copper Litz Wire, with all strands being silver and 2 strands being black- this looked great.
The cable is quite thick yet supple enough and doesn’t have microphonics attached to it!!! The cables have a plastic ear guide but these are not too stiff to cause an issue per se. They do have an R and L written on the mmcx connectors.
The do come with three adapters 4.4mm, 3.5mm SE and 2.5mm adapters and with their quick switch modular plug system this is pretty good to have!!! They all have a silver finish to them to match the cables…

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH) & BRAVO V2

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours )

BASS-

SIGNAL IN THE NOISE – GO GO PENGUIN- This is really good fast music with drums, this includes everything including the toms, snare drums, kick-bass etc and those guitar hits in the sides and slowly going into the mids…Then the piano in the mid with fast keys on right and long keys on mid to left Really lovely stuff (Thanks to Andrew from TheHeadphoneShow on youtube, for introducing me to this).

Bass is decent on this iem. It has good tonality with good texture. The bass is dynamic and the mid-bass punch is present albeit not too much though but its enough to satisfy me!!! The notes are thick in the body and beginning and miss that edge at the top. The decay is fast and hence congested tracks don’t suffer at all. The timbre is average but its really good for what they have done with some recording which has emphasis on the snare drums, will have it more than the ones which doesn’t. The atmospheric feel does come through though with a feeling of space but goes away way too fast (like showing me an ice-cream and then eating it yourself ) The upper bass also comes up nicely considering the male vocals which is a welcome sign. The midbass needs a little more definite punch feels a little less here…

SUBBASS-

BLENDER- YELLO (Haha!!) - Now this has subbass presence from around 56 sec marks, felt more on the right side and goes on for a lot longer!! Now I chose this track to check how much do they emphasize it and how does it do with vocals and other instruments. For instruments you could try from 2.09 mins.

Sub-bass is pretty good but not too much textured. It will give a small degree of rumble nothing to completely shake you but enough to feel its presence. The mid-bass dominates more than the rumble, but distinction is easy. The decay is still fast here but still leaving a presence, making it feel a better room like experience. The sub-bass is dynamic giving a different loudness for different part of the recordings. The notes have more of a body here rather than an ending and beginning!!!

MIDS-

VOCALS- MALE VOCALS- BIBLICAL- CALUM SCOTT; AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH-IL DIVO, MARVIN GAYE & FEMALE VOCALS- SKYFALL-ADELE; MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS-RENEE OLSTEAD
AND FOR MIDS- BONFIRE HEART-JAMES BLUNT; WRITING’S ON THE WALL -SAM SMITH & THE WOLF AND THE MOON0 BRUNUH VILLE-

Adele has a really voice and the track I used has a lot of piano and other instruments and make this very nice song to judge vocals and bleed. While the other vocalist, Renne, this songs of hers, has that sibilance factor to it. She emphasizes the ‘S’ a lot…

Male vocals with Calum are like having both a little high-pitched voice when he extends and a thicker voice for the rest of the way!!! With the second song, different vocalists have different voices making it easy to distinguish if there’s any error perse. With them also singing together sometimes, makes it a good challenge for the iem. Well instruments in the mids are something the rest of the songs are for, so as to judge the tonality and rest.

Female vocals are really good for this iem. Adele sounds really beautiful here with a good change to her thicker voice while going though the song. The reverbs do come on nicely but lack a bit to maintain their presence given the faster decay of this iem. The notes have certain air to them and the micro-details come up pretty nicely too. Given Adele has a more controlled voice with a much thicker notes to the beginning of the vocals, this shows it very nicely. This doesn’t mean that the ends are average, they are well extended and lovely throughout!!! Renne, on the other hand has better body with a slightly leaner beginning and wow this just nails it. They are lush and lovely and well extended too. The dynamics of the vocals also comes up pretty nicely too!!! This iem just nails it with the vocals haha!!! Oh! Yes, not a hint of sibilance for those of my readers who know me, I am resistant to sibilance haha!!! but this doesn’t have any at all (Enjoy!!!) Some felt this to have an artificial feeling but for me that’s not the case at all.

Male vocal continues the beautiful story haha!!! The different vocalists are so easy to differentiate that I was abacked by it haha!!!They just pop up easily, when they sing together, plus the thicker voice has the weight which is just excellent. The extension they do while singing together is also expressed beautifully. The dynamic nature of the vocals come through straight, reverb could do a little better with a little more air but the micro-details do come on easy. Coming onto the Calum’s voice, they just express the pain and feeling pretty nicely with change in loudness of the voice, which shows the dynamism of the iem and his voice too haha!!! The extension in his voice just comes really great and doesn’t mix up whatsoever with the piano at all at the edges of the notes at all. They don’t have that boxy feeling that I felt with iems like POLA or Monarch !!! Not a hint of grain in the mids too. Really lovely stuff!!!

Instruments in the mids are having a beautiful yet a little thick than neutral tonality. The texture comes through easily with the voice as well as the guitars. They have a forward yet for me it seems to be a balanced presentation over all, it’s just like sitting on the 2nd row of a theatre. Everything here has a faster decay but not too fast. The timbre is still present though very minute in quantity. The pianos are beautiful and their beginning could do with a little more work, since they seem a touch too near to each other. But on the body and ending they have such separation that it makes the above completely unreasonable but I kind of felt it haha!!! The thicker press of the keystrokes also comes up beautifully showing the dynamic nature of the iems. Guitars have a similar story but their beginnings are much easier to distinguish. The slight slower pulls of the strings are also good to feel. The details are excellent but CA Holocene and Soranik ION4s takes the lead here. There is a lack of air though throughout the instruments all of them. Upper midrange is surely more energetic than lower treble making it feel a bit foreward for sure!!!

TREBLE-
SIGH PRAFUL; BLUES HAND ME DOWN VINTAGE TROUBLE; HUNTING GIRL- JETHRO TULL & WELSTCHMERZ- FISH

Treble is smooth that’s for sure. But it has lots of energy and that shows up pretty easily without making it too much bright. The tonality is really good and it's dynamic too. The hi-hats and cymbals felt great, have great dynamism with each hits being felt differently . The decay is fast as before hence even congested tracks feel good enough but these make the timbre average. The lower treble might need a bit more energy to make them exciting compared to upper mids. The upper treble is great with good extension and micro details. They are dynamic too but here every is better compared to the lower treble. Trumpets need a bit more of energy I felt like . None of the instruments have that Air that gives them a space feeling. But they are separated very nicely not at all packed up feeling. Even wind pipe instruments seemed lacking in air. Treble extension is rolled off though…

STAGE-
This is a slight V shaped or balanced iem. Now this ain’t a wide iem, it has got good width with the instruments staying within the iems in the ears. Its pretty tall, not too much but matches the width, which is great The depth in (-y axis) is decent. Stage depth is avg too but it’s more into a Z-Y plane rather than just on X-Z plane. The instruments have good staging though but it's not too much precise, bit diffuse for me.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
Imaging is decent with every instruments being easily felt and seen ( when you close your eyes ) . What they achieve with that wonderful resolution both in notes and in between instruments needed air to make it excellent , but alas it’s missing the air factor. Separation is great, the faster decay helps there , but this requires a bit more timbre to make it feel more realistic.

COMPARISON- Now remember this is by price(+/- 100$ approx) rather than by Driver config!!!
CA HOLOCENE
PROS
Sub-bass is really good
Treble well extended
Great timbre
Great staging
Good air
Better microdetails
Better instrumental separation
Price
PROS of ZEN
Good midbass
Great vocals
Smooth treble
Great cables and accessories
Easy listening experience

THIEAUDIO MONARCH
PROS
Better mids
Better sub-bass and bass
More sparkly treble
More better micro details
More better transperancy
Treble is well extended and energetic and sparkly
PROS OF DUNU ZEN
Better vocals
Better stage
No dip at upper mids making electric guitars feel like dull
Bass is more dynamic
More sonic headroom
Better timbre
Easy listening experience over long time

DUNU SA6
PROS
Better extended treble
Better midbass
Better microdetails
More airy nature
Better timbre
Sparkle is more on SA6

PROS OF ZEN
Better staging
Better vocals
Better subbass
Better stage depth
Easy listening
Lower mids seems better

SUMMARY
Now this is not at all a bad iem, you might’ve fallen for it before you finish my large review This is excellent considering what you are getting with the cables and adapters. A few more changes and this would be among the kilobucks iems. But as per me I liked SA6 more than this (just add this iems vocals with microdetails to SA6 and you have a winner DUNU). So hopefully Dunu nails it with their next iem

KBEAR BELIEVE-
KBear has been pretty much known for their Kbear diamond iem which has got great reviews too!!! I use their cables a lot too and they are decent for their price !! Since I know the tuner for believe personally, hence I bought a unit to check what's the hype and how much has he succeeded !!

DISCLAIMER- I ain’t a reviewer or an audiophile , just an music lover !! I wasn’t sent a sample of Believe, I paid for it – then sold it later on for buying something else and regretted it since it went out of production

The second unit that I got was courtesy of HIFIGO since I wanted to have a listen one more time to the classical laid back sound and also as I had more experience with iems, I wanted to see if I change my thoughts!!! Hence, I wanna thank HIFIGO for letting me to have another go at it!! Here’s the link here(not affiliated ofcourse )

I might get the instruments name wrong but I have heard a lot of them during the college and school days but never bothered to get their names I just loved listening to them!

And lastly – if I make grammar mistakes forgive me

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
On seeing the outer BOX- they look great!! It took me a solid hour before I started opening the box (it was Hifiman Sundara on my head & I was listening to a symphony) and me just like a painter appreciating others painting- I was appreciating the box and how wonderfully it’s made ( I wasn’t drunk , I came home tired and rather heavy work day so I was admiring )

Opening it , was not let’s say as good as Apple or OnePlus or even my LG phones the outer box didn’t slide off so I gave it a push !! And it came out
The inner box though slid off albeit not too smoothly but then again it felt so good and here came the presentation !!!
KBear, you guys just outdid yourselves here!!! You are so much better than the half-eaten Apple and you decked me with accessories too


Then came the iems , the multiple tips and the cable wow !!! And then the iem carrying case (seemed like synthetic leather) but man it feels so nice, wonderful work here

BUILD AND FIT
KBear Believe first time holding it, I felt the dense weight, it’s heavy (comparing to the likes of kanas pro), solid and wonderful looking, beautiful plates!!
Fit was really good for me and it just went in nicely !!! The stock tips are pretty good and you can definitely use it…

CABLES-
Now the cables are pretty good fit their price!!! Non microphonic and has a supple feel. It's thick but doesn't have any option for adapter or to get the stock cable in any balanced form...

SOUND IMPRESSIONS- Note this is entirely subjective and your experience might differ from me !!!

Now remember this was me reviewing it for the first time… so cut me some slack

1) ACDC-Thunderstruck: at 1:51sec – the drum beats differentiate and the second hit has an bass extension (sub bass rumble)
Now with Kbear Believe , the bass extension is there but not much profound but it ain’t much clear too with my LG G8X..
Now here comes the amping magic – The sub bass extension extends more, becomes clearer and damn the 2 beats even though milliseconds apart can be felt distinctively .

Amping of choice in decreasing order – Topping d50 with a30s (Burson v5i opamp modded ) > xduoo xd05 basic (Burson v5i opamp modded) > Fiio BTR5 balanced > Fiio BTR5 SE (RCA out to topping a30 ) ~ LG G8X (RCA out to topping a30) > My LG G8X

I would also like to say here that instrument separation is right at point in this and I don’t seem to find any congestion at all The timbre is average but not too shabby at this price range!!! The tonality is pretty good.

Notes do extend well but mids and others instruments are very laid back so having that emotional feel but not that energy !!! It’s a V shaped iem for sure!!!

2) Kaneda- by Geinoh Yamashirogumi – at 1:36sec -the separation, resolution and imaging ohh darn, this Believe made me BELIEVE similar to when I heard the Sundara for the first fking time !!!

