Introduction
It's been a while. But don't worry, I'm back
In this latest episode I shall bring out some of the big guns. I will pit the best midChiFi against some pretty amazing competition. You may ask..why? I may answer...because I can, and I was fed up with writing the same old reviews. Thus, the Lark Studio LSIV 4 Balanced Armature Driver IEM becomes the guinea pig, allowing myself to indulge and showcase several IEMs, several of which have become legendary in the annals of Head-Fi. The review is a complement to the YouTube epic I have put out, it can be read without needing the film, but the film was made first. Which, I guess, gives the film a bit more credibility. Although there should be a few less glaring errors in this piece.The LSIV IEM Tour has been set up by Micah, aka @Glassmonkey on the forum. He persevered and after a year we finally saw what Lark Studios were capable of. Even that seems in the distant past now, as our final tour member puts these earphones through their paces. Phil Wannell of Audio Concierge is the UK Distributor and has been heavily involved in the project, formerly of Audio Sanctuary, Phil has some amazing bespoke products at his disposal. Without the company themselves taking a leap of faith in head-fi we wouldn't be able to introduce Lark Studios to the World. So my gratitude goes out to their generosity.
A close up of the design our review team were sent -
brushed ebony by the looks of it
About the Lark Studios LSIV
The LSIV is the 4 BA driver model of the Lark Studios range. Lark Studios are a Chinese Company hitherto unknown to myself, but the company, based in China, has 18 years of experience behind it, albeit from engineers who worked elsewhere in the Industry. The LSIV is available in both Custom and Universal variants. Interestingly, the universal model has much in common with it's Custom Brother. The universal model has a shell which looks very much like any custom out there. And the shells are customisable - for free. You can add hundreds of designs and colours together to create your very own masterpiece, for no extra charge. Nowt! Did I say the design is part of the price? The LSIV retails at £369 in the UK. I am expecting several of the audio giants out there will be looking nervously over their shoulders at this attention to detail. The website reveals plenty more models on offer, primarily we are talking about either a 4 driver or a 10 driver IEM. The LSIV is their base model. The LSX is the flagship and has been tuned to various flavours.
The LSIV, in brief, is a 20 hz to 20 hz, 15 Ohm, 102 dB sensitivity, 4 way crossover design featuring a low, mid, high and supertweeter driver setup. Lark Studio have paid a great deal of attention to the shape of it's universal IEM, and the LSIVs are a far cry from the normal bland fare we have come to expect. The small olive design with a medium size nozzle should produce a really good seal for most ears out there. Coupled with the tips provided, particularly the Comply Foams, there is a great deal of isolation available. Even very quiet classical pieces can be heard clearly when out commuting. The cable, a twisted braid design, is a 2 pin connection, and is detachable. It is made solidly enough. The connection into the shells is just right, and the memory wire loops around the back of the ear admirably. I think the design of the cables diminishes the look of the LSIVs considerably. They look so...normal. Ah well, each to their own. Something a bit less visible would accentuate the beauty of the shells; after all, there is a lot more cable than there is IEM.
Unboxing
The Box - perhaps more elegant for it's space between each item, has pretty
much what you need to get you up and running
With the sheer luxury of being able to specify your own design for these IEMs, I had great expectations for loads of goodies, more than one could ever need, to be crammed into a very large cloth bound leather box, or wherever my imagination was going at the time. What we have here is not quite up to that level, but it's ok. There's no manual or glossy brochure, and a precious few tips are provided. Is this an issue for headfiers? I have 100s of tips. I keep finding them. I could spend months rolling tips and still be opening up drawers full of them. However, my motto is - you can never have enough Comply tips. I would have like a few more Comply Tips included as spares, even if they had to charge us a few more quid.
