Hi to everybody in the forum, this is a personal review of this IEM that I hope it will be useful to someone.
For some reasons I ended up in the EE thread and got interested in their products. After reading carefully all of the posts I decided to enter the EE world.
It has to be said that this has been my first serious IEM after more than 40 years of hifi with the only exception of a couple non-significant earbuds used for phone or office laptop use.
However I did not want to spend a fortune for something that I was not so sure to like (the IEM stuff...not EE) I aimed then to the "entry" level to start building a bit of experience.
And, since there is a lot of talk about the Zeus in the main thread I thought that for those in my situation a specific thread on the Cerberus could be appropriate.
What also convinced me eventually about EE has been the Adel option. In time other pleasures in life might fade away against my will, hence I would like to keep this one as long as possible
.
Here is a transparent C3 Adel with B1 module. I choose B1 because I understood this was one of the bassier of the line up so I thought this would balance the sound.
I am sorry for the quality of the picture...it looks much better than this...
The C3 surprised me with a great sense of detail and openness, a fresh breeze. And for an IEM also the soundstage is very good, somehow surprising.
C3 for me is on the bright side, probably because of the B1 module and lacks a bit on the bass region. Sound is clear, detailed, slightly cold but precise and chiseled.
The bass and mid-bass is precise and very tight but lacks impact and rolls off soon. During break-in this changed a bit and I got used, however it is worth to try the G1 module.
On the other side such tight low frequency presentation is paired with a lot of little details in this area. It is easy to detect all the different nuances of the drum skins and percussion.
I have the impressions that tuning was deliberately on vocals because this is the area where C3 excels.
Some listening session were really surprising. For instance the Petite Messe Solennelle of Rossini with the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia directed by Pappano, EMI, was delightful, so detailed and perfectly focused, it moved me to tears (oh well, yes Rossini did his job...).
Again on Rickie Lee Jones "Pop Pop" and even more on Stacey Kent's "Breakfast on the morning train" vocals were a joy to listen to. Male voices are treated the same way except for a lesser impact in the bourdon area. David Sylvian's "Secret of the Beehive" confirmed the good performance, an involving listening.
Lots of air and details also on a classic album to check detail retrieval. Pat Metheny's "Letter from Home" was beautiful indeed.
For soundstage I used the beautiful "Trinity Revisited", Cowboy Junkies' masterpiece. The rendering of the spaciousness of the church was precise and airy with a remarkable sense of depth, again a very pleasant listening session.
Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (Mofi CD) was used for bass evaluation and check the ability to unravel complicated layers in sound. Sub-bass was not really present but bass and mid-bass area was quite good without being ideal. Detail was really good and this record showed that C3 is not really lacking bass, potential is good and probably the G1 module would balance the presentation.
The only point that I can consider negative is the lack of that "slam" in the bass/sub-bass region that would bring a bit of warmth to the presentation.
To summarize, C3 is an excellent IEM. Sound quality is very high, imaging is excellent as like as detail retrieval.
With the B1 module C3 is ideal for vocals, piano music, jazz and ancient music (IMHO). I will experiment more with classical and chamber music in the coming days and I'll wait for the G1 module to complete the overview with rock, pop and other bass oriented music.
I do not want my review to be misunderstood when it come to bass and sub-bass, so please in case of doubts feel free to ask for and I'll try to clarify. May be I am not so fluent in English as a review would require.
Oh..I have been long winded... I know
Sincerely
Alessandro
For some reasons I ended up in the EE thread and got interested in their products. After reading carefully all of the posts I decided to enter the EE world.
It has to be said that this has been my first serious IEM after more than 40 years of hifi with the only exception of a couple non-significant earbuds used for phone or office laptop use.
However I did not want to spend a fortune for something that I was not so sure to like (the IEM stuff...not EE) I aimed then to the "entry" level to start building a bit of experience.
And, since there is a lot of talk about the Zeus in the main thread I thought that for those in my situation a specific thread on the Cerberus could be appropriate.
What also convinced me eventually about EE has been the Adel option. In time other pleasures in life might fade away against my will, hence I would like to keep this one as long as possible
Here is a transparent C3 Adel with B1 module. I choose B1 because I understood this was one of the bassier of the line up so I thought this would balance the sound.
I am sorry for the quality of the picture...it looks much better than this...
The C3 surprised me with a great sense of detail and openness, a fresh breeze. And for an IEM also the soundstage is very good, somehow surprising.
C3 for me is on the bright side, probably because of the B1 module and lacks a bit on the bass region. Sound is clear, detailed, slightly cold but precise and chiseled.
The bass and mid-bass is precise and very tight but lacks impact and rolls off soon. During break-in this changed a bit and I got used, however it is worth to try the G1 module.
On the other side such tight low frequency presentation is paired with a lot of little details in this area. It is easy to detect all the different nuances of the drum skins and percussion.
I have the impressions that tuning was deliberately on vocals because this is the area where C3 excels.
Some listening session were really surprising. For instance the Petite Messe Solennelle of Rossini with the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia directed by Pappano, EMI, was delightful, so detailed and perfectly focused, it moved me to tears (oh well, yes Rossini did his job...).
Again on Rickie Lee Jones "Pop Pop" and even more on Stacey Kent's "Breakfast on the morning train" vocals were a joy to listen to. Male voices are treated the same way except for a lesser impact in the bourdon area. David Sylvian's "Secret of the Beehive" confirmed the good performance, an involving listening.
Lots of air and details also on a classic album to check detail retrieval. Pat Metheny's "Letter from Home" was beautiful indeed.
For soundstage I used the beautiful "Trinity Revisited", Cowboy Junkies' masterpiece. The rendering of the spaciousness of the church was precise and airy with a remarkable sense of depth, again a very pleasant listening session.
Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (Mofi CD) was used for bass evaluation and check the ability to unravel complicated layers in sound. Sub-bass was not really present but bass and mid-bass area was quite good without being ideal. Detail was really good and this record showed that C3 is not really lacking bass, potential is good and probably the G1 module would balance the presentation.
The only point that I can consider negative is the lack of that "slam" in the bass/sub-bass region that would bring a bit of warmth to the presentation.
To summarize, C3 is an excellent IEM. Sound quality is very high, imaging is excellent as like as detail retrieval.
With the B1 module C3 is ideal for vocals, piano music, jazz and ancient music (IMHO). I will experiment more with classical and chamber music in the coming days and I'll wait for the G1 module to complete the overview with rock, pop and other bass oriented music.
I do not want my review to be misunderstood when it come to bass and sub-bass, so please in case of doubts feel free to ask for and I'll try to clarify. May be I am not so fluent in English as a review would require.
Oh..I have been long winded... I know
Sincerely
Alessandro
. 