3) like you know – Fat Larry’s band (hehe get it , Sir Larry aka the tuner!!! is in there ) – the trumpets , the drums – ouuu -an amalgam of bass
Believe just separates them, so nicely with more power( amping just like before) but don’t get me wrong it’s still good with just my phone too and the trumpets ( I think that’s what the instrument is called ) at 3:12sec with the drums and the bass guitar at the back – OMG pure bliss
The bass had a nice body here and it didn’t interfere with vocals so Believe
The bass had good punch but not a great body to accompany it , Subbass was decent enough to have a rumble but not too much tomove you !!!

The decreasing order of preference with more amping remains true !!

4) Dream Theater – the best of times ( black clouds and silver linings album) be ready for “the nun hiding in the background with guitar “ at 2:46 sec—coming right at you
Here I was checking for treble response with guitars and let me just say it – “ ooouu la la la “ – It’s clear , accurate , sparkly but not too sharp ( for a reference in the property of sharpness – it’s less than Hifiman Sundara and may be same as Kanas pro will update once I get it back ) and man it’s so engaging ,something I missed !!!

The treble is well extended and did have enough energy !!! What it lacks is in the notes microdetails which doesn’t come through much. The electric guitars have decent timbre and tonality but energy is lacking s bit!! There is though his dynamics and it a pretty good difference that can be easily noticed if you look at the notes height differences between different instruments…

Amping didn’t help much here except make it a bit airier and more separated!! It is difficult for my novice ears to come to a proper conclusion about this though (but it might just as good or maybe better than kanas pro will update by A/B between them)

5) Come together – the abbey road – The Beatles – ohh my from the beginning , the bass guitar.
Just wow, the band outdid themselves here!!

I found the bass from the bass guitar rather right on point with good extension and string distinction enough to get me to listen to the song 4 times

But yeah similar story continues for the Amping part

6) Diana Krall – The girl in the other room – album the girl in the other room & Must be desire – Mojo Juju
- for female vocals and separation from bass guitars!!

It’s clear as day here that the bass separation even though present, is slightly saying “Touché” to the Mids. But but but it’s with my LG G8X.

Coming to the Amping side if the story – you can literally tasteor rather hear the difference between them be clear, as sour is from sweet!! Female vocals sound pretty great per se , they are well balanced. Not a hint of sibliance at all. They are well extended with air in their voice which comes through pretty nicely!!

7) King- Lauren aquila & Hello – Adele & Sway – Diana Krall – lovely ladies and lovely songs – Female Vocals mostly – wew, these ladies have already taken my heart, what more do they want !!
Believe here makes them sound-Just WOW!! (period)

8) Kiss from a rose – Seal & Where did you sleep last night – Nirvana (MTV UNPLUGGED) & Sweet child of mine – Gun’s And Roses – Male Vocals – They sound like a Man should and damn I feel sad that my voice AINT like that Forgetting that , the male vocals had good extension and it’s not lush per se but it’s thick and does a good job!! It's not grainy either or boxy which is a great thing !!!
Believe here does an excellent job for its price!!!

9) Night torch – Denzel Moiz -for the excellent violin (correct me on this instrument please) play at start, I just love that part and then the slow dub step /EDM – I really wasn’t expecting this but it was really great on EDM—a relaxing and engaging type though!! But don’t get me wrong it was NOT slow , it was fast and accurate with the beats !! It was not congested either. The instruments notes had enough timbre to make it feel natural but the energy seemed a bit less ALWAYS.

10) Mozart Garett and Violin concerto No.4- David Garrett – Mozart moods – Believe made every violin proud pretty much!! And damn the concert I wish I could see one in real life one day

The positioning of the instruments were decent!!! They did have a diffuse area of presentation but the timbre and tonality with air around then made it much easier to identify stuff…The depth was good , it was wide but not tall in sounstage!!! The separation is great but too busy passages tends to get a little dicey here !!!

11) Bohemian rhapsody – Queen original soundtrack – I went for this for the piano and drums combo and ohh I loved it
Believe really works wonders here and amping story remains the same!!!

12) Rap God – Eminem (he is a god of rap pretty much) – I could distinguish him and the music going behind and the lyrics!! But still his rap, makes me so hooked up I went on to listen to Airplanes part 2 and some more songs!! This doesn’t happen with tint2plus or any other iems except BLON 03 and hence Believe is pretty good

The music is well felt in the background and every words coming out of him was just so way to identify , that it was the first time after trying out audiophile stuff I was glad to come to this hobby !!!

So all in all let’s summarise -
This is an all-around musical, laid back and kinda analytical iem , you would just engorge yourself in music and forget what’s going on in the entire world. It’s costly at what price it’s is going on, but it will grow on you slowly and surely…The staging and laid back experience with good mids presentation in V shaped iem is a rarity and this even after trying so many iems still gets my recommendation if you can buy one now (out of production but that means price will be less for who is selling it )

COMPARISON
SPRING 2
Better taller stage
Better extended treble
Better Subbass
Better micro-details
Better female vocals
More energy in mids
Better separation
BELIEVE
Wide stage
More mid-bass punch
More laid back and longer listening experience
Better imaging
Smoother treble

KINERA SKULD- Another Fate!!!
The story of Kinera stats from 2011, when the YuTai Electronic Acoustics was officially established in Dongguan, China. The most notable was their Kinera Nanna in 2019 which got very good reviews everywhere. Now they improved upon it and delivered a Nanna 2.0 which also has great reviews. But today I am getting to review another IEM of theirs- THE KINERA SKULD- knowing kinera, this is named after the Goddess SKULD. Skuld makes up a trio of Norns (ahmm!!! Kinera NORN) that are described as deciding the fates of people.

DISCLAIMER- The Kinera Skuld is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said I want to thank HIFIGO for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link here (not affiliated, of course LOL)

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
The Kinera Skuld came in a small package (not the original one) with a pair of L-sized Final audio E tips and nothing more haha!!! Ohh!! I did forget, two more adapters too, one for 4.4mm to 3.5mm and 4.4mm to 2.5mm.

PACKAGE CONTENTS

• One pair of Kinera Imperial Skuld in-ear monitors.
• One Copper silver-plated cable with 4.4mm termination plug.
• Five pairs of Final Audio Type E ear tips.
• Six pairs (RS-B45 & JH-FY009-B) of Kinera Custom ear tips.
• Two pairs of Foam tips.
• Premium Storage Case.
• 4.4mm to 3.5mm & 2.5mm adapter.
• Cleaning Brush.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

• 3BA Knowles Drivers + 2 BA Kinera Customize Drivers
• Impedance: 23 Ohms.
• Sensitivity: 120 +/- 2 dB.
• Frequency Response Range: 5Hz-50kHz.
• 8 Cores Silver Plated Copper.
• 4.4mm Termination Plug.

PRICE TAG
550$ (wew!!!)

BUILD AND FIT
These seem sturdy with a beautiful blue green shell (Blue-Green colours represents hope, represents the future at least according to Kinera) and I am happy they just nailed it with the colours – these looks beautiful!!!
The build is quite good. They are light yet they feel sturdy enough for me to drop them once or twice (no I didn’t drop them LOL)

CABLE
The cable is pretty good and its a 4.4mm pentaconn too, which is nice!!! Then, they have adapters for 3.5mm and 2.5mm too which is great to have!!! The cable is supple and is not microphonic at all!!!
The cable can be improved, I did find some improvement with my stock POLA cable and its a copper cable too to add the required stuff (hehe not gonna spoil it here )

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)

SOUND SIGNATURE (P.S-This is subjective and may not match with yours )

BASS
Bass on this is iem is decent. There is good amount of texture in mid-bass with good punch. It’s not too much mid-bass boosted but sounds as a more neutral tuned. It has good tonality with very fast decay!!! Hence the timbre suffers quite a bit in this especially considering the snare drum which just is way too fast to die The atmospheric feeling hence becomes subdued too. The notes have a larger beginning with very quickly encroaching likes a triangle body and top end. Also, the bass notes are not much dynamic but the resolution and tonality of different hits on the drums do pop up easily given the faster tuning It feels a bit hollow but given that the soundstage of this iem is such liked you are sitting on the 4th-5th row, I guess it’s a given then

SUBASS
The Sub-bass is what you would expect of a neutral tuned iem. It's there where it needs to be!!! It’s not that well extended into the depths of bass. It's does have some rumble but it comes in different recordings differently but yes, the quantity is very less. Tonality wise it seems accurate. It keeps true to being neutral tuned.

MIDS
Let's start with the vocals it's pretty good! It’s tuned in a balanced way where it doesn’t feel either too much lush or too much lean. The male vocals are great!! They are well controlled and have that thickness that male vocalists have. Female vocals on the other hand are beautiful. They are well controlled and really have that beautiful non sibilant voice. Even opera singers sound smooth There is not a hint of grain here and vocals are the best part of the show.

The instruments in the mids like piano’s, guitars etc, have very good tonality. They are well separated with having a hint of air in them, giving them a good space in headstage. The notes all have a faster decay throughout and hence timbre takes a hit. There is a very large beginning to the notes but the body and ending seems lacking a bit. The ending is well differentiated though which is great. They lack a bit of dynamism in the notes. The details are decent but there is a lot of competition here at this price range and this lacks a bit there for sure with some microdetails missing!! But the coherency takes the crown here since it's very musical with not too much energy so as to overtake the other parts of the song. It’s balanced or slightly v shaped…

TREBLE
The treble is on the smoother side and a bit neutral too. The resolution helps a lot here. The trumpets are pretty smooth with not a hint of ache when they blast off. The treble is nicely extended and tonality seems a spot on lest it’s a little less sparkly. The treble notes are similar as before with them not having too much dynamics rather sounding like every instrument note hitting a wall at top. They have enough air and it comes through in wind blowing instruments. There’s no congestion at all and everything is well separated and has good space. The decay is fast again, hence decreasing timbre but it helps in too fast songs. The details lack a bit given its competition but it’s pretty good nonetheless.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION
So imaging is pretty good here with each instruments taking part of the headstage with some air. Separation is great in every note and has a decent amount of space in them. Resolution is decent with each note being heard differently but not too much separated. The small bell rings and all do come through but they are difficult to take note. The microdetails like whisper in the background etc, don’t come through much and it's lacks here.

HEADSTAGE
It’s a big stage with you sitting at the 4th -5th row feeling. But the mids seem a bit more foreward compared to the rest of the spectrum. Now it’s neither a very wide iem nor a very tall one. What it lacks, is in notes dynamics hence different notes don't reach different heights. The stage depth is decent too. There is a very tiny real depth but it's there. Seems to be a balanced staging or slightly V shaped depending upon recording though…

COMPARISON

DUNU ZEN
Pros-
Better dynamics and timbre
Better staging
Better details
More air
Better separation
Visceral bass and better Sub-bass rumble
Cable is better

Pros of Skuld-
Better vocals (especially male vocals)
Much smoother treble
Bass has more beginning notes thickness

CA MMAMMOTH
Pros-
Better bass and sub-bass
Better details
More dynamic and musical
Better staging
Intimate
Good sparkly treble

Pros of Skuld-
Better vocals
Better wide stage
Better vocals
Smooth treble
Better connectors

SUMMARY
Given the lots of competition at this price range, this does have its pros and cons but the biggest pro for me is, its vocals and coherency. For pop, edm etc it be would do well if you can forgive the notes dynamics. And as for me I liked Norn more than this , but if you like vocals and smooth treble, this is very good!!!

Hidizs is a old and known brand among audiophiles, they have been around since 2009.Their portable music player offerings like AP80 and AP80 pro was regarded for their outstanding sonic capabilities. Following the same theory of AP80, they came up with their small BT receiver , H2.