The box - closed. Nuff said. Let's move on
So, we know what you don't get in the box. But what do you get? A closer look reveals a few gems tucked away inside. There are 2 rubber straps with the embossed Company Logo in the box on the bottom right, which in itself could be used to take the LSIVs safely away on your hols. There is a small velour bag with a drawstring; just large enough for the IEMs, but a bit of a squeeze nonetheless. A nice shiny flight adapter, of which I'm not too sure of the need for nowadays. A 6.3 mm adapter, although these IEMs need no amping, they go plenty loud enough through a phone , so any DAP should be suitable. My playing was done with my Samsung S7 or my Fiio M11. There is 1 2 pin cable. It has a velcro band to coil up the loops of cable, which saves them from being rammed into that tight jewellery bag.
Listening session inevitably spawns a Supertest
I had such mixed feelings about the Sound Quality and signature of the LSIVs. For the first 30 minutes I was gobsmacked by the clarity and fullness of the mids, especially the vocals were really vivid. The bass was linear, but sub bass was slightly subdued. There seemed to be a pinch of too much forwardness in the upper ranges, it gave me the impression that I needed to adjust the volume down on some of my more lively tracks, think Metallica and fast rock tracks. I did a side a side comparison between these and a pair of HiFiMan RE2000 Silvers I had nearby. I plugged them into the Chord Mojo and swapped with the LSIV at regular intervals. My Wife, part of the experiment, felt the LSIV was head and shoulders above the RE2000 Silvers, who she described as "boring" in comparison.
Those thoughts must have come from the realms of madness of course
Another week went by of grabbing bits and bobs of listening whenever I could. The isolation, looks and poise in the mids were a definite wow factor and made it quite difficult to pick apart the sound, which is pretty normal for me when I know I'm on a deadline. It's a sort of writer's block, where my brain is unwilling to articulate the sound characteristics I'm getting. How on earth did I get into this craziness?!! I came to the realisation; throwing all of my IEM collection at them was the only way to figure it out.
The Competition
I have an extensive collection of earphones, many of which you will find unrecognisable. Simply put, the fit for the vast majority of IEMs out there, does not suit my ears. The problems are exacerbated when I take the earphones out for a run. The solution? To customise them. The problem with that? That costs a lot of money, and hassle too. The solution to that? Do them yourself of course! So, on my video don't be surprised to see a variety of quite different designs. These are necessary to overcome some of the unique shortcomings of the original bulkiness or otherwise awkward shapes of many high performance earphones.
I went through 30 pairs of earphones before I was able to narrow down the contest to more manageable proportions. I ended up with the following. The AKG K3003i, Sennheiser IE800, OBravo Erib 2a, HiFIMan RE2000 Silver, JH Audio Roxanne Customs, Trinity Audio Master 6 with custom cable, Cardas EM5813 Earspeaker and ACS Encore Studio Customs. Some of those choices suggest the Lark Studio LSIV is punching well above its weight - the JH Audio Roxanne retails at £1600, for instance. The IE800 is £599 new. I was more interested in finding out just how close the LSIV got to some of these models. Before you dismiss these IEMs as being unrealistic because they retail at a higher price, please take a look at the research I did in my video-you will be quite surprised.
This is where the review cuts off and the video kicks in - the results of the supertest I have covered on film in detail. To see what happened on that fateful day when I had a floor full of IEMs you need to watch it. The testing was all done sat down. It was all done through the Fiio M11. The M11 was set to low gain. The IEMs were hot swapped halfway through dozens of different tracks. The Fiio has 2 512Gb cards full of music, and is set to endlessly shuffle through my collection at present. In total I must have spent 6 hours supertesting. Only when I was satisfied I know the answers to the questions my ears were asking me did I take the last set off and commit my findings to film.
Conclusion
I am glad to be back. I have not directly compared all of these IEMs before. It was quite an experience and the LSIV came a lot closer than the price differential would suggest. The winner of the supertest did not turn out to be the LSIV, not for me. For another pair of ears, of course, the answer might be different. I hope you find it as interesting as I did, and, if not, please use the comments below
