Craft Ears Reviews/Impressions Thread

Craft Ears are a new CIEM manufacturer spearheaded by Jedrzej, a drummer, music composer, and producer from Poland. The company has been in the works for 2 years with the goal of creating the best sounding and most comfortable CIEMS for musicians and audiophiles alike. Craft Ears are a well-known name on musical stages over Europe and are focussing on their presence in the audiophile community. Jed utilises Sonion balanced armature drivers with custom sound chambers and offers full graphics personalization enabled by his adoption of DLP 3D printing to create shells. He has some very unique designs built to an immaculate finish. All CIEMs are covered by a 60-day fit warranty, 2-year warranty on components and life-time support. He is working alongside top engineers to deliver cutting-edge acoustical developments. I recently received the Craft FOUR for review and it shows great promise, impressions below with a full review coming soon!

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Craft TWO

The Craft TWO model delivers a warm and balanced sound. Featuring dual drivers with both - electrical and acoustical crossover design for even bigger joy of listening.

Our dual-driver earphone was designed to deliver neutral and balanced sound with slightly improved bass response. Detailed, but soft high frequencies makes Craft TWO very versatile In-Ear Monitor.

Craft TWO is recommended for guitarists and vocalists, but will also fit orchestral musicians and everyone that enjoys warm and soft sound.

Reviews:


Craft FOUR

The Craft FOUR was designed for musicians, by musicians. Featuring dual (sub)woofer, single mid driver and single super tweeter drivers and four-way, complex crossover with three-way acoustical bore design.

Craft FOUR is a bright sounding monitor, that delivers punchy, but precise lows, and detailed highs with wide imaging and soundstage. Remarkable relation between on-stage and studio use.

Craft FOUR is recommended for drummers and bass players, but will also fit keyboardists and everyone that enjoys bright signature with a little more lo end.

Impressions:

The Craft Four is an earphone that tickles the ear with a signature that sounds euphonic and balanced. This is a musical sound, lightly warm through the low-end and slightly forward through the midrange. Meanwhile, the high-end is defined by a 10KHz emphasis while upholding a background that finds a happy medium between openness and cleanliness. Under scrutiny, the Craft Four delivers the background detail and top-end extension only found on high-end IEM’s, however, it does so subtly with a natural upper-treble and smooth but not detail deficient lower-treble. Bass extension impresses and the Craft Four possesses natural decay and low-end power that many BA earphones fall short of while retaining control and detail retrieval.

Mid-bass has slight emphasis, instigating a lightly warm tone before a natural slope into a lower-midrange that’s just a hair recessed. Vocal timbre is excellent and this is showcased front with the centre midrange seeing moderate wide-band emphasis. As the bass is lightly warm, the Craft Four’s slightly enlarged vocals remain well-bodied and avoid rasp and over-articulation due to lower-treble attenuation. This enables the ability to retain 4KHz presence and strong upper-midrange extension, a presentation reminiscent of the formidable Fibae 7. Altogether, the Craft Four is an earphone that is clear yet clean and refined with moderate brightness well counterbalanced by tasteful warmth and body. Full Article.

Reviews:

Coming Soon!

 

I should be receiving review units as well. Can't waittt

 

Thank you Ryan!

You will get your CIEMs very soon

 

Here I am with mine After a year-long journey with CA Ei.XX I tought my adventure with CIEMs has come to an end but was wrong. Oh how I was wrong The moment I saw few of Jedrzej's demos he carried along with himself at last years Audio Video Show in Warsaw, I instantly fell in love with the design just as much as I liked Jed himself. But this is a CIEMs thread

@ryanjsoo I've read your impressions yesterday and I feel exactly the same about Four's. I was instantly struck with their balanced, coherent sound and moist of all that wide and well organised soundstage which I definietely did not expect not only from 4-driver BA earphones, but CIEMs too. Second thing that got me off-guard was extremely well defined and definietely not overdone mids which sound for my taste balanced with that tiny drop in lower part which scoops a bit of meatiness and weight but retains power and energy. The treble? Loved it. Clean, spacious, very natural without harshness. Bass mainly depends on the source but it's great how much they show the signature of DAP. Will be writing a review too.

P.S. They are KILLER when it comes to looks. I told Jed what I liked, and he went beyond my expectations with creating those stunning beauties

 

Glad you liked them mate! The thing about Jed's designs, you're always jealous even when yours are jealous worthy haha, that swirl turned out amazing!

 

Aaaand I'm back with something that stole my heart. As everybody know, PlasticOne cables are... just are. I'm not really a fan of them so when I got a test sample of Satin Audio Theia 8wire I had to try this combo out and the results were... STAGGERING. Warmer, denser, more musical but still spacious, balanced and natural sounding without sacrificing their technical capabilities. I went through Negura Bunget, Massive Attack, Rivers of Nihil, Phil Collins, Opeth... They nailed it every damn time. I liked my Fours very much before... Now I am madly in love with them. <3

 

paging @davidmolliere to the thread

 

I've added a photo for you to admire the perfection of CE Four

 

Ghost reveries is an album that changed my whole perspective on metal. Genius album.

 

That's exactly what I've been listening too, after "Damnation". Sounds amazing on Four even after 15 years of listening to Opeth

 

Some thoughts to accompany...

When I first got them the craft4 in custom form had this nasty resonant peak way above the 10khz mark (not exactly sure where). The universal did not exhibit this issue. Let a few friends try my ciem out and they reported no such issues. Fast forward a few days later my brain burned in and the treble intensity was drastically reduced.

In terms of its sound quality, these are definitely v-shaped! They are more bright than bassy/warm. I'd still say the midrange still retains a good level of tonal balance. Bass is boosted but yet kept tight and well defined. The midbass is the focus point of the bass here - articulate and tight. The subbass rolls off a bit to my ears though. Treble is also lifted and cymbals lean on the thinner side of things. I do have to say though, the midrange does sound unfocused/blurry. Not a pinna gain thing, but I am guessing it's more of the balance act as a v-shape and induced by its overall tone.

The highlight of these since day 1 is the soundstage and imaging. I find that the UIEM demo can't capture this as well as the CIEM. Instruments are panned wide and the recession in the midrange creates a sense of depth. Daft Punk's "Lose Yourself to Dance" is imaged very well here. There's a synth that goes "Come on, come on, come on..." that pans around you and the imaging on the craft4 captured that precisely.

Funnily enough these are good for gaming and movies as well