DISCLAIMER- The HIDIZS H2 is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this . That said I want to thank HIFIGO for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link (not affiliated, of course LOL)

UNBOXING-
Just had a small box in which there was this small tiny unit with a protective case behind and a small usb c-c cable

BUILD AND SIZE-
This is a very very light unit , even with the case it might be lighter than some iems ( cough cough ikko Oh10 )
It’s tempered glass on front and back with a plastic build all over. The plastic is matte black and the glass in front seems like a true fingerprint magnet

UNIT TOUR (HEHE)
1)Buttons-

• volume up and down in a single button with a slight bump to volume up button. It’s easily felt to my hands so it's good enough for me Even in pockets it was noticeable for me but a slightly higher bump would help when you have jeans on
• a single power button which doubles up as a pairing button too

2)A single USB C port for power and connecting as a DAC- no mqa support here
3)A single LED on the side to show pairing and what bitrate the file is playing.
4)A single 3.5 MM Jack for connecting to a wired headphone or iem.

SPECS AND THOUGHTS -
1) Bluetooth Chip: Qualcomm CSR8675
2) Amp Chip: MAX 97220(Not great choice !!!)
3) Bluetooth Codecs: UAT, APTX-HD, APTX-LL, LDAC, AAC, SBS, CVC (loved this at this price range it nearly has everything)
The different states indicated by the color of the LED are as follows:

• Red flashing: on charging.
• Blue flashing: Bluetooth pairing mode.
• Green: 44.1kHz to 48kHz.
• Blue: 88.2kHz to 192kHz.

4) NFC support and USB DAC functionality via Type C (Somehow couldn’t get the USB DAC to show higher bitrate and sampling rate, just stuck at 16bit-48khz all the time in USB – DAC mode and NFC just didn’t work either with my LG G8x or S10 lite, it just cuts off all the time just after pairing- firmware issues I guess )

5) Microphone for Handsfree Calling (It also has a mic for taking calls and it’s not as good as BTR5 mic but its decent and pretty doable to use for calls, just make sure it’s a little quiet environment)
6) 3.5mm stereo Port
7) Battery Capacity: 160Mah(Very less haha but this small package its pretty good!!!)
8) Battery Life: 7 hrs(NOPE ITS MORE LIKE 2 hours with LDAC and an efficient IEM ) ; Charging Time: 1.5 hrs( yup that’s true haha!! )
9) App Support: Hiby Blue App( Not that good of an app , lacks some decent functionality & a little buggy too)

10) PRICE- 65$

BATTERY LIFE-
Now using this with efficient iems it was good surprisingly and I was able to get about 1hour 53mins with CA Mammoth with BT with LDAC with my LG G8x
On using this with DUNU Zen – it came down to around 1hour27mins with same LDAC and G8x
On using with N6ii with UAT on- they showed DUNU ZEN- about 1hour 18mins & CA MAMMOTH- about 1hour 35mins
On using with SBC with LG G8x- it gave 5hours 14mins for my run with tidal with CA Mammoth.

POWER-
It has very very less power. It could drive CA MAMMOTH, focal clears and DUNU ZEN but they felt very lacking in SQ a lot. DON’T EXPECT IT TO RUN YOUR IEMS OR HEADPHONES TO THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL UNLESS IT’S A VERY EFFICIENT ONE (even BLON-03 felt a bit lacking was it power or sound well for that you have check the sound section )

FUNCTIONALITY-
This has multi-connect and support for multiple codecs which at this price range very few do. But if you don’t pause on first device and play the other device connected, it doesn’t play, you have to pause on the first device and then it will play from the other device.

The Bluetooth range is pretty good too, measured about 14feet in a straight line from my phone but going through 2 x 35cm walls is just not possible. Through one wall though it was fine with occasional cutting out if you go beyond 6 feet after that wall.

The USB C-C cable is similar to what I have from FIIO but they are decently made and feels fine enough just not as robust as FIIO ones but for the price they are decent. The also needs to be connected at a particular direction for them to work so if it doesn’t work just reverse and try again HAHA….(don’t know why companies do this but okayyy, I guess to stop powering them from phone maybe, is my only guess )

SOUND QUALITY-(NOTE: This is subjective and it was done with BT mode and USB DAC mode too( Didn’t find much difference) and the iems used are CA MAMMOTH, DUNU ZEN and HP- FOCAL CLEAR AND SENNHEISER HD558)

The Bass has a midbass boost giving the idea of punch but given the lack of power it seems hollow a lot. Its not like its not there but it feels a bit non exciting and dull. The texture is not present much but the dynamic is average!! Tonally its fine with good differentiation between different instruments present here. Timbre is also lacking
The subbass is definitely lacking. It doesn’t produce that rumble that I even felt with BTR5 or even my phones 3.5mm jack.

Mids are much better but presents a slightly V shaped signature. Now this is really good with iems like Mammoth to give a sense of space but they are just not exciting much here. The mids tonality is good but the timbre suffers a lot here. The dynamics is there but its average or below it at best. Owing to the lack of power is what it suffers a lot but if they would have made them mids forwards then might be the loss in power could have compensated it. The vocals on the other hand are above average, the male vocals have the weight and female vocals are just nicely balanced. Don’t expect them to sound lush but they are pretty good for the price. The microdetails are there but very difficult to identify at good listening levels showing the lack of power.

Treble is better though. Its airy and doesn’t seem to be lacking much. The resolution and timbre yes, they are average at best but the tonality of flutes, sax, trumpets etc are pretty good. They need more of that treble energy and sparkle which was missing here. They don’t extend that well in to the upper treble ranges but given the price its decent. They macro-details are good with dynamics better than the bass here but micro details are not that great especially with the small bells in some songs.

Soundstage is decent with more like slightly V shaped signature. Imaging is diffuse and resolution is good rather. There is air in instruments but owing the lack of power, this thing doesn’t provide the emotions needed to enjoy the more heavy metals or rock or even good jazz tracks. But acoustic solos and instrumentals are better here if you can compromise a few caveats. Best thing is instruments though are nearby I didn’t feel any mid-bass bleed. The congestion in notes or instruments was not present much, which is a good plus in my book.

COMPARISON-
Now I don't have anything in the similar price offering given this much functionality for a comparison.
But BTR5 and QUEDELIX 5K are definitely way better that this but also comes at a higher cost. And I would have recommended UA1 if you wanna go cheap and have good SQ but its a dongle so not fair...
But I would recommend to save up for a BTR5 or QUEDELIX 5k since they would be much useful in the long run. Had the H2 work as a lineout this would have been a good option just to add to your DAC for functionality and adding BT.

SUMMARY- All in all , it’s the hidizs cheapest offering as a BT dac-amp and seems like they chose functionality over SQ for now. Given the hidizs new offerings have gained some fame, I guess they have become better. If you consider using this as a cheap option on the go its fine, you would need a very efficient iem though. But if you want the best sound quality, then I would suggest to look somewhere else.

The Nicehck is a Chifi company with a good name for their awesomely priced, yet practical cables and I have used two of them till now for my BLON-03 (you know how blon cables are hehe ). This is their flagship earbud – The EBX 21 which I am getting a chance to review today!!!

NICEHCK EBX 21

DISCLAIMER- The NiceHCK EBX21 is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said I want to thank HIFIGO for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link here (not affiliated, of course LOL)

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
It’s a simple one for sure. It came in a nice medium sized Fabric Blue hard carry case. This has a lot of space inside to keep all the accessories and iems completely!!! This was sent to me in this fashion to at least have the min shipping costs and also our country's customs are a big fan of leving good amount of taxes haha!!!

IEMS-BUILD & FIT-
The iems are build solid with a good metal CNC build. I love the blue and red rings for R and L differentiation since with an earbud they look the same both sides haha!!! These have mmcx connectors which I don’t like at all (too many broken iems just because the connectors died ☹) These are a bit on the larger side and hence the fit for me isn’t that good, I have to readjust them multiple times in a single song. To maintain the fit, I used it with smaller silicon tips, but it seems like foamies are the way to go for sure.

CABLES-
The cable is awesome. They feel really supple and do have a heft to them for sure. They are fabric coated and are silver plated copper. The one I got has 3.5mm on the source end but apparently you can choose which connector you want which is really good. What I would suggest though is use this with a warmer source and a good copper cable and you will be set!!!(at least till you try a new one HAHAHA)

ACCESSORIES-
I just got the tips with it and I used them pretty much!!!

SPECS-

1. Impedance-32 ohm
2. Sensitiviity-121db/mw
3. Large 14.2mm Dynamic Driver Unit.
4. Japan’s LCP (Liquid Crystal Polymer) Diaphragm.
5. CNC Machined Ear Shells- they are pretty light though and made of some metal alloy it seems.
6. Silver-Plated Copper Tinsel Cable – To be honest, I love the SPC but using a copper cable made it so much better. It just adds more while removing that too much bright feeling sometimes!!!
7. PRICE- 219$

NOTE- FOR ALL SONGS, LISTENING WITH STOCK CABLE AND FOAMIES AND SILICON TIPS!!! AND YES, My testing equipment- N6ii with T01 module, BTR5 and LG G8x on the portable side
CAYIN N6II WITH T01 AS DAC and topping A30s (modded with burson v5i) and L30 AND XDUOO MT602 on desktop side.

SOUND (This is subjective, yours and mine might vary)-

BASS AND SUBBASS-
The mid bass are nice!!! There’s enough midbass punch with the air around the instruments here!!! The snare drums hits hard and well differentiated than the kick-bass. While the kick-bass has a less energy, the snare drums have more energy and hence its pretty good there. The toms have good punch and sound so different than the others. They all present a little lean tonality and with more air around them. The imaging is excellent overall with good inter-instrumental separation. The mid-bass has good texture and a taller feel rather than a thicker feel to it. The subbass though is not that great, it feels like- it’s just there a tiny bit all together. Even subbass heavy tracks have like very less subbass. Plus, they don’t go very deep hence that rumble feel - Don’t expect it to be there. Plus, this seems like Flipped vertically V type signature with mids completely forwards and everything else back make this worse too. But the best things are yet to come. As a dialogue in our bollywood movies-" Picture toh abhi baki he mere dost"

MIDS-
This is a completely mid forwards earbuds so expect everything to come to you as you are sitting in the first row of a concert!!! The instruments have a leaner tonality overall. There is more air in everything which helps with the guitars and all but makes piano sound dull. The mids are dynamic and textured. There is good separation between all the instruments and everything has good timbre. My expectation with timbre was a bit high but this didn’t deliver on that but it’s there but its fine haha!!! The notes are pretty dynamic with each having different heights every time and hence the endings of the notes do mix up a bit. The beginnings of the notes are awesomely separated but more differentiation is present on the body of the notes pretty much (here I am trying to define each successive guitar string pulls or piano key strokes etc.) This doesn’t mean that the instruments separation is bad, which is rather average btw with each instruments having a decent space surrounding them but this doesn’t do good with much busier track with lots going on around. I think the driver keeps up pretty much but the the culmination of mids forward nature and not a wide soundstage hurts it a bit here. This is more of a bright-neutral presentation overall I would say.

Vocals on the other hand have a slightly lean feeling and are pretty much neutral. The airy nature helps with female vocals a lot and add that essence of air when consonants are emphasized or they take a breath in between. The consonants get a tiny bit sibilant but unless the ‘sss’ are not emphasized too much as per different vocalists this won’t be a problem at all. The male vocals on the other hand are a little lean for my taste but they are excellent in every other way possible. The voices have excellent natural feel to them and the driver didn’t seem to struggle at all. There is no grain in the mids at all. The dynamic nature of the vocals comes through easily and the textured feel in some vocalist’s voice like FRANK SINATRA OR ADELE comes up nicely. The micro details come through pretty easily and are smooth not too much emphasized hence not making them too much clinical. The reverb is excellent when the songs have it and adds a real good feeling to it!!!

