Let me continue in my series of visits at Asian CIEM manufacturers, this time with the Flicker Ear from Hong Kong.
Firstly, I must give my thanks to the folks from Flicker Ear for their assistance and for willingness to meet me in HK on Saturday afternoon.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get chance to visit their factory, but I had opportunity to meet the core team behind the Flicker Ear. Information I got from this meeting were foundations for this post.
Flicker who?
Probably nobody around here heard anything about Flicker Ear, neither did I until I saw their brochure during one of my trips to HK audio shops. On first sight they don’t seem that special, but when you hear who is behind this brand, it gets interesting.
It all started in same way as few other audio brands, with excited hobbyist, who wasn’t able to find any IEMs that would fit his needs. So he simply decided to make his own. But knowing that pure excitement and drive can only get you so far, he reached out to get some help, to really push his new IEMs to the next level. And here Peter Wong joined the team of Flicker Ear.
Who is Peter Wong? He is young guy from Hong Kong, manufacturer of very highly regarded PW Audio cables. His cables are praised by many IEM fans, from extremely comfortable NO. 5 to the flagship 1960s cable, worth close to 2 000 USD. So, when this guy gets involved in IEM manufacturing, it might be something truly special.
Together, they developed range of custom IEMs and brought them to the market in year 2017, with help from their business partner, Praesto Trading Ltd. For now, their focus is mainly on audiophile market in Hong Kong, but they hope to open up to global market and to get some international distributors in near future.
Peter Wong himself, meeting me in Hong Kong store offering Flicker Ear models
What is that cable?
Before I get to their line-up of CIEMs, I must mention their unique cable.
Since Flicker Ear needed one cable for whole range of IEMs, Peter came up with new special pure copper cable. In his words, this cable will sound significantly more linear, with pretty much no alterations to the frequency response, hence being great pair up to all of their IEMs. You rarely see such a perfectionism when it comes to IEM manufacturers.
It might not be the prettiest cable, its grey dull color is far from stunningly beautiful NO. 5, neither can match it in comfort. But otherwise it’s still top-grade PW Audio cable, with great quality of construction, all handmade and using Mundorf silver-gold solder.
This cable is made exclusively for the Flicker Ear, right now there are no plans to sold it separately. But owners of Flicker Ear CIEMs can buy replacement for very reasonable 980 HKD / 125 USD.
What is the offer?
Currently Flicker ear produce 6 models, all named after constellations. Let me start with basic specification:
Circinus – 3x balanced armature, 2 way, 2 580 HKD / 330 USD
Pictoris – 2x balanced armature, 1x dynamic driver, 2 way, 3 180 HKD / 410 USD
Norma – 4x balanced armature, 3 way, 3 580 HKD / 460 USD
Formax – 4x balanced armature, 1x dynamic driver, 3 way, 4 680 HKD / 600 USD
Caelum – 5x balanced armature, 3 way, 4 680 HKD / 600 USD
Octans – 8x balanced armature, 4 way, 9 980 HKD / 1 280 USD
Pretty standard collection of models, with reasonably pricing, especially for two 5 driver models.
All of them are available as custom IEMs, with decent options for specialization including mirror, marble, amber and some wood. Their speciality seems to be carbon, they offer it in 10 different colors and they look really nice. For these premium designs, they will charge you 1 000 HKD / 130 USD, little bit more than other manufacturers. But they also offer “shiny series”, different colors with added glitter it seems. Can be used for both shell and faceplate and comes as standard design, with no premium fee and I think they are quite a good deal.
While other CIEMs manufacturers are using more and more 3D scanning or 3D printing, Flicker Ear still keeps whole process handmade. Wait time should be around 3 weeks.
Models Circinus, Norma and Caelum are also available in universal form, but produced only in set color combinations.
What’s the deal with impedance?
