Old School formula, New School Technology.
Follow-on review, sans my usual creative story telling. Let's talk a bit about big budget driams. More like shattered driams.
Preamble Musings: except for the Oriolus Isabellae, I can't imagine having just plunked down $250 and more for one of these pixie-dust single DD units only to be thoroughly trounced in every way by a $22 CCA product. That's what I imagine that I'm hearing. I don't have any of these fancy DD units to compare directly, but I can imagine that right now my first thoughts would be related to how much of the original tips and packaging of those more expensive sets I kept around so I could dump them immediately and put towards more exotic amplifier tech.
Based purely on hype (... and reviews with only slightly less hype), the Isabellae looks like its own thing - a world of mids focused nuance, fluidity, and coherency - and I'm jonesing for a pair of those super bad right now as it would fill a gap in my otherwise vee shaped chifi collection. Unfortunately for me, I have 4 adult children in 2 countries that are separated by the Atlantic ocean. With only a few months before the holidays arrive and with travel involved, expensive hobby purchases just aren't in the cards.
In lieu of shameless retail therapy, I'm really thankful to have these little budget wonders like the NRA and the Geek Wold GK10 to keep my spirits up and my mind occupied during these covid times. I am self employed in my home office, and besides working 10-12 hours a day, I only have my new (well, more like revived from the dead) headphones hobby to lean on for entertainment. All the KZ chifi units I've bought to date, beginning with the CCA C12, I still enjoy very much. There is not a single disappointment in the whole lot, and frankly speaking, I'm really surprised about that because I'd expected a couple of misses.
Should you buy them? Price aside, you should really consider trying a set of these. It offers something fun and unexpected and you just might find that it's a better daily driver than mid-fi priced sets of IEM. If they get destroyed, well - just go on and order a backup pair at the same time. Price considered, if you're new to IEMs or to the audio hobby and reading all of these reviews and audio sites, and you want to taste what the "audiophile" thing is all about, look no further: get one of the small dac/amp devices (i'm using FiiO's BTR3K and it's excellent) and a pair of these NRA units and just enjoy the music for the next 6 months. There is so much here to like, and the dynamics of this set will keep you engaged and tied up for a long while as your listening shifts between analytical listening to critical listening. These can do both just fine.
A person could spend a lot more money and still get less sound quality. The NRA is a warning shot fired across the bow of a crowded and hyper competitive market for budget audio gear: the bar just got higher and for a lot lower cost. The message to bigger budget chifi makers is this: you are now uhh ...
Cable and tips: I love, love love love this old school, glued two wire cable. It's smooth and virtually tangle free and has no microphonics. It's built like headphone cables used to be made 20 years ago, and gosh darn it, it just works. Of all the pin types I find KZ's QDC style to be the least scary to use and the most reliable. The translucent, shallow, wide bore tips that KZ is shipping right now are really garbage but they hysterically sound great. That is if they fit your ears. The large is just a bit small for me so I had to swap out to starlines, which provided a few mm more protrusion into the ear canal and solved any fit issues. There's a tiny bit of treble lopped off, but it isn't much.
Bass: After more listening I find the tuning to be near perfect for my tastes. The bass and midbass is punching way above it's weight here as a more audiophile focused pair. It's neutral without being thin, textured without being harsh, and has ever so slightly just enough slam dialed in to make percussion a standout. Given the interest in the MST drivers on this set, the bass is very much an unexpected and happy surprise to my ears. There is a healthy amount of subbass dialed in as well, despite what the graphs have shown so far. Witch house jams like Lorn, BLVCK CEILING, axius link, and skeler are incredible across the full spectrum. One of the first sets I've not had to jack up the subbass to fully enjoy, and it somehow manages to do it without being overwhelming. For me this is truly Goldilocks bass and completely unexpected. Cray.
