Xanadu Audio Khopesh

Disclaimer: these were originally purchased for me, by my wife, as a surprise gift from Roadrunner Hifi on Taobao. No, the irony of getting Egyptian-themed earphones for Hanukkah is not lost on me, no, I did not receive any sort of financial compensation for writing this, and yes, all opinions expressed hereafter are solely my own and (probably) not endorsed by the Tyrell Corporation.



I mean, unless…well, y’know…



Introducing: Xanadu Audio





Xana-who?



If you’re new to the audio community, you’re probably thinking to yourself “who the hell is Xanadu Audio?” But if you’re an audiophile veteran, a connoisseur, well-familiarized with only the finest brands and satiated with only the top-notch in audio quality, well, then you’re probably thinking to yourself “who the hell is Xanadu Audio?”



Pic related, it’s me (not really)



Feeling a little in the dark? That’s ok. Much like their namesake, Xanadu Audio seems to have sprung up out of the ethereal plane: information on this brand is scarce outside the China mainland, and somehow seemingly even more minimal within it on the Chinese intranet. In fact, the only information I was able to find on Xanadu, outside of a handful of product listings on Taobao, was the following press release, translated by Google and originally published on Erji.net, a Chinese audio board (direct link here: http://bbs.erji.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=2248403):

Xanadu Audio is a HIFI brand established in 2016 with great innovative R&D capabilities. It is committed to providing audiophiles with a music experience that hits the soul. The product development, design, production, and tuning of the Xandu Audio brand are all under the sole responsibility of the founder, Mr. Li Tiansheng.

In 2020, the studio launched the flagship upgrade line "Kirin", which is specially tuned for the mainstream "circle iron" and "static" earplug solutions on the market, and has won a lot of domestic and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Recognized by enthusiasts, the studio of the 2021 Shanghai International Headphone Exhibition newly launched the "Inheritance Series-Ancient Egypt" and "Legendary Series Products" and the prestigious "Kirin Special Edition" upgrade line, bringing super high-level and cost-effective products to enthusiasts The product has been recognized by many enthusiasts. At this Guangzhou International Headphone Exhibition, we will bring a flagship reference-grade ring Tiejing earplugs that pursue the ultimate pursuit: Khopesh-Khepash, also known as "Pharaoh's Sword", for Dianyou provides audio products that directly hit the soul.

The Ancient Egypt Heritage Series upgrade cable line. From left to right: Cleopatra, Pharaoh, and Anubis outer boxes

…oooookay, so it’s probably not a 1:1 translation. No, I don’t know what “Dianyou” means either. Native speakers are probably better off just visiting the link directly, but for all you non-native Chinese speakers out there (like myself), here’s the skinny: Xanadu started off in 2016 making a line of very premium, very unique upgrade cables, one of the most popular of which was ancient Egyptian themed, entitled the “Ancient Egypt Heritage Series”. This line included the Cleopatra, the Anubis, and the Pharaoh, respectively. What made these cables so unique? Well, aside from your usual proclaimed benefit of improved sonic quality, these cables were flashier than most, and included specialty-made Egyptian-themed Y-splitters and termination jacks, crafted in full metal and engraved with highly detailed hieroglyphs.





Look at the detail on this 4.4 jack. Ridiculous.



All the cables in Xanadu’s Egyptian Heritage line incorporate this same aesthetic, differing only in the appearance of the wires themselves and the materials used therein. Needless to say, these cables were popular; so popular, in fact, that in 2021, the company decided to experiment by releasing their first-ever IEMs: the “Khopesh”, or “Pharaoh’s Sword”, a unique pair of tribrid driver earphones, incorporating dual dynamic drivers, six balanced armature drivers, and no less than four (yes, four!) electrostatic drivers.



The Khopesh: metal version pictured left, acrylic version pictured right.



The Khopesh usually retails, excluding sales, for 14538 RMB, or approximately $2122 USD, excluding shipping and taxes. The original offering was as a universal in cnc-milled metal only, but the sound signature proved popular enough that, based on customer requests, the company began offering an acrylic version that could be reshelled into a custom for a nominal fee. My wife actually ordered the metal version, but we were sent the acrylic one by mistake; as such, while we await the metal version (currently in transit via SF Express), the following is a review for the acrylic version of the Khopesh.