TREBLE-
Lower treble coming from the upper mids have a good amount of energy!!! They are textured and have a good amount of timbre here. They are full of details but felt a little congested with lots of hihats and cymbals going on. Yet the differentiation was there but just missing on the space. This might get bright for some but not for me, I am okay with this much sparkle (Don’t expect to use this for long time ). The crash cymbals might sound a bit metallic but those are made of metals so haha!!! But if you don’t like it, you won’t like it at all. The electric guitars sound awesome but they here have taken a back seat to the mids but have that energy, it’s just their essence is felt a little on the lower side. Flutes are excellent with good air and these are not ear piercing either, trumpets on the other hand wew!!!(Have reducing volume to these). It’s a little too bright for my taste but my father doesn’t agree much with me since he likes the trumpets to be a little sharp since they are meant to do that. The tonality is perfect and doesn’t take a hit at all, the treble is good enough extended and microdetails aren’t lacking rather they have a big striking presence. The notes bodies are mostly distinguished the best, but the ends and beginning lack a bit. This is really neutral with an airy feeling here, my only major complaint being mids overpower them a bit. Foamies can help with reducing the brightness a lot. You will need them anyways since they are on the bigger side and hence will keep them in ears unlike me where I had to readjust them every 2 mins haha!!! (Fit is very important in the case of earbuds).

HEADSTAGE-
Unlike other earbuds I have this was different. It doesn’t have a wide headstage but rather a taller head stage. No real depth feeling but stage depth is pretty good and helps also to make us feel the staging more. It’s a mid-forwards earbud for sure with bass and treble taking a back seat (a Vertically flipped ‘V’ shaped sound signature it felt like mostly).

IMAGING SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
The imaging is pretty good with good headstage position of instruments. It feels like placement of instruments have a decent place; too busy tracks don’t seem to hamper this at all. But the instrumental separation is pretty good too but they don’t have a space around them as described above rather they nearly touch other hence seemed a bit congested especially in Metallica tracks. The inter notes separation on the other hand is decent in the lower mids, upper mids seems to be decent not as good as the lower mids are. The resolution is good enough since it has that bright- neutral tonality which helps it a lot here.

COMPARSION-

NICEHCK EBX21- Everything is better; soundstage could be more balanced.

VETALA 2- Better bass and fit.

SUMMARY- Great earbuds with a neutral to reference (a little lean) tonality and mid-forwards sound signature with good bright treble. This would be a good recommendation for classicals if you get the fit correct and use earbuds with foam tips and can handle a little bright signature. But this is their first try so i am really hopeful for the best, for the next iteration of this.

CAMPFIRE AUDIO has already been famous for their highly sensitive, easy to run iems and the most notable ones are Andromeda and Solaris which have already captured a lot of hearts. Each model in their earphone lineup is designed and assembled by hand in our Portland, Oregon workshop. Coming onto today, I am gonna review the CA Mammoth today which is a new refresh of their 2021 lineup (probably a successor to their POLARIS; sorry but I don’t have hands on experience with that at all )

DISCLAIMER- THIS IS A UNIT WHICH BELONGS TO MY FRIEND WHO HAS GOT THEM FOR REVIEW AND I TOOK A LITTLE LOANER FROM HIM TO TRY MY FIRST FORAY INTO CAMPFIRES OFFERING. I WANNA THANKS @suman134 AND @CampfireAudio FOR LETTING ME LISTEN TO SOMETHING THIS GOOD!!!

CAMFIRE AUDIO MAMMOTH-

SPECS-

• 1 BA for MIDS
• 1 BA for HIGHS
• 1 Custom 10mm Bio-Cellulose Diaphragm Dynamic Driver for BASS
• 5Hz–20 kHz Frequency Response
• 94 dB SPL @ 1kHz: 18.16 mVrms
• 8.1 Ohms @ 1kHz Impedance

As for me it was easy to run off my N6ii with T01 module (med gain and 20-30 volume range) and even my LG G8x (50% on volume) and Samsung S10 lite (60% on volume was good enough) and Apple XS Max (75% on volume) (last two I had to run dongles haha!!! BTR5 was also pretty good with it. It’s quite easy to run off anything… But does amping change it much NOPE, but different sources will have different SQ.

I did try to run this off my XDUOO MT602 and it was really good but very microphonic while playing music if you touch the desk or the cable, but very tiny noise was heard , when there is like nothing playing volume was around 9am (Your ears would blow up at that level for sure HAHA) but not with either of the SS amps- L30 or A30 (burson V5i modded)

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE-
It was one of a kind for sure. It’s not a classy type but more vibrant type of unboxing experience. I was just amazed with the patterns and all and you won’t be disappointed!!! It’s not as good in accessories and connectors as DUNU is but it’s pretty good!!! I will let the pictures speak for itself…




EDIT- The carry pouch is actually of holocene here haha !!! yup i have both hence it got mixed up

IEMS- BUILD & FIT-
It’s machined aluminum body, with ‘Frozen Tundra’ blue anodized finish. Now I dig this blue neither too shiny nor a fingerprint magnet!!!

It has those custom beryllium / Copper MMCX Connections and lemme tell you can’t remove the connectors at all!!! (I tried and I failed HAHA) It has black PVD finished stainless steel spout.

Fit for me was right on point, it was easy to fit shell inside the ears but I would recommend to go for a bigger ear tip than what you use to provide better isolation.

CABLES-
These are the same as Holocene - ‘Smoky Glow’ Silver Plated Copper Litz Cable – 3.5mm Stereo to MMCX connectors and they are really supple with not all being microphonic. They are pretty thin though. Now those GLOWING mmcx connectors and 3.5mm plug might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for me they did help at night haha!!!

I would have loved to see some better cables and definitely a 4.4mm or 2.5mm connector as a standard and adapters for everything else but alas this is what you get!!!

ACCESSORIES-
CARRYING POUCH- While learning out more seems like the covering plastic is made from those microplastic in the ocean and it’s a good noble cause which is I would mention it in my review !!! and the bag color is vivid to say the least not in my tastes but my sis in law surely loved it (so yeah subjective ) It seems like it would match a beach T shirt or Coral reef hehe!!!

3 baggies- Final Audio Tips (xs/s/m/l/xl) ; Campfire Audio Marshmallow Earphone Tips(s/m/l) ; Silicon Earphone Tips (s/m/l) ; Campfire Audio CA Lapel Pin and the best thing an wax cleaning tool I would love to see adapters , since coming onto 2021 everyone includes it nowadays and yes an MMCX removal tool lol for incompetent people like me HAHA

NOTE- ALL SONGS ARE DONE LISTENING WITH STOCK CABLE AND LARGE FINAL AUDIO E TYPE TIPS!!! AND YES, My testing equipment- N6ii with T01 module, BTR5 and LG G8x on the portable side CAYIN N6II WITH T01 AS DAC and topping A30s (modded with burson v5i) and L30 AND XDUOO MT602 on desktop side.

COMING ON TO THE SOUND CHARECTERISTIC(THIS IS MY SUBJECTIIVE OPINION YOURS MIGHT VARY)

BASS-
SIGNAL IN THE NOISE – GO GO PENGUIN- This is really good fast music with drums and those guitar hits in the sides and slowly going into the mids…Then the piano in the mid with fast keys on right and long keys on mid to left Really lovely stuff (Thanks to Andrew from TheHeadphoneShow on youtube, for introducing me to this).

Bass is really something different in experience here… it's really good, makes you just enjoy them music a lot. It’s feels fun type with those DD’s just adding that body to the mid bass making it really feel musical and fun type. The bass is textured and with great tonality too. The way it's just separates the drums I just love it. The bass is pretty dynamic too with each hit sometimes having different feel but it's a little difficult to hear (a little high volume just helps it am losing my hearing maybe just kidding ) but it's there. It’s getting that DD feel (I know it’s a DD ) but with BA speed and decay!! Lemme elaborate a bit – The decay is fast and really ends fast like a BA, it has a good enough body and beginning to the note but endings are way too fast for my taste, makes them not having that atmospheric feel, they don’t surround you!!! Bass had more visceral feel at the beginning rather than a thicker body presentation… In case of busy tracks, the kick bass is felt more but not easy to see, with percussive hits of the snare drums much better portrayed but missing that air in the snare drums and bit of timbre too…

The timbre is pretty okay too but something about it with that body and amount and excellent tonality, which just made me reach for it one more time, one more time, one more time, before I found that it’s 3am and I have just gone through all my bass tracks . I could just say one thing it’s fast with decay (great with good fast tracks) but it’s nails everything else in such a nice way that I am happy pretty much and it’s just fun…

SUB-BASS-
NYCTERIS- HANS ZIMMER AND JAMES NEWTON HOWARD & LIMIT TO YOUR LOVE -JAMES BLAKE– For first song - from 0.30min the simple hits of the synth and the timbre from it is really good. Then the 1:37min the further hits and the slow receding sound makes it awesome song to test your sub-bass and bass atmospheric feel here. For the second song, its just a lot of background sub-bass from 0.55min, its just lots of sub-bass and ohh, if your iem/ headphone/ speakers have the rumble, you will definitely feel it move you!!!! HAHA, pretty much haha!!!

Sub-bass is something different here. It goes really down straight to 25hz and is fully dynamic and textured. The sub-bass has an enormous rumble and it makes you feel that right into the jaw, and really comes through in the songs like mentioned above. The sub-bass has a faster decay and hence the atmospheric feeling, though there, but feels fast. The tonality is great and the differentiation of rumble is nicely felt. The sub-bass though rumbly but, lacks body a bit and feels less thick for me at least. Maybe I think, it’s the thicker mid-bass which overshadows the sub-bass a bit but not that this is not gonna be a problem for sure. There is enough of it and it shows through but a little more would be more in my preference.

MIDS-
VOCALS- MALE VOCALS- BIBLICAL- CALUM SCOTT; AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH-IL DIVO, MARVIN GAYE & FEMALE VOCALS- SKYFALL-ADELE ; MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS-RENEE OLSTEAD AND FOR MIDS- BONFIRE HEART-JAMES BLUNT; WRITING’S ON THE WALL -SAM SMITH & THE WOLF AND THE MOON0 BRUNUH VILLE-

Adele has a really voice and the track I used has a lot of piano and other instruments and make this very nice song to judge vocals and bleed. While the other vocalist, Renne, this songs of hers, has that sibilance factor to it. She emphasizes the ‘S’ a lot…

The vocals are one of the best-balanced ones I have heard!!! The males’ vocals are really controlled, enough thick and yet have that range, that sometimes the vocalist does to get that feeling of high-pitched voice, which is portrayed pretty nicely. The notes are thicker here at the beginning and they decay very fast at the end, adding that sense of control but losing that extension at the end . The reverb though which is heard in some songs comes up pretty nicely but again that fast decay takes it away very fast, like my mom does when I just start to play games at night by calling me to have dinner Small micro details like lip smacks here comes up pretty easily. A little more room to male vocals would have been just perfect but this imo this is not bad at all…

Coming up to female vocals, they are just perfect!!! The tonality seemed spot on but then listening more showed its actually better, with more air in the end of words that which seemed not to be emphasized at all with the name vocals. The consonants don't have that crazy sibilance unless the vocalist (I am looking at you Renee ) decides to add that ‘sss’ to her voice . The texture is pretty much portrayed better too. The notes decay is also fast but not as fast as those of male vocals and hence female vocals surely triumph better in this iem. Since the vocals are forward like the rest of mids, it just makes this a very joyful experience . I just could not put it down after I started my playlist Hence 15 days in, and I am still listening to it continuously But as in a summary, this is pretty much in among the just below best category iems…

Instruments in the mids have a fun and foreward presentation. The tonality is perfect. The stick to the fun category more than the analytical type. The presentation of the instruments here are so dynamic that me changing the volume wheel so much made me worried of my N6ii . The notes have really good, controlled timbre and seems like the campfire went through a safer tuning here as there is no congestion at all with lots of instruments going, none of their timbre gets mixed up at all. This faster decay is lovely through busy tracks but it’s lacks a bit in case of slow instrumental tracks. The notes have an overall balanced presence, with good thick body and longer and faster ending and beginning. One thing this missed is air in instruments, it's there but not enough for tastes. The space of an instrument is pretty much set one place and it’s really easy to locate them, a little diffuse presentation in utmost busy tracks where recording makes the kick bass and snare drums just near each other. The upper mid instruments where the string instruments lie mostly are having a little less timbre than the lower mids instruments but all in all the decay is fast for everything!!!

