Alright folks, I'm here with some notes re: Moon Rover vs. Fathom. A caveat to start, in terms of our broader line-up, these two sit pretty close to one another. I definitely consider these our closest to 'neutral' IEMs in our current line-up. So many differences noted here are more subtle than they would otherwise be when compared vs. something like Bonneville or Trifecta. So here are my thoughts after a couple hours of A/B-ing:
The most notable difference between these to me, is timbre. There's just a certain color and characteristic to planars that sets them apart. I think this stems from the size - making some rounder wider bass, with less of that kick-drum beat 'punch' - and the speed - creating that super fast, snappy hit in the snare and hi-hats - So though I feel that Fathom and Moon Rover are similarly balanced in terms of FR they provide a different flavor, maybe like lime vs lemon sparkling water haha. Overall MR feels more analytical than Fathom, but Fathom feels more analytical than much of our line-up, so not a huge delta there.
I mentioned MR's bass response, and I think that is a point of difference here. Fathom's has more of that physical hit while MR is rounder and wider. Similar volumes of bass, but very slightly more in Fathom.
Fathom has some great top-end detail, but it's hard to beat planars in terms of their transient speed, and this can definitely be felt with MR. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Supermoon has even more top-end sizzle to it than MR, and MR sits in between Fathom and SM here.
Another notable difference here is mid/vocal performance. Fathom's vocals are more forward, and presented with more richness, sweetness to them. MR's don't feel recessed to me, but I find one of the defining characteristics of Fathom to be its focus on vocal performance.
So overall I find MR to be the more neutral of the two, very even-keeled across the board and not really favoring any frequency bands but bringing that planar texture, timbre, and technical ability to the table (alliteration not intended
). While Fathom is sort of holding down that 'just-north-of-neutral' spot in the line-up previously held by classic Andro; with a bit more bass and vocal forwardness.
Hope this helps!