Official product announcement image, courtesy of Erji

Tl;dr:

If you want to save yourself some reading time, and don’t feel like skipping down to the end, here’s the short version: yes, the Khopesh is worth it. In fact, all cards on the table? At this price point, given these features, tech specs, and the sound, I’d consider them an overall steal. If you’d told me these had cost twice what my wife paid, I wouldn’t have even blinked. And if you want to know what justifies the asking cost, well then, my friend, grab your gutras, secure your scarabs, and upend your ushabti as we go forth into the land of the undead with the Xanadu Audio Khopesh.



Packaging and Presentation

The presentation…Christ. Honestly, I could spend days talking about the packaging alone. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know: “hurray, it’s luxury packaging, just like every other manufacturer offers these days. Yes, yes, very exciting, I really don’t care. Shut up and get to the point on how they actually sound.” And normally? Nine times out of ten, I’d agree with you, but just…look, just hear me out and take a look at this, will you?


Yes, it’s your standard black slip box. But open it up…


Full color detail hieroglyph printing on the inner box



Included black and gold certificate of authenticity card, individually numbered (they only made 199 of these)



Back of the card includes full tech details: driver configuration, frequency response, and impedance, for all you gear heads out there



Interior flap provides fully detailed print, a la museum style, detailing the origins behind the Egyptian etymology





The lower portion of the box. That metal tin? Fully functional. It stores the stock cable included with the IEMs.





Tips for daysssss



If you’re already getting the impression that this is a picture-heavy review: you’re right! And on that note, this was my face the entire time unboxing these:



For real, let’s give credit where credit is due: Xanadu decided to go with a theme here, and thought “if we’re going to do this, we’re going to really do this.” IEM manufacturers, take note: this is luxury packaging done right. I am usually the first person to scoff at an oversized box. In fact, generally, I hate it, and it was my major complaint about the Empire Ears Odyssey compared to the Fir XE6: why increase shipping costs, waste valuable resources, and my precious real estate with an oversized box when you can just as easily package something small that’s environmentally friendly and easy to transport? But y’know what? Here, it works, and not only does it work, but it’s justified. This is packaging decked out to the nines. Everything fits here, and matches the overall theme, from the sarcophagus cable tin to the hieroglyph interior printing.

More than just fashion-forward, it’s functional: the foam insert the IEMs ship in is precision fitted, and major, major props to shipping the IEMs disconnected from the cable, which means that I don’t have to worry about snapping a cable off at the pins when removing the earphones from the box. The certificate card, while a fun novelty bonus, serves the benefit of giving me all the technical information printed in one convenient place. The silicone eartips, while crafted in traditional ancient Egyptian colors like blue and maroon, also happen to come in every size you could possibly need, and Xanadu even went out of their way to include silicone-wrapped foam tips as an added bonus, something most manufacturers don’t offer out of the box these days.



Bonus optional leather carrying case. Stylish and functional.

Regarding the optional leather carrying case: originally, this was a separate product listing that constituted an additional purchase, but Roadrunner Hifi decided to include it as a free gift. Whether that’s standard practice for anyone purchasing the Khopesh, or simply the individual generosity of the seller, I’m uncertain, but I’d say regardless, the case is worth the investment. Having seen it in photos, I really didn’t think I was going to use it, given that I usually opt for a Pelican-style hard case, the sort of thing that can be casually tossed into a backpack without fear of damage. But having this case in hand? Let me tell you: it’s really nice. The metal hardware that secures the flap to the front of the case is bolted on, and there’s this really beautiful cross-weave thread running along the entire top and bottom of the case. No, the weave doesn’t serve any practical function, but it looks cool, and helps reinforce the ancient Egyptian vibe in a more clever and subtle way than simply stamping a logo on the top. There’s also a really vibrant patina finish on all sides of the leather that, from what I can tell from the looks of it, seems like it was hand done via a sanding belt (if you’re looking for a similar example of this, check out Dignis’ artisan-series cases for digital audio players). Xanadu could have cheaped out here and simply offered your standard metal swivel tin and called it a day, but they didn’t, and the extra effort is noted.