TREBLE-
SIGH PRAFUL; BLUES HAND ME DOWN VINTAGE TROUBLE; HUNTING GIRL- JETHRO TULL & WELSTCHMERZ- FISH
The treble is pretty good, keeps up the energy it got from the mids. Its tonally correct, I didn’t feel much of the BA metallic timbre except from the crash cymbals a tiny bit but that where it should feel like metal haha!!! Hi-Hats are pretty good, the simple hits between them when they are closed and open is portrayed pretty nicely. The texture is great with the electronic guitars, and the dynamic nature of the different instruments comes up pretty nicely. The flutes and trumpets are awesome and have a little amount of air feel to them unlike the others. The notes are well enough differentiated in all the states with their base, body and the beginning. The decay is fast here and hence the timbre suffers a bit but the bell rings and the reverb it creates, comes up but just doesn’t stay long enough to add to the surrounding atmospheric feel and realistic vibes to them. The treble extends pretty nicely on the top end and is energetic and has that sparkly feeling to them. It’s very dynamic and textured but details need a little more gain on my N6ii. Don’t get me wrong this doesn’t make it bright for any reason and hence don’t have that ohh!!! too much treble feels at all. I say it’s pretty good in the treble region with avg – good details which comes up pretty easily and doesn’t pierce you Its pretty much not like an EST treble but comes near it for sure. It surely lacks air here but then I think Campfire audio tried to make this a FUN iem rather than an analytical iem, this thing has both the brass and the brawn to be FUN as well as enough detailed so as to not make you feel exhausted after an hour!!!! I kinda dig this sound-signature it feels like!!!!

HEADSTAGE-
It’s not a wide iem and doesn’t have beyond the universe feeling (just kidding) Furthermore this has an inside the head feeling with mids and everything Infront of you like you are sitting in the front row of the opera haha!!! But this thing is tall and has good depth feeling to it. The stage depth is fine too not too much projection in to the Z axis. The details are not lost at all with this intimate head-stage but this is why I think they went with a faster decay!!!

IMAGING SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
The imaging is pretty sweet and is top notch at this price and competes well among the others in this price range!!! It doesn’t feel like a precision iem but the instruments can be easily heard and their location felt in the head-stage. The separation is excellent and not a hint of congestion in the fast tracks. The resolution is topnotch and it is not slouch either when compared to similarly priced iems, it might lose a bit in the microdetails but that’s fine with me since this is probably meant as a fun iem rather than not being one!!!

COMPARISON-

CAMPFIRE AUDIO MAMMOTH-
FUN IEM
INTIMATE PRESENTATION (MIGHT BE A PRO OR A CON)
GOOD DETAILS
VISCERAL MIDBASS AND GOOD SUBBASS
GREAT SPARKLE IN TREBLE, YET NOT TOO BRIGHT
VOCALS ARE REALLY BALANCED, GOOD AND MORE DEFINED TOO (AMONG THE COMPARISONS THIS WILL BE THE MOST SUBJECTIVE)

VS DUNU SA6-
GOOD MIDBASS PUNCH
MIDS ARE DEFINED IT FELT LIKE
TIMBRE IS BETTER
DETAILS ARE BETTER IN TREBLE
LESS ENERGETIC TREBLE

VS DUNU ZEN-
VERY LESS SUBBASS
MIDBASS PUNCH IS MORE
BETTER TIMBRE
MORE AIR IN INSTRUMENTS
SLIGHTLY LEANER TONALITY
MORE WIDER STAGING
VOCALS HAVE MORE BODY
LESS ENERGETIC TREBLE
GOOD STAGE DEPTH

SUMMARY-

Ohh my!!! Even though I like big soundstage and more details and love an airy presentation, this iem which is neither any one of them still has my heart. It’s fun and presents everything in the FR graph really easy with not a hint of effort and I just can use it for long periods of time too!!! (I know I do rest my ears too haha!!!). It’s just that the tonality, a good number of details in mids, highs and the low-end with beautiful forward presentation has me clinging on to this more than my POLA too!!! Well campfire did nail this line down “Mammoth’s bold and vibrant sound offers a surprising combination of visceral fun and technical brawn” and I wholeheartedly recommend this iem since this just gives the soul to the music…

AUDIRECT/HILIDAC ATOM 2

Audirect aka Hilidac has been on this game for quite a long time and given now that the 3.5mm jack cancel is happening on most phones, it becomes apparently noticeable that companies like to change to provide us dongles (small DAC-AMP creatures that provide us better power and sound quality than a phone’s 3.5mm jack in a small package). Now I did not know about audirect that much and it just popped on radar when a friend of mine asked me if I want to review it. So, searching a bit I found out that the site is this, not Audirect. Com or something - it’s the parent company called Audirect LTD.co Haha!!!

DISCLAIMER- The AUDIRECT ATOM 2 is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this item. That said I want to thank HIFIGO and a close friend of mine, for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link here (not affiliated, of course LOL )

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
Now it comes in a full foam loaded small grey cardboard box with the name Audirect (LOL I though hilidac would be written) written over it. Opening it you should see the dongle unless I vanished it LOL . After this I didn’t pry further but when I tried to find the manual for it, I saw that removing the foam there’s another compartment, WHATTTTTT!!!! Inside it was a USB C female to USB A MALE (usb 3.0 I felt like) connector. Now there’s also an USB C to USB C cable that apparently comes with it but I kinda didn’t see it just the sarcophagus of it, LOL (MUMMY WILL RETURN!!)

SPECS



BUILD

DONGLE- Its hefty, dense little dongle. I never checked the weight (I know I am sorry haha !!!) but supposedly 18g (seemed familiar that’s why yeah IKKO OH10 that I tried 16g iems wew!! ) Mine came with a USB C connector but you can also get a lightning connector for those half apple users . This is made of complete steel I belive with red coating over the top written Audirect atom 2 over it. The only complaint I have is its shiny steel so be ready to clean it a thousand times all together with your nasty fingerprints LOL

ADAPTER- The USB C female to USB A male connector seemed good too, not having the same stainless-steel chassis but a plastic one and seemed a bit on a cheaper side but it still didn’t feel too plasticky. It will survive a few crashes I hope!!!

NOTE-

Here are a few examples-
1)WHITE

2) BLUE

3)RED

4) MAGENTA- HOPEFULLY THEY FIX THE MAGENTA COLOUR

LETS start with POWAHHHH-

It ran everyone of the above iems and headphones but notably the iems are not that difficult unless it’s a TIN P1 or something crazy like it haha!!
Now for iems it was an easy task for this tiny guy, requiring 30-40% of my phone volume and Penon fan needed a bit more power at 45-55% volume.

But what I found using HD600 was, it didn’t have that dynamic nature that I found on my BTR5 which is a bit more powerful (80mw) but also has balanced out 2.5mm which has more power(240mw). Plus, my phones volume had to be cranked up to 90% for atom 2 to fully use it with my HD600
So, with a small package like this don’t expect it to blow your HPs away with power but iems it can handle good (TnC- crazy insensitive iems are not included since I don’t have any )

NOW COMING ON TO THE SOUND

BASS-
Now this has a punchy bass, it adds a bit of control and depth to the bass too. The mid bass is punchy here and has an added texture and given this has a good wide soundstage this helps. The midbass doesn’t overpower the mids or the subass having that exquisite balance to it. The bass body though is a bit decreased compared to BTR5 but its not that much to really find it different.

SUBBASS-
The subbass is tighter here. It has reaches deep with every iem I have tried and has good control. The subbass is rumbly here at least, it did add that a tiny amount to my neutral bass iem TINT2 haha!!! Mammoth though just aced the whole iem tree with its very nice rumbly nature.

MIDS-
This has balanced mids with vocals neither too intimate nor too far. It felt a little lean compared to BTR5 but the added clarity and notes cleanliness just overshadowed the slight leanness. The separation of the instruments was awesome and they had an added space around them too. The notes are cleaner, separated till the very end and not a hint of them mixing up except in the ambience. I really loved the mids presentation here!!!

TREBLE-
The treble definition is pretty good; it does have a good bit of extension but it’s limited by the iems or headphones capacity. Focal clear had a good pairing here but this widens the stage more and adds more air on the upper treble region which was really good on this Focal. The Lower treble with guitars and other instruments like trumpets loved the extra refinement and air here!!! The energy on the treble region seemed a bit lacking but this provided a smooth experience rather than an energetic experience.

HEADSTAGE, IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-
Now this has a wide staging with more air but at the cost of little lean nature. It has more separation and also better note definition. The imaging is excellent with real great portrayal of the instruments general direction but the placement was a bit diffuse in nature. The resolution is really good too, with little subtleties coming through pretty nicely!!! This does add a tiny bit of real depth, but not like N6ii with T01 does but its not bad to have SOME rather than have NONE.

COMPARISON WITH BTR5

PROS OF ATOM 2

1. Wider and Taller and Deeper (both in stage and – y axis) soundstage
2. More Separation
3. More balanced signature
4. More cleaner notes
5. Bass goes deep and is punchier
6. Subbass is better
7. MQA is there for final unfolding

PROS OF BTR5

1. Bass is thicker
2. More energy in treble
3. More intimate overall
4. Power and balanced out too
5. BT make its easy to use with phone somewhere else
6. Display

SUMMARY
Its a great little device with MQA and its sound quality made me think twice of selling my BTR5... If I didn't already have an DAP for streaming and everything , this would be my no1 choice at this price range. A recommendation from my side for sure...

The story of Kinera stats from 2011, when the YuTai Electronic Acoustics was officially established in Dongguan, China. Their first hybrid Driver iem Was Kinera BD005 back in 2016 but the most notable was their Kinera Nanna in 2019 which got very good reviews everywhere. Now they improved upon it and delivered a Nanna 2.0 which also has great reviews. Now Kinera is very fond of mythology, the iem’s name speaks for themselves haha… For my review came their mid-tier segment 1DD+ 4BA champ- THE KINERA NORN(or Nornir- who are the 3 sister goddess of destiny in Norse mythology and they determine the fate of Gods and human beings all - a little history lesson ).…

But do they change my destiny?? We shall find out by the end of this subjective review…

DISCLAIMER- The Kinera Norn is provided by the courtesy of HIFIGO as part of review tour in INDIA. But this subjective review of mine are my own thoughts and I am not being paid anything to say positive or negative about this iem. That said I want to thank HIFIGO and a close friend of mine (I know you, stalker ), for giving me an opportunity to hear it!!! You can find the store link here (not affiliated, of course LOL)

SPECS-

1. Impedance: 32Ω
2. Sensitivity: 110±2dB
3. Rated power: 3mW
4. Cable Length: 1.2m
5. Plug: 2.5mm
6. Driver: 1DD+4BA – 2 Knowles BA & 2 Kinera Custom BA + Kinera Custom Titanium Diaphragm DD
7. Earphone Connector: 0.78 2Pin
8. Cable- a 2pin SPC cable

Hence really easy to power !!!

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE- Now, I need not remind you but customs in INDIA are not friendly at all haha!!! Plus shipping is a pain, hence I got the iem in a small leather carry case with Kinera embossed in the middle (synthetic leather probably) with all its accessories.
Nothing big of an unboxing experience but you can check out the contents here to see what it comes with and how grandeur it looks, but I missed it (dont mind me the iems till in the bag )


BUILD-

• IEM- Now the iem seems to made of light weight acyclic with an hand painted artwork… For me though this feels like the Gas clouds in the universe artwork or lava flowing from through an ash laden land. This I am sure will turn a few eyes around when you roam around in your iem at least when this COVID ends haha!!! Nozzle is quite long around and the lava or gas cloud whatever you prefer flow right till the end haha!!! The nozzle has a 3 tube crossover design with each being separate. They have used a back cavity mirror reflection structure for better conduction and no loss.
  