Mids: if there is one area that is potentially open for critique, it would be the upper mids. I think the addition of a tweeter BA like the 30095 would ruin the set. Instead, I think a next-model-up in the catalog is begging for a single BA unit focused on upper mids, or maybe something as simple as just squeezing a bit more power out of the MST units. Given the near infinite variations of driver tech in hybrids out there on the market, this is a near impossible ask. As they are, there is nothing wrong with the mids at all. They are crystal clear, lyrical, and fluid. They are not TOTL quality, but for what you're paying here, I think it makes TOTL sets look criminally expensive.
Back in my day we were perfectly secure in our manhood to mix it up around cross dressing ballerinas while having torrid affairs with androgynous women. We never speak about those monsters but Annie's vocals still just reach right out and grab me right in the feels. "The monsters are crazy. There are monsters outside." Separation in instruments and vocals is superb in the midrange. No genre and no album has thrown these off course in terms of technicalities, and the timbre is really very good.
Quick mids comparisons: GK10's BA/DD hybrid is probably the best I've heard to date and, in this listener's opinion, still bests the NRA by a smidge. GK10 has good tonality and timbre coming from it's dedicated mids DD, and a lot of micro-contrast provided by the a mids focused BA on the edge of the notes. I'm really interested in the Yanyin Aladdin for similar reasons, as it's one of the only hybrids that seems to be noticed for its magical bit of tuning in the midrange frequencies. KZ's BA10 has equal amounts of texture, definition, and volume everywhere in the spectrum, but they don't have the tone and timbre as this NRA. DQ6 is probably the closest since the primary DD is likely identical.
Male vocals are also excellent to my ears. Even at glorious streaming bitrate of 480p, which is probably about on par with most 90's era cassette tape players, this still sounds great. Tonality is really a lot better than I expected out of these. Imaging and positioning are fine. I'd call the sound stage "perfectly adequate", and that's just fine to me. Sound stage that sounds wider than "good" has come to sound fake to my ears, so the NRA for me is right on point. Maybe that's because I'm feeling ...
Treble: in line with the high hopes, CCAs first MST budget drivers really shine in their treble delivery. Like the cable, CCA's tuners went Old School here and dialed in a lot of what used to be known to loudspeaker manufacturers as "presence" - that is mid-treble in the 6-8kHz region. For what they might be missing in top end sparkle they make up for in such a clear and fluid treble delivery from the MSTs that you can't help but to be shocked that this kind of sound is coming from such a low cost device.
These are not quite as detailed on the treble region as your average high-driver count BA hybrid or all BA designs, but it still offers a tremendous amount of resolution and space around instruments and voices. Because the bass is so well controlled, you have ample room for the mids and treble both to breathe in the track. Overall, I notice that there is almost no fatigue coming from these compared to higher powered BA sets like my C12s and BA10. The ever so small trade off in technicalities compared to all BA treble is worth the gain in tone. I dont have other piezso or EST/MST hybrids to compare to, so I won't comment more than "this is what it sounds like ..."
EQ: very close to my ZAX settings. Just a few dB bump from 10-17kHz to add some sparkle and sound stage. To my ears, tastefully done treble extension is like hitting a mono <---> stereo button. There's a pretty drastic shift in imaging from what I hear, and the cool thing is that it doesn't come with the fatigue or pressure that BA units typically kick out. There's not much in the way of strident noises when over extending the treble, but it does turn sibilant pretty quickly, similar to the DQ6. Cymbals get splashy not from more than about 4dB anywhere in the upper range. Middbass lovers can crank to their heart's delight. Both bass and midbass scale well under EQ, per most KZ and CCA drivers.
Final thought: how good is "really good"? Given the cost / performance ratio here, it's a mind blowing value. The tuning should be a hit with most people, and there's nothing too colored or too opinionated in the sound that would make them a gamble as a recommendation to others.
More that that, I believe the NRA's real strength is to provide a new and near perfect low-cost introduction to the audiophile hobby in the same way that those first sets of Grados, AKGs, or Fostex were for us old timers. Get a pair and try 'em out. I'd like to see CCA make enough profit from these to roll out $75 tribrid to slay the $1000+ price segment. "A new religion that will bring you to your knees ..."
, so pretty much going in with no expectations.
