[TooPoorForHiFi]

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[aminus]

An Update:
Ahem, well. This is awkward.

So, why the sudden vanish after steadily pumping out reviews almost daily for about a month? Where did I go? Well, simply put, a combination of the release of a certain video game and college application deadlines approaching has put somewhat of a halt to my listening and writing endeavors. Add to that the fact that I've shifted my personal audio focus somewhat towards getting myself a desktop setup that's as good as my portable one, and the fact that work has been getting pretty tiring as of the last couple of months, and you have a pretty good recipe for not being able to really devote much spare time to this small project of mine.

Am I done reviewing? Absolutely not. Expect to see the next review sometime in November, likely during or after Canjam Shanghai. I will be going there and I will be listening to plenty of new stuff and writing my thoughts on them. I've been pretty out of the loop for a while so I have not a fraction of a clue on what's going on with the latest releases in the last 2 or so months. Not sure what's going on with the A&K T9iE or the new InEar flagship. Plenty of things to discover.

I also have a small backlog of stuff I was requested to review but haven't got around to doing so, containing the following:
Oriolus Percivali requested by @BananaOoyoo
Noble Audio Kaiser Encore requested by @Redcarmoose
Acoustune HS1655Cu requested by @TooPoorForHiFi
oBravo Cupid requested by @TooPoorForHiFi

Reviews will likely not be nearly as frequent as they were, not for a while at least. Expect to see about 2 reviews a week and a rant every fortnight instead of the ridiculous 4 reviews and 1 rant per week. Keeping up that rhythm was fairly taxing prior to my schedule tightening up, and I seriously don't see myself being able to push for that much content so rapidly. I would rather prioritize quality over quantity here.

In any case, I leave you with anticipation. Thanks for caring, or not.

 

[aminus]

Canjam Shanghai: Day One
Oh boy oh boy it’s finally here! Down in the land of Xi the event I’ve been waiting for the last half a year has finally started. Many things I’ve been eagerly waiting for are finally ready for me to try all I like. The HEDDphone. The InEar ProMission X. The never seen before qdc Uranus. Meze’s (snicker) Rai Solo. Moondrop’s S8. Do you smell that? It’s the smell of blood in the air. So many new virgin products to hear, so many new virgin products to tear apart. I can’t wait to finally judge the sunset of 2019’s greatest offers and see how they truly stack up in the audio world.

I am of course someone not known for their impulse control so the first thing I tried was the star of the show for me: HEDD’s new HEDDphone. I’ve been hunting for a flagship headphone to truly win me over for some months now and the HEDDphone is right at the top of the list of potential candidates to woo me into opening my wallet for. The AMT technology supposedly has some of the greatest bass slam from any headphone while still retaining pristine treble and incredible imaging and resolution, which is enough to pique the interest of a bass fanatic with no compromises like myself. And sure enough, the HEDD lives up to the expectations set for it in bass. The slam is unlike anything I have ever heard, having that visceral feeling of punching in your eardrums that only IEMs have managed to recreate for me. Transients are also fast and technical ability seems good. Staging is expectedly large with excellent instrument separation and presentation. I listened to some of my most demanding tracks on this like Yes’ The Gates of Delirium, Krallice’s Wretched Wisdom, and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, and the HEDDphone did not fail to impress on any count. Dynamics on these are incredibly realistic and jarring, not unlike the Focals are known for. Minor nitpicks are that the lower midrange and treble tonality are not perfectly to my taste but everything else is exemplary. For $2000 USD this headphone is ridiculously good, and is up there with the likes of the Utopia and the Verite in combining realism and detail. Fantastic job well done to HEDD.

Now... enough praise. Time to get into the nitty gritty.

64 audio unveiled a new IEM today sporting an APEX module and a back vent not unlike the N8. In practice this hybrid’s DD is also very noticeable, with absurd amounts of midbass bloat to make its presence well known. Midrange and treble seem reminiscent of the U12t with lower resolution, which is quite interesting. One might be able to make themselves a hybrid A12t if the tuning is consistent between the UIEM and CIEM and they were willing to do a La Cenric vent mod to it. Aside from that the value proposition remains to be seen.