• CABLE- The is a SPC cable (silver plated copper), consisting of 26AWG coaxial wire and PVC outer coating. The cable is made of 8 wires of 192 strands of silver-plated copper alloy weaved in spiral form. It comes with universal 0.78mm 2-pin connectors and a balanced 2.5mm termination plug. It’s very light and also has a chin slider. The cable felt non microphonic to me and didn’t retain shape at all (a plus in my book). This R and L here on the 2pins with Red for right and Blue for left, nothings written on the connector. The termination plug though has beautiful white font Kinera written on it. For some reason though, it feels weak and feels like it will tear off if you yank it but it doesn’t
• CONNECTORS- Now there a two more connectors – One is a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male interconnect and the other is a 2.5mm Male to 4.4mm pentaconn interconnect (I think this should have been the default rather than the 2.5mm). They seem to have been made of the same wire and has beautiful Kinera in white, written over the termination plugs.
  
• CARRY BAG- A synthetic leather (it feels like that) with beautiful embossed Kinera written over it !!!
  
• TIPS- Now I got the Final Audio E tips for the review and if you buy this new you will get a whole bunch of tips (Now choose your Pokémon!! ASH! haha!!!) From my testing the final audio E tips really help and narrow bore tips like BGVP E01 brings mid much more forward and might be to someone more liking…
• OTHERS– well they do include a nozzle cleaning tool and lots of tips haha!!! and some booklets.(User manual-I know, I know LOL )

HOW DO THEY SOUND-

BASS-
SIGNAL IN THE NOISE – GO GO PENGUIN- This is really good fast music with drums and those guitar hits in the sides and slowly going into the mids…Then the piano in the mid with fast keys on right and long keys on mid to left Really lovely stuff (Thanks to Andrew from TheHeadphoneShow on youtube, for introducing me to this).

The bass on this is really good. The kick bass hits your heart and makes you listen forget and listen to it, it has the punch which makes you go, wow!!! It has natural tone to it with big body. The decay is fast and timbre is really good. Then comes the snare drum – its much more defined and has a good amount of texture added to it. You can feel the timbre of the snare drum a lot and yes this also does have a faster decay but has that metallic timbre of BA feel. It feels a little lean on the notes here (except kickbass), and has the same thickness throughout from beginning to the end of the notes and at the very end has a fast decay. But the notes are dynamic with change in loudness easily felt. Then piano and the drums combo comes very nicely through the middle of the track and the separation is excellent showing no mid bass bleed at all… Love this. The separation is really great considering hihats and cymbals going through are really nicely separated with those kick drums going on till the first part of the music that is till 2:30 mins. After this comes my fav the double bass and ohh!! its so much good with those strings being heard all nicely and well separated for each stroke. The kick bass and double bass are sometimes aligned but even then, the separation is really nicely felt… Wait for the slow uptake of double bass solo from 4:11min and the slow addition of other instruments. The decay is faster on those strings though but the timbre is airy and a bit metallic for my taste. This though overall seems to have lean tonality; I don’t mind it that much but I would have liked to see a little slower decay so as to have a room filling experience!!!

SUBBASS-
BLENDER- YELLO (Haha!!) - Now this has subbass presence from around 56 sec mark felt more on the right side and goes on for a lot longer!! Now I chose this track to check how much do they emphasize it and how does it do with vocals and other instruments. For instruments you could try from 2:09 mins.

The subbass is good, it has a nice body and textured feel. You can really feel the you right ear moving and go along with the song easily. It has similar faster decay and doesn’t leave a presence much, which I would have liked to see a bit more. Now yes, this won’t give you whole separate subwoofer feeling like it does in my speakers but this aren’t no slouch. Its enough for my ears but a little more emphasis won’t be bad either!!! Remember though, this still isn’t bass head level though haha!!!

MIDS-
VOCALS-

MIDS-
HUNTING GIRL-JETHRO TULL; YOU BROKE MY HEART AGAIN-JAX JONES, TEQKOI, AIKO; EINAUDI EXPERIENCE- LUDOVICO EINAUDI, DANIEL HOPE, I VIRTUOSI ITALIANI –

Mids are airy and full of energy. The guitars and other wind instruments benefit from this. Upper mids here have an Upper hand here pretty much, (get it, get it haha !!!) with having that extra energy and lean tonality going in their favor. The piano and other instruments which are in the lower mids and supposed to have a thick body, are at an disadvantage, now don’t get me wrong , they don’t sound brittle but they don’t sound thick either. The energy of lower mids is fine though and they are well textured with good inter-note differentiation. The dynamics are fine and the smaller nuances are easily felt too. The timbre is good and there is reverb but with a faster decay, though it does have an metallic BA timbre feel(which is very light felt). Its separation is really good though and the notes are crisp till the very end!!!

TREBLE-
SIGH- PRAFUL; CIGARETTES IN THE THEATER - TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB and DO IT AGAIN- STEELY DAN- I use these tracks extensively to test the treble tonal accuracy, positioning, speed and separation.

This is where this iem shines through. The treble is full of energy , bright and has good extension too. The faster decay helps with the speed of the notes. The added air adds a bit of realism and it’s not sharp. The notes are very dynamic and nicely separated throughout the entirety. The busy tracks are well differentiated in this iem which is becoming a recurring theme here. The tonality is of a leaner nature here but thats okay!!! A little bit thicker notes would be more in my taste with a slightly slower decay… But alas I can live without it and it’s a great performing one nonetheless.

HEADSTAGE-
THRILLER- MJ, THEME FROM LUPIN III ‘78(2002 VERSION) AND NICOTINE- ANI DIFRANCO
It’s a V shaped iem overall, with-

1. X axis- This iem is nicely wide, its not too wide though. The added air and V shape helps us make feel it’s a lot wider.
2. Y axis- This iem is tall and notes do reach up there, and they are even well differentiated in height which is really good!!!
3. (-ve)Yaxis- The depth isn’t that great, it is very limited to just below the vocals and doesn’t extend. It rather has more depth at the edges coming inwards sometimes but not too much.
4. Z axis or Stage depth- It has a little bit of stage depth but not too much, but the separation and imaging helps a lot for what it lacks here.

IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION-

These are pretty good in imaging, there’s an accurate placement of each instrument I feel like. Everything is seen and felt through too. The obvious instrument placement is felt nicely but those placed on z axis are described more on the y axis more. The separation is really good between the instruments, even the notes are well separated. There is no mid bass bleed and each of the gong with hihats or even with tambourine and hihats or even with cymbals its easier to say which is which!! The resolution is pretty great too, the added air helps the instruments have space and makes them easily felt, the smaller nuances are also seen but it’s a bit difficult to feel them, unless you are looking for them. This isn’t, a too resolution heavy iem but the amount it shows is shown pretty nicely without being overbearing which is a +1 in my book.

Comparison with DUNU SA6-

PROS of DUNU SA6-
PROS of NORN-
SUMMARY- If you are a fan of V shape and like air among the instruments with more energy in the treble , this iem is for you!!!

EVE 20- A wonderful first concept !!

“A limited-edition universal earphone from VE which is only available for a certain number and only for one year!! Each year a new universal model is going to be released with different concept and tuning. All equipped with the legendary fit of our universal earphones shell. VE will produce a certain number during the year, so it is always limited in number. This year (2020) we start with the EVE20, next year will be the EVE21 and so on…”- BY VE (a little lazy on my side but credits to them for such beautiful way of describing it, that i didnt want to change it at all).
All this has got me very excited for 2021 but this time I am going to look at their EVE 20- the first limited model and I am just going to say it from beginning “I AM IMPRESSED BY THE IEM BUT I LOVE THE IDEA THE MOST”.

DISCLAIMER-- Today I am getting to review the VE EVE20 . This has been provided to me by Vision Ears in exchange for my honest opinion for which I am grateful to both Vision Ears, Amin Karimpour and @suman134 for including me in this tour.

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE

The customs in INDIA are a different issue whole together, so this time it came in this beautiful metal jewelry box write VE all over it. It’s very nicely padded with soft foam, more cloth foam feeling than anything else. The IEMS on the first glance looked really beautiful. They have those Spinfit tips attached to them and a beautiful supple, 4 core cable which is 3.5mm single ended.

BUILD

IEMS-Beautiful looking red faceplate and a beautiful looking olive green or black vines colored acrylic shell, beneath it – it looks great and is really wonderful. Those faceplates have VE and EVE written on the faceplate of left and right iem in silver metal finish. It really looks good but is really a fingerprint lover haha!!

CABLE-The cable is 4 strand, black soft plastic-coated ending on a 3.5mm connector. The cable is soft, non-microphonic and really vanishes with the iem (has the weight of a hair haha). The connectors are 2pin and have a small red circle and a small blue circle on either of them to indicate right side and left connector. It’s similar to VE6XC might I say exactly same even, “if it aint broken, don’t fix it”.

THE STEEL CASE- Its heavy and made up of steel or aluminum chassis probably. It has the VE’s favorite color—Violet and I am loving it too. The inside is laced with soft rubber with like a cloth feel to it. The iems and the cable fits perfectly inside. The only complaint I have is this is BIG and heavy, while it may be best way to save the iems but not at all pocketable haha unless you have massive back pockets or have white coats pockets that I have haha.

FIT- These things have large nozzle about the same size as VE6 XC 6mm. These were not that much comfortable with my medium sized ears and caused a lot of vacuum for me with those added spinfits. I changed to BGVP W01 tips and now vacuum was gone and I got a perfect fit but wasn’t that comfortable to wear for long time. With time I got used to it and it was a wonderful experience from there on haha…

TIPS- The added spinfits are really good but they make them sound a bit boomy for my taste, maybe the fit was bad for me hence the sound perceived. Changing to wide bore tips, there was more of a balance now and better soundstage and refinement. Among them I loved the BGVP W01 and the reverse KZ starline tips were pretty good for a cheap DIY wide bore tip.


SPECS

1. The EVE20 is a 6 BA driver design - equipped with 2 lows, 2 mids and 2 highs.
2. It’s a 4-crossover design with an impedance-25ohms and sensitivity is 120.5db.

Pretty easy to drive haha!! +1 in my book...
PRICE-1300.00 EUR (incl. 19% German VAT)

NOTE- MY SOURCE IS

1. PORTABLE -N6II WITH T01 MODULE, BTR5 AND LG G8X
2. DESKTOP- DAC- N6II WITH T01 LINEOUT OR D50
3. AMP- TOPPING A30 MODDED WITH BURSON V5I D OR TOPPING L30 OR XDUOO MT602(NOT USED HERE FOR REVIEW BUT HEY IT DOES HELP TO ADD A BIT OF TUBE TOUCH)

HOW THEY SOUND FINALLY I KNOW I KNOW haha !!

BASS AND SUBBASS –

1)”DARKER SIDE”- JONNY LANG- Feel the bass drum in just below the vocals- Wow the amount of bass this generates wew, it’s thick, powerful and has a good body. For my testing I never check what the iem has, whether its BA or its DD but this iem being BA, seemed like a lower end DD pretty much. The snares are good with more extension at the end, hence making it have a beautiful timbre associated with it and perfect decay. Cymbals felt having air among it while hit and not a hint of sharpness for me, though a little lacking energy for my taste. It has an excellent way of presenting details in such a way that hihats will feel like 2 plates hitting each other at a time and wow that amount of detail got me hooked. Now it did have the BA characteristics of missing a bit of body in bass but it would give some good DDs a run for their money.