Eye of Osiris neck cinch, included with Ancient Heritage upgrade cables and otherwise sold separately, pictured here on the Pharaoh



Hieroglyph-themed 4.4 end termination jack, pictured here on the Pharaoh

On that note, let’s appreciate the craftsmanship here that went into the cable. Yeah, I know; Xanadu started out as a cable company: probably the bare minimum you’d expect here is that the cable would be of halfway decent quality. I won’t comment on the sonic qualities of the cabling here (I simply haven’t done enough A/B testing to provide helpful analysis in that regard), but I can tell you that physically, there’s a quality of construction and a degree of presentation here that’s perhaps only matched by Eletech. Not dissimilar to the vaunted Ode to Laura cable, Xanadu has opted for a full-metal Y-splitter here and matching 4.4 termination jack that lean fully into the ancient Egyptian aesthetic. My guess here, and it’s a logical one, is that much like most bespoke jewelry these days, the Y-splitter and jack were originally 3D modeled, 3D printed, and those prints then used to craft a silicone mold to produce a cast metal version. The eye to detail here that went into the 3D model is precision bordering on the neurotic: see those wavy lines in the photo surrounding the hieroglyphs? At first glance, I thought they were imperfections in the original print, and a sign of poor quality control. They’re not: what they are is a rippled stone texture intended to mimic the natural cracks often found on the walls of real life Egyptian ruins. Whoever Xanadu got to model this went out of their way to include that texture, and production here ensured it was retained when the original 3D print was done and when it was eventually cast. That’s insane, and made even more impressive when you take into account that this was included on a stock cable. Admittedly, the entire Egyptian line of cables includes this same Y-splitter and end jack, so it made sense logistically to invest the time, money and resources into making sure such a standard part was manufactured well, but again: Xanadu could have cheaped out here and included just any cable. They didn’t. They went out of their way to ensure that the entire IEM package, from earphone to cable to case, remained coherent. To me, that warrants significant praise.

The shells (aka, size matters):



The IEMs in question



We seldom talk about shell appearance in the headphone community, and for good reason: outside of customs, most acrylic IEMs tend to look the same. A glossy plastic shell here, a logo or two on the side there, and perhaps, if you’re feeling really fancy, a multicolored resin faceplate. Generally speaking, you’ve seen one acrylic IEM, you’ve seen them all (though there are some exceptions to the rule—the Viking Ragnar or the Multiverse Mentor come to mind). The Khopesh, for better or worse, bears no exception here: the acrylic version, unlike the metal, is fairly plain Jane in terms of appearance, although there are a few design elements that stand out. First, of all the colors they could have gone with, I appreciate the fact that they chose blue. For those of you less familiar with color theory, “Egyptian Blue” literally refers to a particular shade of blue pigment (calcium copper silicate, to be exact) that was used in ancient Egypt, on everything from walls to water jugs, and is often considered the world’s first synthetic pigment (the more you know!). It’s an appropriate design choice here, especially given that blue in ancient Egypt was oftentimes associated with the domain of the gods, thus matching nicely with the Xanadu Audio namesake (“Xanadu” literally refers to an idealized place of great beauty, as in the realm of the gods—man, I am really hitting you guys with the trivia today, aren’t I?). As far as the 2-pin connection goes, I would have appreciated a more reinforced connection, rather than your standard flush jacks, but hey, you can’t win them all. To their credit, Xanadu opted for metal nozzles rather than a single-piece unibody acrylic shell, which makes tip swapping far less fiddly; the nozzles also incorporate a raised, ridged section on the ends to help prevent tips from coming off and getting stuck in your ears. Also of note here is that, a la Empire Ears, Xanadu has added a venting port at the top to reduce ear canal pressure, and I can testify that, practically speaking, it works: I felt no fatigue from pressure buildup over the course of the sustained three hours I initially spent listening to these.



Speaking of Empire Ears: let’s address the Evo-sized elephant in the room. You’ll notice in my reviews that I keep coming back to the Empire Ears Legend Evo, and for good reason: it’s a quality IEM that ticks most of my boxes in terms of sound signature. It’s bassy, it’s clear, it’s got multiple drivers, it’s bassy, it’s well-packaged, it’s bassy, it sounds good, it’s bassy, and while, sure, not everything on it works the exact way I’d like, it’s the closest I’ve come this year to an IEM that matches the type of response (bass) I’m looking for. What it does, it does well. You know what’s not so great about the Evos? Their size.