And then we go from potentially decent to just plain bad. AAW’s Halcyon wasn’t nearly as atrocious I was expecting with mocking comparisons to EE’s Wraith being thrown around (both use 4 electret tweeters). Instead of living in the shadow realm the Halycon opts for bloated, uncontrolled boomy bass with wispy thin treble and a weird unnatural midrange. The fit is also possibly the worst on any UIEM I’ve ever tried. It’s hard to be disappointed when you walk in with no expectations but at the same time the Halcyon would have been funnier had it been more of a garbage fire. I don’t know, I kinda wish it was worse than it actually is so it would worth laughing at instead of being a whole pile of nothing.

The InEar ProMission X is something a lot of people in the Singapore circles have been looking forward to with the PP8 being a hugely popular neutral benchmark in the community. The PMX is... different. It’s a warm relaxed V that sounds more like a refined StageDiver than anything else. The PP8 fanbase will probably be disappointed with this, and I don’t think I can blame them. The naming association with their previous flagship is just bizarre, why not just StageDiver X? In either case, the PMX does feel not quite as technical as its predecessor. Midrange tonality may also be slightly off as orchestral stuff doesn’t sound quite right. More hearing will be needed to make a true judgement on this.

I’ll tell you what I don’t need to hear more of though, and that’s the Meze Rai Solo. This thing is a real turd. The bass is bloated, the midrange sounds metallic and the treble sounds like it came from my busted iPhone 8’s speaker. Seems like Meze can’t tune an IEM when they aren’t copying someone else’s shtick, because this thing is really bad. Enough said.

Something that I was really looking forward to was qdc’s Uranus. This year seems to be the year of the hybrid for qdc, with the Fusion earlier this year and now the budget Uranus. Unfortunately the Uranus just sounds like a generic chifi hybrid. Boosted bass and treble for an exciting sound that’s not exciting at all because it’s been done to death. Looks like the qdc lineup to look out for is still their higher end models.

And now something that I didn’t have much expectations for but threw me off anyways. Moondrop is a brand I’ve never been fond of, disliking the Harman target as I do. Yet the S8 is something I find quite decent. It’s nowhere near as bassy as the older Moondrop offerings and has a fairly tolerable pinna gain rather than the shouty 3khz peaks of death I’ve come to despise with Harman. Treble extension is lacking as with most IEMs but technical ability is all around quite good. Pleasing tonality and decently detailed is already a winning combination in this day and age. It’s not going to beat the IER-Z1R even on a good day but you could absolutely do a lot worse for the price. Consider me impressed.

In either case that wraps up Canjam Shanghai Day 1 for me. Wonder what I should try tomorrow.

Score: BUY HEDD/10
Day Two is over here.

 

[TooPoorForHiFi]

How does the Acoustune HS1655Cu compare to the MoonDrop S8 beside it being BA vs DD & Blessing 2,

Which would you personally prefer ?

 

[aminus]

How does the Acoustune HS1655Cu compare to the MoonDrop S8 beside it being BA vs DD & Blessing 2,

Which would you personally prefer ?

The 1655 review is in the pipeline and I don’t want to spoil it but generally I find the S8 to be a lot better than I was expecting.

 

[aminus]

InEar ProMission X:
I wrote on my initial impressions on the ProMission X yesterday. Here are my full length thoughts.

The ProMission X’s boosted bass is typically BA, thought I’m hearing ever so slightly more transient control on it than from the usual schlock. Aside from that it’s typically plasticky and poor in texture and decay. Slam is as usually weak and the experience leaves one wishing InEar would learn how to make hybrids already.

The PMX’s midrange is distinctly warm, and here it becomes apparent that the PMX is essentially a StageDiver on steroids rather than a true PP8 successor. A lot of people won’t like this, though I’m personally ambivalent. It’s interesting though, how InEar have decided to essentially go in the opposite direction for their sequel to the PP8. In either case the PMX’s midrange is lower mids tilted, as is expect of a generally warm IEM, and displays good amounts of crunch with guitars. It performs well with male vocals as well, as is expected. Interestingly, I don’t find the upper mids particularly recessed, which is something I noticed on the SD5 as well. On further listening with the same orchestral track that threw me off yesterday, it mostly sounds to me like the lower midrange focus and warmth wasn’t what I was expecting at all from InEar and therefore elicited confusion from me.

The PMX’s treble is mid-treble focused with nice amounts of crash while still holding over some stick impact. There does appear to be slight amounts of splash stemming from the mid-treble emphasis which marrs definition a little on cymbal heavy tracks. As is typical with a lot of InEar stuff, the treble extension is less than desirable, but this is standard from IEMs anyways.

