[ethanduong]

Alclair is having their BF sale in case anyone is interested.

Not for me though, I purchased their Reference as my first pair of CIEM and wasn't really happy. There was a lot of sib.

 

[annasoh323]

To be fair, I think the Reference is one of their early models. Still, you don't always change tuning signatures on a dime. I had a chance to stop by their booth at a conference. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try everything and not for that long. The other part that held me back was the dongles they provided for use with our phones were underpowered. I brought out my iBasso dongle and everything came to LIFE. I tried the Studio 3, Studio 4, and ESM. I didn't get to try the 4 on my iBasso so I just have the underpowered memory. Even the Studio 3 didn't seem to lack anything or have anything too offensive when I tried it. I don't remember sibilance but the music I was listening to didn't have too many possibly offensive "esses" or high freqs. I felt bad mobbing around their booth and I'm inexperienced in testing things on the fly. One of my group was doing blind A/B testing between the RSM (four-driver stage-tuned model) and Spire (six-driver stage-tuned model) and ended up putting in the order for the RSM. I think the RSM is tuned a bit more toward richness and she's a vocalist/guitarist so that's what she preferred.

 

[turbo87]

So any thoughts on the ESM?

 

[annasoh323]

So any thoughts on the ESM?

Not as many as I'd like. From what I've seen, in practice the shell is going to come out a bit larger than others. Doing a quick and not blind check between the custom Electro and the universal demo of the ESM, I recall hearing some of the difference in the stage and studio ethos of Alclair. Stage to them is a bit more v-shaped to match the chaos that can happen on stage. Still, I think their studio tuning has some v-shaping to it compared to typical IEM flat. My guess is they're trying to do in IEM terms what near-field studio monitors "feel" like. Another company out there that seems to do this is Ollo but I've never listened to their headphones so I don't know for sure if there are similarities.

Despite having electrostat drivers, they don't push them too far forward. I like that as what I think it does for me is creates special times in different tracks where the touch of sparkle opens things up. I don't have experience with IEMs that do have a forward e-stat driver though.