When you look on technical specification of Flicker Ears, one thing stands out – their extremely low impedance. Fornax 9.7 ohm, Caelum 9.3 ohm and flagship Octans just 6.8 ohm. While other manufacturers mostly state value at given frequency, I was told Flicker Ears posts average. But got no further explanation for such low value.
Of course, this brings up question, how will these IEMs react to higher output impedance of different portable players? I asked about this, but unfortunately, Flicker Ear doesn’t want to publish their impedance chart at this moment…
How is the sound?
I had chance to give quick listen to their whole line up, used universal demos, with my Mandarine eartips and DAP with output impedance under 0.5 ohm.
Flicker Ear offer different presentations, be it Pictoris with powerful bass thanks to dynamic driver, warm and mid centric Fornax or balanced, but thick sounding Circinus. What all their models share is focus on natural timbre in combination with different levels of thickness and smoothness. If you are fan of bright treble and thin sound, better look somewhere else.
My two favorites were 5 driver Caelum and 8 driver Octans.
Caelum is the most neutral offering of Flicker Ear, yet it stays on little smoother and thicker side of neutral. Caleum presents its mid forward sound with great control and good transparency, with bass and treble that both have satisfying quantity and nice extension. Caelum seems as best way how to bring Flicker Ear’s really well done timbre focused tuning to fans of more neutral sound, such as myself. And I think they offer really great value at their 600 USD price.
Octans reminded me a lot of some flagship speakers, the type you hear on exhibition and stay impressed by them for days. They sound big and powerful, little V shaped, with deep and rich bass, extended, plentiful, but smooth treble and little thicker and warmer mids. Yet they manage to control all without problem, while offering best resolution out of all Flicker Ear models. Also, their soundstage is particularly big, nicely wide and with good separation of instruments. At their 1 280 USD price they are facing a lot of rivals, but I think they can face them without fear.
I want to wish good luck to Peter Wong and rest of Flicker team, they entered market filled with tough competitors. Hopefully this post will help to bring little bit more attention to their brand and we will see more impressions of their CIEMs.
Official website: http://flicker-ear.com/
Contact: cs@praesto.com.hk
Firstly, I must give my thanks to the folks from Flicker Ear for their assistance and for willingness to meet me in HK on Saturday afternoon.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get chance to visit their factory, but I had opportunity to meet the core team behind the Flicker Ear. Information I got from this meeting were foundations for this post.
Flicker who?
Probably nobody around here heard anything about Flicker Ear, neither did I until I saw their brochure during one of my trips to HK audio shops. On first sight they don’t seem that special, but when you hear who is behind this brand, it gets interesting.
It all started in same way as few other audio brands, with excited hobbyist, who wasn’t able to find any IEMs that would fit his needs. So he simply decided to make his own. But knowing that pure excitement and drive can only get you so far, he reached out to get some help, to really push his new IEMs to the next level. And here Peter Wong joined the team of Flicker Ear.
Who is Peter Wong? He is young guy from Hong Kong, manufacturer of very highly regarded PW Audio cables. His cables are praised by many IEM fans, from extremely comfortable NO. 5 to the flagship 1960s cable, worth close to 2 000 USD. So, when this guy gets involved in IEM manufacturing, it might be something truly special.
Together, they developed range of custom IEMs and brought them to the market in year 2017, with help from their business partner, Praesto Trading Ltd. For now, their focus is mainly on audiophile market in Hong Kong, but they hope to open up to global market and to get some international distributors in near future.
Peter Wong himself, meeting me in Hong Kong store offering Flicker Ear models
What is that cable?
Before I get to their line-up of CIEMs, I must mention their unique cable.
Since Flicker Ear needed one cable for whole range of IEMs, Peter came up with new special pure copper cable. In his words, this cable will sound significantly more linear, with pretty much no alterations to the frequency response, hence being great pair up to all of their IEMs. You rarely see such a perfectionism when it comes to IEM manufacturers.