Now here’s where the PMX fails to deliver: technical ability. Not sure if it’s due to the tuning choice or anything else but the raw technical ability of the PMX feels worse in general compared to the PP8. Add to it that the PMX’s laidback tuning inherently is less detail oriented and you get an IEM that feels like an unworthy successor to the incisive and detail oriented PP8. It just feels like it’s disconnected in how different they are. In either case, the PMX’s staging and spatial cues are somewhat poorer than the PP8, with what almost feels like a 3 blob staging thing going on with some of the more extreme stereo panning. Presentation is also flat without much headspace or depth. And the PMX also doesn’t really fix the problems the PP8 had with dynamics and emotion. It’s overall not a bad experience, just a very mediocre one.

And where the PMX falls truly short is as a value proposition. At 17000 yuan here that’s 2 and a half big ones in USD. That’s a lot of money and I don’t think the PMX is worth any of it. Even if you do like the sound, the SD5 is really not that far behind and not that dissimilar. I don’t get this IEM at all.

All listening was done out of the 4.4mm jack of the WM1A with a FiiO 2.5mm to 4.4mm dongle.

Unless you’re in a cost is no object budget and really love the SD series sound, I don’t know how to recommend this. The price makes it impossibly hard to justify, and the sound really is nothing special.

Score: 5/10

 

[aminus]

Canjam Shanghai: Day Two:
Day One is over here.
Yesterday’s show was quite tiring. From the outstanding HEDD (which will get a second listening session today) to the not so outstanding IEMs that debuted here, a lot was heard. Today was no different.

First up we have the Moondrop Blessing 2. This is a more lively sound than the original Blessing as well as most other Moondrops I’ve heard, and is pretty energetic all around. I do find it too upper mid forward for my tastes, bordering on shoutiness. It’s also somewhat rough in the treble. Despite this I find it fairly enjoyable, and don’t have difficulty appreciating it. In comparison to the S8, it’s not quite as smooth and detailed, though that’s fair considering the price bracket difference.

The other Moondrop release I heard was the Moondrop Solis. This one’s supposed to be their flagship tribrid, and I don’t know if I’m really a fan. It’s surprisingly un-Harman, with way more lower mids than any other Moondrop IEM I’ve heard so far. It seems to have recessed treble too, and is generally a lot more boring than the Blesssing 2 and the S8. Resolution seems about on par with the S8 as well. I generally feel like this one is a bit too far deviated from the general Moondrop formula.

And then there’s the other side of Moondrop, Softears. I don’t know about this one, it’s pretty uneven. The Cerberus, befitting the name, has treble banished to the underworld, with worse resolution than both the S8 and the Solis. The Turii has this ridiculous square shell which is incredibly uncomfortable with weird, thin and tinny mids and rough and harsh treble. Really not sure what Moondrop’s parent company is trying to do with this brand but it’s not good so far.

I also took the time to give the new InEar flagship the ProMission X a more in depth listen and have a full length review for it. Check that out over here.

And then things go south. A friend asked me to check out the new Earsonics IEMs, and while I was initially apprehensive, I now wish I followed my gut instinct and avoided their booth like the plague. The Blade has thin and shrill mids with a weird boxed in presentation that sounds incredibly off and has an uncanny valley-esque effect. Dynamics on this are also pretty terrible. In general it just sounds wrong for all the intangible reasons. On the other hand with we have the Earsonics Stark with its boosted, blunt bass and its resonant and hollow sounding mids. This pair seem just terrible and really need to be taken back to the drawing board. I don’t know what else to say because this stuff is just plain bad.

Finally I spent a couple more hours with the HEDDphone to extract further impressions. The layering and detail retrieval is just as good as I remembered, and the tuning in the lower midrange sounds less weird with the Questyle CMA Twelve powering it and the HEDDphones worn correctly (I was previously wearing them back to front to compensate for the channels being flipped because I didn’t realize the pads were angled. Doing the proper smart person thing and just swapping the cables fixed that pretty easily). In general the HEDDphone takes on a neutral-esque sound with a center-midrange emphasis, not unlike some of the Stax Lambdas. The bass on it slams unlike anything else I have ever heard and it physically rumbles when subbass is run through it. This will likely be something I end up buying when it goes up for sale. Just a damn good headphone all around.

And that concludes my Canjam Shanghai adventure. See you guys next year on the home turf.

Score: Fulltime HEDD shill/10

 

[noplsestar]

InEar ProMission X:
I wrote on my initial impressions on the ProMission X yesterday. Here are my full length thoughts.