2) FOR SUBASS- NYCTERIS- HANS ZIMMER AND JAMES NEWTON HOWARD – From 0.30min the simple hits of the synth and the timbre from it is really good. Then the 1:37min the further hits and the slow receding sound makes it awesome song to test your sub-bass and check the bass atmospheric feel here.

The rumble this provides is really good!! Unlike VE6 XC which I recently reviewed this doesn’t feel congested at all. It has that air in between the instruments. The whole stage is on single plane though so can’t much say about the stage depth but there’s very very little depth (as in -Y axis) mostly heard from the kickbass drums that feel like coming at you from beneath. The texture is wonderful though and you can really feel the rumble course through you this requires a bit high volume that my normal listening level . The timbre is excellent and the mid bass hits in between with the left side rumble in this music wow!! A great feel and fun to listen to. The timbre is something I would like a bit more, a little more atmospheric feel.

MIDS-
1) VOCALS-
A) FEMALES FIRST (this time ha-ha!!)-

1)SKYFALL-ADELE – A Fav of mine, the reverb that you hear in her voice starting at 0.32 min, with the piano in the mid-right side makes me a fan of this iem. The texture in her voice, the balance of the words and the slight roughness in here voice is all felt thoroughly. The sudden thickness that she imparts which was felt more on VE6 XC was not felt that much here but the airiness is really felt in her voice which felt like missing from the VE6 XC. The drum plate slow strikes with the sticks on the beginning, changing to right side from left at 0.58min and then the whole song hits with all the instruments-WOW!! What a feel!! Especially with the airiness in her voice, the slight revelation of her change of thickness and breath adds a more realistic feel to it. It’s not a lushier-thicker vocals iem but its more in corelation to a perfect balanced (neither lean nor thick) voice, with how the instruments should sound. I likey this!!!

2)TO CHECK SIBLIANCE- MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS-RENEE OLSTEAD- This vocalist has really sibilant voice but really lean and beautiful voice. Now with this iem it’s a tiny bit sibilant for sure but is it really? I doubt it, given the singers voice is so lean and airy with the ssss she produces should be there, otherwise it takes the fun out of it ha-ha!! So as per me tiny sibilance. But, man the lovely airy voice I dig it with the guitars and all…. LOVELY

B)(for boys ) MALE VOCALS

1)FLY ME TO THE MOON!! – FRANK SINATRA.

Frank has a very thick voice, and it shows really good here with the beautiful single pull of the bass guitar, trumpets, drums and other instruments going around him – a real classic!! Focusing on the Frank voice will show how this is a bit lean but that added air adds a good deal of realism to this iems nature. His voice in this iem is entirely thick from beginning of his note to the very end except at the very ends where did he is out of breath and you can feel it a bit here… The dynamic voice of his made me change the kidneys of this iem so much wew , I wonder if my volume knob will survive of this keeps on . His extension though has more height but less thick a bit …But especially with drums behind the separation is still epic and the clarity this has with differentiation of the notes of cymbals hit and thick voice is still present with each hitting different heights…. In short this is a bit lean but this helps keep things separated

2) FIREFLIES- OWL CITY –

Now the vocalist here has a slight leaner voice and his sss are less very pronounced and there are a ton of ‘s’ in this song. Now this has a tiny of bit sibilance. Getting that out of the way everything else is epic , the leaner voice is really good with hint of air ( which is was missing with VE 6XC but it made me forget tubes ). The voice of the Buddhist starts with a hint of thicker note and then picks up to show his high pitch nature, it’s not too high but you can feel it against the likes of Frank Sinatra. I love this much air in the vocals add a realism to the voice , the reverb from the piano is also great. Now yes with the number of details of going around, nothing gets mixed up and everything is shown not in a forceful way but smoothly (not too smooth though). The air in voice and the change in his pitch , the dynamic nature of this iem comes up real fast. The vocals do extend to the edges sometimes when it’s more solo not when other instruments are playing though Really good extension on the height and width too .. I would have liked to see more energy on the piano though

3) MIDS- HUNTING GIRL-JETHRO TULL; THE WOLF AND THE MOON-BRUNUHVILLE; BONFIRE HEART-JAMES BLUNT; LA BELLE ISLE-GEORGE DAVIDSON; HOTEL CALIFORNIA (LIVE ON MTV)-EAGLES – These are few of the tracks among a whole lot of others, I tried for testing the mids of this iem.

MIDS have a dynamic nature to it and this iem just nails it. The mids are slightly lean but airier and do have that realistic tonality rather than a thick tonality obscuring the others, there’s a good deal of air in between instruments and I kinda dig it haha!!! The beginning of notes has a good deal of definition and distinction to it, the mids of different instruments have that body and feel that really, I like. The ends are distinct too, it doesn’t miss anything . The timbre is really good but I would have loved a bit more extension to make it feel more real. The mids have a forward sound signature overall. The upper mids are airy but somehow really lack a bit of energy for me atleast, feels a little dull for my experience. Now especially the trumpets body lacks for me and piano body notes feel a bit dull for my taste. This might not be as per your experience but for me it’s a bit dull there, Guitars on the other hand with added air in the pulls of strings don’t feel that way so for acoustic solo this is really good!!!

TREBLE – STEAMBREATHER – MASTODON; CIGARETTES IN THE THEATER - TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB and DO IT AGAIN- STEELY DAN- I use these tracks extensively to test the treble tonal accuracy, positioning, speed and separation.

With wind blowing instruments like flute , trumpets etc , this thing is epic .. You feel the air when it’s being blown in and being blown out and then comes the successful high notes. They have their change of volume too, between each blow and it's so beautifully felt here. It's very dynamic here and is in no way a slouch. The speed of decay is a bit faster than I would like but it helps it here in faster tracks. The speed of the iem to change the notes is really fast and the tiny transients even have an height haha- which helps to easily hear them overall. Now electronic guitars and all synth drums, woahh , the extension of notes either way is really good . This adds that required energy in rock albums and make you wanna headbang just don’t bang your head in real life please . Now coming on hihats and cymbals, epic that’s it. Each hit is registered and easily felt, the extension through the air is also good. The timbre is excellent but doesn’t leave a lingering presence (courtesy of VE 6XC I try to look for this everywhere now). Lower treble would benefit from a little more energy, but then it's might be enough for a lot of people but imo, it needs a bit more. This is really good in these frequency ranges, a little more energy into the upper mids and lower treble would be more epic. One thing I would have liked is a better stage, more on that below .

IMAGING RESOLUTION AND SEPARATION- LETTER/BUBBLES - YOSHI HORIKAWA, TOOLS -CHOCOLATE CHIP TRIP AND THRILLER- MJ

Resolution is really good especially on the slight nuances, small cues and everything is really well seen in the entire listening area of the user. The placement is a bit diffuse per se, you can’t figure out the exact location but you can feel the instrument notes coming from there. Between the notes even, the separation is top notch due to that added air in the instruments it comes up way easier and faster decay helps in that aspect too. Separation between notes is also really good and unlike the VE6 XC this has separation in all the parts of notes from beginning to end and does so also in the congested tracks which is where the VE 6XC lacked. Imaging on the other hand is though very nicely felt, there’s no proper projection in space (z axis) hence its there but very similar to 2D for me. The instruments though for the superb resolution still make you see them either on top or on left or on right!!!

STAGE – combine all the above tracks and you have it haha !!! Lemme be a little lazy

1. X axis- This thing is wide goes just beyond you head. The notes do reach a little wide presentation at the beginning but then lean on
2. Y axis- It's tall there for sure.. Notes have different height and easy to distinguish them from each other. Decay is fast enough and transients are easily felt too
3. Now for (–)Y axis aka depth – This thing lacks that a lot, kick bass has a little but of depth but that’s it!!!
4. Z axis– aka projection or like I say stage depth – Nope this doesn’t have any at all, even though the imaging is good but if it occurs in a straight line on z axis this doesn’t show such at all…

MOVIE WATCHING EXPERIENCE-
Now this is the bane escape scene from the airplane on youtube (a simple search will show it to you). From the starting of the scene, the wind blowing comes off really good!! Then the plane rotor sound which comes through with the camera panning from left to right, requires a bit of work though, the sound comes from left to right, but here its more on the left and middle with more of the sound coming from top rather than front feeling, the lack of projection or holographic stage is felt here. Rest all the parts of video, including the blasts, the bullets wheezing through air everything is excellent…The bass is accurate but has too much body emphasis that it forgets to linger it a little longer…All in all it was a wonderful experience all together haha!!!

COMPARISON- VS SHOZY POLA

PROS OF EVE-

1. Faster decay
2. Instruments have more air
3. Thicker midbass
4. Vocals are more intimate hence more emotional
5. A little wider soundstage

CONS OF EVE-

1. Subbass more refined on POLA
2. Slower but balanced decay adds more timbre
3. Has depth and stage depth too
4. Better upper mids and lower treble energy
5. Better imaging and holographic stage

All in all the one thing I must say is this – These two- without A/B and a blind test, it will be difficult to differentiate them, “Brothers from different mothers haha”

SUMMARY
This iem is a real gem, now everything has it faults and this has its too, but the resolution, separation, airy nature and timbre of the instruments especially adds a thing of realism to music and hence gets my recommendation to buy…considering you have a big wallet haha !!

DISCLAIMER:- The unit has been sent to me by CatEar as a part of a review circle. I am not working or affiliated to CatEar and I am not being paid or influenced otherwise to say anything positive or negative about this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Honoured to be a part of this tour and thanks to Cat ear and @machinegod for including me in this tour

CatEar is a slowly rising new brand with some really good earbuds like the Mimi and Mia. Having heard about the impressive reviews of Mimi, I was really excited to try their latest IEM upgrade cable, THE CATEAR TUXEDO.
The cable starts at 79 USD for the 3.5mm SE variant and about 85 USD for the 4.4mm pentaconn variant (Both rhodium plated connectors on the source end)
The tuxedo is available in both MMCX and 0.78mm 2 Pin connectors. I was provided with the SE variant with 3.5mm rhodium connector, with MMCX connectors for review ,with an added mmcx female to 2pin male connector since I don’t have many mmcx connectors. You can find the link here .

SPECS-

1. Cable length: 1.2m
2. Cable material: Silver Plated OCC copper
3. Material purity: 99.99997%
4. Plating Purity: 99.996%
5. Coating thickness: 60mil. (approx)
6. Wire Structure: Multiple Stranded Litz Structure
7. Conductor thickness: 26awg x 4 strands
8. Number of cores: 252
9. Insulation material: DuPont-PVC

PACKAGING- Now for this review I just received the cable along with BGVP NS9, so just gonna say ‘Hope its great as the cable sets a good standard !!’

BUILD- This is 4 core, beautiful pearly white cable made up of nylon and no ear hooks (I love it). It feels like a great nylon thread, supple, thin and still elegant. Its pretty thin but I wonder will it survive the occasional pull from my cat, idk but I am pretty sure it might. I love the supple nature but would love a little bit more sturdiness. The longevity only time can tell but given their reputation I have good hope!!

The mmcx connectors(in the below image- left is CatEar and right is BGVP NS9) are gold plated and precision milled (according to CATEAR). They are also housed in plastic shell and have red and blue rings for proper R and L side . They lock pretty nicely and sturdily with no gaps with my Tin T2, Penon Fan, BGVP NS9 and with mmcx to 2pin connectors I can use the POLA, BLON 03, Kanas pro and currently EVE 20.

The connector is 3.5mm with rhodium-Plated Copper Termination Plug. It has a beautiful cat ear logo on it and seems sturdy enough. It is housed in a plastic shell with texture on top for proper grip (something that I miss in other connectors). The connector is neither too big nor small. At the beginning of wires, I would have loved to see a little more of that white plastic thing which protects the wires beginning. The practical attention to detail is really good.
The above image shows CAT EAR connector on right and BGVP NS9 on left

The cable has also a wonderful plastic splitter with also cat ear logo on it, has a finger holding grip texture on it and looks great. But it lacks the chin slider thingy, it is useful in certain case scenarios but for me it’s not that important.

