While I personally love hybrid iems over pure BA iems, I’ve been recently surprised over the last few years by all BA iems like the Campfire IO, my older Andros and the Moondrop S8. After catching wind of the new SA3 and SA6 I wanted to give them both a shot. This review will cover the SA3 which is a triple balanced armature iem coming in at $139 here in the US.
Shoutout to Kevin from DUNU for sending me the SA3 to test and review. While I always appreciate the chance to test and review products sent in from manufacturers, it never affects my review.
Onto the review of the sound! My personal preference is a dynamic hybrid iem where I get good hitting bass and have a brighter treble with decent mids. When it comes to an over ear headphone I prefer a spacious sound with a deep low end, the mids to be more forward and the highs to be a little bright with some sparkle. I listen to a lot of genres but I hover in the classic rock, blues and edm music with some rap here and there.
Gear used
IPhone 12 pro with headphone adapter, lotoo PAW s1, IFI hip dac, FiiO Q3, S.M.S.L. su-8/sh-8 combo.
Looks and fit
I really enjoy the looks of the SA3. It has a solid build quality and with my ears I can get an extremely deep and tight seal. The feeling is somewhat like a CIEM fit which caught me off guard. Normally I run medium to large tips and with the SA3 I can run the small tips that came with them and get a crazy good deep seal. Isolation is very good. Once a good seal is achieved, the outside world is drowned out. Comfort is so-so as the shells are on the bigger size. My listening sessions can be a little excessive so finding discomfort at 4 hours straight could be considered fine for the amount of time.
Packaging and accessories
The packaging is very nice for a sub $200 iem. It comes in a small package compared to some other iems such as the IKKO oh10 or FiiO fh3 which come in rather big boxes. They also include a rather nice leather case(maybe fake leather), iem cleaning brush, three different types of tips in small, medium and large sizes. Overall I really like the presentation and unboxing experience of the SA3.
Sound
Lows
The SA3 uses a dual BA unit to handle lows and mids. It has a typical “BA low end” which has good low end quality but lacks the bite and thump of a nice dedicated low end dynamic driver. Bass heads or those wanting some punch to their bass won’t be all that thrilled listening to the SA3. That being said with certain amps such as the hip dac with it’s X-bass, you can get some good low end without any distortion.
Mids
Mids are handled fairly neutral on this set. Vocals never really pop or get sibilant. Everything feels warm and relaxed. This makes for a good iem to sit back and relax to. Those looking for a hardcore mid ranged iem or something that really focuses on vocals may want to look elsewhere.
Highs
Highs are also fairly tame and laid back. Detail retrieval is however very good. While the sparkle I like from the top end is fairly stepped back for my tastes, I was really surprised how much of the little details in music came through that I normally only notice on my higher end iems. Those who are super treble sensitive but still want good detail retrieval may find this a good set to look at.
Imaging
The imaging was fairly good and matched well with the better detail retrieval of the SA3. There weren't any dead spots on side to side sweeps I test for and it was easy to pick out the placement of sounds.
Soundstage
The soundstage was about average overall. Width and depth are both just wide and deep enough to make me happy. Nothing to complain about honestly but I do feel a wider soundstage would have made this set really stand out. Especially with its laid back sound and better detail retrieval.
Cable rolling
I ran a few different cables. I ran DUNU’s own chord cable in balanced, three different null cables in balanced and a few standard iem cables in single ended and came to the conclusion that the silver plated cables gave me the best sound for the SA3’s laid back sound signature. Copper cables gave a darker tone which I felt didn’t really help the sound signature of the SA3. The stock cable is silver plated so no real need to swap cables.
Stock cable
The stock cable is pretty good. It has the serial number engraved at the Y split so I’m not sure if that’s the serial for the iems or the cable itself. The cable has a loose braid which looks and works fine. Doesn’t tangle easily and has no microphonics. Sound quality vs other cables is very minimal so this works great as a stock cable and I recommend sticking with this over other cables unless a balanced cable is important to the user.
Tip rolling
The three types of tips included are black/blue small bore bass tip, all blue normal sized bore tips which I’m guessing are the middle of the ground balanced tips and finally a white stiff bore tip which is a little more focused on highs. All three made small differences but I appreciated the assortment of tips. The sound bore of the SA3 doesn't have a big lip so tip rolling was a hassle and I settled on the all blue stock tips as it was the middle of the road in height and bore size.
Amping Combinations
Since I find this to be a more relaxed iem I tested it mainly with the FiiO Q3 and IFI hip dac out of my iphone mostly propped up on my couch. Below Ill give my impressions out of the sources I used.
FiiO Q3
Using the Q3 with the SA3 gave the best neutral experience of the bunch. The bass boost was a little much so I left it off for the rest of my testing. I think the Q3 makes for a good relaxed combo for sound. Running balanced had a nice and quiet background which made this a great pairing.
IFI hip dac
The hip dac produced a little more sparkle up top. It also had a slightly wider stage and gave the SA3 a little more life. The X-bass feature of the hip dac really does well with SA3. I had a blast with the deep bass from the X-bass which I usually find to be way too much added bass but it worked out great here. Running balanced came with some hiss but it wasn’t a show stopper. I would run this combo in single ended to avoid any hiss.
Lotoo Paw S1
The paw S1 makes for the smallest combo out of the group and like the Q3 and sounded very neutral. Due to the SA3 not needing much power there were no issues volume wise from the S1. The floor noise via balanced was very quiet and I think for the smallest package the S1 wins. The drawback is the S1 is the most expensive of the portable DAC/amps I tested.
S.M.S.L. su-8/sh-8
The smsl desktop stack had the best detail retrieval and gave the best performance overall. While the desktop stack was the winner in terms of sound quality for the SA3, I don’t use iems at my desk often unless I’m doing critical listening as I rather bust out my over ear headphones for desktop use. The SA3 also isn’t what I would consider a critical listening iem either IMO. Desktop use with something like the SA3 I think will be a personal preference.
Amping thoughts
Overall the SA3 is super easy to drive and I really didn’t find a need to go balanced. Doing so on some noisier amps does produce a faint hiss that goes away with music but it’s something to note. I don’t think amping is necessary but if you wanna add some flavor to the SA3 then something like the hip dac from IFI is my recommendation.
Overall thoughts
While I really like the SA3 for its looks and laid back sound, the current top spot iems in the $100-$300 range for me personally are the FiiO fh3 and IKKO oh10. Both of those are hybrids and both have a “fun/exciting” sound signature. I think the SA3 does well for the price but It doesn’t really stand out either. Where the SA3 will beat out the hybrids is the sound isolation once a good seal is made. Both the fh3 and oh10 struggle with isolation due to the vented dynamic drivers in both units. I like the stock cable and accessories that come with the SA3 and I think it’s priced fairly at $139. I would give the SA3 a recommendation as long as you’re looking for a warm and laid back sounding iem that still has good detail retrieval. Another reason would be if sound isolation is an absolute must for the listener. Good job to DUNU on their first “studio” series iem and I look forward to the new SA6. Thanks for reading!