The ProMission X’s boosted bass is typically BA, thought I’m hearing ever so slightly more transient control on it than from the usual schlock. Aside from that it’s typically plasticky and poor in texture and decay. Slam is as usually weak and the experience leaves one wishing InEar would learn how to make hybrids already.

The PMX’s midrange is distinctly warm, and here it becomes apparent that the PMX is essentially a StageDiver on steroids rather than a true PP8 successor. A lot of people won’t like this, though I’m personally ambivalent. It’s interesting though, how InEar have decided to essentially go in the opposite direction for their sequel to the PP8. In either case the PMX’s midrange is lower mids tilted, as is expect of a generally warm IEM, and displays good amounts of crunch with guitars. It performs well with male vocals as well, as is expected. Interestingly, I don’t find the upper mids particularly recessed, which is something I noticed on the SD5 as well. On further listening with the same orchestral track that threw me off yesterday, it mostly sounds to me like the lower midrange focus and warmth wasn’t what I was expecting at all from InEar and therefore elicited confusion from me.

The PMX’s treble is mid-treble focused with nice amounts of crash while still holding over some stick impact. There does appear to be slight amounts of splash stemming from the mid-treble emphasis which marrs definition a little on cymbal heavy tracks. As is typical with a lot of InEar stuff, the treble extension is less than desirable, but this is standard from IEMs anyways.

Now here’s where the PMX fails to deliver: technical ability. Not sure if it’s due to the tuning choice or anything else but the raw technical ability of the PMX feels worse in general compared to the PP8. Add to it that the PMX’s laidback tuning inherently is less detail oriented and you get an IEM that feels like an unworthy successor to the incisive and detail oriented PP8. It just feels like it’s disconnected in how different they are. In either case, the PMX’s staging and spatial cues are somewhat poorer than the PP8, with what almost feels like a 3 blob staging thing going on with some of the more extreme stereo panning. Presentation is also flat without much headspace or depth. And the PMX also doesn’t really fix the problems the PP8 had with dynamics and emotion. It’s overall not a bad experience, just a very mediocre one.

And where the PMX falls truly short is as a value proposition. At 17000 yuan here that’s 2 and a half big ones in USD. That’s a lot of money and I don’t think the PMX is worth any of it. Even if you do like the sound, the SD5 is really not that far behind and not that dissimilar. I don’t get this IEM at all.

All listening was done out of the 4.4mm jack of the WM1A with a FiiO 2.5mm to 4.4mm dongle.

Unless you’re in a cost is no object budget and really love the SD series sound, I don’t know how to recommend this. The price makes it impossibly hard to justify, and the sound really is nothing special.

Score: 5/10

I wrote with the head engineer of InEar a year or two ago and told them the PP8 would be perfect in a hybrid version with a better bass and also if they would be able to extend the highs more and create a bigger soundstage. Looks like they didn’t hear me out ... in the meanwhile I sold them to fund the Focal Stellia, which I‘m more than happy with

 

[riverred105]

Canjam Shanghai: Day One
Oh boy oh boy it’s finally here! Down in the land of Xi the event I’ve been waiting for the last half a year has finally started. Many things I’ve been eagerly waiting for are finally ready for me to try all I like. The HEDDphone. The InEar ProMission X. The never seen before qdc Uranus. Meze’s (snicker) Rai Solo. Moondrop’s S8. Do you smell that? It’s the smell of blood in the air. So many new virgin products to hear, so many new virgin products to tear apart. I can’t wait to finally judge the sunset of 2019’s greatest offers and see how they truly stack up in the audio world.

I am of course someone not known for their impulse control so the first thing I tried was the star of the show for me: HEDD’s new HEDDphone. I’ve been hunting for a flagship headphone to truly win me over for some months now and the HEDDphone is right at the top of the list of potential candidates to woo me into opening my wallet for. The AMT technology supposedly has some of the greatest bass slam from any headphone while still retaining pristine treble and incredible imaging and resolution, which is enough to pique the interest of a bass fanatic with no compromises like myself. And sure enough, the HEDD lives up to the expectations set for it in bass. The slam is unlike anything I have ever heard, having that visceral feeling of punching in your eardrums that only IEMs have managed to recreate for me. Transients are also fast and technical ability seems good. Staging is expectedly large with excellent instrument separation and presentation. I listened to some of my most demanding tracks on this like Yes’ The Gates of Delirium, Krallice’s Wretched Wisdom, and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, and the HEDDphone did not fail to impress on any count. Dynamics on these are incredibly realistic and jarring, not unlike the Focals are known for. Minor nitpicks are that the lower midrange and treble tonality are not perfectly to my taste but everything else is exemplary. For $2000 USD this headphone is ridiculously good, and is up there with the likes of the Utopia and the Verite in combining realism and detail. Fantastic job well done to HEDD.