Empire Ears Legend Evo, left, Xanadu Audio Khopesh, right

Peep the comparison shot here: the Evos are a chonky boi. By comparison, the Khopesh are positively svelte. I loved the sound on the Evos, don’t get me wrong, but I found that they made my ears ache within about 45 minutes of wearing them; comparatively, at least on the resin version of the Khopesh (and perhaps I’ll feel differently regarding the metal version), I feel no discomfort whatsoever.

Big chungus energy, Left, Bugs Bunny vibes, Right

“Hey now!” I hear you say. “That’s not fair—the Evos aren’t just ordinary earphones! There’s a bone conduction driver in there, and a dedicated weapon x subwoofer! They have to be that big to sound good! Stop making false comparisons!”.



They have to be that big to sound good.



Phew. Hoo boy. Here, uh…here we go. If you’re a fan of the Legend Evos, you’re gonna wanna stop reading at about this part, because, uh, let me tell you: you are not gonna like what comes next.



Sound signature



I bought the Evos secondhand, owned them for less than a week, and sold them in order to fund the Astell & Kern/Empire Ears Odyssey, believing (falsely) at the time that it would be the next step up for me in sonic bliss. I ended up selling the Odysseys in less than 48 hours of owning them. @Andrew DiMarcangelo over at Bloom Audio can likely recount my own epic journey as I went through the process of scrambling for the money for a solid week, snagging the last available preorder for the Odyssey, and immediately regretting that decision (sidenote: Andrew’s great, and given the opportunity, you should 100% purchase from him, if only for the top-notch customer service). There’s a longer, separate rant here, filled with expletives about mid-bass bleed and too-forward mids, but suffice it to say, the Odyssey wasn’t my cup of tea and, at a loss of what else to try, I ended up repurchasing the Evos and holding onto them for a short amount of time before selling them onwards again. As such, I had the luxury of being able to A/B test the Evos against the Khopesh, and…ok, look, there’s no polite way to say this, so I’m just going to go ahead and get it out there: the bass response on the Khopesh is so intense, I swear I thought the bone conduction driver on the Evos was broken.



I’m not even kidding: I queued up one of the bassiest tracks I know, Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, and compared to the Khopesh, the Evo was practically polite in its presentation of the signature bass thump that runs throughout the track.







Let’s put it another way: if your average IEM’s bass response is a magnum handgun, then the Evos are a shotgun. The Khopesh? They’re the whole goddamned battalion. In terms of sheer magnitude, and I’m putting aside any measurement of quality here (we’ll get to that), I have never, ever, ever heard an IEM this bassy in my life. The Evos held that record for me—until I heard these. What’s different in the bass response is the presentation.



Bass is a lot like chocolate



Think of bass vs treble as chocolate vs vanilla. Do a blind taste test, and pretty much anybody on the street with half a brain can tell you which ice cream cone is chocolate, and which one is vanilla. But talk to a true chocolate aficionado and they’ll be the first to tell you that chocolate isn’t just “chocolate”. What percentage is the chocolate? Light cocoa? Dark cocoa? Earthy? Fruity? What’s it being paired with? And bass, well…bass is a lot like that.



Another reviewer described the Evo’s bass response as “sledgehammer bass with scalpel precision”, and that’s a fairly accurate statement: what they were referring to was the Evo’s presentation of sub-bass throughout tracks, discrete and separate from the rest of the musical presence. Oftentimes we think of “bass” in a track as the sound that, say, a bass guitar makes but dialed up, that “bow wow” we’re all well familiar with when listening to rock and roll. And most times, that concept is fairly accurate, but when bass presentation becomes more refined, we get into the field of sub bass. Sub bass is that nice, satisfying “thump” you often get from a dedicated subwoofer and, when done right, much akin to a well-tuned home theater setup, you hear that thumpy sub bass as separate from the other speakers in the chain. The Evos, to their credit, do sub bass very well, and present it in such a way that there’s a sense of air and space around the rest of the track. It helps render the music as lifelike with a wide stage, rather than that close, intimate environment you often feel when listening to headphones.



