Thanks for the love! We do have a lot of fun at work and love it when a bunch of friends walk in, and look like they're having the best time ever. Do visit if you're ever transiting here when the world becomes safe enough to travel! There's Canjam 2021 here and we're really looking forward to that.
Ok...I've changed my order for the LegendX to the Odin (mainly due to the chocolate @sorrick). Thanks @Andrew DiMarcangelo for being very accommodating!
After selling my IER Z1R (sound was incredible, but was painful), this Odin looks perfect to replace it.
So after having listened to the Odin for much of the afternoon and evening yesterday and this morning, I think I'm ready to provide some initial impressions. Overall I am very very impressed. Please take these, as always, with the appropriate grain of salt as they are based on only about 6 hours of listening and having just arrived yesterday, my Odins have not been fully burned in/seasoned as EE recommends. Everything has been listening from my A&K SP1000M using the supplied final e tips (which I get a great seal from) and stock stormbreaker cable.
The first thing that hit me was the balance, resolution, and clarity--as much as I have heard in any iem, bass, mids, and treble are all very present and each can steal the show depending on how you focus your attention and what you are playing. There is a very high level of resolution and texture across the frequency range with virtually no bleeding from one part into another. Though balanced, it is definitely not boring--it gives the impression that somehow all parts of the frequency range are equally turned up to 11, but without sounding congested, disjointed, or incoherent.
Bass goes deeeeep and is physical and impactful. There is definitely a sub-bass emphasis with very satisfying impact. If bass is in the song you feel it, but it does not overtake other parts of the frequency range. Listening to Jazz, you feel the impact of the initial finger pick of the upright bass very much like you feel in a live performance with a realistic, textured decay. Listening to Angel by Massive Attach, you get deep, impactful bass slam that is very well controlled but has a decay that can only come from dynamic driver. While not over emphasized, the bass does not leave me wanting more in any way. Bass notes are well rounded and substantial without feeling hick, likely the result of the focus on the subbass vs midbass.
As other have noted, treble is beautifully controlled--cymbals sound right, not overly splashy or sizzly, which I have heard with some other iems with electrostatic drivers, but beautifully present, airy, detailed, and sparkly without any harshness at all. There is gobs of detail if you want to go look for it, but there isn't such an emphasis on the treble such that it is distracting or shifts you into sounds analysis mode.
The mids manage to be both forward and very present, but also slightly less forward than the bass and tremble. Make no mistake, this is NOT a V signature at all--the overwhelming characteristic of the sound is balance. The effect is if you imagine the singer centered on stage with the band in a semicircle around them--the singer is depth-wise in front of the furthest away member of the band, but also behind those band members at the end of the semicircle. There is upper-mids are definitely emphasized a bit more than lower mids, though the lower mids do not sound scooped out in any way to me. The effect to my ears emphesizes clarity and instrument/vocal separation. Another effect is that lower mids have less body and thickness than upper mids, though again, I would not say this veers into feeling thin either. The overall sound of the mids is not thick, but not thin either--it is a delicate balance. Suffice to say though, if thick syrupy mids are your thing, you will probably want to look elsewhere.
I consider my self somewhat sensitive to peaks in the upper mids and while I can see how this could be problematic for someone who is particularly sensitive to upper mid peaks, for me it is always stayed several ticks away from being harsh, sibilant, or shrill in any way.
I can see how some have described Odins as bright, because upper mids are definitely forward (certainly more forward than midbass or lower mids), but the bass is also so physical, present, and impactful that I would describe the signature as balanced to slight W with the upper mids emphasized over lower mids and midbass. However, this sense of brightness does come through on some male vocalists, particularly those with higher chest voices where the greater upper mids presence means that the upper harmonics of the voice come through more present than the lower ones. What this means in English is that male vocalists who already veer toward nasally sound a little more nasally, particularly on poorer recordings (think the Kinks All Day and All of the Night). I don't get the same effect with female vocals (even those with deeper voices--Patti Smith's Because the Night sounds fantastic) or all male vocals, so would NOT describe Odin as nasally overall and this could well sort itself out with different tips or more burned in (if you believe in that kind of thing).
My impressions of the soundstage are still coming together as I listen to a variety of music, but it is definitely very 3-dimensional with exceptional spacial and depth cues. On well produced studio recordings, both old and new (think Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones and 7 Rings by Ariana Grande) you very much feel in the middle of the studio with sound coming from all around you, while simultaneously having each instrument or voice being exceptionally clear (almost like you are listening at the soundboard). You absolutely get an out of the head experience and the soundstage does not feel constricted, but it is not as vast as something like the LCD-i4 (though that is not really a fair comparison). Nevertheless, on a number of songs I was so convinced that sound was coming from across the room that I had to take the iems out of my ears to check...for example when listening to Good Mystery by Amber Rubarth I could have sworn some of the percussion was coming from elsewhere in the room.
I have not done any direct comparisons with other iems yet; however, if I had to give a hot take of how Odin sounds based on TOTL iems I have owned or heard, I'd describe it as what you get if the u18t (heard) and Solaris OG (owned) had a lovechild that then took a bunch of steroids and spent a lot of time in the gym.
It is. Lockdown's basically fried my sleep schedule. I meant the Odin's have just shipped out of EE. They probably won't get here until a week or so from now.
EDIT: I see where you got that idea. My fault. 'Didn't read the part where he said "this afternoon." Maybe I do need some sleep.
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