Now... enough praise. Time to get into the nitty gritty.

64 audio unveiled a new IEM today sporting an APEX module and a back vent not unlike the N8. In practice this hybrid’s DD is also very noticeable, with absurd amounts of midbass bloat to make its presence well known. Midrange and treble seem reminiscent of the U12t with lower resolution, which is quite interesting. One might be able to make themselves a hybrid A12t if the tuning is consistent between the UIEM and CIEM and they were willing to do a La Cenric vent mod to it. Aside from that the value proposition remains to be seen.

And then we go from potentially decent to just plain bad. AAW’s Halcyon wasn’t nearly as atrocious I was expecting with mocking comparisons to EE’s Wraith being thrown around (both use 4 electret tweeters). Instead of living in the shadow realm the Halycon opts for bloated, uncontrolled boomy bass with wispy thin treble and a weird unnatural midrange. The fit is also possibly the worst on any UIEM I’ve ever tried. It’s hard to be disappointed when you walk in with no expectations but at the same time the Halcyon would have been funnier had it been more of a garbage fire. I don’t know, I kinda wish it was worse than it actually is so it would worth laughing at instead of being a whole pile of nothing.

The InEar ProMission X is something a lot of people in the Singapore circles have been looking forward to with the PP8 being a hugely popular neutral benchmark in the community. The PMX is... different. It’s a warm relaxed V that sounds more like a refined StageDiver than anything else. The PP8 fanbase will probably be disappointed with this, and I don’t think I can blame them. The naming association with their previous flagship is just bizarre, why not just StageDiver X? In either case, the PMX does feel not quite as technical as its predecessor. Midrange tonality may also be slightly off as orchestral stuff doesn’t sound quite right. More hearing will be needed to make a true judgement on this.

I’ll tell you what I don’t need to hear more of though, and that’s the Meze Rai Solo. This thing is a real turd. The bass is bloated, the midrange sounds metallic and the treble sounds like it came from my busted iPhone 8’s speaker. Seems like Meze can’t tune an IEM when they aren’t copying someone else’s shtick, because this thing is really bad. Enough said.

Something that I was really looking forward to was qdc’s Uranus. This year seems to be the year of the hybrid for qdc, with the Fusion earlier this year and now the budget Uranus. Unfortunately the Uranus just sounds like a generic chifi hybrid. Boosted bass and treble for an exciting sound that’s not exciting at all because it’s been done to death. Looks like the qdc lineup to look out for is still their higher end models.

And now something that I didn’t have much expectations for but threw me off anyways. Moondrop is a brand I’ve never been fond of, disliking the Harman target as I do. Yet the S8 is something I find quite decent. It’s nowhere near as bassy as the older Moondrop offerings and has a fairly tolerable pinna gain rather than the shouty 3khz peaks of death I’ve come to despise with Harman. Treble extension is lacking as with most IEMs but technical ability is all around quite good. Pleasing tonality and decently detailed is already a winning combination in this day and age. It’s not going to beat the IER-Z1R even on a good day but you could absolutely do a lot worse for the price. Consider me impressed.

In either case that wraps up Canjam Shanghai Day 1 for me. Wonder what I should try tomorrow.

Score: BUY HEDD/10
Day Two is over here.

thank you for the awesome summaries! Regarding the HEDD, can you compare them to the abyss Diana phi (or 1266) if you have any experience with these or totl audeze models?

 

[aminus]

thank you for the awesome summaries! Regarding the HEDD, can you compare them to the abyss Diana phi (or 1266) if you have any experience with these or totl audeze models?

Unfortunately I don’t have any experience with the Abyss stuff. Would have tried my hand with the 1266 if the dCS Bartok were capable of reading USB output from my WM1A but no such luck. In the case of the Audeze TOTLs, the HEDD is not nearly as tonally imbalanced (thank god it’s not the shadow realm stuff someone said it would be), has much better decay, and has more realistic sounding bass in the timbre and slam departments. The LCD4 feels like a joke in comparison.

 

[BananaOoyoo]

Did you get to try the new 64Audio IEM at CanJam?

 

[aminus]

Did you get to try the new 64Audio IEM at CanJam?

