Just finished writing down my thoughts about a week with Annihilator 2023:
Courtesy of Elysian Audio, Effect Audio and the Watercooler tour, I was very excited to really demo Annihilator 2023 (“Anni”) after my initial, positive first hearing of this at Canjam Socal 2023; it drew me in immediately on the sound presentation, but thought it might have been too energetic in the upper mids and treble. My short notes from Canjam were brief ones: "Clear, clean, powerful bass, exc vocals, excellent separation, crispy treble (too bright?), great stage, power hungry."
These were really good first impressions to me, and more or less bore out to be correct except the crispy treble – the treble is actually just about perfect, and if you’re a treblehead, you're gonna love it. The tour unit included no packaging (you can see that on real reviews!), but I felt this thing was well burnt in, and in the tour kit, came not only the very excellent stock cable, a Liquid Links Martini, but also a fancy EA Fusion 1! After a week that must have contained at least 30-40 hours of hard listening, I ended up falling as much in love with Annihilator 2023 as I did with its little bro, Diva 2023.
My testing was done with my DAPs (P6Pro and N6ii R01) and my desktop Hifiman EF400. Tips matter here, and I found AZLA crystal and xelastic to work well, but the Eletech Baroques and the Divinus Velvets were the best for my tastes. As I found with Diva, Anni requires serious power; it came most alive from the EF400 which delivers great power. On my DAPs, both needed to be in high gain and the volume was well at or above 50%. My sources were primarily r2r, and Anni certainly sounds amazing with it; at CanJam, I tried it with Cayin N30LE which made it sing also. With power hungry IEMs like this, it’s a cutting edge sword – the tuning is sublime, but only reveals itself when properly powered – so even with my DAPs, I felt that I really needed a more powerful, TOTL DAP like N30LE to hear Anni as it should be, which could be kind of a bummer. [NOTE: I did receive a Shanling M9+ on my final day with Anni, and this was exactly the kind of pairing that makes Anni shine, wish I’d had it for the whole week!].
Anni really does pretty much everything right for a wide-appeal, we-want-everything-right, sort of audiophile, IMHO, and like I said, while I think trebleheads will love it, I don’t think your average basshead audiophile will prefer this; I place myself in this category, though very much appreciate Anni for its stellar performance for what it is. People speak of “musical” and “analytical” iems in the top end – Anni is undoubtedly musical, but that doesn’t mean it’s not technically resolving of fine details, which it most certainly is. It’s an aggressive and exciting tuning that is excellent for all genres of rock I’ve put to it; all vocals seem to sound amazing. Even though I think of this as more a treblehead’s dream, the substantial and beautifully controlled bass actually makes it a great all-arounder for most anyone looking for a well-balanced TOTL IEM. Low rumbles are there if the song has it – this is excellent DD bass done well with great speed that keeps up with and doesn’t overtake the show.
But the real show here is the vocals and treble which, when combined with a nicely balanced lower end, results in a great overall IEM. I’ve read a lot of disagreement about the Anni bass quality, and it seems this comes down to taste. To my ears, it’s better than just “okay” as I’ve read, but I understand what those folks are saying – there’s a slight thinness to the bass quality which, while keeping it from coloring any of the rest of the FR, will not make bassheads go nuts. But for those looking for an IEM yielding a nicely balanced sound with good slamming bass, Anni definitely delivers.
And yes, it’s lively up top, but alas for me, not fatiguing at all, with all-day listening sessions passing easily day after day during my audition. Staging and positioning of instruments and vocals is perfection, it’s easy to identify where your guitar, bass, keyboard, percussion and vocals are, and they all seem perfectly positioned across a nice wide stage with decent height and width with a holographic sound wrapping around you. It’s not the widest of stages but has nice depth getting a lot of the stage outside the head. The “technicals” of Anni are outstanding and TOTL from top to bottom. From separation, positioning, detail resolution, timbre, etc., all are excellent and musical.
Thanks to the tour, I did swap the stock cable and the upgrade, EA Fusion 1, for several sessions and, to be honest, did not find much of a difference, ymmv. I think the stock cable is great – Liquid Links Martini, an 8 core, big but supple and ergonomic cable with exotic metals; testing of EA Fusion 1 resulted in a slightly more full sound, more “meat on the bones”, but not a big huge difference and not a big upgrade – this is a nice stock cable (no chin slider, FYI) that sounds nicely matched with Anni.
Summing it up, I think Anni is a super all-arounder with generous bass that does not color the mids or treble leaving you with a super-balanced listening experience with nothing missing. I found it to be a nicely balanced sound across the entire FR with nothing left wanting, except more bass coloration and impact if that’s what you look for. Don’t forget that to be great, Anni really needs serious power! Anni provides a TOTL sound and experience, and competes handily with most all-around, TOTL sets I’ve tried. At the $3k price point, there’s lots of competition but this set holds its own very securely I think. For instance, when a/b’ing against Aroma Fei Wan at CanJam, that showed a step up from Anni, but at a big cost, though I found both sets to have somewhat similar characteristics. And thinking of it from that perspective, Anni might be one of the TOTL deals to be had if it resonates with you! Finally, when going through my notes, I realized I only took one photo of Anni, which does them no justice, but I’ll show it for completeness.
Thanks for reading, and HAPPY Thanksgiving to all (who celebrate it)!