COMFORT- This is a lot comfy that any other I have tried, no earhooks means you can just wound it round your ear easy peasy and no discomfort with the soft texture of this cable.

It has no microphonics and literally very little memory too.

NOW COMING ON TO THE SOUND CHANGES THAT I PERCIEVED.

WITH BGVP NS9- It’s a good enough improvement, that did elevate the sound quality of the iem for sure. The treble which felt dull, too much smooth for my taste with the stock cable, now it’s more energetic, airy and adds a good amount of dynamism to the notes of the treble. There is slightly improved resolution of the iem and the height of the notes did increase and I loved it

WITH PENON FAN- Now this is already a treble monster with good details with its stock mmcx cable. With cat ear tuxedo though, the midrange and treble has become less bright but more balanced with each other, the sharp hits are now smoother and have a decent timbre attached to them. The soundstage is nearly the same but the improvement in bass, is impressive, the added punch and texture is really good!!

WITH BLON 03- Everyone knows how the stock Blons cable are haha. So this is a definite improvement over that but I use blon (Slaters mod done) with TRN 16 core SPC cable which I found to be better than stock at cheap. This tuxedo cable though, is an definite upgrade – the midrange becomes more distinct, the bass is more tighter and not even little midbass bleed anymore with any of my tracks, soundstage is wider, taller, no changes in depth though, separation is more and ohh the treble is more airy and more balanced and more energetic, just lovely.

WITH SHOZY POLA- The stock cable is a Symphonym Tiburon UPOCC copper cable is of very good quality and is 4 core pure copper cable and costs a lot around 170 $. Using this cable, I would say its average against it, but what I like is the ability to provide nearly same number of details and more height in soundstage considering it is way cheaper than it. Comfort wise this is way better than the stock cable of POLA since that’s a thick guy even though its 4 cores This is definitely not an upgrade but I won’t consider it a downgrade either, it’s great at the price this is coming

SUMMARY- The Cat Ear tuxedo really lived up to its name, its as elegant as a tuxedo and practical like the small gun 007 uses , should be used in next 007 movie(Haha).
I would definitely get this at the given price and considering the improvement this is a really great deal. I would love to see a chin slider next time and a little more thickness for more confidence on the durability.

BGVP is well known Chinese IEM manufacturer with many good iems especially their DM series out of which I loved especially the DM8 with vocal tips the most…

But today I am checking out their new BGVP NS9 which goes for 169$

DISCLAIMER- THIS IEM IS PART OF A REVIEW TOUR ORGANISED BY BGVP AND I HAVENT BEEN PAID TO SAY ANYTHING. THE THOUGHTS ARE MY OWN AND THANKS TO BGVP and @machinegod FOR MAKING ME PART OF THIS TOUR.

SPECS –
1.2 DD for lows
2.7 Knowles & Sonion BA drivers
3.4-way electronic crossover
4.Impedance: 20 ohms.
5.Sensitivity: 107dB/mW
PACKAGING- Now it's comes in a white cardboard box written BGVP NS9 on it.

Inside the white cover it's a big black case, opening it is just easy (just lift it up).

Now we can see the beautiful black foam embedded in which are the tips with perfectly labelled tips from sizes S to L. And the beautiful golden coloured top iem with small ridges and black colour on the ear side.

The middle is filled with a hard black fabric coated carry case. Leaving the carry case aside I see a small white thin packet underneath the seating place of iems and I remove the foam to see some paperwork with manual (needed here obviously for filters but wasn't much helpful) and other how to take care of stuff and warranty yada yada...


The manual for filters ain't that detailed, needs a bit of work there.

Opening the Hard case -

1. The white and dark silver coloured 5N SPC mmcx ( sorry have too many broken mmcx iems, so not a fan of the connector) cables terminated in 3.5mm
2. Three filters in a white plastic packet
3. One pair of medium wide bore tips

BUILD AND FIT-
IEMS- It's a aluminium metal shell with a beautiful golden coloured iems with ridges that increase grip a bit and black coloured acrylic body.

It's mmcx terminated not my favorite connection but hey if it works why change right !!
FIT - They just fit me epicly, I found both comfort and fit with every tip. It's a bit heavy but not too much to be a pain like IKKO OH10.
CABLE- The included cable is a 5N OCC Silver plated copper cable. It has really good feel, supple and sound. Its nicely thick and durable.

Tips – We get three pairs of SML vocal tips and three pairs of SML bass tips, a pair of M sized foam tip and a single pair of M sized Wide bore tips.
Vocal tips- great, brings the mids forward but has an added problem of mid bass bleed.
Bass tips- Not my favorite way too much bass, becomes bloated and muddy.
Wide bore tips- Real good for my me IMO, has good balance to the whole sound signature
I also did try BGVP W01 tips(these are also wide bore) which were better than the added black tips since they are not way too soft and gives me a better fit.

FILTERS- For me the red filter, the black and silver filter made very little difference. But I did use the silver filters hoping for more air in treble but didn’t find any. The black filters had an elevated (slightly more with male vocals) midrange but not that much different from silver filter. The red filters on the other hand did change the bass, a little more but not that much to make a significant difference. All in all I would say choose any and stick to it.


COMING ON TO THE SOUND CHARACTERISTICS

BASS AND SUBBASS –
1)"DARKER SIDE"- JONNY LANG- Feel the bass drum in just below the vocals- Wow the amount of bass this generates wew, it’s thick, powerful and has BIG body. Bass heads this might your iem. The bass feels a little bit too much for my taste (a little bit bloaty for my taste), The snares are good, thick and has a prolonged extension at the end making it having a very slow decay, Cymbals felt harder like a steel plate being hit not too sharp and just had a good sound and are fast but lacked energy for me a little bit dull for me. Hi- hats were just hitting my taste bad like a coffee does in the morning, ohh lovely. It’s not overly sharp, or hits you way too hard and this has a benefit, that is it’s much better to listen to for long term and had perfect extension (used DREAM THEATER-"PULL ME UNDER" for last two) …In another word it’s just too thick in low end ... Bass head level though at least imo... OH, I forgot bass guitars are awesome too, they have definition and have the same thick good body, you will feel the pull of each strings and feel it’s extension with others. The bass though lacks texture quite a bit, transparency also and this slower decay is great but a little more definition would be more in my taste to have that atmospheric feel ...You might wanna keep the bass in check though sometimes it feels a little overpowering and a little mid bass bleed is there but very minutely felt unless you look for it ,you would miss it for sure (Wide bore tips is the way to go, easier to notice with narrow bore tips aka please don’t use the bass tips ha-ha). Vocals on the other hand are a different story and will present them below…

2) NYCTERIS- HANS ZIMMER AND JAMES NEWTON HOWARD – From 0.30min the simple hits of the synth and the timbre from it, is really good. Then the 1:37min the further hits and the slow receding sound makes it awesome song to test your sub-bass and bass atmospheric feel here.
The sub-bass is really good here, you will feel the rumble through you. It is textured and has a slower decay and also feels sometimes lasting longer than mid bass. It goes really down and the depth is good. What it lacks is good definition and a little more texture would be great. It though sometimes overshadows mid bass for me. DON'T USE THOSE VOCAL OR BASS TIPS OTHERWISE GET READY TO HEAD BANG TO GOOD ROCK SONGS LIKE A BASS HEAD… JK LOL

MIDS-
VOCALS- I came to some classics to know actually what was happening as I got confused a lot as to what’s happening.

MALE VOCALS- SONGS used- ‘KISS FROM A ROSE – SEAL’ & ‘WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT - NIRVANA (MTV UNPLUGGED)’ & ‘SWEET CHILD OF MINE - GUN'S AND ROSES’
It’s a V shaped iem for sure so take everything similarly. Vocals are distant, controlled and yet thick for male vocals (lower frequencies coming into play maybe). The texture is present in vocals and small details don’t come up that easy though, a bit less transparent. I will still consider them lean but the thing is bass bleeds sometimes in some bass heavy tracks but then again you need to check for it with WIDE BORE TIPS (NARROW BORE PLS DON’T USE UNLESS YOU LIKE MIXING VOCALS WITH BASS- ALL THICK LOL). They seem a bit forward though in comparison to female vocals.

FEMALE VOCALS- ‘KING- LAUREN AQUILA’ & ‘HELLO – ADELE’ & ‘SWAY - DIANA KRALL’ - lovely ladies and lovely songs.
What I feel about female vocals is that they are good enough, lean still but this helps to make their high pitch voice more prominent. I felt they lack a bit of energy, a little smooth for my taste, added benefit they are not sibilant for me at all. Given the warm presentation this is pretty good to use for podcasts for long time with female hosts. The notes are balanced though and have same body from beginning to end except when they extend it in some songs which is great since these do add a bit of air there. Lips smacking are even felt beautifully.

MIDS- ‘BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY - QUEEN ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK’, ‘THE WOLF AND THE MOON- BRUNUHVILLE’ AND ‘END CREDITS-CHASE AND STATUS’-
The beautiful amalgam of instruments in these songs are excellent to test the mids, ohh my, did I forget to mention the flute too.
The mids are similarly placed behind like the vocals given the V shaped tuning. The instruments have good timbre which is fast in decay and good tonality, a little bit lean but still not too much. The instruments are well textured and have a good body , the beginning and the ending of the notes though suffer a bit due to lack of resolution. It seems a bit veiled owing to the V shape. Wide bore tips do bring the mids forward along with vocals tips but mid bass bleed makes me come to wide bore tips again and again haha. Bass tips well they weren’t much suited for me.

TREBLE-
‘DREAM THEATER - THE BEST OF TIMES (BLACK CLOUDS AND SILVER LININGS ALBUM)’- Be ready for "the nun hiding in the background with guitar( reference to the movie - The Nun " at 2:46 min--coming right at you and ‘CIGARETTES IN THE THEATER - TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB’, ‘SIGH-PRAFUL’- really lovely trumpets and ‘DO IT AGAIN- STEELY DAN’ for that fast-paced details that needs to be checked-
Treble is forward as its V shaped iem. It is fast and well extended. It somehow took a conservative, long and smooth listening approach. Its not at all sharp but then rock songs lack from the energy. Cymbals are nicely handled and don’t sound too much dull but really lacks energy and air for me especially for trumpets, sax , flute, electronic guitars etc. I didn’t find too much resolution either and it’s a bit congested for me.

SOUNDSTAGE, IMAGING, SEPARATION AND RESOLUTION- ‘LETTER - YOSHI HORIKAWA’ AND ‘SANDSTORM-DARUDE’-

X AXIS- This iem is has an average width.
Y AXIS- This iem has a very less height less than average for me and what I have tried. The depth is not great either unless it’s too much emphasised on the soundtrack and it comes here as a small depth
Z AXIS- This iem lacks at all any differentiation on Z axis. The writing on the song LETTER or marble ball drops in BUBBLES should come as front to back but not here it’s all on x axis.
IMAGING- Its decent in upper mids and treble region. But Bass not so much lacks details and transparency there.
SEPARATION- Now in faster tracks there is enough separation for me to easily identify instruments but this is more easy to listen to in the beginning and body of notes rather than at the end. But vocals and bass kinda mix a bit for me. A little bit but still it’s there , more with the narrow tips.
RESOLUTION- It’s not that great but still lip smacks, string strikes etc do come through but very minutely. But treble resolution lacks a bit and mostly when too much is going on.

MOVIE WATCHING EXPERIENCE- This I check on YouTube to see the BANE escape scene from the plane. Its good but details don’t come through that much. The blast off scene when the plane falls though feels great. Podcast experience was an easy long-lasting experience with no fatigue at all.

SUMMARY- The iem is worthy to be a bass champion at this price. The amount of body this tiny thing has puts my Sony Bluetooth speakers to shame haha. If you are looking for an iem for long listening sessions and if you are a bass head and can do with a V shaped signature this is made for you.