Yes, my thoughts on it are in the Day One article.

 

[BananaOoyoo]

Cool, thanks

 

[aminus]

Vision Ears Erlkonig:
Hahahaha, this one’s a doozy.

VE’s lineup is somewhat notorious for being.... opulently priced, if one might phrase it that way. But none are more infamous as such in their lineup than the Erlkonig, running at an eye watering $4800 USD. My entire audio collection doesn’t even add up to that much (because I sold all my desktop gear off, haha). So needless to say the Erlkonig has some shoes to fill to warrant the tag.

The Erlkonig is also well known for having 4 variable tunings, controlled by a screw which notches into place hidden inside the magnetic faceplate. I’ll try to cover each setting as a package rather than splitting up the frequency response the way I usually do.

Setting 1 has Erlkonig appear to be fairly warm and forgiving. Noticeable is the lower midrange focus and enhanced bass response. In contrast, the treble and upper midrange are notably recessed, and the treble especially lacks sparkle with cymbals. Extension feels nonexistent, though the already scarce amounts of treble doesn’t make that too glaringly obvious. Bass response does feel rather bloaty, in part thanks to the fact that the bass boost on the Erlkonig is one gigantic boost that only dies at 900Hz. I find myself turning up the volume quite a bit on this setting to get adequate amounts of treble. Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps does not quite sound nearly as aggressive as a piece of its stature should be, with the almost muted brass section and the clunky and unrefined lower midrange. Not quite my thing unfortunately.

Switching over to Setting 2 and my, a lot of the missing ambience in the aforementioned Stravinsky piece that was smeared over in Setting 1 has returned. I’m finally getting back some of the room sound that I like in this recording. Bass is massively held back in comparison to Setting 1, and along with it the bleedy lower mids. This setting is far more tonally balanced, though it does lead to the poor treble extension becoming more obvious. I do find that there is still quite a bit of lower mid focus in this setting, especially for my preferences. Schoenberg’s First String Quartet does not quite sing as well with violins as I’m used to, with cello and viola taking a bit more of the spotlight. Some will enjoy this but I personally don’t quite like it as much.

Setting 3 perhaps was made to alleviate that last complaint of mine, because it reduces the bass and lower mids even further, making the Erlkonig enter much more neutral territory. Bass extension begins to start sounding slightly rolled off here, and the weaknesses of the Erlkonig’s bass response begin to shine through without the exaggerated midbass trying to hide it. Slam seemed fine in Settings 1 and 2 but is almost nonexistent in Setting 3. The general lack of texture is also apparent, and the decay is also subpar and limp as per typical BA standards, though this was an issue in all settings. After the Flood has me unsatisfied all around, no matter how much the midrange tonality may have skewed towards my preference.

If Setting 4 is supposed to follow up the general direction that the Erlkonig has headed in from the previous 3 settings, it does... just barely. I hear a smidge more treble and stick impact and that’s it. Struggle to say more because there’s nothing to.

The Erlkonig’s technical strengths are a bit odd. It shines a lot on dense tracks like the recording of Le Sacre du Printemps I typically use. A lot of detail that I struggle to hear on my daily Z1R is clear as day on it, though not sure if it’s simple due to a different tuning emphasizing different instruments or a genuine step up in technical ability. However with things like reverb and room sound, it seems to fail to capture it. Not once did I feel like the Erlkonig matched up to my Z1R in displaying ambience, which is bizarre considering how wide the Erlkonig’s staging is.

My preferred setting would likely either be 3 or 4, depending on how much treble I feel like having that day. Both border on indistinguishable, and I can’t say with utmost confidence that I’d pass a blind test between them. As much as I ragged on the bass response of Setting 3, I do feel it is the most balanced sounding of the bunch, with Setting 4 giving a slight tinge of added brightness.

But perhaps the biggest flaw of the Erlkonig is that it’s boring. I don’t tap my feet when I listen to it, it’s just inoffensive. There was nothing egregiously bad or good enough to make me use very many tracks to push its limits while demoing. It feels uninspired and too timid to truly be divisive and outstanding in its own way. I think I’ll leave it at that.

All listening was done out of the WM1A’s 4.4mm jack with a FiiO 2.5mm to 4.4mm dongle.

I can’t recommend this unless you for whatever reason need the tunability of the Erlkonig or like what it does with warmth. Between the price and that only 2 of the settings don’t sound smeared and mushed over, it’s going to be a pass from me.

Score: 6/10 (for Setting 3/4)