Leteciel Magiris 1 Balanced Armature + 1 Dynamic Driver Hybrid Universal IEM

Leteciel are a new company to me and this is the first iem a 1DD + 1Knowles Balanced Armature that I have had the pleasure of using.

In these days of two week life spans of iems where an iem is released hyped then forgotten about. I think the Magris is an iem that we are going to remember as it offers a wonderfully balanced sound signature that is both neutral and exciting. Not two things I usually associate together.

The Leteciel Magris is priced at £159.99which is a competitive price range at the moment so an iem has to be pretty special to standout.

Without getting ahead of myself the Magris is such an iem. I was honestly surprised as the iem came in a box with a waifu on Im not a fan of such design choices with packaging so I was pleasantly surprised by the very beautiful iems inside with a lovely high quality colour coordinated 3.5mm silver foil copper cable and denim effect carry case that's actually pocketable.



I'd just like to say upfront I believe we are all biased when giving our subjective thoughts about IEMs and earbuds be it a particular type of signature that works with our music library or how they look and feel in our ears. On the subject of ears everyone's ear anatomy is different and this effects fit and seal which in turn effects the perception of bass response so I recommend finding the right ear tips or foams that suit your ears to get the best of any earphone.My review star ratings are linked to the price range of the iem eg a 5 star review of a $100 iem is not equal to one of a $500 iem.I’m and audio enthusiast with a collection of over 200 iems, 30 different sources with a music collection that numbers over 100,000 tracks and 18 flathead buds I share my impressions as a way to share my enthusiasm for the hobby I approach from the premise of music first technology 2nd, what does this mean? For me the technicalities are not of prime importance but does the music move with this particular iem.I’m a connoisseur of many different sound signatures. The only prerequisite is musicality I’m not a fan of analytical cold playback. My scale of success when it comes to evaluating earphones is; do I get goosebumps when they playback my favourite tunes. There are many good earphones but do they give me goosebumps?



Unfortunately I have a draw full of just good earphones.I want the earphone that I reach for without thinking because I instinctively know it will bring the thrill I’m seeking from my music. The Leteciel Magris has a natural balanced sound signature with excellent technicalities and very natural presentation while being free of any unnatural tone or timbre colouration, the bass is there with great texture and detail and natural quantity to provide authentic drums and bass instrumets I normally favour a bigger bass presentation but I was extremely satisfied with the blance the Magris provided. A standout quality is the zero amount of distortion or congestion even with fast speed prog metal. There's a lovely snap and clarity to leading notes across the frequency range with natural decay to draw you into the music.

Now I know there are those who don’t believe in burn in of earphones, all I’m going to say is, I burn in all my earphones the Magris bass response opened and up and smoothed out at the 50 hour mark I didn’t hear any shift in the signature from there on.

Disclaimer
Penon was kind enough to send me a sample of the Fidue Virgo(A85). I am not affiliated with Penon and of course was not asked for any copy checking before publishing, they are seeing this the same time as you. All pictures taken be me or sourced from the Penon website . ALL opinions shared in this review are my subjective thoughts.

Frequency graph for those who like such things


Below is the description of the Magris on the Penon website.

https://penonaudio.com/Leteciel-Magiris

Leteciel Magiris 1 Balanced Armature + 1 Dynamic Driver Hybrid 2Pin 0.78mm Audiophile In-ear Earphone
Description
Unique design
The cavity of the earphone is a subtle mysterious purple, while on the panel is purple, black and silver, three colors of hand-painted texture.

The earphone as a whole presents a quiet, mysterious sense of magic.
Selected silver foil conductor earphone cable, with a mysterious purple design that matches the appearance of the earphones.
Cable body is soft, very low stethoscope effect, strong toughness, and durable.

Deep Research and development
The acoustic design is based on the acoustic structure of the low-frequency front cavity with air pressure balance, and the ergonomic design of the cavity is simulated by computer. It is made of medical grade resin, which is comfortable to wear and not easy to slip.

Strong core
The earphone adopts the configuration combination of 1 balanced armature +1 dynamic driver. The balanced armature is made of high quality imported balanced armature driver from Knowles of the United States, and the dynamic driver is made of specially customized high performance beryllium film driver.
Thanks to the excellent driver configuration, the earphones present a clear and transparent sound and an infectious low frequency performance.