The Khopesh do not focus on sub bass: in lieu of the Evo’s bone conduction/subwoofer drivers, they utilize dynamic bass which, at least to me, doesn’t really fall neatly into either category of sub bass or regular bass because, truthfully, it’s a little bit of both. On the Khopesh, bass is less defined, for certain—the precision edge that the Evos possess is missing, but in it’s place is something more raw, boomier, something, dare I say it: more visceral. The soundstage on the Khopesh is smaller, that’s for sure: there’s less air around the instruments, and they don’t have that live performance feel that the Evos do, but the tradeoff is that they sound more musical. And the ultimate end result is that, when comparing the two side by side, the more open, realistic sound of the Evos almost runs the risk of coming across as clinical, sterile. Comparatively speaking (and I’ll drop my first “f bomb” of the review), the Khopesh are simply more fun.



Sometimes you want precision bass, sure. Here’s an example of the kind of track the Khopesh flails at: Secret Ceremony, by Millennium Parade, used as the opening for the second season of the Ghost in the Shell: Sac_2045 anime:





The opening bass line in the first 30 seconds is highly technical: it’s artificially mixed and, as with most electronica, relies on a speaker/headphone tuning that can reproduce that same sort of complex bass to match it. On the Evos, the bass line is coherent and groovy; on the Khopesh, it’s muddy, bloated, and largely noise. But compare both on a track that uses natural instruments with a real, non-altered bass response, and the earphones begin to sing a different tune.







The extended opening to Star Trek: Prodigy has become one of my favorite test tracks as of late, and not simply because I adore the show. The initial opening 40 seconds or so with the trumpet line are an excellent test of warmth, and specifically for warm tuning vs clinical tuning. On the Evos, the trumpets come in—they’re…I don’t know, present, for lack of a better term, but that’s about all I can say about them. On the Khopesh, they come in as lifelike, luscious. More than this, there’s a slight—it’s subtle, but it’s there—amount of reverb to the notes that lasts for a fraction of a second, which unfortunately really highlights the treble rolloff on the Evos. As the harp notes come in, they’re less distinct than the Evos—again, it’s a narrower soundstage, for certain—but they sing. There’s an extra bit of sparkle on them, a flourish as the notes ring out, in no small part due to the Khopesh’s electrostatic drivers (which the Evo notably lacks). When the full orchestra rises at the one minute mark, sure, it sounds a little less like a live performance, but the overall presentation is so inviting and musical that I find myself smiling every time. Then you go into the drums, and they’re thumpy. Not just thumpy in the clinical, digital way entirely isolated sub bass is; there’s a resounding boom to them, signature of dynamic bass, and it’s the sort of thing that gets you bopping your head to the music. The orchestra ultimately doesn’t sound digitally reproduced: it sounds real. This is a track that starts off slow and ramps up: it is meant to be exciting. On the Evos, it simply isn’t; on the Khopesh, it simply is.



Bass is a lot like sex

Caution: if you’re reading this on a work computer, consider this section NSFW:

To me, bass is to IEMs as sex is to life: you can live without it. You’ll get by without it. Plenty of people may go their whole lives without it. If you don’t have it, relative to other things (like, say, food, water, shelter) you won’t die. But let me tell you (and I’ll use the f word again): with it, life is a lot more fun.



On the Evos, bass is like making love. Oh, it’s still sex, that’s for certain, but it’s third date sex. It’s dressed up. It’s polite. It takes you out to dinner and a show first before inviting you in. It’s accepted as customary, downright ceremonial in social circles. It makes you relaxed, it scratches the proverbial itch, and it ultimately leaves you feeling happy and satisfied in a way that doesn’t embarrass you. It’s the closing to a wonderful evening.



The bass on the Khopesh? It is nothing like that. Khopesh bass is back alley sex. It’s you, outside the bar at three in the morning, slightly buzzed, a little groggy, and more than a fair amount disorderly. It’s messy, it’s disorganized, it’s loud. It’s dirty. It’s the kind of thing you can’t talk about in public places, the sort of thing most of your social circle turns their lip up at in disgust. It’s animalistic, it’s barbarian, perhaps even a tad violent. It’s disgusting: you know that, logically, you’re supposed to be more civilized than this. And yet, even as you nurse that hangover the next day, it sticks with you, and in those private moments makes you bite your lip and smile.