It might not be the prettiest cable, its grey dull color is far from stunningly beautiful NO. 5, neither can match it in comfort. But otherwise it’s still top-grade PW Audio cable, with great quality of construction, all handmade and using Mundorf silver-gold solder.
This cable is made exclusively for the Flicker Ear, right now there are no plans to sold it separately. But owners of Flicker Ear CIEMs can buy replacement for very reasonable 980 HKD / 125 USD.
What is the offer?
Currently Flicker ear produce 6 models, all named after constellations. Let me start with basic specification:
Circinus – 3x balanced armature, 2 way, 2 580 HKD / 330 USD
Pictoris – 2x balanced armature, 1x dynamic driver, 2 way, 3 180 HKD / 410 USD
Norma – 4x balanced armature, 3 way, 3 580 HKD / 460 USD
Formax – 4x balanced armature, 1x dynamic driver, 3 way, 4 680 HKD / 600 USD
Caelum – 5x balanced armature, 3 way, 4 680 HKD / 600 USD
Octans – 8x balanced armature, 4 way, 9 980 HKD / 1 280 USD
Pretty standard collection of models, with reasonably pricing, especially for two 5 driver models.
All of them are available as custom IEMs, with decent options for specialization including mirror, marble, amber and some wood. Their speciality seems to be carbon, they offer it in 10 different colors and they look really nice. For these premium designs, they will charge you 1 000 HKD / 130 USD, little bit more than other manufacturers. But they also offer “shiny series”, different colors with added glitter it seems. Can be used for both shell and faceplate and comes as standard design, with no premium fee and I think they are quite a good deal.
While other CIEMs manufacturers are using more and more 3D scanning or 3D printing, Flicker Ear still keeps whole process handmade. Wait time should be around 3 weeks.
Models Circinus, Norma and Caelum are also available in universal form, but produced only in set color combinations.
What’s the deal with impedance?
When you look on technical specification of Flicker Ears, one thing stands out – their extremely low impedance. Fornax 9.7 ohm, Caelum 9.3 ohm and flagship Octans just 6.8 ohm. While other manufacturers mostly state value at given frequency, I was told Flicker Ears posts average. But got no further explanation for such low value.
Of course, this brings up question, how will these IEMs react to higher output impedance of different portable players? I asked about this, but unfortunately, Flicker Ear doesn’t want to publish their impedance chart at this moment…
How is the sound?
I had chance to give quick listen to their whole line up, used universal demos, with my Mandarine eartips and DAP with output impedance under 0.5 ohm.
Flicker Ear offer different presentations, be it Pictoris with powerful bass thanks to dynamic driver, warm and mid centric Fornax or balanced, but thick sounding Circinus. What all their models share is focus on natural timbre in combination with different levels of thickness and smoothness. If you are fan of bright treble and thin sound, better look somewhere else.
My two favorites were 5 driver Caelum and 8 driver Octans.
Caelum is the most neutral offering of Flicker Ear, yet it stays on little smoother and thicker side of neutral. Caleum presents its mid forward sound with great control and good transparency, with bass and treble that both have satisfying quantity and nice extension. Caelum seems as best way how to bring Flicker Ear’s really well done timbre focused tuning to fans of more neutral sound, such as myself. And I think they offer really great value at their 600 USD price.
Octans reminded me a lot of some flagship speakers, the type you hear on exhibition and stay impressed by them for days. They sound big and powerful, little V shaped, with deep and rich bass, extended, plentiful, but smooth treble and little thicker and warmer mids. Yet they manage to control all without problem, while offering best resolution out of all Flicker Ear models. Also, their soundstage is particularly big, nicely wide and with good separation of instruments. At their 1 280 USD price they are facing a lot of rivals, but I think they can face them without fear.
I want to wish good luck to Peter Wong and rest of Flicker team, they entered market filled with tough competitors. Hopefully this post will help to bring little bit more attention to their brand and we will see more impressions of their CIEMs.
Official website: http://flicker-ear.com/
Contact: cs@praesto.com.hk
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