Specification
Brand: Leteciel
Model: Magiris
Wear: In-ear
Driver: 1 Balanced Armature +1 Dynamic Driver
Frequency range: 20 Hz-20 KHz
Impedance (1KHz): 12ohm
Sensitivity (1KHz): 105dB SPL/mW
Noise isolation: 26Db
Connector : 2pin 0.78mm
Plug: 3.5mm
Detachable cable: 120cm



Make sure to research any earphone before you buy!

What do they sound like? As I mentioned above they are a neutral/natural signature that are so well balanced, they played well with pretty much any genre I've listened to with them
The bass is not overly boosted but very pleasing with enough sub bass to dig deep for bass driven tracks and a midbass a good quality copper cable, the Penon OCC849 and wow what a transformation.The bass was now meaty and dynamic, the quality of that bass is superb full of details and texture. True there's not a large quantity but there's enough to balance out the signature. The mids are super clean and free of any bass bleed or ba timbre. Male vocals sound good with no extra colouration very smooth with good air female vocals sound amazing, pure soaring with no edge or sibilance just sweet and rounded. Treble is well extended with no jagged edges smooth and well rounded. Cymbals sound natural with good decay, guitars are detailed with every resonance clear and sweet. A perfect iem for Classic Rock, Blues, jazz and acoustic music. Classical Orchestral music sounds satisfying decent staging, wide and slightly out of head. I consider the Magris good for a $160. The timbre and tactility of drums, strings, guitars and brass instruments is very natural all instruments find their own place. Vocals both male and female are reproduced authentically with emotion, every inflection, intonation is apparent as a singer climbs the scales it is presented well cutting through, if a voice has gravel you hear it. The Magris is quite forgiving of poorly produced music.

When I'm evaluating iems I have a play list of roughly 100 songs of mixed genres. With the Magris I was analysing the different frequency ranges listening to albums in their entirety. I found they I worked across all the genres in my library always smooth and spacious and detailed . They really excelled at acoustic singer songwriter music like Shawn Mullins, White Buffalo and Tori Amos.

Some of the music Selections I evaluated the Leteciel Magris with

Tori Amos--Cornflake girl
This track really shows what a well tuned upper mids and treble it has with Tori's breathy crystalline vocals floating in space above the jaunty piano you can feel the atmosphere as the songs airy production is excellent the tone and timbre of the piano is really correct with excellent decay on the single notes just a breathtaking rendition of a wonderful piano led classic.

Aerosmith/RunDMC - Walk this way
sounded wonderfully full and gritty with the crisp drums and guitars . Steve Tylers throaty gritty vocals sounding full and complementing the Hip Hop vocals of RunDMC with no thinness the layering in this 80s classic rock/Rap song was produced with expert precision a really enjoyable listen.

Marc Coen and the blind boys of Alabama – Silver Thunder Bird , this multi-layered live vocal is a classic with moody piano intro and fabulous vocals reproduce with just enough weight to draw you in slowly building to the vocal acrobatics of the Blind boys of Alabama. The staging is also brilliantly reproduced increasing the atmospherics greatly. The Magrus works incredibly well with live recordings putting you front and centre in a spacious room with the artist never sounding thin just rich and expansive.

Steely Dan's – Peg, one of the best produced albums in my opinion was played with a breath-taking expertise at this price range, drums, keyboards, vocals , hi-hats and cymbals were natural with excellent decay space and staging with good height, depth and width enabling me to pick out instruments in the mix, this song felt open, rich and airy with the layering of the instruments presented with skillful ease.

White Buffalo - The Woods -this is one starts with a lush strings with Jake Smiths rich baritone vocals and slowly builds with new instruments being introduced as this slow ballad builds Jake's authorative vocals stays front and centre as the song becomes a multi-layered wall of sound the Magris manage to keep the big production in control avoiding any congestion, with every nuance present and correct, impressive.

Shawn Mullins – Anchored in You from the Souls Core Revival album
The brass section intro intro is perfectly presented sweet and detailed with great texture and the drums with that slow restrained rhythm anchor the song for Shawn's emotive vocals which are the focus they are the star of the show never overpowered by the drums and guitar. This natural even presentation is really great for vocal focused music.