Tuning: something old, something new, something gold, something blue

Many audiophiles looking for reference-grade monitors and reading this may find themselves asking, “are the Khopesh, aside from their bass response, otherwise a neutral tuning?”





Simply put: no. No, they are not.



In terms of sound signature, the Khopesh are bizarrely fascinating. Metaphorically speaking (because, hey, why stop at sex and chocolate?), the tuning on the Khopesh is as if someone took the ancient Egyptian aesthetic and found a way to apply it to the sound. Think about it this way: if you were tasked with making high-grade, competitive modern earphones with an ancient spin, what would you imagine the sound signature to be like? If you’re anything like me, you might start off thinking “well, a little bit of old mixed with a little bit of new”, and in many ways that’s exactly what the Khopesh is. The bass is lo-fi, vintage even, that old school, analog sound of the sort your dad grew up with on his vinyl record player; at the same time, the rest of the sound is very digital, with crystal clear notes at the top and an exceptionally well-defined treble that’s always vivid and, while extended, never quite hitting the point of sibilant. I can honestly say that I have yet to hear another earphone like them, and it’s the sort of unique sound signature that can really only be achieved by hybrid drivers. It’s distinct, it’s special, and while I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be to everyone’s liking, it does stand out as something different in a competitive space that’s increasingly characterized by multi-thousand dollar IEMs that tend to sound very similar.



Closing thoughts: a note on value

The Khopesh were entirely a blind buy on the part of myself and my wife: she’s not nearly as big of an audio junkie as I am, and knows next to nothing about tech specs. In a similar spot, I knew nothing of this brand, and went in with zero expectations: she simply showed me a product listing on Taobao and, knowing full well my passion (read: obsession) for all things Moon Knight and Yu-Gi-Oh, knew how I’d react: “oh wow, those are really cool looking!”. The next thing I knew, she was telling me how she’d ordered them and they’d be here before New Year’s.



All in all, these were a really pleasant surprise. They’re not perfect, of course; I certainly wouldn’t ever classify them as all-rounders in the same way I would, say, the Fir XE6, but I can confidently say that they are unlike anything else I (or most audiophiles) have ever owned, and I think there’s a really big merit to that element in particular that often gets neglected in high end audio circles. Look, I applaud those who can afford, very casually, to drop several thousand dollars on new IEMs regularly, constantly seeking that next level, that pinnacle, of audio perfection; to be clear, I am not part of that income bracket. IEMs are a multi-year investment for me, and so, for myself especially, there’s much more of an emphasis on finding something that can justify it’s presence. A thousand dollars plus is a lot of money to me: at the end of spending that, can I confidently say “this is special to me in a way that nothing else I have is”? If so, then the purchase is worthwhile, and in this case that’s exactly what the Khopesh are, from the sound signature to the presentation. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, is the average (read: healthily spending) audiophile, who may, perhaps, at any given time, own no less than five or more high-end, multi-thousand dollar IEMs. When given the ability to purchase just about anything, I certainly think it would be that much more interesting to own something like the Khopesh which, despite it’s flaws, sounds different than anything else out there, rather than owning something that’s, say, more technically capable in a way that’s highly similar to the multiple other IEMs that person already owns. What the Khopesh bass may lack in technical response it makes up for in musicality and character, and I imagine that’s much of the appeal of more recent flagships like the Campfire Trifecta @Rockwell75 keeps raving about.



On that note, it’d be difficult for me to quantify value without taking price into account. The retail for the Khopesh was a little less than $2200; by comparison, the Legend Evo retails for $3100, and when on sale still costs about $2500. The Odin, another tribrid IEM, costs $3400. The Campfire Trifecta costs $3375. Again, taking into account the packaging, the presentation, the sound, the build quality, I said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Khopesh feels like an absolute steal. Factor in that it’s an uber-limited edition with a run of less than 200 units worldwide, and you really can’t ask for anything more.



I honestly don’t know if Xanadu Audio will end up making more IEMs. I for one hope they do, because what they’ve done here is something truly special. Consider these IEMs a must-buy from me: if you're after something unique and fun, look no further.

Otherwise, until we meet again...



*Roundabout intensifies*