The Hu – This Mogul (with William DVall) –The dynamics of this track are huge with drums guitars and Mongolian instruments, the Horsehead fiddle, Tovashuur, Tumar Khuur, Tsuurare and Mongol throat singing with a special guest William DuVall of Alice in Chains. The power of this dense, complex and rhythmic masterpiece is there, they have pin point accuracy they don't lack bass quantity with enough slam to give the driving rhythms and dynamics room to beathe. I didn’t hear any congestion in the instrumentation despite the density of this track. The vocals of William DuVall stood out against the wall of instruments and were on point and unveiled. The Magris didn’t feel exposed with faster tracks with instruments in the same frequency range still being given space to be heard with little to no congestion or ba timbre present.

The Magris is quite easy to drive iem I had no issues using them with my , Daps, Dongles in getting loud enough, the dynamics and open sound was present with all sources the texture and layering they are capable of was available for all to some degree.They sounded good with all sources. This is an iem that doesn’t need a powerful source but it does scale impressively.

I'm not a fan of analytical sounding IEMs/earphones that force details into your ears like a photograph with HDR and sharpening set at max a decidedly digital representation. I'm more Vinyl on a turntable, Leica manual focus, sumptuous colours on kodak colour gold film, kinda guy, where if you look really close all the details are there but it's the whole image you appreciate rather than just how sharp it is. The quality overall sound signature of the Magris is exciting with sub bass bass slam snappy midbass really sublime open natural mids and a smooth safe treble to make a sound signature that I appreciate and really enjoy.



Sources used:
Onix XM5 OvertureShaning
M6 Ultra
Shanling H5
Cayin N3 Ultra
Cayin N7
Aune M1P
Fiio BTR17

When using my different sources I didn’t favour the more powerful ones the extra dynamics and layering and technical presentation was apparent but the overall musical presentation was the same.



Cable rolling
I'm a cable believer but if you are not then skip this bit.
While the Magris comes with a decent 3.5mm cable I wanted to try them out with a balanced connection. The results of my experiments led me to the believe that the Magris enjoys an elevation is sound quality. When I paired with Penon OCC848 COPPER CABLE one of my favourite copper cables the bass became richer and fuller a touch of warmth was perceived in the mids while the treble remained sparkling and detailed the special power of this cable is that it adds a depth and warmth to the bass and mids without anyform of bloat or veiling

Penon OCC849 (penonaudio.com)Penon OCC849 Single Crystal Copper HiFi Audiophile IEMs CableType-4 Litz configurationDescription6n single crystal copper cable8 strands, single strand is 49 cores, a total of 8 × 49.The plug contains 68% copperThe solder joints is silver – contained tinCarbon fiber metal splitter and CNC integrated sliderCable length: 1.2M

An equally beautiful cable the OS849 is a silver plated copper cable while this cable also boosted the bass is wasn't quite as warm plus that silver coating did its job well for my tastes no added warmth just better details and clean punchy dynamics

Penon OS849 (penonaudio.com)Penon OS849 Single Crystal Copper Silver-plated HiFi Audiophile IEMs CableType-4 Litz configuration Description6n single crystal copper silver-plated cableContained 8% silver, the thickness is 10μm,8 strands, single strand is 49 cores, a total of 8 × 49.The plug contains 68% copperThe solder joints is silver –contained tinCarbon fiber metal splitter and CNC integrated sliderSound field is very big and very naturalCable length: 1.2M

Comparisons



The nearest iem with a similar sound signature would be the Letshuoer Cadenza 4 which is a price level above the Magris and has more drivers to achieve it's sound the Magris is equal in performance for less money and fewer drivers which is a testament to the skillful tuning that Leteciel have achieved the differences between these two are small in my opinion the Magris is slightly more engaging.

Conclusion

You could say I'm surprised by the Magris compared to the latest crop of under $200 iems they are slamdunk for all day listening with the confidence that whatever genre you throw at them they will play it back with skillful engaging ease.

Compared to other under $200 iems in my opinion they are easily competitive. I heartily recommend the Leteciel Magris
.